\u201cIt\u2019s just a whole different ballgame, and I can explore regions of my voice that I never get to use with the Who,\u201d he says. \u201cMy voice is something I feel I should use while I\u2019ve got it. At the moment, it\u2019s probably better than it\u2019s been all my life. It\u2019s extraordinary. I\u2019m still singing the songs in the same keys; I just seem to be hitting the notes easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/a><\/p>\n He has no plan for retirement and adds that the Who aren\u2019t fully done yet either, since they have yet to do farewell tours on other continents, which they\u2019ll kick off likely next year. Moreover, he says the Who, which are releasing an orchestral live album, Live at Eden Project, on May 28, will play one-off gigs if they feel right. But until he and Townshend wrap things up for the Who formally, he\u2019s planning on keeping going on his own. \u201cTouring is finished for the Who, but for my solo career, I still feel I\u2019ve got one last good one in me,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n How important has touring as a solo artist been to you? You didn\u2019t tour much in the Seventies and Eighties, when you were frequently putting out solo albums. What about McVicar, which was your biggest solo success in the U.S.? <\/a><\/p>\n Voices are very weird things. You\u2019ve got to keep them working to keep them good. I\u2019ve always said, \u201cUse it or you lose it.\u201d But you can use it too much and once people do that, I wish they\u2019d shut the fuck up, and there are a few out there who should.<\/p>\n Why do you think you\u2019ve managed to keep your voice in good shape? People online think you\u2019re not really doing the scream in \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d anymore. They think it\u2019s taped. Is that the case? How do you feel being onstage in general these days? There\u2019s a live album by the Who, Live at Eden Project, out soon. That was a show you did in London with an orchestra for about 6,000 people in the audience. What made that gig worthy for a live album? But Pete played particularly well that night. I think maybe because he was in front of all his sailing friends. It was down in Cornwall, so all these mates who he goes sailing with were all down there, so he didn\u2019t want to play badly, did he? [Laughs.] And the orchestra are playing their socks off. So we just thought, \u201cWell, let\u2019s put it out as an album.\u201d I think all those things are interesting because you can hear the development of things and orchestras are just like bands; some nights they\u2019re fabulous, other nights are not quite so good. But that was a fabulous night.<\/p>\n \n The orchestral arrangements elevate some of the Tommy songs and \u201cLove Reign O\u2019er Me.\u201d I\u2019m sure you felt that, too. That tour made me feel like I wasn\u2019t wrong, way back in 1994 on my 50th birthday, when I did Carnegie Hall<\/a> with an orchestra. I wasn\u2019t on the wrong track; it was just too early for the Who to do it.<\/p>\n The Who\u2019s drummer at the Eden Project gig was Zak Starkey, who left the band<\/a> last year. What happened there? He made it such a big thing in the press, which made it seem like something happened. Have you spoken with him since the split? Are things better between you now then? Stop digging? It\u2019s a curious thing. He\u2019s said his part. That\u2019s why I thought you\u2019d want to give your side. Right. It seemed like you were painted as the bad guy in the whole thing. Well, who did make the decision to fire him? Scott Devours from your solo band ended up joining the Who on drums. How did he fit in? Speaking of drummers, what\u2019s going on with the Keith Moon biopic? Pete reportedly sold a bunch of the rights to his music, like a lot of other musicians have recently. What do you make of that? Have you and Pete discussed making a new Who album? When do you see you and Pete playing together again for your farewell tours of England, Australia, and the rest of the world? And that will be it? Now that touring life is winding down, how do you see the Who\u2019s legacy? What did you do better than everybody else? This year marks 60 years from when the Who released \u201cA Quick One, While He\u2019s Away,\u201d the band\u2019s first mini-opera. Did that feel like a turning point for the band? When we toured the mini-opera [\u201cA Quick One\u201d] with the Herman\u2019s Hermits tour and had a chance to play 10 minutes of music that joined together that made a short story, it did feel like a breakthrough. I used to sit down on the front of the stage to sing the thing about, \u201cHer man\u2019s been gone for almost a year,\u201d and it felt like we were breaking ground after doing that, playing this, like, \u201cYou are forgiven, you are forgiven,\u201d sounding like a load of fuckin\u2019 choir boys. Went on to smash our equipment and blow the gear up in front of this screaming bunch of 12-to-15-year-old girls. They looked on in horror but kind of wonderful excitement.