Paul Weller is “glad” the Beatles split up when they did.

The 55-year-old rocker insisted the legendary group – who went their separate ways in 1970 amid in-fighting with the band – would have “tarnished” their legacy if they’d carried on much longer and doesn’t think they would be regarded as highly as they are now.

Reflecting on seeing ‘Let It Be’ in the cinema when he was 12, he said: “I was so overwhelmed, seeing The Beatles on a big screen, playing the rooftop session and all that stuff. So, for me, just getting to see them play live on that screen was mind-blowing.

“It was supposed to be depressing watching them not getting on but I didn’t notice any of that until years later.

“Personally, I’m f****** glad they split up when they did. Can you imagine The Beatles in the 80s, doing synthpop with a DX7? F****** hell.”

And of the suggestion his own Style Council could have shared a bill with them at Live Aid, he added to Uncut magazine: “And it would have been shocking! They would have tarnished their legacy and we wouldn’t be talking about them in such glowing terms all these years later.”

Meanwhile, the former Jam frontman admitted he looks back fondly on the years when he first went solo, despite his relative lack of success.

He said “I look pretty fondly on that time. It made me realise that, actually, I quite like not having any success. The world didn’t just end, you know?

“We were going to America loads of times. I hadn’t been to LA for years and years so we just flew out there and did five nights in a row.

“We had this brilliant following of gay mods who used to follow us around the West Coast on scooters. They looked f****** amazing. God bless ‘em, that was great.”