Former Beatles member Paul McCartney said the Rolling Stones envied the Beatles singing talent, according to a Radio Times interview published this week.
"I talked to Keith Richards recently… well, a couple of years ago, and his take on it was, ‘Man, you were lucky, you guys, you had four lead singers,’ whereas the Rolling Stones only had one,” said McCartney. “So [for the Beatles] it wasn’t just the frontman and the back-up band. We were an entity,”
“Mick used to call us the four-headed monster,” McCartney added. “We would show up at places all dressed the same."
The musician credited the Beatles’ success to a couple of things. Firstly, timing played an important role, since the band was formed the same year that national service was discontinued in Britain.
"A couple of years earlier, we would have been in the Army, and it’s very doubtful that the Beatles would have formed," he said. "We would have been at Aldershot, or wherever, in various camps, and might not have even met."
Secondly, he attributed the band’s success from borrowing their inspiration from black American music.
“It turned a lot of white Americans on to that music, because we were big fans,” he said.