The Weekend Pete Best Nearly Became the Most Famous Drummer on Earth

On a humid August weekend in 1962, Pete Best walked into EMI Studios thinking it would be another routine session with the boys. They’d already done the Hamburg grind together. Shared cold-cut sandwiches and exhaustion together. Played to half-drunk German sailors who couldn’t care less about the name “The Beatles.” Pete had no reason to think this weekend would be any different.

But history rarely announces itself.

It sneaks in quietly, often in the form of a conversation you’re not in the room for.
George Martin didn’t like Pete’s drumming. He wanted a session player. Brian Epstein, ever the diplomat, interpreted this as a sign that maybe Pete wasn’t right for the band long-term. John and Paul, who were laser-focused on tightening the group’s sound, didn’t fight the idea.

The news hit Liverpool before it hit Pete. Fans heard the rumors first. Girls lined up outside The Cavern Club asking if it was true. A few cried. Pete Best wasn’t just a drummer — he was the handsome one, the clean-cut one, the one whose mum ran the Casbah Coffee Club, where the band’s earliest gigs crackled with promise.
When Monday morning came, Pete arrived at NEMS for what he thought was a scheduling meeting. Instead, he got the sentence that would define his public life:

“The boys want you out, Pete.”

There was no elegant break. No gentle “we’ll still be friends.” One minute he was a Beatle, the next he was carrying his drumsticks out the door like a guy who’d been laid off from a warehouse job.

And here’s the part that never gets enough attention: Pete Best was GOOD. Not flashy. Not Ringo. But solid, consistent, and absolutely capable of keeping up with the band as they existed in 1962. The decision wasn’t about talent alone. It was about chemistry. About blend. About the way Ringo sat inside the beat, almost dragging it, giving the music a swagger Pete didn’t naturally have.

That weekend — just 72 hours — changed the trajectory of two lives: Pete Best’s, who plunged into depression and near-tragedy, and Ringo Starr’s, who became the most famous drummer on the planet by the following year.

But imagine, just for a second, if Martin had said nothing. Or if John and Paul had said, “Let’s keep Pete. We’ll sort it out.” The mop-top era would look different. The music would feel different. The legend would… well, we don’t know. And that’s the point.

History pivots on strange, quiet weekends.