I’m not going to be your tool.” It led to the question, If you’re going to say “ off” to revolutionary thinking, then what it is that you are going to do? That is a process that I’m still involved in. If we take that as a given, which I’m not sure it is, what happened to that invention? Well, I wrote “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” which was essentially saying to the audience: “Just off. Why is Roger Daltrey 4 growing his hair like a rock god? Why has John Entwistle 5 got a house full of suits of armor? What is this all about? So to address your question, I think I invented the concept that music was going to have democratic give-and-take between the artists and their audience. I served that audience 1 very faithfully up until “Quadrophenia.” 2 That album was an appeal to the Who to address the questions of why is Keith Moon 3 now driving around in pink Rolls-Royces. This is the party that’s going to love whatever I do. Kids heard it, and they came and said, “This is helping us.” And I thought: This is my commissioning group. I was just talking about delivering an excellent record and an excellent performance. Is my rambling here making any sense? I understand exactly what you’re saying. But when you say musicians have to deliver, my hunch is that you might be implying something beyond just a good album or tour. I don’t think I’m being cynical in suggesting that no popular music, let alone rock, feels as if it carries that kind of charge anymore. I’m wondering what exactly you mean when you say that today’s pop stars have to “deliver.” My impression is that there was a serious belief from, say, 1965 till about 1970, in rock’s potential to be a galvanizing force for social change. And yet, for example, we cheat by having musicians on the stage who can read musical charts as if they’re computers. What people want from the Who is the music to be live, I suppose. Is that performance standard an anachronism? Let’s just talk about the Who. I’m talking about a performance standard that has risen out of the ashes of the halcyon years of rock ’n’ roll. I want to be fit, I want to be strong and I want to be able to move and sing and play conventionally. Is that really interesting to you, the idea of a rock concert as an endurance test? It is. It’s about entertainment as a physicality. That’s why audiences will come to something like a Who concert or a Stones concert, where there might be some video, there might be a symphony orchestra, but at the end of the day it’s about: “Can you dance for two and a half hours without dropping dead? Can you sing without lip syncing for two and a half hours?” It’s about sport. They know that, we know that and the audiences know that. They’ve got to do something amazing, and if it includes dancers, if it includes too much video, then they’re cheating. They’ve got to do something spectacular as performers. They’ve dared to take on that mantle, and they have to deliver. Rock is, dare I say it, Adele and Ed Sheeran. Now, online, you’ll see a throwaway statement - “rock is dead” - which is something that we in our genre have been considering since the ’70s. The Visualeyes Archive/Redferns, via Getty ImagesĪuthentic to what cause? Authentic to the perceived, accepted ideal of a rock star. From left, Pete Townshend, Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey and John Entwistle. There are very few people truly authentic to the cause: David Byrne. Then I would do it, and it wouldn’t work. I’m going to try to be a proper rock star. I’ve had my moments, which have been gloriously recorded and exalted - but brief - when I’ve felt: I’m going to try and do this job. I’ve always regarded the rock-star phenomenon with immense disdain. What’s left to mine there? You’re looking for clues in the wrong place. For part of that time I’d even say you were living that archetype. You’ve spent 50 years exploring the archetype of the confused, messianic rock star, including in your new book. Keith Richards thinks he knows who he is.” A resigned look passes over his face. “Paul McCartney thinks he knows who he is,” Townshend, 74, says. That decades-long preoccupation, which has resulted in so much thrilling, questing music, resurfaces on “WHO,” his band’s first studio album in 13 years, as well as Townshend’s first novel, “The Age of Anxiety,” out in November. Of all the key figures from rock music’s glory days, the Who’s Pete Townshend is the one to have had most deeply interrogated - on albums like “Quadrophenia” and in his own writing over the years -the relationship between musicians and their audience.
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