The Who’s Pete Townshend says he has differing views to bandmate Roger Daltrey on retiring

Virgin Radio

15 Feb 2022, 14:00

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With The Who set to head out on a North American tour soon, it might seem like the evergreen act are keen to keep on playing live forever. However, that's not necessarily the case, according to Pete Townshend.

In a new interview, the iconic guitarist has expressed his desire to retire from playing live, but has said that vocalist Roger Daltry has very different thoughts on the matter.

Speaking to Rolling Stone, Townshend explained: “I had a conversation with Roger. I said to him, ‘I don’t want to be like one of these guys that dies on tour.’ I do want to retire. And by ‘retire’ I don’t mean retire from being a musician or artist or creator, but retire from the idea that it requires me to say yes to touring for a load of people to get a smile on their face and go home to their wife and go, ‘Hey, honey! Everything is fine! The Who are going back on tour!’”

The musician continued: “Roger is of the opinion that he wants to sing until he drops. That’s not my philosophy of life. There are other things that I want to do, still want to do, and will do, I hope. I hope I’ll live long enough to do them.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking that Townshend’s comments signal the end of The Who as a live entity, and that therefore their upcoming dates in the US will be their last. This will obviously be of particular concern to anyone who bought tickets to the band’s still-to-be-rearranged Moving On! tour of the UK, which started in 2019 but was cut short in 2020 by the pandemic. However, the artist said to Rolling Stone that the The Who won't be packing up anytime soon: “No. It’s not a farewell tour," he confirmed. "Apart from anything else, we still have people who have tickets for the U.K. 2019 tour. We’re very, very keen to do that tour and we’ll be doing that tour in 2023.”

Meanwhile, The Who’s upcoming tour of the US will see Ringo Starr’s son Zak Starkey playing the drums, and Townshend’s brother Simon playing rhythm guitar.