THE WHO PUNCH OUT

THE WHO PUNCH OUT

PETE TOWNSHEND as Sparring Partner

Bruno Stein

by

If ever a band could be said to have a stormy personal relationship, the Who is that band. John Entwistle, Keith Moon, Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend are four individuals as unlike as four corners of the Earth, and the miracle of them staying together for 10 years is not one to be taken lightly, especially if you've seen one of their legendary fights.

All the fiery tempers seemed very far away as I listened to the pleasantly modulated voice of Pete Townshend calmly and rationally doing psychological dissections of the band's members and their peculiar relationships. The Los Angeles sun shone brightly outside, and a storm had cleared the air so thoroughly that Pete was astonished to see the city's surrounding mountains for the first time in all the years he had been there. Inside the hotel suite, some layers of fog were also lifting from the dark side of the Who.

We were talking about the madcap, mercuric Keith Moon, whose exploits are the stuff of rock and roll legends. But Pete knew another side of Keith. "I think the thing that probably is quite surprising is he's capable of an incredible sort of like gushing love.

"My friend Richard Stanley is a

filmmaker, and he was at Shepperton Studios making some films for a commercial, which we hoped to get out and make MCA pay for, while we were rehearsing for the last tour. And he saw that whole argument with Roger and myself, and he saw me get knocked out.

"write for the Who, you know, and what they mean for their audience, rather than writing for an individual."

"He said it was very funny. Apparently I went back like that [Pete illustrates by falling over like a stiff dummy] and landed on my back. And Keith was crying over my prone body apparently." Pete laughs at the imagined scene.

"And he spent maybe an hour. And I mean I knew that I wasn't going to fucking come out of it. But some of the things he said, and some of the devices and methods that he was using to sort

of try and make me feel better were so fucking compassionate and so incredibly sort of loving. I wish I was capable of that kind of thing sometimes."

The conversation turned to the solo albums by Who members (Keith Moon's hadn't been released at the time), and Pete had little good to say about Roger Daltrey's first or most of John Entwistle's efforts. His dispassionate critical assessments were made as if the albums were by total strangers. When it comes to assessing music — his own or anyone else's — Townshend is a savage and uncompromising critic.

"I think perhaps Roger was far too restrictive of himself. I don't think he realizes how obviously identified with the Who he's going to be and how big a chance he could take with an album. I mean, personally I don't like that kind of music. I don't like that kind of album. I've always reacted against "the voice" and "the composition" kind of thing, and "the arrangement" and "the producer." It's somehow not rock. I don't know quite what it is.

"It reminds me a lot of the, say, Elton John approach. It's something that he established, in a way, as a follow-on from people maybe 10 years before. I can't think of any earlier examples, but there were. It's been happening for years, that kind of approach . . . But I mean, I was very moved by that one song that was a single in England and did really well, "Giving It All Away." I really like that song.

"And I felt that the guy (Leo Sayer) that had written it had really sort of written songs that showed a side of Roger which made me suddenly realize that I don't really write for Roger at all. I write for the Who, you know, and what they mean for their audience, rather than writing for an individual. And so I think it was an incredibly important album. I just hope that if he does do another one, it will be more daring."' Apparently, Roger has since followed Pete's advice. His new solo work contains a good helping of solid rock and roll.

What about John's albums? "I don't really like his albums either. .. Uh, has he put out Rigor Mortis yet? That's out, isn't it? I like that one best of all.

"But there are songs that he writes, you see, that are so amazing. I really like that one "My Wife" that was on Who's Next, and I really think "Boris the Spider" is a masterpiece. I like "Whiskey

Man." A lot of the earlier songs, I felt, were so incredible, because they were like comic songs, or they were like children's songs. But they just went so much deeper. They were like (here Pete gives a nasty growl).

The three of us used to just love it, you know, getting really sort of spaced out and playing... .

"I think maybe he rushes it a bit these days because he enjoys recording on his own an incredible amount. He likes it because I think it hasn't got any of the pressures of the Who. Also he is free. He's very, very tied down in the Who. Qf all the members in the group, he's the one with the least freedom of image within the band."

Keith Moon has always been a Beach Boys fan, and sure enough, when he went into the studios for his first solo recording sessions, out came "Don't Worry Baby." Keith's Beach Boys obsession had precipitated perhaps the biggest crisis in the Who's history. I had heard Roger Daltrey's version and asked Pete if he had anything to add.

"Roger's memory is particularly good, but that wasn't quite it. I mean, I'm sure that's the way he saw it, and maybe that's the way it was. But that's not the way I remember it.

"I remember it really being a problem at the time from where I was — and Kit Lambert apd I were very close at the time — and our worry was that the band was gonna fall apart far, far too early in its career.

"The reason we're together today is because Roger did that. I don't thihk it was a negative thipg to do, and I don't think in looking back that Roger feels that way anymore. I hope not, anyway. But I mean, it was a lesson ta all of us, if you like, that there is no need to always get your way. You know what I mean? That the most important thing is to just stay together.

"And it was the great maturing of the group. And I think always the great maturings have happened, somehow been instigated by Roger or via Roger. I think it's because he is the most mature.

