{"id":380592,"date":"2025-12-31T22:42:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/380592\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T22:42:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T22:42:08","slug":"i-think-roger-just-got-lost-rogers-finding-it-difficult-i-have-to-be-careful-what-i-say-about-roger-because-he-gets-angry-if-i-say-anything-about-him-at-all-pete-townshend-has-hi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/380592\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI think Roger just got lost. Roger\u2019s finding it difficult. I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all”: Pete Townshend has his say on Zak Starkey\u2019s protracted dismissal from The Who"},"content":{"rendered":"

BEST OF 2025:<\/a> Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that topped MusicRadar’s charts in 2025.<\/p>\n

The Who<\/a> might be known for their rock operas, Quadrophenia and Tommy, but the saga of drummer Zak Starkey\u2019s drawn-out exit from the band over the past couple of months has been worthy of a soap storyline.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Having been in, out, back in and then out again, it seems that Starkey\u2019s exit has finally been confirmed, though in his latest interview, he didn\u2019t altogether rule out making yet another return.<\/p>\n

You may like<\/p>\n

Whether this is the end of the story or not, guitarist Pete Townshend has now had his say on the matter in an interview with The i Paper<\/a>: \u201cIt\u2019s been a mess,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

Asked about the incident that apparently resulted in Starkey\u2019s initial dismissal from The Who – he says that he was accused by Roger Daltrey of \u2018dropping beats\u2019 during a show at the Royal Albert Hall, but continues to insist that it was the frontman who made a mistake rather than him<\/a> – Townshend suggests that he was oblivious to the drama unfolding around him.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t see anything wrong,\u201d he says. \u201cWhat you see [in the footage of the gig] is a band who haven\u2019t played together for a long time. But I think it was probably to do with the sound. I\u2019ve lost my sound man as a result.\u201d<\/p>\n

That said, Townshend does also seem to imply that he believes that the blame for what happened on stage doesn\u2019t rest with Starkey.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think Roger just got lost,\u201d he says. \u201cRoger\u2019s finding it difficult. I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all. He\u2019ll be sacking me next. But that\u2019s not to say that he sacked Zak. It\u2019s a decision Roger and I tried to make together, but it kind of got out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s one way of putting it but, in case you were thinking that Starkey was always \u2018Townshend\u2019s guy\u2019, he also points out that it was Daltrey rather than him that brought him into The Who in the first place (he\u2019s actually been playing with the band for almost 30 years).<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t invite him in, right? Roger invited him,\u201d says the guitarist. \u201cAnd at that time, I don\u2019t know quite why he chose Zak, but Zak is another Keith Moon. He comes with real, real bonuses and real, real difficulties.\u201d<\/p>\n

Townshend doesn\u2019t elaborate on what these difficulties were but, even after everything that\u2019s happened, he suggests that losing Starkey comes with its downsides, and that he\u2019s still not entirely sure why he had to leave.<\/p>\n

\u201cI will miss Zak terribly,\u201d he says. \u201cBut quite what the story is, I don\u2019t fucking know. I really don\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BEST OF 2025: Join us for our traditional look back at the news and features that topped MusicRadar’s…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":380593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,216],"class_list":{"0":"post-380592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=380592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/380592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/380593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=380592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=380592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=380592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}