Starr had considered calling the album Motel California, then Another #9, and finally Wings, before settling on Ringo 2012.

[1] The album was recorded in Los Angeles, and mixed in England, produced by Starr and Bruce Sugar.

[2] The title is a reference to Starr's most successful solo album, Ringo, which was released in 1973.

Asked why this was, he told Alan Light of Newsweek: "I came to the conclusion a while ago that I do not want to write an autobiography, because all anybody wants is those eight years from 1962 to 1970, and I would have ten volumes before we got there.

The album debuted at numbers 80 and 181 in the US and UK, selling 6,348 and 752 copies respectively, as of February 2012.