Roger interview in Thursday's Orange County Register

[Brian Cady <cadyb@home.com>]

Available on line at:
http://www.ocregister.com/entertainment/who00810cci1.shtml

Of course they will come back 
ROCK: In conversation with Roger Daltrey - about yet another Who reunion
tour, 'Won't Get Fooled Again' selling Nissans and other strange
occurrences. 

By BEN WENER
The Orange County Register 

You just knew it would happen. They say they're never coming back, yet
somehow they always do.

As every self-respecting rock fan knows, the Who was supposed to have
ended with the death of drummer Keith Moon in 1978, and again with its
farewell tour of 1982-83. To be sure, the remaining Hall of Famers -
windmill-whipping guitarist Pete Townshend, hearty vocalist Roger
Daltrey and stone-faced bassist John Entwistle - haven't released an
album of new material since that era; its last was 1982's
all-too-fitting "It's Hard."

But the reunions kept coming. First Live Aid in 1985. Then a 1989
charity performance of "Tommy" at Universal Amphitheatre and an ensuing
greatest-hits tour. Come 1996 it was the same thing, only swap
"Quadrophenia" for that story about a deaf, dumb and blind pinball
wizard.

Cut to last year and the Who was at it again, reteaming in Chicago for a
one-off benefit at the House of Blues, then a corporate Vegas gig and a
performance at Neil Young's Bridge School Benefit in Mountain View.
Eventually the English band managed to play on its own turf, selling out
London's Shepherd's Bush Empire.

The result? A live double-album, "Blues to the Bush" (available through
MusicMaker.com), and yet another tour, this time sharing road expenses
with this summer's other classic-rock curio, the pairing of Led
Zeppelin's Jimmy Page with the Black Crowes. (Both shows come to the
Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre next week.)

Meanwhile, it isn't as though the Who's music has left the public
consciousness. "Tommy," Townshend's rock opera, was translated for
Broadway and enjoyed an award-winning run. And some of the band's
seminal tunes, including boomer anthems like "Magic Bus" and "Won't Get
Fooled Again," have turned up in TV spots for computers and cars.

It's enough to wonder if the Who ever will go away. We caught up with
Daltrey, 56, just before the tour's kickoff. 

OCR: Why share touring costs with Page & the Crowes? There can't
possibly be a lack of profit to pay overhead.

RD: It's convenience, really. It's made it easier for us to tour at our
age. Rather than having to slog our guts out, which is really what
touring is like, it gives us a day off - and, you know, we're old bones.
We need that. But the funny thing is that we thought we would make a
great savings by having those days off. In fact, we're not saving
anythng. We're losing wages in the downtime.

OCR: What was it about playing those few dates last year that prompted a
full reunion tour?

RD: We just enjoyed each other's company so much and had great fun
playing together again. Obviously it hasn't always been that way. There
was a lot for us to go through to get to this point - not just the death
of Keith but our own personal problems, our own ways of dealing with
each other. We just don't feel that way anymore. We really missed each
other's company this last time.

OCR: So it wasn't all roses during the Quadrophenia outing? 

RD: Well, it's always good when we're on stage. It always has been. It's
when we're off that things get sour. But it's all about communication
now. We talk together. We call each other up. We have fun. There were a
lot of walls built up, lots of psychological issues and old ghosts from
the past that took a long time to disappear.

OCR: So there's hope of the Who continuing after this?

RD: I certainly think so. We're hoping to develop some new stuff on the
road - that's what used to happen, you know. Hopefully it will result in
a new album. Even from those gigs last year, I've got three songs that
might work for us, and there's another that came out of us just jamming
on "My Generation." I know Pete has ideas. We'll see.

OCR: Is it at all weird to still be singing these songs, though? Are
there songs you just don't relate to anymore?

RD: Oh, I don't know about that. I love doing our old songs. I love
singing Pete's songs, though it really has a great deal to do with this
band.

OCR: Unlike performing them with, say, the British Rock Symphony?

