Pete in Rolling Stone

[L. Bird]

Excerpt, courtesy of Whochat Forum:

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/12047369/pete_townshend_the_who_frontman_on_why_it_took_24_years_for_a_new_album

Dr. Who
Pete Townshend on why it took twenty-four years for a new Who album, and why 
he doesn't want to see Dylan or the Stones play again
JENNY ELISCU
Page 1 2

>>This is an excerpt from the new issue of "Rolling Stone," on newsstands 
>>until November 2nd.
There's been talk of a new Who album for six years. Why such a long delay?
We did a press conference in 2000 where Roger and John both announced they'd 
written songs for a new Who album. I was shocked. I went to Roger and said, 
"So you've written some songs, have you? Would it be possible for me to hear 
them?" Of course he hadn't written any songs. He still hasn't. And I went to 
John and said, "Have you written any songs?" He said, "Yeah, I've got 
'undreds. But I'm not playing them to him." I said, "Who's him?" And he 
said, "Roger. I'm not having my songs sniffed out by him." And that was 
that.

I had to try to rescue them because Roger had committed publicly to the idea 
that we were going to make a record, and he felt he'd look like a complete 
idiot if we didn't make any new music. So we did "Real Good Looking Boy" and 
"Old Red Wine" for [the greatest-hits collection] Then and Now. But I 
couldn't be driven by Roger's needs. He'd never been a part of the Who's 
creative engine. He longed to be a part of it, he longed to be able to wish 
it into existence, but it required me to come up with a piece of work I felt 
convinced I could carry for the rest of my life.

You were talking about how being in a band is like a marriage. But you and 
Roger have gone through a lot of separations in your forty-two-year 
marriage.
The idea of a commitment in a relationship is that it's somehow of a higher 
value if it's unconditional. In a business relationship, it's of a higher 
value if it's conditional. In other words, Roger and I feel we've achieved 
the most if he's getting what he wants and I'm getting what I want. I 
realized that if I went to Roger and tried to honor our relationship, the 
chemistry we have together on a creative basis, that I had to take 
responsibility for the bit I always do and he would come in afterward, as he 
has always done.

When Roger and I were on our last tour with John, I sat with our manager, 
Bill Curbishley, on the last day and asked, "Are we gonna do this again?" He 
said, "If you want to, we can always do it again." And I said, "Is there any 
possibility that we're enabling John Entwistle? Rather than helping him, 
what we're actually doing is sending him home with, after tax, probably a 
million dollars, half of it's probably gonna go up his girlfriend's nose." 
God rest her soul, she's dead now. I thought, "I don't need to play old Who 
songs. I could sell them to fucking CSI." When John died, I decided that if 
I were to ever go back on tour with Roger, it has to be artistically driven. 
I thought, "If we're going to do this, we have to have new music, and it has 
to come from me."

What at this point is the most fulfilling aspect of creating new material 
for the Who?
The attention it receives, and the powerful filtering and editorial process 
that is imposed when I work with Roger, my interpreter and partner. There is 
a sense that I am closing a circle here too -- I did feel that when I 
completed songs for the last Who studio album, in 1982, that I had 
completely lost my connection with our audience. Somehow, today's audience 
has granted me a second chance to reconnect as the Who's chief songwriter, 
and it really does seem as though almost everyone has thrown away the rule 
book. Some of our live shows have taken this function of mine to a place 
that it seems no mere CD could ever reach. At Madrid, for example, as I 
played my guitar toward the end of the show, I felt like a triumphant 
liberating giant come to release a million captive children. Could make me a 
little vain.
You've been very involved with the Internet, and originally you planned to 
sell live Webcasts of all the shows on this tour to raise money for charity.
It's unfortunate we couldn't do more of that, because the Web site and the 
Internet have given the Who the most extraordinary ten years. Whenever we 
wanted to go out, we've gone out and sold out our tours. Now if Roger truly 
believes it's because people want to look at his chest or truly believes 
it's because Pete Townshend is a magical genius and people want to hear this 
music one more time, he's wrong. I think it's because we have this 
incredible tied-in fan base. The Web sites I've been running are like fan 
clubs. And fan clubs back in the old days really were the way that artists 
made sure that they got hits. If you had 400,000 fans and they all went out 
and bought your album on the same day, you got a fucking Number One!

This fan thing is very powerful. I don't think that the big boomer bands are 
going to be able to do this much longer. I really don't. We're fucking lucky 
to be able to do it, but I don't think we'll be able to do it much longer. I 
don't want to go out and see Bob Dylan. I don't want to go out and see the 
Stones. I wouldn't pay money to go see the Who, not even with new songs. I 
wouldn't pay money to go see Crosby, Stills and Nash. They fucking make me 
sick. When I say that, what I mean is I'm ageist about it. I don't want to 
look at these old guys in their self-congratulatory mode. Somebody gave me 
tickets for Marlene Dietrich's last concert in London, and apparently she 
came out and she looked fantastic under the lights, but you know that she's 
an eighty-year-old woman held together by glue and string. Why would you 
want to do that? I'd prefer to come and see Elaine Stritch down in the bar 
here. My point is, I don't think it will go on much longer.

Our audience, our boomer audience, are sustaining it. It's not young kids. 
People say, "Oh, I went to a Rolling Stones concert and there were lots of 
young people there!" Once. They come once. I went to see Jimmy Reed once. I 
went to see John Lee Hooker once. I went to see Jimmy Smith once. I went to 
see Ray Charles once. I just wanted to be able to say I saw him. If Charlie 
Parker had been alive, I would have seen him once. I saw Roland Kirk once. I 
saw them all once. I wouldn't follow them around the fucking world. There's 
a lot of people that come and see bands like the Who once.

It works out fine, right? Because those same artists aren't going to be 
touring forever. It's not like fifteen years from now you're going to be 
like, "Oh, I guess nobody wants to come to our shows anymore."
No, my point is when you look at the commerce behind the music business, 
what's running the whole thing is live shows. The problem for the Who is 
because we can go out and generate hundreds of millions of dollars in ticket 
grosses, we're a commodity and treated as such. It would be nice if it was 
the same with the record, but it won't be. Universal are probably stamping 
around today thinking, "Oh, my God, not another fucking Who record. Oh, my 
God, what do we do? Thank God for the Scissor Sisters!"

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