Ringo Starr. The Beatles. These iconic names are right at the very tippy top of the pantheon of modern music history. I knew that when I sat down with Ringo for a few minutes one day before he joined Paul McCartney on stage for the David Lynch Foundation’s Change Begins Within benefit concert in New York City a little over a year ago.

I was eager, anxious, and hopefully prepared. (But really, how do you prepare for that anyway?)

Ringo Starr had learned Transcendental Meditation over 40 years ago, and now he and Paul had agreed to participate in a concert that would raise funds to teach one million kids to meditate.

But before the concert, Ringo agreed to talk about it. Before he spoke with me, David Lynch interviewed Ringo for 45 minutes. And despite the fact that he probably would have liked to be doing many other things, Ringo was absolutely gracious, funny and very, very kind.

He spoke about how meditation impacted him as a young songwriter, offered advice to aspiring musicians, and talked about why he and Paul McCartney were eager to do the benefit concert.

You an also view the Change Begins Within press conference where Ringo and Paul McCartney spoke by clicking the link.