RD: Right, because with that there's something that can't help but get
lost. Trying to understand magic is stupid, but "magic" is the only word
for what we have. When the chemistry is right between us, it creates a
buzz and those old songs take on new meaning. ... They take us back.
They take the audience back. They put life into a perspective that is
pertinent to that night, that moment. And every night is different.

OCR: But this tour is seriously heavy on the classics. Any thought to
returning to some lesser-known material?

RD: Oh, there are lots of songs that I would like to revisit. "Slip
Kid," for one. Maybe a lot more from our first album, too. It happens,
you know. You get this snowblindness to your own music. You get stuck on
what always works and you forget how much music you've created. That's
always been a problem - and now that we want to try out new material, it
makes it even more difficult. We want to do something new, but the fans
want the favorites. I can understand.

OCR: How do you think the new songs will go down?

RD: Well, it's the way that they will go down. Young bands always make
the mistake of introducing a new song - and then everyone goes to the
bathroom or the refreshment stand. We're just hoping to slip a few in
unnoticed and see how people react to them as if they were part of the
set.

OCR: You seem certain that you can pull that off.

RD: Well, that's how we've always been. Our sound is our sound. Nothing
else will ever sound like the Who, and we can't sound like anything
else. I always say it's a quilt. John is on one side with a ball of red
yarn. Pete is on the other with a ball of white. And Keith was like two
knitting needles pulling it all together.

OCR: And where do you fit in?

RD: I sit on top when it's finished. But in a funny place. It's not like
with most bands, where the vocals are pushing on the offbeat. Like Levon
Helm in the Band - he was that way. I'm always driving off the downbeat.
Always driving, not being driven.

OCR: And Zak Starkey, your latest drummer? How does he fit into this
version?

RD: He has a lot to do with why it's working so well. He pushed to get
Pete back on electric guitar, which was crucial. And let's face it, Pete
never gets as much credit as he should. Hendrix may be the greatest
guitarist who ever lived, but a lot of the tricks that he mastered -
playing with all that feedback, using the microphone stand as a slide -
those ideas were brought into rock by Pete. 
But Zak is much more like Keith. He was raised to play like Keith. Kenny
(Jones, who replaced Moon in 1979) was wonderful, but he had a different
style, and I think after a while we realized it didn't gel with us. With
Zak, we're firing on all cylinders again. He hasn't half the drums that
Keith had, but he gets the same feel.

OCR: The other times the band reunited there was a compelling reason.
Now is it just nostalgia?

RD: Look, music just goes on. When people look back at the last century,
they see that our period of music is an extraordinary one. It actually
changed society, one of the few times in history that's ever happened.
And we were one of the bands that did that, I suppose. Does that mean if
we play those songs it's nostalgic? Yeah, probably. But is it nostalgia
if you go to a Mozart recital? Our music is as valuable and valid to our
century as Mozart's was to his. The only thing I wonder is that in a
couple hundred years, will historians still see the music of our time as
unique and important?

OCR: Or will they see it as background for a car commercial?

RD: That's short-sighted. People have to let that go, and I think most
people are. We're not in a world where there are only a few outlets for
music anymore. It's confetti, it's wallpaper. There are millions of
outlets, and you have to struggle to get your music heard anywhere you
can.

OCR: But we're talking "Won't Get Fooled Again." The song is played
daily on radio.

RD: I don't know ... it's a nonissue as far as I'm concerned. Thing is,
if I hadn't heard that before and I heard it selling a car, I'd got out
and buy "Won't Get Fooled Again," not the car. If I hear a song on an
advert, I don't buy what's on the advert.

OCR: It's just another way to keep the Who's music alive, then? Just
like this tour?

RD: I think so, yeah. Music is sacrosanct. It's in most things we do in
our lives. It's beyond life itself to me. To keep that going is
valuable, and to keep the relationship going between the three of us is
what family is all about. We'd hope that people would celebrate that. We
are.

        -Brian in Atlanta
         The Who This Month!
         http://members.home.net/cadyb/who.htm