Pete Townshend talks solo career and final Who tour

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Pete Townshend isn’t the kind of musician who likes to dwell on the past. 

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But with a new career-spanning collection devoted to his live shows as a solo artist, one of rock’s greatest songwriters and guitarists is taking a moment to look back on his 60-plus year career in music.

Available now, Pete Townshend / Live in Concert 1985 – 2001 assembles some of Townshend’s most memorable live shows away from The Who in an expanded 14-CD box set and digital offering featuring seven long-out-of-print live albums. 

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When the compilation landed at his door late last month, Townshend grew reflective thinking about his time away from the band that has been an indelible part of music since their 1965 debut My Generation.

“I needed a creative outlet outside of The Who. I needed to be a solo artist,” Townshend said of his independent tours and seven solo studio albums — 1972’s Who Came First; 1977’s Rough Mix; 1980’s Empty Glass; 1982’s All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes; 1985’s White City: A Novel; 1989’s The Iron Man and the 1993 concept album Psychoderelict. 

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Townshend, 79, said that his decision to really embrace an identity as a solo artist was inspired by the death of the band’s original drummer Keith Moon in 1978.

“Keith Moon’s death came at a time where The Who were already struggling creatively. After Keith died, I think the logical thing for me would have been to end my tenure with The Who and choose a solo career,” he said. “I thought it would be good to work with a different drummer, because Keith’s style was very much decorative. It was not a rhythmic style and I’d been contained … in a sense with The Who.”

Along with vocalist Roger Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle, Townshend decided to disband The Who in a much-ballyhooed farewell tour in 1982. But after their supposed goodbye concert at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, the guitarist didn’t try to mimic The Who’s success on his own.

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He worked in a publishing house for over a decade and ran other companies. He fulfilled his solo contract, releasing several albums in the ’80s. In 1989, The Who reconvened for a new tour and have returned to the road steadily ever since.

In 1993 he adapted The Who’s 1969 rock opera Tommy for Broadway, which ran for several years and garnered two Tony Awards.

But listening back through the new anthology, Townshend is reminded how he’s never felt at home onstage.

“The weird thing about me, compared to most artists, is despite the fact that I look like I’m enjoying myself, I don’t really feel that,” he smiles. “It’s not that I don’t feel good about performing, I just don’t know who that guy is that’s up there on the stage. He isn’t me … As a creative, I’m happiest in a studio. I don’t like touring. I don’t like travelling. I like to be at home in my studio being creative on my own.”

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He thinks he would have been better as a painter namechecking Lucian Freud and Francis Bacon as inspirations.

“As it turned out, I ended up in The Who and because I was the songwriter I got tremendous fulfilment out of that creatively, but as a performer I was always uneasy,” he said.

But even though he doesn’t like to spend too much time looking back, during an interview with Postmedia earlier this month, Townshend wrestled with his past and contemplated the future — including the final farewell for The Who.

“Both Roger and I look forward to touring again with each other,” he said. “We need to talk about that.”

The Who songs that fans will get to listen to on these live albums are vastly different than what we’re used to hearing. How did audiences respond to your reimaging of a song like Won’t Get Fooled Again?

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“I think when we work solo we have an opportunity to rework this material and to have fun with it … Roger Daltrey is touring right now in the U.S. and he’s doing a version of Won’t Get Fooled Again in which he’s removed the synthesizer track and Katie Jacoby is playing that part on the violin. It sounds fantastic. My version features (Pink Floyd’s) David Gilmour on guitar, Simon Phillips on drums, John Bundrick on keyboards, and Pino Palladino on bass. I couldn’t have asked for better musicians … I just pushed the start button and that’s what happened. On the version of Won’t Get Fooled Again that you’re talking about, I had a big brass section and that was fun for me because I grew up in the shadow of my father, who was a dance band musician. He was a brilliant saxophonist and clarinetist. It reminded me of when I was a kid and I used to watch him in the back and play stuff by Duke Ellington. It made me dance and it made me happy. Revisiting tracks that I had played thousands of times was a chance to blow it up and see what would happen.”

