![](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/dd727eaf10d890ecb9cd9cdff474495ea1-zakroger-split.rsquare.w330.jpg\")
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\n Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Ian West\/PA Images via Getty Images, Dave Hogan\/Hogan Media\/Shutterstock\n <\/p>\n
This is turning out to be anything but a quick one. Roger Daltrey isn\u2019t letting Zak Starkey get the last word about his dismissal from the Who, with the front man telling<\/a> London\u2019s The Times that it didn\u2019t matter if Starkey served with the band for nearly three decades. \u201cPete Townshend and I retain the right to be the Who. Everyone else is a session player,\u201d he explained. \u201cYou can\u2019t replace Keith Moon. We wanted to branch out and that\u2019s all I want to say about it. But his reaction was crippling to me.\u201d Since the \u201cSqueeze Box\u201d\u2013esque saga of being fired, re-hired, and then fired again earlier this year, Starkey claimed the action was spurred by overperforming at recent concerts and Daltrey being vindictive about sound issues that were outside of a drummer\u2019s control. (\u201cWhat happened was I got it right and Roger got it wrong,\u201d he put it<\/a> at the time.) Daltrey is now disputing Starkey\u2019s rationale, insisting that the strife came from a technical issue and Starkey erroneously believing he was being blamed. \u201cIt was kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting,\u201d he added of Ringo Starr\u2019s son<\/a>.<\/p>\n Since his departure, the Who have hired Scott Devours \u2014 Daltrey\u2019s longtime drummer for his solo gigs \u2014 to pick up the slack while they embark on their farewell tour. He seemed conflicted about accepting the job when it was made official in May, well before the drummer trade deadline<\/a>. \u201cIt really is a strange contradiction of emotions to have the greatest moment of my professional career also be one framed with some sadness and shadowed by someone else\u2019s loss,\u201d Devours wrote<\/a>. Additional free agents joining Starkey in Major League Drumming include Matt Cameron<\/a> and Frank Ferrer<\/a>.<\/p>\n Related<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo-Illustration: Vulture; Photos: Ian West\/PA Images via Getty Images, Dave Hogan\/Hogan Media\/Shutterstock This is turning out to be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":46138,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,26874,75,341,30333,12444,32255,19463],"class_list":{"0":"post-46137","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-celebrities","11":"tag-drummers","12":"tag-entertainment","13":"tag-music","14":"tag-roger-daltrey","15":"tag-the-who","16":"tag-yeeeeaaaaaaahhhhh","17":"tag-zak-starkey"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46137","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46137"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46137\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/46138"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46137"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=46137"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=46137"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}