In George Martin, the Beatles had a producer who excelled at thinking outside the box. Martin‘s innovative studio techniques and openness to new ideas made him the ideal producer for a group as wildly creative as the Beatles.
But he was only human, and like most people he preferred to wrap up the workday at a reasonable hour.
That didn‘t always sit well with the Beatles, particularly in their later years, when recording sessions frequently carried over past midnight..
“Some of the people here — the engineer, for instance — would always be trying to go home at 5:30, and we’d be trying to make history,” George Harrison says in the 1991 Beatles Anthology documentary as he, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr sit in Abbey Road Studios.
The Beatles certainly knew how to fight fatigue. When performing night-long sets in Hamburg in the early 1960s, they‘d take Preludin, an appetite suppressant and stimulant with effects similar to amphetamines — a.k.a. speed, or uppers — to help them stay awake.
Which is how they managed to get Martin and engineer Geoff Emerick to work after hours on one particular night in the late 1960s: by lacing a pot of tea — prepared by their roadie, Mal Evans — with speed.
“Mal had this big teapot,” Harrison explained. “It was a big aluminum teapot, and I remember one specific incident where he made a pot of tea, and we doused the tea with uppers.”
Evans proceeded to take cups of tea up to the control booth overlooking the studio. “‘Cause they were asking, ‘Can we go home now?’” Harrison continues. “‘No, you can’t, you bastard. Have a cup of tea!’
“And then they were up there until 11 o‘clock at night.”
“Yeah, and then they didn’t want to go home,” McCartney adds. “They wouldn‘t let us leave.”
It was only when the 1995 documentary — which has now received a follow-up episode — first aired that Martin learned about the episode.
Ironically, Harrison and John Lennon’s first time taking LSD came after a dentist friend spiked their coffee.
It wasn‘t all fun and games, though. McCartney’s love of pot got him busted in Japan. And American singer-songwriter James Taylor — who signed to the Beatles’ Apple label in 1968 — claimed his heroin use influenced Lennon’s decision to try the drug. He subsequently became addicted.
