Stern and McCartney on SIRIUS XM

Odd pairing indeed: Howard Stern interviewed music icon Paul McCartney on his show. Sir Paul McCartney, we should say.

Typically crude Stern said, ""[The Beatles] are more of a religion to me than any organized religion. Their music does more for my spirit and elevates me to a higher plane than any religious ceremony ever did."

The interview will air this weekend on SIRIUS XM'S Howard 101 channel, available on SIRIUS and as part of the "Best of Sirius" package on XM. It will air January 17 at 8:00 am ET and 8:00 pm ET, and then once again on January 18 at 11:00pm ET.

From SIRIUS XM: Howard and McCartney went in-depth on the music legend's life, family, The Beatles, his new Fireman album Electric Arguments, and much more. McCartney presented Howard with an autographed genuine brand new Hofner bass guitar as a surprise birthday gift, singing as he entered the studio:  "A very merry un-birthday to you, to you. . . a very merry un-birthday to Howard."   This guitar is also known as the Hofner "Beatle" bass, made popular by McCartney and favored by him because it was symmetrical in shape and could be easily turned around to play left-handed.

The highlight of the interview could very well be this story about coming up with the name of the album, Abbey Road. 

". . . the engineer Geoff Emerick - who is our Beatle engineer, did all the great sounds for us - was smoking cigarettes called Everest . . . they're like a kind of menthol cigarette . . . and we kind of looked at that and said 'Everest' -  it's kind of big, it's heroic. That could be good for the album. So that was the working title.   But the more we thought of it the more we [said]. . . no, this is not great. And just one day we were in Abbey Road working and I . . . said . . . Abbey Road.  Because if we did that we could just run outside, there's a level crossing as we call it . . . we could just stand there, get photographed, come back to work...it would take just two seconds...and I said 'it's not a bad title."

Fan or not of Howard Stern, this might be an interesting event. --Leslie Shapiro

Sirius XM

X