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You've spent more years making Pete Townshend albums than
Who albums, but when I looked in the
"Rolling Stone Album Guide," for instance, there wasn't even a listing for "Pete
Townshend."
Once upon a time, the album I made with Ronnie Lane, "Rough Mix," was in the top five albums selected
by "Rolling Stone" critics. In any case, I've spent very few years making
Townshend albums. I've spent far more years working at Faber and Faber, running
recording studios, bringing up children, making and archiving films about Meher Baba, producing six stage versions of "Tommy," sailing, cycling and walking dogs.
Ronnie affirmed my sense of myself as a useful musician, not just
a good pop songwriter who happened to play scary guitar.
Shifting to "Rough Mix," tell me about your relationship with Ronnie Lane.
It seems he's been forgotten a bit by rock & roll history.
Let's keep this about me. He was among the first musicians I respected to
urge me to do solo work. He was not a Who fan. Eric Clapton may be another in that category -- he respects
me, but isn't certain the Who are about music. That's because, in so many ways
at the beginning, we were not about music, we were about everything but. Ronnie
affirmed my sense of myself as a useful musician, not just a good pop songwriter
who happened to play scary guitar.
One thing really striking to me is the guitar playing on "Rough Mix."
I remember reading an old interview with you in which you spoke of Steve Cropper's
influence on your playing, which seems especially audible here. And, of
course, on the title song, there's you and Eric Clapton going side-by-side. What
do you hear in your playing on the album?
I can play guitar. I've always been able to play guitar. What can I say? With
people like Steve Cropper and Eric in the world, why try to compete? I used the
guitar, both as a stage performer and a songwriter. I have to say that today I
am beginning to play at last -- and it's great for me when players I admire say
they enjoyed my playing at a Who show. I still think my most interesting and
varied playing happens at solo events or non-Who shows.
In retrospect -- and maybe at the time, too -- it seems a bit surprising
that, though you were such an advocate of punk in its early days, this album
from 1977 is so free of that sound and spirit. Was that a conscious
decision? ... coincidence? ... or was it just a different sort of
project?
Punk style couldn't be visited by the old guard. It was not our province. I
think as I begin to answer this, you will, of course, see your question is
ill-founded. Punk went back to basics, to three chords, a racket, a scream. We
had done all that, of course, and moved on. Punk required the old guard to stand
and take it. So we stood and took it. Those of us who embraced the phlegm
survived. Strangely enough, a number of punk writers loved "Misunderstood."
"Misunderstood" does stand out as a little closer in spirit to the Who
songs of the era -- "I wanna be obscure and oblique/Inscrutable and vague" is a
pretty wild line in a rock song. But most of the album is so loose,
contemplative, sometimes melancholy. How do you think these songs relate to your
work with the band in the mid-'70s?
Of course "Misunderstood" was offered to the Who. All the songs had been
offered to the Who. The Who was an editorial filter, and Roger still does that
today. On "Endless Wire" he filtered a lot of odd songs you will one day hear,
and hopefully love, and ask me why I "kept them from the Who." Whatever I have
at any given time, I throw into the current project. What we recorded of my
songs was simply what was left over from "Who By Numbers."
It's interesting to hear you say that -- especially since, as I understand
it, "Endless Wire" was a conscious decision to present material to Roger for the
first Who album in so many years. Was there a point at which you started to
differentiate between "Townshend material" and "Who material"? How does that
distinction actually manifest itself?
This is a question for Roger. You see, I have always hoped for songs I write
to work for Roger, but I am unable to target him -- he is too fugitive, wriggly,
as an artist to be able to pigeonhole. So he's the one who makes the decisions,
acting more like an editor, in a sense. He surprised me hugely on this
collection by choosing to sing songs like "Man In A Purple Dress," "2000 Years"
and "Tea & Theatre." Take note, though, he did not sing "Trilby's Piano" --
even though, if he was taking part in a Broadway show, he would do it
brilliantly.
He does still have some preconceptions that prevent him from going too far
away from the tried and tested, but this time he took huge risks, and they came
off. At the end of the Who's recording career he was taking such chances -- "One
Life's Enough" is a good example, on the "It's Hard" album. That was one I thought I would
have to sing, but he did a great job on it.
Is there anything you still really hope to see done, either with the solo
work or the Who catalog? How are you approaching the soundtrack for the Who
documentary that's in the works, or are there plans around the "Tommy" 40th
anniversary next year?
I plan a "restoration" of the original "Quadrophenia" masters. This requires
a number of tracks that were combined to mono or stereo submixes to be
"exploded" or even replayed, to bring the sound back to life in a remastered
form. I am not involved in the Who documentary at all. That is Roger's baby with
our managers, and I kept out of it to concentrate on songwriting for "Endless
Wire." I would love to do something special for "Tommy's" 40th -- but it may be
we turn to another direction.
We don't finish this phase of touring until July 2007, and we still have to
decide if and when to take in the Pacific, and also whether to ever visit South
America to build an audience there. I'm just putting one foot in front of the
other at the moment.
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