‘The Quarry Men’ increased its band members to seven with McCartney now on guitar and vocals as well as George Harrison and Lennon, and John Lowe playing piano. Two band members left soon after including Eric Griffiths. ‘The Quarry Men’ now became a 5 piece band.
Over the forthcoming year the band had very few gigs and only played occasionally at various talent contests. However, by early 1959 the group wasn’t playing at all and some members lost contact. Lennon and McCartney kept in touch and continued to write songs, but George Harrison now joined the Les Stewart Quartet with Les Stewart and Ken Brown.
When Harrison joined The Les Stewart Quartet they had been booked to play as a resident band soon after at a new club called ‘The Casbah’. Ken Brown helped decorate the new club which caused upset between a few band members and Les Stewart refused to play there. As a result of this, Ken and George walked out of the group and George got in touch with John and Paul, reuniting ‘The Quarry Men’ as a quartet. After the newly formed band played over 5 gigs at the club, Ken Brown left the group after a disagreement. For about 4 months between October 1959 and January 1960 John Lennon, Paul McCartney and George Harrison continued to play as a trio and they called themselves ‘Johnny & the Moondogs’.
Both the band and John Lennon knew they needed a bass player so he asked two student friends in ‘The Liverpool College of Art’ where he attended if they would like the position. In January 1960 Stuart Sutcliffe sold one of his paintings to a John Moores exhibition in order to buy a bass guitar to play in the group John had asked him to join. By this time the group had changed its name to the ‘Silver Beetles’.
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