Pete Townshend Reveals the Only Thing the Who Don’t Argue About
The Who guitarist Pete Townshend said the only thing he doesn’t argue with singer Roger Daltrey about is the fact that “we are both old.”
He said that several songs on their upcoming new album explore how advancing years changed him, and how his approach to writing for Daltrey had changed too.
“Growing old includes growing up, even in the rock business,” Townshend told the Dallas News in a new interview. “I listen now to what Roger says, attend to what he needs as an artist and try to be a supportive colleague onstage. I also try to sincerely demonstrate that I love him.”
He noted that he "certainly wrote a few songs specifically about what happens when you get old. But funnily enough, I did a fair bit of that the first time I thought I had got old, when I passed through being 30, in 1975. I think in writing songs that I hoped Roger would connect with, I had to accept that, although we are both old men now, we are very different. So it's the broader issues I ended up writing about. The songs are about what we agree on, and one thing we can't argue about is that we are both old.”
Asked about the biggest misconception of the Who, Townshend said, "That we are, in any way, a heavy rock band. We can do it, but we're closer to prog-rock than, say, Led Zeppelin. On the other hand, there is a part of me that really doesn't give a shit what you think of us. That may be what makes us seem like an old-school rock band: We do our best, but if we fuck up, so be it.”