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When Wings toured Britain, Europe, Australia and North America between 1972 and 1976, Paul made a point of setting aside hefty rehearsal periods and working until the arrangements were tight and the performances were polished. But in October 1979, with a British tour set to begin at the end of November, Wings had barely rehearsed. And the British tour was just the start of what promised to be an extended touring period, with a visit to Japan planned for January pending the approval of the band’s visas—still a matter of concern, given the Japanese government’s refusal to allow Wings into the country in 1975 because of Paul’s earlier pot busts. Now, barely a month before their British tour was set to open, Wings did not even have a setlist. Paul had been able to suppress his feeling of discontent with Wings—not its current incarnation, particularly, but the idea of fronting a permanent band—while he was working on his solo project, and through all the activity in the weeks that followed. The question now was whether he could rekindle his love for the concept. The fact is, leading a band had been more of a slog than he bargained for, and the natural chemistry he had with the Beatles—developed as they grew from adolescent amateurs into stage-tested adults—had been impossible to replicate with a group of experienced players. He had been so desperate to have a band, after the Beatles broke up, that he approached it naively, believing it could be a band of equals. It took the departure of Henry McCullough and Denny Seiwell—the implosion of Wings Mark I—for him to realize that this was implausible. As the only marketable star in the band, it would never be equal, and more crucially, equality was not something he was suited for: he always had a clear idea of what he wanted to do and how he wanted to do it, and he was unwilling to brook any opposition. When Jimmy McCulloch, Geoff Britton and then Joe English joined the band, they were younger and the power relationships were clearer. But in Wings Mark II, Paul found himself having to sort out his young charges’ personal problems, and while he was generally there for them, the combined role of musician and guidance counselor grew tiresome. Laurence Juber and Steve Holley were excellent players and entirely professional, but Back to the Egg had not won critical accolades, and there were some in Paul’s circle who thought Juber and Holley lacked their predecessors’ rock and roll rawness.
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