New Pete interview

[Brian Cady]

>From the Courier Post (Cherry Hill, New Jersey):
http://tinyurl.com/ne5c5

Rockers back on the road
Friday, September 8, 2006

By CHUCK DARROW
Courier-Post Staff

The Who kicks off its first North American tour in
four years Tuesday with a sold-out show at
Philadelphia's Wachovia Center. The band returns to
the region for a Nov. 24 date at Atlantic City's
Borgata Hotel, Casino & Spa, and another sold-out
Wachovia Center show the following evening.

As was the case in 2002, charter members Pete
Townshend and Roger Daltrey will be joined by drummer
Zak Starkey, bassist Pino Palladino, keyboardist John
"Rabbit" Bundrick and guitarist Simon Townshend,
Pete's brother.

According to a band publicist, Towshend, the group's
guitarist and composer, spends a good deal of his time
online. Which is why it wasn't surprising that he
consented to an interview only if it was conducted via
e-mail:

Q: According to your Web site, this tour is showcasing
new material -- the first time that's happened in many
years. Does performing new songs make touring more
enjoyable?

A: It makes it less predictable. So many of the
classic Who songs we play affect our audiences in the
same way every time. New stuff challenges us, and our
audience, to connect on a different level. We have to
make space for each other.

Q: What can you tell us about the new album? What will
it be called? Were the songs written in a relatively
short time period, or have you been working on the
material for many years?

A: The album I called Endless Wire and all the songs
have been written in a four-year period. The majority
of the material for the "Mini-Opera" segment of the
album, that comprises about 50 percent, was written
this year.

Q: What are the subjects (for songs) that interest you
nowadays? Are they essentially the same as they've
always been, or do you find yourself drawn to topics
you didn't address in the past?

A: I have been stuck in a groove since I was 19 years
old and got a hit with The Who with one of my first
songs, "Can't Explain." This song was inspired by
"Young Man Blues" by the jazz singer Mose Allison
(Chrissie Hynde told me that the Kinks first big hit,
"You Really Got Me" by Ray Davies was inspired by the
same song).

That groove begins with the strange, bleak mood of
post-war Britain. There was a lot of pride in what
we'd done, but for us younger ones trying to see what
had happened there was a lot of denial. So I suppose
my entire work is dedicated to trying to overcome that
denial, to break out and help our fans -- and me too
-- to face what happened, and how we should go
forward.

Who are my targets? Many of them are now my age, old
men and women from 50 to 70 years old. And yet in all
of them I see children with unanswered questions. I
don't blame parents or grandparents. They were heroes.
In any case without the "Great Silence" of the
post-war years, rock music as we know it today would
never have been born. We'd still be dancing to
saxophones and living in romance.

Q: Has getting older affected you as a composer?

A: Hardly at all. I've always been ambitious --
sneered at for my pretensions -- and don't regret
trying new things. But I've always known that I can do
several things better than almost anyone else on the
face of the earth, so I am less of a willing Polymath
(Renaissance man) than some of my ex-art school
buddies.

On our new album I've based many of the songs on a
story about three young kids from my childhood
neighbourhood who would have been the ages of my own
first children -- so about 25 years younger than me.
They are from different backgrounds, and religions,
but meet and share dreams and secrets and later form a
band that becomes successful.

They then grow older, become decadent, powerful and
finally get very old indeed. I write songs for all of
them. So I get to cover all the bases.

For myself (and thus for Roger Daltrey) I write songs
from the hip -- I try not to think too much about it.
We are both happy to sing songs about being older. I'm
not quite sure why we in rock should worry about this
so much, but we do.

Q: What goes into putting a Who tour together --
beyond the logistics of having everyone available?

A: Logistically we just haul ourselves around. I jet
in and out from whichever major city I choose to base
myself in. You know, I leave the details to my people,
we have great managers. It is all so easy these days,
we are treated with such generosity and grace. It
feels dignified. But the moment we walk on stage we
pick up the old baton -- and try to answer some of
those unanswered questions, try to help our audience
forget themselves for a couple of hours.

Q: How is the set list determined?

A: Roger decides how it flows and he uses old-school
showman's instinct that usually work very well. We get
advice and ideas from fans too. Ending the show with
the prayer from the end of Tommy ("Listening To You")
was an obvious idea that we had stopped using.

Q: What do you do to keep yourself in the kind of
shape it takes to go out and jump around for the
better part of two hours four or five nights a week?

A: It's more about what I don't do. I don't drink. I
don't smoke. I don't have a lot of sex. I don't take
risks. I eat carefully (with enjoyment). I sleep quite
long hours. I try to stay calm whatever I'm faced
with. I work a lot to help other people face their
troubles, that keeps my mind of my own.

Truth is, my mother is in her 80s and broke her hip at
Christmas and we thought she was done for. She healed
up in a month and is back out there causing trouble
again. She'll probably show up with a new boyfriend
soon. So a lot of it is genetic. My father died of
colon cancer when he was 69, so I am aware I need to
be careful.

Roger would have a very different answer to this
question. We are very different in our approach to
health, but we very much respect the simple fact that
whatever each of us got wrong, or right, we are still
here.

Q: Any time an act of your stature and longevity hits
the road, the "this could be the last time"
conversation takes place among fans. How much longer
do you see The Who touring, assuming health is not an
issue?

A: That's right. I was happy to quit back in 1982.
Happy not to tour. Now I'm happy to be back. I may
come and go all over again. But this is a big tour
because we've made a new album and I want people to
hear it, so we're going everywhere we can.

Prior to making that album, and sensing it might not
land, Roger and I agreed we might never tour again,
but we agreed we would always be friends, always
support each other in charity events, and always be
ready to play old Who songs whenever it felt
appropriate. With Sept. 11 coming up you have to know
that for us coming to New York and playing to our
friends in the Northeast meant more to us than it did
to the folks who saw us. (The Concert for New York
City in October 2001) was one of our last big shows
with John Entwistle.

Q: Bob Dylan recently had some harsh remarks about the
current music scene. Do you agree there is nothing of
value out there today? If not, what contemporary
artists do you think are making quality music?

A: I didn't read that. I have heard some tracks from
his new record and I like them. I had a good
experience being one of the hosts on In the Attic, the
Webcast music and chat show (www.intheattic.com). My
partner, Rachel Fuller, is the principal host and we
got to meet a whole bunch of relatively new musicians.
Kooks, Editors, Fratellis, Ed Harcourt, Zutons, Regina
Spektor, The Magic Numbers and many others with chart
success in the U.K.

They all seemed to me to be playing music just for the
sake of it, with enjoyment and passion. They were all
great people, content, hard-working and grateful to
have made it. Some of the older acts that appeared,
like Flaming Lips, Martha Wainwright, Shack, Eels and
Chris Difford, were mind-blowing. Right now I listen
to Sufjan Stevens and Sigur Ros. These two artistic
projects on their own will last me a lifetime.



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

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