The Who Pull a Few Strings
Inside the band’s orchestral tour and new album
When pete Townshend’s managers approached him with a lucrative offer from Live Nation to spend much of 2019 on the road with the Who, he told them he’d only agree under a single condition. “I said I was not going to sign any contracts unless we have new material,” says Townshend, 73. “This has nothing to do with wanting a hit album. It’s purely personal. It’s about my pride, my sense of self-worth, and dignity as a writer.”
Luckily for fans, there’s a new Who album on the way. Right now, it exists only as 15 demos that Townshend made on his own over the past year, but he hopes
Roger Daltrey will lay down vocals soon. In the meantime, they’re gearing up for a 31-date American tour, where they’ll be joined each night by a local orchestra. “I’ll be 75 in March, and this feels like a dignified way to do music,” says Daltrey, who got the idea after playing Tommy with symphonies last summer. “We’re old men now. We’ve lost the looks. We’ve lost the glamour. What we’re left with is the music, and we’re going to present it in a way which is as fresh and powerful as ever.”
The only problem is figuring out which songs to play. Townshend and Daltrey agree that they’ll spend a decent portion of each set playing songs from Tommy and Quadrophenia, but there they part ways: While Townshend would like to try orchestra-friendly obscurities such as “Time Is Passing” and “Too Much of Everything,” Daltrey — who traditionally makes the band’s set lists himself — has vetoed that idea. “Some hardcore fans might bitch and moan, but 99.99 percent of the audience wants to hear the hits,” says the singer. “I don’t want people scratching their balls and going, ‘I want to hear “Baba O’Riley.” ’”
They hit another snag over those demos, which Townshend describes as a mix of “dark ballads, heavy rock stuff, experimental electronica and clichéd Who-ish tunes.” When he sent them to Daltrey late last year, Townshend says he got a lukewarm reception. “Just silence from Roger,” he recalls. “I had to bully him to respond, and then it wasn’t the response I wanted. In the end, I stamped my foot and said, ‘I don’t care if you like this stuff. You have to sing it. You’ll like it in 10 years’ time.’ ” (Daltrey says that he was just distracted by a perforated eardrum and a book tour for his 2018 memoir.)
One thing the bandmates agree on is that their label’s suggestion they finish the LP in time for a Father’s Day release is patently absurd. “I loathe that part of the business,” Daltrey says. “I just hate it. That’s why they’re working in an office and we’re on the stage.”
ANDY GREENE