The breakup of the Beatles back in 1970 left Paul McCartney depressed and pushed him to alcohol, McCartney revealed during a taping of BBC radio’s “Mastertapes,” the New York Post’s Page Six reports.

McCartney, 73, is quoted saying: “I was so depressed. You would be. … You were breaking from your lifelong friends.”

He adds: “So I took to the bevvies. I took to a wee dram. It was great at first, then suddenly I wasn’t having a good time. … I wanted to get back to square one, so I ended up forming Wings.”

McCartney had a pretty good run in the 1970s with Wings, which included his wife, Linda. But McCartney admits that the group was a step down from the Beatles.

“We were terrible,” he said of Wings. “We knew Linda couldn’t play, but she learned, and looking back on it, I’m really glad we did it. … I could have just formed a supergroup, rung up Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page and John Bonham. But you still remember the names of the people who gave you really bad, vicious reviews: Charles Shaar Murray shall ever be hated!”