Philip Norman: Shout! was a portrait of a group, and kind of a sketch of John in the context of The Beatles. There seemed to be much much more to say about John because he was so much more than just a musician. When The Beatles stopped being The Beatles, John carried on to an extraordinary creative career for another ten or so years. It seemed there should be a full length portrait in oils, as well as my charcoal sketch.

Woodstock.com: When you began working on this book you had full cooperation from Yoko Ono Lennon. She later disapproved. What were her issues with the book's publication?

Philip Norman: I really don't know. The only caveat on her cooperation was that she would read the manuscript for factual accuracy, and it was written very much in the way that she'd always talked to me about John over the years. I first talked with her about John only five months after his death. She invited me to the Dakota building and we had a two hour talk on that occasion. She talked about John always in this slightly exacerbated tone and at the same time very lovingly, because they seem very much alike in character to me. Yoko just understood John, as he obviously understood her. So I really could not understand why this suddenly should seem to her as being, as she put it, "mean to John." What I wanted to write was a book about a human being. A human being with many many contradictions and obviously many flaws, but still someone who ultimately brought tremendous laughter, as well as wonderful music to the world.

Woodstock.com: In your book you dispel many of the myths about John's father Alf Lennon, or as he was later known, Freddie. He had always been painted as a man who abandoned his family and only reappeared when John became famous. Was this something you had planned to expose or was this information that you just ran into while researching the book?

Philip Norman: It happened because Freddie went on to marry a much younger woman and have two children with her. John's stepmother, who is much much younger than him actually, decided to talk to me and tell me about it. His father, again, was not a sort of shining paragon of virtue, but he was not a bad man. According to his own writes he tried to keep the family together. It became very clear that John was always very much enthralled to Aunt Mimi and he didn't want anything to take away from Aunt Mimi's achievement in bringing him up and educating him and protecting him as a surrogate parent. So John didn't want to know anything about his father's better side. He really didn't want anything to detract from Mimi's achievement in parenting him.

Woodstock.com: Was John ever able to get past his mother's death, and would you say that her passing was the defining moment in his life?

Philip Norman: Absolutely. Probably none of us really gets over our childhood, one way or another, but with John it was just so much with him. His mother was not like a mother to him, although she was in his life. Another of these myths is that she suddenly walked back into his life when he was in his teens. She didn't do that. She was in his life all through his childhood. She was living quite close to Aunt Mimi, but she wasn't like a mum. She was more like a flirtatious older sister or cousin. She was tremendous fun to be with. She really understood John. Made him laugh, gave him a terrifically good time, but still, because she was living with another man and had two children with another man, she really wasn't John's mom. She didn't really belong to him. She was slightly out of reach. Then for her to be killed in that tragic way by a car right outside Mimi's house at a very crucial point in John's teens. It was something he never did recover from. Right until the last month of his life, he was obsessing about his mother in almost sort of a sexual way, because she was very attractive. She didn't seem like his mother. This is also something that is a recognized syndrome if a boy is not with his mother in close child-parent terms and is then bereaved of his mother. There is that sexual sort of feeling in what remains behind.

Woodstock.com: John had many deaths in his life. His mother, Stu Sutcliffe, Brian Epstein, Mal Evans. How did they affect him?

Philip Norman: John had this curious slant on life. He regarded them all, these deaths, as personal slights against him. He used to say that people "died on" him, as if they were, in a way, failing in their duty as close people to him. We all do suffer bereavement as part of the education of life. In the case of John, it was first his Uncle George, then his mother. Those were two people he really loved and who were good to him in his childhood. And he had this terrible insecurity. Despite what you would think would be the ultimate amount of praise, accolade, to be hailed as a genius in his very early twenties. Still, he never felt secure. He never felt comfortable with himself. Never felt satisfied with what he was achieving or with himself. This awful insecurity is what comes through, really, the character. At the same time, in a way, he didn't doubt his own abilities and was sustained by tremendous self conviction, but on the other hand was always insecure and always very vulnerable.

Woodstock.com: In your book you mention that John's reactions to many of these deaths was often nervous laughter.

Philip Norman: I don't think it is an uncommon reaction. Strangely enough, in the East, people's reaction to tragedy and trauma is to, sort of, giggle and laugh. I don't think it is unknown for it to happen. He was someone who didn't ever really want to show he was vulnerable although he was so very vulnerable. They were terrible shocks and some shocks are unbelievable.

Woodstock.com: When do you think John was happiest?

Philip Norman: I think he could be happy pretty much all the time. He was very happy looking after Sean, his second son. I think it very much went in spasms with John. He could be very very happy and get a lot of fun out of life, and the next moment be plunged into awful depression. He had regular spells, he called them troffs, when he became very very down, but then he got a lot out of life as well. He did enjoy life. He enjoyed things like words, language and reading. He had intellectual resources, which is a great help. A great help in achieving happiness among other things.