"In that particular instance, the way I remember it is that we were very, very, very, very heavily into leapers, uppers — John, Keith and I. And Roger never ever was. I think he occasionally had one or two, but didn't really like the sensation, wasn't into it.. It affected his voice, and he couldn't sing: that was one problem.

"Anyway, the three of us used to just love it, you know, getting really sort of spaced out and playing (Pete rolls his eyes dopily). So we'd gabble on about anything. If Keith wanted to play surfing music, John and I would just go, "Yeah! Sure! Anything!" Because we were just so up on being up, never disagreeing about any thing.

cut we were very, very worried, and I think Kit was worried. I remember Kit and I talking about it at incredible length once, walking about in Hyde Park, discussing how we were going to rebuild the group because we were anticipating it falling apart. Discussing ways of taking what was left of the Who, whatever was gonna be left, arid how we were gonna form a band of musicians to back up whatever was left. In other words, we were going to get an incredible group, and we were going to be a group backed by a group. That was oiir concept at the time." Here Pete breaks out laughing.

"And the reason for it," he continued after catching his breath, "was we just felt incredible differences, not just in musical things. But I mean at that time, that kind of social aloofness between ope another, a sort of obvious social incompatibility, was unbearable, because we really, I suppose, all wanted at that time a band where everybody was friends.

"You know, Roger wasn't the only one that was outcast. I mean, I was incredibly outcast. John and Keith had a good relationship, but Roger and I were definitely sort of on the" fringes, and we didn't get on very well together then, Roger and I. So it was really John and Keith, and Roger and I on the outside. And I used to clutch at moments when I could feel like a member of the gang. And so if Keith and John wanted to play fucking surfing music, I would too.

"But we did break up. Roger left. Or we threw him out, I think. John, Keith

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WHO'S WHAT?

Have the Who broken up? That's what a syndicated radio news service reported, but according to a publicist from MCA, the story is "Not true at all, not true at all."

Mad Dogs, an album by John Entwistle's Ox, ships in February, with a tour to follow. But the Entwistle band is not a nine-piece group, as original reports stated. Instead, it's him on bass, guitarist Robert A. Johnson, keyboard player Mike Deadon, and drummer Graham Deakin, who played on Entwistle's Rigor Mortis Sets In. There are also three female background singers, and the album features assorted session people.

Keith Moon's solo album is scheduled for March. Sessions had been going poorly, but Skip Taylor (who works with Canned Heat) was brought in to salvage the LP, and he reportedly did a good job, new version of "Don't Worry

Baby" and all.

Roger Daltrey stars in the Tommy film, which has its U.S. premier March 19. He is also scheduled to release a solo album in April, but the MCA publicist says it "doesn't look like it's going to happen that soon."

Pete Townshend has been working most of the time as an advisor to the Tommy film.

All these separate projects would seem to indicate that the break-up is a reality, but not necessarily, because the individual members of the Who h^ve long been famous for pursuing their own projects and then coming together once in a while for an albupi or tour.

Their manager's office reports that "there's talk about a tour or album, but nothing firm right now." Meanwhile, the record company publicist predicts a group album by the end of the year.

We'll see and I threw him out. It was basically because then he was the one that was prone to aggressive outbursts. And then probably more than now — he's probably gotten out of shape now — he'd been doing incredibly heavy physical work. He was a fucking dynamo, an incredibly strong person, fantastically explosive person. You know, if he punched you, it fucking hurt.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 47.

"He was out about two days. And then Kit took us all out to a pub one day and sort of made Roger apologize. A certain sort of humiliating thing went down. We told Roger that, you know, whatever the band as a whole want to do, you're going to go along with. That's the only basis that we could accept for you being in the band. No more tantrums, no more outbursts, no more using aggression to get your point across. And Roger just quietly said OK. And he did it. He became known as Peaceful Perce. Because his nickname at school was Perce, because he lived in Percy Rd. in Shepherd's Bush. It all seems like a fucking long time ago."

Even today, though, the four of you don't do much together, I said. . "Yeah, I think that's true," said Pete, and then he mused for a few moments. "It's kept us together," he said finally. "I mean it's like — what's really tough — are you married at all? — I mean what's really tough is being with somebody all the time. What's really easy is being with somebody a very small amount of the time but assuming that you're very close. I mean big hellos and big goodbyes are really very tricky. And being honestly, sincerely involved with somebody, and honestly and sincerely stating your feelings is very, very, very, hard. There are times when it can't be done."

C

Roger compared the group to a marriage, I said.

"I've used that analogy before," said Pete, "and I've since decided that it's wrong. Or maybe that it needs tempering a little bit. We're not married'to one another. We're all married like nuns are to God — you know what I mean? — or to Jesus, but we're married to the Who. Instead of having any relationships between one another, we're married to this thing called the Who.

"That's where the solidarity is. But the relationships are empty. It could be, you see, thatwe've already exhausted any sort of karma, if you like. We could be evening out now. But I know that I've always felt an incredible need to continue a relationship with the other guys in the band because it seemed like there was so much still to be done and so much still to be said."