Who knew Paul McCartney was still in competition with John Lennon?
Back in 2000, at a Songwriters Hall of Fame ceremony, the music legend joined an all-star line-up — including James Brown, Brian Wilson, Billy Joel and Ben E. King — for a cover of King’s “Stand by Me.” At one point, McCartney turned to the event’s music director, Jimmy Vivino, and revealed a secret, excitedly telling him, “John never let me sing this one.”
“I thought, ‘Wow. He’s getting away with something,’ ” says Vivino, 58. “John [Lennon] is gone, and Paul is singing ‘Stand By Me,’ and he’s like a little kid. This is what music can do. It can take all the success, everything you have and . . . trump all that.”
He should know. Vivino has had great success as the bandleader for “Conan,” Conan O’Brien’s TBS talk show that premiered in 2010, and as the host’s guitarist since 1993.
But that’s his day job. After hours, Vivino joins four fellow musicians — including longtime David Letterman bassist Will Lee — in the world’s best Beatles cover band, the Fab Faux. They play 35 to 40 shows a year, including a current six-show, five-night stint at City Winery that runs until New Year’s Eve..
“When you think of Beatle bands, it’s [usually] a circus, the guys with the wigs and whatever,” says Lee, 61, who vividly remembers having his life changed by seeing The Beatles on “The Ed Sullivan Show” in 1964. “It’s kind of creepy.”
While most tribute bands seem to spend more time shopping for costumes than focusing on the music, the Fab Faux delves deeper into the songs than possibly even The Beatles did.
The Fab Faux uses no backing tracks, often playing with string and horn sections to re-create songs as authentically as possible. The Beatles recorded somewhere between 210-215 tunes in their career, and Lee estimates that his band knows around 205 of them. (Yes, they plan to learn the rest.)
The Fab Faux was born in the late ’90s, when Lee and drummer Rich Pagano were on tour with jazz guitarist Hiram Bullock. The two often jammed on Beatles grooves during their downtime.
“The first thing I noticed about Rich was that his drumming was very Ringo-y, and coincidentally, his voice was kind of John Lennon-y,” says Lee.
The idea for a cover band began to percolate. Pagano introduced Lee to guitarists Frank Agnello and Jack Petruzzelli, and Lee mentioned it to Vivino, a longtime friend.
The band was soon made official, and they set out to learn every detail of The Beatles’ catalog. They listened to the band’s official albums as well as bootlegs, looked for isolated instrument and vocal tracks on YouTube and took visual cues to learn how The Beatles played their songs.
“I saw a picture of a recording session and it looked like Paul is playing John’s Rickenbacker [guitar] upside down on the song ‘Every Little Thing,’ ” says Vivino. “I’m not gonna play it upside down, but . . . I can’t go on playing it on a Gretsch when I see him playing it on the Rickenbacker.”
Their obsessiveness has earned them a reputation as a must-see. They’ve played to more than 30,000 Beatles fans in the band’s hometown of Liverpool, England, and their New York shows generally sell out, including those at the 2,800-seat Beacon Theater.
The Fab Faux’s fan base includes some of the most famous Beatles fans around. Lee notes that celebrities who’ve seen the band include Martin Short and Jimmy Fallon. Howard Stern has said that they’re so good, “it gives me chills.” Gary Oldman has sung with the band (Vivino says that the actor “turns into a kid with us on stage”) and Vivino’s boss, Conan O’Brien, has joined them on guitar.
“Conan’s a big fan and fellow guitar nerd,” says Lee. “He’s a real player.”
One set of celebrities the band does not talk shop with are the Beatles and their families. Lee has played either on record or live with all four Beatles, and Vivino, in addition to the McCartney experience above, has had numerous TV show interactions with Ringo Starr and Beatles sons Dhani Harrison and Sean Lennon.
“Ringo Starr is a sweet guy, and we talk about anything but the 500-pound gorilla in the room. If I’m talking to Dhani or Sean, I do not talk about the Fab Faux,” says Vivino. “I think it puts a wall up, because I think the answer is, ‘Who doesn’t play Beatles songs? So what?’ You can’t understand what it’s like to be those people, to be on guard for the stupid questions they get every day.”
For Vivino, the excitement of playing this music is so great that, despite now being based in Los Angeles for work, he takes a red-eye every weekend to play with the band.
“I work Monday through Thursday, then get on a plane to play with these guys,” he says. “Will and I, our job is our job. The Fab Faux becomes complete play time for me.
“The ‘X’ factor is always the audience being excited,” says Vivino. “I almost feel like I can see their minds putting them where they were when they first heard this music. [That excitement] will never go away.”