Pete Best on Stuart Sutcliffe (transcript below)

Pete Best in response to a question from an audience member at Abbey Road On The River. The individual asked what his thoughts were on Stuart Sutcliffe, original bassist of The Beatles. Transcript is below; sorry for any mistakes. I wasn't able to make everything out.


Pete: ... He's been gone for many, many years. Talkin' about, y'know, how talented he was, Stu's first love was painting, you know, apart from Astrid Kirchherr, and anyone's who's seen his work and his exhibitions will realize what a prolific artist he was. And we saw that in Hamburg, when he used to take out his sketchpad, pick someone from the audience, take out a stick of charcoal, [makes sketching motions]... fantastic. 
The musician... I've defended his corner for many, many years because the media, the media over the years had said that Stu was a bad bass player, and he wasn't. Stu was a very good bass player, and he was a very simple bass player. Ok? Because at the end of the day, we were playing rock n' roll. And what he did, or, the music was exactly what a bass player should do in those days. I was the drummer, right? The bass player and the drummer were the engine room of a rock and roll band, and Stu was very [?]. Over the years [?] said he couldn't play bass, he turned his back on the audience. He didn't, okay. That was the style; that was his move onstage. Everyone had their own [??]... sweaty and dirty, you know, Paul's the flamboyant cutie-cutie guy, John was the out-and-out rocker, right. Stu was very much hip, with his sunglasses on. He turned his back to the audience; it wasn't his back to the audience, it was angled. That was his image; it worked well for the band, it worked well for Astrid, it worked well for him. He put all those pieces together. Stu was a great guy, okay. He died very tragically too young, ok. And I'd love to be In a position to turn around and say, that he would be 70 if he were still around today, and I wish he were on this stage with me. 

Interviewer: Now did you see the movie Backbeat? The movie Backbeat had come out. Now you saw that; what did you think of it? Was it a proper portrayal of the group at that time? 

Pete: No. [????]... If you look at the music score, okay, that captured it. It was great rock-and-roll bands, powerhouse, [?]. Music. If you looked at Backbeat, it was the love story between Astrid Kirchherr and Stu. We were just characters in the background making [?]. But, um, it was like everything else. You know, we took artistic license with it; there were a couple of things that we laughed at, a couple of things that were right on, okay. But at the end of the day, you know, it was good humor, it was entertainment, and some probably believe it. That's all.