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My chauffeur used to wait while I slept off the booze
in a skip

By DOMINIC MOHAN

WHO legend Pete Townshend was making more money than
ever. 

He was raking in #45,000 a week from the Broadway
production of his rock opera Tommy.

But despite his huge success the millionaire guitarist
was slipping into the depths of a booze-fuelled
nightmare.

Instead of going home he would stagger around New
Yorks theatreland, then bed down in the nearest
rubbish skip for the night.

Hours later when he woke from his drunken stupor, his
faithful chauffeur would be waiting alongside the
stinking dustbin bags to take him home.

That was 1993 and Pete, now 56, has not had a drink
since.

In a rare interview he says: Eight years without a
drink now. In the last 20 years Ive only drunk for
one year, which was in 1993.

I had Tommy on Broadway and it went to my head.

I thought, Even if I have got a bit of a problem
with alcohol, it doesnt matter, but of course it
did. It doesnt matter how much money I had, it still
ended up coming out of a club, seeing a builders skip
and thinking, Oh, what a lovely place to spend the
night.

My head went completely, I used to do that all the
time. My limo driver would be waiting for me to wake
up.

There were probably people walking past saying,
Isnt that the bloke from The Who asleep in that
skip?

There was one day when I just said, Thats enough.
I didnt go to a clinic, I just stopped.

What Id managed 11 years before I thought I could
manage again. It was messing up my life.

But Ive certainly had help over the years. Ive had
counsellors. I had a therapist for three years, I
dont know if that really helped or not. I just know
Im all right now.

I dont think about alcohol but I know I wasted a lot
of money on it.

Now I suppose to some extent Im a workaholic, the
self-obsession in my work. I think Im getting better,
Im managing my recovery.

Since kicking the booze  and drugs years before that
 Pete has split from wife Karen, mother of his son
and two daughters.

For nearly six years he has been dating 28-year-old
musician Rachel Fuller, who teaches piano to Mick
Jaggers daughter Georgia May.

Pete and Rachel met at Sanctuary Studios in West
London, where he had been rehearsing with the rest of
The Who  Roger Daltrey, John Entwistle and Ringo
Starrs son Zak Starkey.

The band were warming up for a string of gigs in aid
of the Teenage Cancer Trust that start tonight at
Londons Royal Albert Hall.

Wearing all black, Pete peers at me over that famous
hooked nose  and I remember someone told me everyone
looks like Townshend when they look at their
reflection in the back of a spoon.

He says of his relationship with Rachel: Were going
well. Theres some stability in my life. Shes a lot
younger than me. 

When I look in the mirror I dont see a rock star any
more, I see a little balding old guy who looks a bit
like someones uncle.

Im comfortable with that.

Pete finds it hard playing old Who songs and whereas
his bandmate Daltrey is mellow and laughs a lot, Pete
is intense and cerebral.

At any moment you feel he could smash up the room or
burst into tears  its hard to tell which.

Perhaps his battles against drugs and alcohol haunt
him and he admits: When I play these old songs, I
suppose it does come flooding back. With my history I
dont really want it to come flooding back, its not
all good.

The actual reality of it is when you start to play
something that you havent played for a long time and
in some cases 20 years, it takes you back in a very,
very real way to when you were younger, when you were,
in my case, sadder and more frightened and more
arrogant and when Keith Moon, our drummer, was alive.

Yesterday we started to play a song called Young Man
Blues and I got into it and my hand was completely
covered in blood.

"I was playing the way that I used to play  I used to
knock a couple of fingernails off within about five
minutes. Theres an adrenalin rush  you dont feel
anything.

But it is upsetting, it kind of feels like, Oh my
God, should I really be doing this?

Its not about being too old, its about when I
started doing this, I didnt know it was gonna hurt me
 not my hand but me.

But when you know somethings going to hurt you,
should you really do it again and again? Its a kind
of remembrance.

Where Roger and I differ greatly is for him its a
great joy.

Pete is also penning a semi-autobiographical book
about what might have happened if he hadnt joined The
Who.

But for such a hard-working on-the-road band, he
admits he doesnt actually enjoy that aspect.

He says: Im writing a novel so I didnt want to do
any dates this year. Roger pleaded with me to do some.

For me, Im very much rooted at home, I didnt like
touring. I loved being on stage with The Who but I
didnt like touring.

I love the creative engine of The Who.

We didnt stop because Keith Moon died in 1978, we
stopped really because we were making bad records and
they were selling more than ever before.

I found the place that I was going as a live
performer was taking me away from the place Id come
from as a writer.

I was very much a British writer, a Blur style of
writing, very London.

I wasnt working class, my parents were musicians,
but I understood people around me and could write for
them and about what was happening.

As The Who got bigger and bigger, I lost touch with
that.
Pete wants to go back into the studio to see whether
the band are capable of making a new record  20 years
after their last one.

He says: Were all sort of keen to do it for a laugh,
itll be fun to do it because we enjoy playing
together.

A lot of it I would do just to play with Zak, he is
such a great guy, like Keiths little sorcerers
apprentice, a little Mickey Mouse at Keiths heel
really. 

Its a weird story because he got his first drum kit
from Keith Moon. 

Ringo was kind of, Im not giving him a drum kit, I
dont want him to be a f---ing drummer like me, I want
him to have a proper job.

Zak took over from Kenney Jones who joined The Who
from The Faces after Keith Moons death.

Pete says: Zaks brought a new energy. It might be
good to go into the studio and see what happens. But
ultimately we might also find that our record audience
 like fans of so many other artists that have got
mature  may not wanna go out and buy our new CDs.

Its like The Rolling Stones  a lot of their albums
werent great but up until the middle Eighties they
were selling well.

Its very strange, isnt it, that they can go out and
do a tour and gross #87million?

It worries me that I dont want to waste my time, I
certainly wont spend a year on it. Ive got 1,500
pieces of music knocking around but whether or not any
of them are gonna work with The Who, I dont know. 

I dont know what The Who is any more. But without
getting too pompous about it I think theres something
that I can tap into which then kind of feeds like an
electrical current through the band and if Im in good
shape, if Im connected to that, if I can allow it to
flow somehow, it energises.

I think I can guess what Pete thinks of Pop Idol and
indeed he explodes: Well, I think the judges are
complete, utter w---ers  always have been, always
will be.

The contestants are multi-talented people but it
aint rocknroll. It hasnt grown up from the
neighbourhood, thats all I know.

Pete could be holding some auditions himself soon and
is planning a theatre production of his epic musical
story of teenage wasteland, Quadrophenia.
It appears The Whos legacy will be living on for many
years to come.

SEND your donations to the Teenage Cancer Trust,
Kirkman House, Kirkman Place, 54a Tottenham Court
Road, London W1T 2EL (tel. 020 7436 2877). 
TOMORROW: ROGER DALTREY ON KEITH MOON 


=====
-Brian in Atlanta
The Who This Month!
http://www.thewhothismonth.com
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