Martin ignorant of Beatles' drug habits

The beatles' producer and friend George Martin has only recently discovered the band's later albums were influenced by drugs.

Rock veteran Paul McCartney has confessed the group hid their drug habits from Martin and waited years before finally telling him albums like Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band were stimulated by illegal substances like cocaine and marijuana.

McCartney says: "I did coke for about a year around that time. Coke and maybe some grass to balance it out. When you start working your way through it, you start thinking: 'Mmm, this is not so cool an idea.'

"But around the time of Pepper, we were all into one thing or another. We would sneak stuff into the studio and we had to hide it from George Martin. George, bless him, was such a gentleman, so we'd never do anything like that in front of him.

"It was only later that we told him that some of the later albums had been drug- influenced. He had no idea."