“He said, ‘Oh, stage fright? I had terrible stage fright.’": How Paul McCartney, Johnny Marr and Pharrell Williams cured Hans Zimmer’s performance nerves

Hans Zimmer is perhaps the world’s foremost composer of movie scores. With countless works in his portfolio – and a famous, collaborative way of working that seems able to conjure magic out of nowhere in record time – Zimmer’s most recent challenge has been taking his music, and a full orchestra to perform it, out on the international tour circuit… Despite punishing, confidence-crushing stage fright.

Indeed, having first tasted the thrill of playing live 10 years ago, Zimmer will be out on the road again in 2026, with his A New Dimension tour promising to deliver all his hits in even grander gigs to even more of his fans.

Now, in a lengthy and revealing chat on Rick Beato’s YouTube show, Zimmer has raised the curtain on some surprising aspects regarding his new-found career as a gigging musician. Like why would a busy, world-renowned top soundtrack composer wind up taking a band on the road at all?

And it seems that a trio of surprise big names are to blame.

The Hans Zimmer Interview - YouTube

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“I was bullied into it,” Zimmer reveals. “I was mercilessly bullied into it by Johnny Marr and Pharrell Williams, who sat me down on the other couch over there.

"And they sat really close so I couldn't get up and they said things to me like, ‘You have to, you have to have the courage to look the audience in the eye’.

"You have to have the courage to come out from behind the screen and do things in real time. And I kept saying, ‘No, no, no, I get stage fright, which is absolutely true. They said, ‘That's not an excuse. That is just by product’.

“If you don't have stage fright, you're not feeling anything,” Zimmer explains. “You're not being honest with yourself. But they couldn't win the argument. And so after about an hour like they got up,

"Johnny walked out the door, and Pharrell stood in the door and said, ‘Look, I'm playing the Grammys this year. Do you want to play guitar for me?’. I thought only an idiot would say, no, and so I did that.

“He was so kind, because he just kept his eye on me during the whole live thing just to make sure I was all right.”

And there’s some more major name-drops to come…

“So I phoned Harvey [Goldsmith, the famous promoter] who did Live Aid. and said, ‘Do you think if I did a live show, anybody would come?’ and he goes, ‘Yeah, I think so.’ And I said ‘Should it be the Albert Hall? Somewhere like that?’ and he goes ‘Don’t do that. Do Hammersmith - where I saw Bowie, where I saw Humble Pie… We’ll book it for two nights, put one night up for sale and we’ll see how it goes’. And it sold out.”

Paul McCartney… And… Cilla Black?

“And just before the first show, I had a phone call from Paul McCartney, and he wanted me to come in and work with him. And I said, ‘Yeah, but I think I wanted to go and do this show, go and play with my band, but I have really bad stage fright. So you might be just saving me here by offering me, you know, a project I can't say no to.’

“He said, ‘Oh, stage fright. I had terrible stage fright.’ You know, he didn't play for three years or so, and then he did a show in Paris, and he was playing the bridge when he was supposed to play the second verse… So he just went, ‘Stop, stop, stop, stop, stop’. And the audience went wild, and they just loved it.

“And afterwards, Cilla Black said to him, Paul, that was amazing. Do you do that every night?…

“And that's the thing, you know? They're on your side. So he really sort of helped me. By going ‘They're on your side. Just talk to them, you know? Show your vulnerability. Show who you are. And I think that was the best advice I got.

“And that wasn't a bad chap to get good advice from, right?

“Johnny and Pharrell came to play and be supportive, which was great. The audience didn't know that was going to happen, so that was like, just like a lot of screaming. And the first night went, great… And then somehow that whole thing sort of became a tour…”

And Zimmer’s next tour – A New Dimension – featuring new orchestral arrangements of his works alongside visual projections and solo performances kicks off on March 6 2026 at the Rockhal in Luxembourg before making its way across Europe, the UK and Island. April, October and November.

Tickets will go on general sale on April 2 2025. Find out more here.