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You mentioned not being in love with performing live. What was the album or song that drew you to making music and made you say, ‘This is what I want to do with my life’?

“I never said that, ever. I was an art student. My father didn’t really (think) I could ever be a musician. He was not helpful in buying me my first instrument. He thought I should be a writer or an artist. So I went to art school and it was while I was there that I met John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey and we started working in a little band and we happened to get a record deal and I happened to write our first hit, I Can’t Explain. After that, I was advised by my teachers at art college to leave school and be part of the band and when that fizzled out, I could go back to art college. That’s how it began. I never imagined The Who would last more than a year at the most. I was very much looking forward to going back to art school and I still am.”

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I remember being young and The Who had their farewell concert in Toronto.

“It was meant to be the farewell. The reason we got back together (in 1989) is very tragic. John Entwistle was broke and the tax people were after him and so we got together to save him. But that was meant to be the last concert. We had a tradition that we liked to start in Toronto and end in Toronto. I think we only managed it a couple of times, but that is what we always wanted to do. We have a real love for the Toronto audience … Toronto’s always (been) a special place for us.”

Was there a standout moment from that show in 1982 at Maple Leaf Gardens?

There probably is and it probably has something to do with a girl. So it’s best if I skip that.

When The Who regrouped in 1989 did that reinvigorate you to be on the stage again?

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“I’m enjoying this conversation more than I would going on stage. For me, being on stage, touring — it was like work. It felt like well-paid work. It was a wonderful job to have, and I feel lucky to have had it. But to imagine that I could look to it for some kind of emotional or spiritual uplift is probably where I made some of my biggest mistakes. For me, performing has always been a problem. Is it a problem because I feel like I’m acting? I don’t know. It doesn’t feel natural to me. Which is interesting because I grew up around my dad and travelled with him on the road … But maybe I didn’t want to relive my father’s life … I didn’t want to be away from my family. When I was away, there was always a sense that something was missing and, of course, it was my family and my home and my ordinary life. What I had instead was this band and a bunch of fans and I didn’t make that connection. I’ve seen that with other artists, Dave Grohl is an example. His band and his fans are his family. They’re his people. Bruce Springsteen — his fans are part of his family. For me, my work with The Who and as a solo artist always stood outside of that.”

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Your last solo album was released more than 30 years ago and The Who has only released two albums this century. Is there more music on the horizon?

“I don’t think we’ll make another album and the reason is simple: I don’t think Roger Daltrey wants to make another album. I would love to make another album, so if I want to do that it will have to be a solo album. On the other hand, I think both Roger and I look forward to the very difficult subject of being able to tour with each other and work in some way that feels new and different and exciting … We need something new and we need to talk about that. We’re hoping that we can find something so we can perform again before one of us passes away. I don’t think we’ll ever say, ‘This is our final tour!’ (Laughs.) We finished in Toronto, so I don’t think we can do it again.”

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You mentioned how your dad wasn’t much help to you in starting your career. What did he think when you became famous?

“I bought him his first house. I bought him his first decent car. I bought him his holiday home in the Balearic Islands. So he was really pleased with me (laughs). We played together once on the Michael Parkinson Show — you can find it on YouTube. Me being a bit jazzy with my dad … He just didn’t get rock ‘n’ roll. He said to me once, ‘You guys can fill a ballroom with just three of you and a singer. For us, it’s 20 people. We can’t do what you do. You’re putting us out of business.’ He didn’t say it with anger or resentment, he just stated it as a fact. So he never really got rock ‘n’ roll. But he did help me get to my first rock ‘n’ roll movie, which was Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock with my buddy Jimpy when I was 11 years old. Then he organized the tickets for me to see Bill Haley live in London when I was 12. So … he helped.”

Pete Townshend / Live in Concert 1985 – 2001 is now available.

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