Woodstock.com: So much has been made about the relationship between John and Paul McCartney. Your book details his relationships with the other Beatles. You write of John's perpetual fondness of Ringo. I found the relationship between John and George Harrison very interesting. George goes from being the kid in the group, a few years younger than John, to growing very close with John in the mid-1960's. They had their first acid trip together. They stayed the longest in Rishikesh with the Maharishi. At some point there was a strain in the relationship, including an actual fight off camera during the filming of Get Back, later to be Let It Be. There also seemed to be some hostility in the 1970's. What do you think John's relationship with George was, and do you think he respected George?

Philip Norman: I think he did. I think it has to be said that George was not on the same level of talent as John and Paul. I think by being around great songwriters it rubbed off on George and he did write some good songs at the end. I think John gave an enormous amount of recognition to George's work. He was even on record as saying Within You Without You was one of the outstanding tracks on Sgt. Pepper. It is actually one of the most boring tracks recorded on any album, so John went out of his way, really, to try and give George the recognition. But George ended up very bitter, there is no doubt about that. He felt he'd been overshadowed by the Lennon/McCartney partnership. He felt particular sort of bitterness against Paul McCartney and not so much against John. Though I think that George had a very ungracious grumpy side and I think that when Yoko appeared that George was pretty horrid at some point, so that all played it's part. Then he brought out a book and John didn't think George mentioned him enough in George's book, although i think there were more mentions in there of John than George's wife Olivia.

Woodstock.com: John was asked in the 1960's how he might die and he responded "I'll probably be popped off by some looney." When he returned from his musical hiatus he returned with songs about new beginnings. One of his posthumous releases was the song Borrowed Time. Do you think John had premonitions about his own death?

Philip Norman: Well, he was somebody that always used to rather like ouija boards and seances and things like that. His grandmother, who he never knew actually, her name was Polly. He only saw his Lennon grandmother twice before her death. She was known to be a bit of a psychic in the 1920's and 30's. And John kind of liked the occult. I did meet someone who knew him in the early 60's and said that he once said to her that he had a premonition that he would die young and would be shot.

Woodstock.com: What do you think drew John so strongly to Yoko? Do you think their usage of heroin together played a part?

Philip Norman: Not at all. It was something that they went through because John felt he had to try everything. Yoko had taken heroin before John actually. No, the whole thing was with John it was art. John wanted to be an artist. He wanted to be what he thought of as a real artist, and Yoko to him was a real artist. It was all about that. He really thought that she was amazing in that she did not give a damn what people said about her. He spent years having to be so afraid of his public image. To meet this woman, who did not give a damn, she did whatever she wanted to do, was really intoxicating to John. There was a strong sexual attraction. Yoko does have that. She still does. Probably more now, to more people, then she had 35 years ago. It was essentially aesthetic. It was art.

Woodstock.com: Your book details John's relationship with his first son, Julian. John was a distant father at best in the 1960's. It seemed that John and Julian reconnected during John's "Lost Weekend," but then they never saw each other again. Do you think that John regretted how his handled being a father to Julian?

Philip Norman: I'm sure he did, and of course as soon as he had his second son, Sean, that could only have brought back his failings with Julian. And they were terrible failings. He hadn't really wanted to get married at the point where he married his first wife Cynthia around the age of breaking through with The Beatles. She was pregnant and that is what young men did in those days. They married the young woman they made pregnant. He really took so little interest in Julian in his early years and then when Yoko came along it increased the distance. I am absolutely sure he was eaten up with remorse about that and made great efforts to create some sort of a relationship. That really was going on. He tried to keep it up, but still, it is a terrible mark against John. I can't hide the fact. I couldn't avoid that. He had been a terrible father to first son, all the more inexcusable because he felt his father walked out on him.

Woodstock.com: How much did John's immigration fight take out of him and his music?

Philip Norman: It didn't seem to take anything out of him really. He did at that point say he was retiring, that he was going to bring up Sean as a house husband. But he really didn't cut off from music. He said he did, but he was always tinkering with his guitar and writing down ideas. And he always felt competitive, still, with his main competitors, during those years. It was not a very nice experience, but on the other hand he always knew, in a way, that the media were always behind him. Particularly television. I don't think he ever really felt quite as, sort of, vulnerable to the U.S. government at the time as he might have done. He would go straight onto Dick Cavett and say the latest thing. That he'd been followed, his phone had been bugged. He'd be on network television talking about it.

Woodstock.com: What were you surprised to learn about John?

Philip Norman: I think it was this extraordinary insecurity, really. How he was not happy with himself even when you would have thought that his achievements were the ultimate. He was not happy with what he did artistically. He didn't feel secure inside. A lot of his violent spells are explained by insecurity but also the terrible vulnerability.

Woodstock.com: What was the hardest part of doing the biography oh John Lennon?

Philip Norman: Doing the biography of John was the hardest part. There was a tremendous emotional weight. He is regarded as a secular saint and I felt everyone looking over my shoulder because I would have to go back and look at his life afresh. All of these songs that we know so well, that are second nature to so many people, all these events which have become sort of emblematic of a time in twentieth century history. I just felt half the world would be looking over my shoulder and seeing if I put a foot wrong, and that was a big strain.