John Lennon on the classic band that never actually existed: “I want records to be like newspapers”
Due to his groundbreaking songwriting with The Beatles, many often associate John Lennon’s innovation exclusively with the Fab Four. However, he was a restless creative, and this spirit did not only apply to his work with the Liverpudlian group. This became readily apparent during the latter years of the 1960s, as he and the rest of his bandmates started looking for other artistic endeavours outside their confines.
The key factor in Lennon becoming even more artistically daring in his experiments with the avant-garde was his relationship with Yoko Ono, a multimedia artist. After meeting in 1966, the pair began a romance and working relationship in 1968.
Their first album together was the controversial avant-garde body of work Unfinished Music No. 1: Two Virgins, which arrived in November that year and controversially but boldly featured the pair naked on the cover, proudly showing their love to the world. Significantly, this brave move symbolised the artistic direction Lennon was to head in afterwards and his newfound fascination with the avant-garde. That album was also the first of a trio of experimental ones the couple released.
It wasn’t just this trio of records the pair worked on. The most consequential project they instituted was the Plastic Ono Band, a rock band and Fluxus-based arts collective formed circa 1968. It started with Ono’s idea for an art exhibition in Berlin, and she explained in 2010: “As I was asked to do a show in Berlin before John and I got together, I wanted to use four plastic stands with tape recorders in each one of them, as my band. I told that story to John, and he immediately coined the phrase PLASTIC ONO BAND.”
It soon took on a more tangible shape, featuring a shifting lineup of prominent musicians, including Eric Clapton, Keith Moon, Klaus Voorman, Billy Preston, and Lennon’s fellow Beatles, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. In December 1970, they simultaneously released their first two albums, John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band and Yoko Ono/Plastic Ono Band, which helped Lennon chart his career path outside of The Beatles, who had split up that April.
Despite the Plastic Ono Band being an actual band, when speaking to BBC Radio’s David Wigg in January 1970, Lennon explained the concept behind it in light of the imminent arrival of their star-studded single ‘Instant Karma!’ He maintained that the band “doesn’t exist”, which speaks volumes about how much the avant-garde was inspiring him at the time.
Lennon said: “Well, actually, I’m more concentrating on John Lennon and Yoko Ono, you know, and Plastic Ono Band is a conceptual band that doesn’t exist, as we said originally, you are the Plastic Ono Band. That’s why this time, we billed it Lennon and the Plastic Ono Band, Ono and the Plastic Ono Band, because, for that time, we were the lead singers on it. And so, I just want to get it out, you know, that’s the thing.”
“I want records to be like newspapers. I’d like them to come out at least once a week, or twice a week,” Lennon added, offering more insight into his pioneering mindset.
Lennon explained that they wrote the track one morning, recorded it the same day, and then released it in the UK and US that same week. That’s what he wanted his music to be like. Although he didn’t ever release records once a week, he released nine albums with the Plastic Ono Band in just four years. That’s pretty good going for a band that didn’t exist.