<\/p>\n \n When Pete first presented that to you, the lyrics and the story, what did you make of it?<\/p>\n Everything was done with a tongue in our cheek. Tommy was done in the same way. It wasn\u2019t written as an opera; it was written as a group of songs. [The Who\u2019s manager] Kit Lambert was always trying to get us to do a first, but Tommy was not totally written as an opera and Pete didn\u2019t write all of Tommy. John Entwistle wrote \u201cCousin Kevin.\u201d Keith Moon did \u201cUncle Ernie.\u201d So it\u2019s one of those things that gets lost in history, that it was something that we did have an ambition to do it, but we didn\u2019t know we were creating it until it was out in the record shops and had become the success it had.<\/p>\n When did it feel like an opera to you? Oh yeah? So you don\u2019t feel the Who ever topped Tommy as an opera? Quadrophenia? No? How do you see the guitar smashing and destruction of the early days now? I interpreted it as something of an artistic statement, like a musical Jackson Pollock painting. What really upset me about it was that everybody just latched onto the visual. What we were interested in was the noise it was making, because it was extraordinary. There we were, in the middle of the fuckin\u2019 Vietnam War, and we were showing you what it might have sounded like in a trench getting bombed, musically.<\/p>\n
To be honest with you, I never ever took my solo career seriously. It was always a hobby. The only one I did take seriously was the first album I ever made, which I did because I found this songwriting team, Leo Sayer and Dave Courtney. They were searching around for record and publishing deals, and I jokingly said to them, \u201cWrite me a load of songs and I\u2019ll make a solo album.\u201d But again, I made that album at the time that Pete was taking off to write Quadrophenia. So it was just something to do in the time off and I really didn\u2019t take it seriously at all.<\/p>\n
McVicar was because I had to do a soundtrack for a film I wanted to make. The people that put up the money for the film insisted I put a soundtrack to it, and I had to sing the soundtrack, so that was again done for all the wrong reasons. But there\u2019s some great songs there and it also kept my voice working.<\/p>\n
I really don\u2019t know. I got lucky. I got hit with a pre-cancerous condition about 12, 13 years ago, and I managed to find a genius of a voice doctor. He trimmed up my vocal cords and I\u2019ve had no trouble since. I can still hit a high D, which is higher than Pavarotti singing the end of \u201cNessun Dorma\u201d<\/a> in full voice. I mean, it\u2019s extraordinary.<\/p>\n
No, I can still do that. [The stage crew] may use a sound effect to give the voice an extra oomph. I don\u2019t know what they got out front; I just do what I do onstage. I go into falsetto quite a lot, especially right at the end. It goes up. [Sings \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d note.] It\u2019s up there. It\u2019s really high and it\u2019s falsetto, but no, that\u2019s me. Do you want me to do it for you now? The only trouble is it\u2019s so fucking loud it\u2019ll blow the phone up.<\/p>\n
It feels like what I do. I don\u2019t think about it that much. I just go out there and have a good time. And I feel if I\u2019m having a good time, hopefully the crowd will have a good time. And if I\u2019m shit that night, I\u2019ll admit, \u201cI\u2019m shit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, it was right at the end of a tour. We stuck it in as an extra because I saw a video of Brian Wilson singing there and it looked fantastic. The gig just looked wonderful. I thought we might get a video out of it, so we recorded it. I said to our management, \u201cHave a listen to that night, because that was a very special night on the stage and might make a good video.\u201d When I saw the video, it was a fuckin\u2019 disaster. There wasn\u2019t a shot of Pete playing a guitar where you could see his hands. I think we had a team of baboons in there that night on the cameras because it was just so badly shot. It was unusable, but the soundtrack is amazing.<\/p>\n
I loved it with the orchestra, but I like it equally the other way, too. It was something I always wanted to do because I\u2019ve always heard Pete\u2019s music in classical form, so it suits orchestration and the harmonics. So I like it with it, and I still like it without it.<\/p>\n
Well, nothing happened. We decided to have a change at drummer, that\u2019s all. And Zak needed some time off for personal reasons.<\/p>\n
Yeah, well, he didn\u2019t like having the time off, but he needed to have it.<\/p>\n
I have. Oh yeah, I talk to him all the time, of course.<\/p>\n
Pardon? Stop digging. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n
