More than 50 years after The Who formed, guitarist Pete Townshend says he’s still trying to figure out what, exactly, the group’s purpose is.
“Today, still, there is a difficulty trying to speak about an entity calling itself ‘The Who’, which is two old guys dragging around a suitcase full of songs written and recorded before they were even close to middle-aged,” Townshend tells us, with characteristic self-deprecating frankness.
Now in their mid 70s, Townshend and singer Roger Daltrey are the last men standing in one of rock’s greatest bands. The Who perfected the concept album, the rock opera, the power chord and the act of guitar smashing, and they were among the first to successfully use synthesizers in rock. Their furious music paved the way for punk rock, even as Townshend emerged as an exceptionally thoughtful and introspective lyricist.
The Who never quite recovered from the deaths of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 and bassist John Entwistle in 2002. But Townshend and Daltrey always find new ways to keep going.
In May, they launched their first symphonic concert tour, which, on Friday night, will bring them to American Airlines Center. And on Nov. 22, the band will release their first batch of new songs in 13 years on an album dubbed WHO. (Dallas record store owner Bucks Burnett, a long-time pen pal of Townshend, suggested the title to him.)
Townshend agreed to an interview with The Dallas Morning News, but only by email. As a former editor and current part-time fiction writer, he feels more comfortable typing his thoughts than he does speaking them.
The interview has been edited for clarity.
How did The Who wind up performing with orchestras in arenas, and what challenges does that bring?
I had insisted I would not tour again unless we had a new album ready for release. (I’m tired of looking like I can’t write good songs for Roger anymore). Roger insisted I seriously consider using an orchestra on tour. I was nervous, and I’m glad to say my decision to take a chance has worked out well.
Well, a few nights ago we performed at Jones Beach, an outdoor venue in New York. Just about everything that could go wrong happened: instruments going out of tune in the high humidity and changing temperatures, and me taking two painkillers, having forgotten I hadn’t eaten all day.
The show before was at Fenway Park in Boston, and the sound was like a concert hall — the performance, perfect. We play the same notes every night — the challenge is to make them sound as good every night … and we are not in control of the venues.
In your 2012 autobiography, Who I Am, you talk about your up-and-down relationship with Roger. What have you learned about maintaining a long-term creative partnership with him?
Growing old includes growing up. Even in the rock business. I listen now to what Roger says, attend to what he needs as an artist and try to be a supportive colleague on stage. I also try to sincerely demonstrate that I love him.
On this tour, you’re playing your 1970 classic “The Seeker.” Do you approach questions about spirituality differently today than you did when you wrote the song?
I think it was all simple to me in the late ’60s when I discovered the teachings of the Indian master avatar Meher Baba. This was after being both frightened and inspired by a couple of heavy trips on LSD. I just wanted guidance, spiritually speaking, but didn’t trust religion as such.
Now I am older and inevitably wiser (not smarter, just wiser!) I realize religion is not so bad: It’s just spirituality fashioned into a shape that suits its congregation.
Climate change is becoming the new spiritual calling. It’s less about the desire of the individual to achieve some cosmic peace, and more about every single one of us being able to enjoy this amazing planet as our spiritual playground into the future.
The music industry is in a period of transformation, where listeners tend to stream songs as opposed to buying them. Many musicians say they’re not paid properly in this arrangement. Where do you see your place in this new world?
Work it out: If you only earn 0.003 cents when someone streams your song, you need a lot of streams to buy an apartment in any big city anywhere in the world. I’m not complaining. I had my day when a TV show would pay $350 per replay of a song in a series. (CSI has been my pension fund).
Many young artists still live by selling songs to TV shows, but what they really want is the use of a song in a TV show to bring them new fans. We want to be heard.
Some of us, many of us, didn’t get into this business to be millionaires or billionaires; we just wanted to connect, to raise the bar, make people dance, join together.
Early on, The Who sang about youth’s role in society, covering Mose Allison’s “Young Man Blues” and writing “My Generation.” Are you writing songs these days about growing old in today’s youth-obsessed society?
You need to listen to The Who’s next album, released in November. I 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 thirty, 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.
Guitar-based rock ‘n’ roll seems to be waning at the moment. What, if anything, does that mean for popular music?
The guitar may be losing ground, but in part, that’s because if you spend an hour on Instagram or YouTube, you will quickly discover unknown people playing the guitar the way a great orchestral violinist like Yehudi Menuhin once might have played his instrument. These are virtuosos of the highest order. They can shred like Eddie Van Halen or play jazz like John McLaughlin.
They’ve literally exhausted the possibilities of the guitar.
This kind of virtuosity is already happening with beat box-based rap, and with laptop-supported pop. Everything will change again, maybe faster than it did for guitar music — who knows?
It is, as you so rightly call it, “guitar-based rock n roll” that is losing ground, not rock itself. Hip-hop is rock to my ears: music for the neighborhood, the street, the disenfranchised, the downtrodden, the young, the ignored. That used to be what I focused on. Now, I try to write real operas, and want my stage work to be like art installations — and why not? Kanye West has been doing the same thing.
You were an early champion of technology and the internet as a way to spur creativity and build communities. But do you think we’ve now become so addicted to it that we’re struggling to “live in the moment?” I’m sure you’ve seen countless fans at your concerts staring at their phones instead watching the show.
I am addicted. I think I am connected today to about 20 or 30 young musicians and artists who I would not have found without Instagram, YouTube and BandCamp. This is living in the moment for me.
We will sort this out, we should not panic. There are always good and bad sides to new tech.
Like a lot of us, you’ve experienced hearing damage from excess volume. You’ve attributed your hearing problems to using headphones, but high-decibel concerts can also cause hearing loss and tinnitus. Should frequent concert-goers wear earplugs?
If you want to dance, to lose yourself, then loud music is one way to do that. Earplugs seem counterproductive. You have to pay the price.
But if you want to hear music for music’s sake, then by all means try to protect your hearing.
Listening to my own music loud still is a part of what gets me moving. Modern high-tech hearing aids are very good, and they will get even better. They are the reason I am still making music.
In your lyrics, you often ask listeners to think about their life’s purpose and to question the world around them, topics songwriters rarely dealt with before the 1960s. Will future generations keep asking these questions?
They still are, you just have to learn the language of the neighborhood. But by the time you’ve learned it, the code will be different.
For years, I never understood what Bob Dylan was going on about. I didn’t realize a lot of what he was doing was asking questions, inviting us to think for ourselves.
What is the biggest misconception about The Who or its music?
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 (expletive) up, so be it.
In 1994, you said “Rock is very, very important and very, very ridiculous.” Care to elaborate?
In 1994, The Who were not touring. Effectively, they did not exist.
Today, still, there is a difficulty trying to speak about an entity calling itself “The Who,” which is two old guys dragging around a suitcase full of songs written and recorded before they were even close to middle-aged, and — incidentally — also dragging cardboard cutouts of two of the most iconic, but sadly deceased, band members in Moon and Entwistle.
Important? As a college thesis, yes.
Ridiculous? You bet.
The Who and opening act Reignwolf perform at 7:30 p.m. on Friday, Sept. 27 at American Airlines Center, 2500 Victory Ave. ticketmaster.com.