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Looking Back: WHO Comments From 1979
I have an album called PETE TOWNSHEND & ROGER DALTREY TALK
ABOUT THE SOUNDTRACK TO QUADROPHENIA & it contains some
interesting comments that are great fun to look back upon in hindsight. I guess
the album was supposed to be a radio special to promote the new QUAD film
but, as always, Pete & Rog are quick to change the subject & talk about other
things. All comments are from 1979.
ROGER: I don't know how Americans are going to take to it (the QUAD movie).
Americans have a lot of problems understanding thick, cockney accents.
So they're going to have to work at watching this film, I tell ya'. It's not
going to be easy.
PETE: QUADROPHENIA was music about a *real* event, about real life. It was
about our childhoods & about the childhoods of the kids around us at the
time. And so selecting a director for the film was a slightly different propos-
ition (to the TOMMY film). We were looking for more of a....what do you
call it?....documentary-type director.
ROGER: One of my favorite tracks on QUADROPHENIA is Keith Moon's theme
on the album, sung by Keith ("Bell Boy"). It's....very, very fond memories
for me of him actually recording it. I mean, everything he ever did, while
he was us, stays somewhere in my mind.
ROGER: I still find it very difficult to articulate how I really do feel about it....Keith
dying. I don't feel grief, I never did. It freed the group of so many problems
in a way. It was almost like a sacrifice....The one thing it did do, it brought
the band very close together. It made us realize how bloody lucky we are.
Keith Moon showed us....showed the world how to live. And we're just
more determined than ever to go on, carrying on with the spirit of The WHO.
....You've got a responsibility to your fans, I mean, & a big responsibility.
Pete's songs have helped a lot of frustrated people through very difficult per-
iods of their life. I think that's the way he writes & that is the importance of
The WHO. I'm not trying to sound overblown, I'm just trying to really be
honest about the way I feel it is. And Keith's death has made me, more than
ever, want to carry that on until the day that it stops becoming important.
And I still feel that we got our best work to do. I really do.
PETE (rather flippantly): I'm sorry he's gone & all that, but we're carrying on. We're
carrying on. We're carrying on to some extent, not that The WHO is a tombstone
to him, but we're carrying on. We feel he's still about in a way, now & again. We
still feel him kicking away in the background. We're carrying on because he would've
wanted us to.
ROGER: You definitely go through a period of, "Well, maybe if I'd have done that &
maybe if I'd have done that." But the one thing I've always been with Keith
Moon is really honest. I was never one of the ones to say, "Oh, Keith, have
another pill, have another drink." I was always really honest with him & I thought
he was going over the top.
ROGER: One of the things I'd said, which I didn't realize would ever come true, was that
Keith Moon was a man who lived a lifetime every day of his life. A whole life-
time in one day....It was inevitable that it would happen the way it did....I
could've
never seen Keith Moon old. He could've never grown old gracefully. I could've
never seen Keith Moon unable to play his drums, which would've been one of
the things that would've happened by getting old. The only thing that really shook
us is that we were expecting it for 10 years, & yet when it came, it was a surprise
....But in the end, like I say, it's made us grow. It's made men of us.
ROGER: His legacy is that, it's cut all the chains from our feet. And it's set us free to do any-
thing we want to do....I feel that The WHO are a band that, if we'd have tried to
get other members in, I think it would've been very difficult for people to accept
it
because we had gone on so long as the same line-up....We can go on now with a
brass section, we can have sidemen, we can do anything we like. And people
have got to expect nothing. 'Cause everything from now on is a bonus, mate.
PETE: For us, really, the problem is an acute one because for us as a band we've always, al-
ways, right from the very start, been economists (laughs). We've never wasted a chance
to follow something through however old it's been.
PETE: Our audience today provides us with a great challenge because on the surface it seems
to be the same kids with the same feelings & the same needs. And of course we're
very different now....We've got problems, for example, on a physical level, that we
can't sustain the kind of physical energy we've made for 15 years. Sometimes it feels
a bit silly behaving in a way that a rock star is expected to behave. It feels absurd to
smash your guitar on the stage. It feels absurd to sing "My Generation." But you do it
because you're celebrating your past. But the kids out there....the kids out there in
that
audience....it's the same football game, it's the same crowd, it's the same hand-waving,
it's the same sentiments. I wonder why they're there. I wonder why they're there every
time I go out on the stage, I wonder why are they there. What do they get from one
another? What do they get from us? It's been a question that a lot of people have tried
to answer. I think it's almost impossible to answer. It's fascinating. It's obsessed me
all
my life & it's why I'm still more interested in rock & roll music than anything else.
ROGER: ....you do go through a period of your life when you're between 30 & 35, for the first
time in your life you realize you're mortal. It creates a lot of problems. You think
adol-
escence is painful & then that comes up & whacks you around the back of the head.
We've got an album out called WHO BY NUMBERS which wasn't very well-receiv-
ed by the critics, but in retrospect, I think it's absolutely brilliant because it
encapsulates
that feeling. And I feel if we can go on doing that....encapsulating the feelings of
people
as they go through their lives, & help them through hard times by *understanding*
the
hard times, then we're winning. Because that's the way we started & that's the way
we'll go on.
ROGER: Our music has got a hell of a lot tighter with a new drummer. It's got a hell of a lot
tighter. I mean, it is a new band. That's the one thing people must realize. It's a
*new*
band. People must realize that the time Keith died, it was an end of an era. Nobody
knows better than us that it can never bee the same. Never, ever....But we go on, &
there's no reason to say it won't be better. And it's looking that way. The band is
tighter than ever, playing with more conviction, more energy....look out! We're
setting
a pretty high standard. We are definitely still a rock & roll band.
PETE: Rock & roll is a balance between aspiration & frustration. Always has been. And that's
what makes it good.
Hope you enjoyed looking back! Seems like many of these thoughts from 21 years ago are being
echoed today. Why was Pete so WHO-optimistic back then? Did he feel he had something to
prove? What made him flip180 degrees by 1982? Why isn't The OX on this album? Can we an-
swer these questions?
- SCHRADE in Akron