The musician detailed a turning point during the Beatles' rise to fame and how he navigated life under the spotlight

There was a time during the Beatles’ rise to fame that Paul McCartney thought he had found the one place he could roam without being spotted.

During an interview on The Zane Lowe Show to discuss his deeply nostalgic new album, The Boys of Dungeon Lane, the 83-year-old musician shared memories of navigating the early days of Beatlemania alongside John Lennon, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr. When looking back at that “very intense period of time” in the Sixties when the band shot to the top of the charts worldwide, Lowe asked McCartney how he managed to “remain relatable” and enjoy his life under the spotlight.

“I remember once in the early days of the Beatles, we were kind of recognized most places, but me and Ringo went on holiday with our girlfriends then to Greece and nobody knew us,” McCartney said, recalling thinking at the time: “This is great. Wow, we must come back here more often. Even when we get really famous, we can always come to Greece and they’re never going to know us.” He added, “But, of course, that didn’t work.” Soon, their music — and faces — reached Greece and beyond.

“I realized, ‘Oh, I’m going to be famous all my life, if I’m lucky,’ I thought, ‘Okay, big decision time.’ Now, you either stop and you just sort of think that was lovely. I had a great time with the music, and you do something else more anonymous or you carry on,” McCartney said. To handle the Beatles’ inescapable celebrity, the musician developed a “strategy.”

McCartney credited his family in Liverpool and being able to stay grounded thanks to the lessons they taught him growing up. “They are the kind of people who put people at ease,” he said, adding that he learned how to do the same by being around them.

The Boys of Dungeon Lane released on Friday and Rolling Stone praised the record as MCartney’s latest “solo masterpiece.” “Overall, there’s the sense of a legend looking back on a life well spent,” Simon Vozick-Levinson writes in his review of the record. “This isn’t necessarily a new theme for McCartney, who’s been singing about what he once called his ever-present past for years now.” He adds: “the autumnal vibe is more pronounced than ever.”