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Pete's April 10 diary text
10 April 2004
Speaking Ill?
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I got back from a short break after the Royal Albert Hall show for Teenage
Cancer (thanks to all off you who supported that event so magnanimously,
especially those of you who travelled from abroad). A letter awaited me from John's
mother Queenie. She was greatly upset by a statement I made in my recent
interview with UNCUT magazine which for some reason they chose to amplify as a sub
heading. I think I am still very angry about John's death, and some of that
came out. I certainly don't judge John on any level at all. The details of his
death are fairly public now, but no one really knows the exact atmosphere
around it. All we can hope is that Roger is right, and that John died as he lived -
a definitive rock star.
I feel very sad to have upset Queenie and have apologised to her as best I
can. She says other fans were also disturbed. Let me just say that I do not
think of John in the way it appears I might through that particular comment in the
UNCUT interview. (It was very crude indeed I'm afraid: about John sometimes
wanting to be in another group, wanting a more intense rock star lifestyle with
groupies etc than the Who was giving him in the final years. Somehow,
incredibly, Jackie Onasis was part of the angle!!!). Morally speaking, he was
certainly never worse than I was; I suppose I got beaten in a different way, and -
thankfully - my personal crash in rock n roll came early enough that I was able
to save my health.
I remember John only as a great genius of the bass guitar. A true innovator
who was still able to astound me with his dexterity and invention. Probably he
was a better musician than I will ever be. I also genuinely loved him, he was
a supporter and proper friend of mine from the age of 13. We first met even
earlier than that. He was funny, generous and caring. We shared a great passion
for dogs.
John, typically in very few words, thanked me lovingly recently for allowing
him his dignity back by touring with the Who - the one place he really truly
shone. I think in 1982 John was as relieved as I was that the Who were going to
stop. He very much enjoyed working with his own band, and was always the most
sociable and accessible member of the Who, he loved to mix with people and
talk. However, recently all of us who worked with him, but who were
unfortunately not close to him day by day were worried about his health. He was truly a
very quiet and secretive man and none of us were entirely sure what was going
on. It has emerged since his death that several people very close to John fought
hard to help him - as I felt I did by touring with him. We are all still
deeply shocked by our loss, and I think I can speak for many of us when I say that
we are angry too. But it is an aimless and probably quite futile anger. For a
while I was even angry with the Las Vegas hotel chain in which he died! I had
to apologise to them too.
I am sorry this stuff keeps rearing its ugly head. Jimi Hendrix, Peter
Meadon, Kit Lambert, Keith Moon, the Cincinnati Eleven, John Entwistle. I suppose we
have to accept that everyone has to die in the end, but in every one of the
cases above I have at some point said things in pain that I have later
regretted.
John was a celebrity. He is still celebrated, and in and around the Who, as
long as Roger and I continue to work under the Who name, he will be honoured.
Sorry Queenie.
Pete