Pete Townshend has intimated that he might use AI to complete some unfinished Who songs.
The 80-year-old guitarist was interviewed by Stephen Colbert on his show last week. In a wide-ranging conversation, Townshend talked about his favourite Who songs, the band’s recent (and supposedly last) US tour and also about future plans. Towards the end of the conversation, the chat show host asked if there was any unheard music in the Who vault.
“Yes, I’ve got about 350… 450 pieces of music. Now, a lot of it is probably terrible,” Townsend admitted. “I’ve managed to wade through about half of it. I don’t know what to do with it.”
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“I’m also quite interested in AI,” he revealed. “I’m interested in getting some of my old… the songs that didn’t quite work because I didn’t get them quite right first time round and put them up onto Suno or some AI music machine and see what it can make of it. There might be some hits.”
If the guitarist did go down this route, it wouldn’t be a complete surprise. Townshend has never been afraid of using new technology, whether that be synthesizers on Who’s Next, or the quadrophonic sound he originally envisaged for, well, the Quadrophenia album.
Then there is the small matter of him predicting the Internet in the Lifehouse project – for what is ‘the grid’ in the plot of that abandoned concept album, but the World Wide Web itself?