You can give him a call. Ask him.<\/p>\n
I was accused of getting rid of him, and I didn\u2019t get rid of him. It wasn\u2019t me that decided to have a change. I was concerned that Zak needed some time off, but the actual decision to not have him on that tour was not made by me.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t mind. I never mind being the bad guy. Fuck \u2019em. Take me on. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n
It\u2019s none of anybody\u2019s business. Zak needed some time off and he got it.<\/p>\n
I mean, I\u2019d supported the idea to have Scott as the drummer, but I was open to any other drummer.<\/p>\n
We\u2019re working on the director\u2019s script at the moment and hopefully we\u2019ll get a green light before the end of July. Getting a film together, especially biopics, without falling into all the cliched traps is not an easy thing to do, and I want this to be right. I\u2019ll get one chance to do this, and I want to make sure it\u2019s done well. I\u2019d rather have it not ever out than have it out and be a bad film.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/the-who-roger-daltrey.jpg\"\/)
The Who at Madison Square Garden in 2025.Sacha Lecca for Rolling Stone<\/p>\n
Well, I don\u2019t know. It\u2019s just their right to sell it. I don\u2019t do things for the same reasons. As long as I\u2019ve got enough money to pay the rent and keep my farm going and pay my workers, that\u2019s all I care about. I don\u2019t want to sell the family heirlooms.<\/p>\n
Well, I\u2019d like to do another album, but I don\u2019t know whether it will be possible. I\u2019d like to do an album where we become more involved in the arrangement. In hindsight, partly because Pete\u2019s demos were so good, I think one of the biggest mistakes we made in our career was trying to copy his demos. And I\u2019ve often thought they might have been even better albums if we\u2019d have just been more open to explore rather than trying to recreate himself in his studio. The only thing that really changes is the vocal because I change the top lines all the time.<\/p>\n
That will have to be next year now. It won\u2019t fall into this year because Pete\u2019s going to have another knee op, which puts him out of action for a long while. And I\u2019ve had a few things to deal with health-wise in the time off, but we\u2019re hoping to finish it all off next year.<\/p>\n
Well, if we get invited to do a charity gig or something, if it\u2019s a good charity that we support, we\u2019ll be there. What I\u2019m trying to say is we are not retired. We don\u2019t want to do another tour of America. I love America. I love every place we go to in America, but after a while you seem to think, \u201cOh, fuck me. We\u2019re back in Chicago again.\u201d It seems like every week, and it starts to feel like a day job.<\/p>\n
We were just different than everybody else. Americans don\u2019t really know the Who from the early Sixties, but as the drummer of Deep Purple [Ian Paice] said recently<\/a> in a magazine, \u201cThe Who started it all.\u201d We were the first heavy metal band. Jim Marshall invented the 4\u00d712 [speaker cabinet], 100-watt stack for Pete Townshend. All the guitar smashing that Jimi Hendrix became famous for, in his style, was basically copied from Pete Townshend, first of all. And the first rock opera, of course, we elevated rock to be maybe up its own ass in a way, you could say it. We were doing it before anyone, but it\u2019s not important in the long run.<\/p>\n
Everything we did felt like a turning point. Just to go in the studio and come out with something under our belts that was new felt like a turning point.<\/p>\n
It felt like an opera after we performed it live and I thought, \u201cThis is the best fuckin\u2019 opera ever written.\u201d<\/p>\n
No, really. I really believe that, because I\u2019ve been to grand opera, and I do love it. You can\u2019t deny that some of the melodies and some of the orchestrations are fabulous. There\u2019s no doubt about it and the voices are beautiful, but as with story lines and lyrics, they\u2019re very thin on the ground.<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t ever do another opera.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not an opera.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a stream of consciousness, it\u2019s not an opera.<\/p>\n
It used to break my heart every night because I had to struggle so hard to get my first guitar and struggled to make the guitars in the early days. To see them smashed always hurt a bit. But equally, I recognized the fact that this was writing our names on the walls of history.<\/p>\n
Well, it is. It was a thing that Pete was being taught at art school. He was being taught about Gustav Metzger<\/a> and auto-destructive art. And he was thinking, \u201cWell, this could work musically.\u201d<\/p>\n