In a recent interview with AARP, The Who’s Pete Townshend revealed that he’s planning to make plenty of new solo music after the band winds down its current farewell tour. As for whether The Who itself will be doing working on new recording projects, the 80-year-old musician seemed less certain.
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Now, both Townshend and his fellow Who co-founder Roger Daltrey have addressed the band’s possible future endeavors in separate new interviews with The New York Times.
Asked if he will continue to collaborate with Daltrey after the trek, Townshend told the newspaper, “I hope so. If he doesn’t want to do a Who album, I’d love to write songs for him for a solo project.”
As for whether The Who might extend the tour past is current series of shows, Pete offered, “I’m 80, I don’t like being away from my family, my studios, my dogs and my friends. I’m not looking to spend the next five years of my life waiting to [expletive] drop dead on the stage.”
He added, “The end of the tour could give Roger and I permission never to call each other again. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
Daltrey on Future Collaborations with The Who and Townshend
Daltrey has insisted that he doesn’t want to make another Who album, and he echoed those sentiments to The New York Times, albeit with an interesting caveat.
Told by the interviewer that Townshend said he’d like keep writing songs for him, the 81-year-old singer responded, “I would love to write songs with Pete. I wanted that for a long time. As good as his songs have been, who knows what might have been if we’d collaborated?”
Asked how Townshend responded when Daltrey has brought up the topic of co-writing songs, Roger said, “‘Go away.’ He wanted to keep it to himself.”
As for whether he’d want to make a new Who album, Daltrey said, “No, there’d be nothing in it for me, unless I co-wrote the songs with Pete. Our last album, [2019’s WHO,] cost me money to make. By the time I paid for petrol and all that, I lost money.”
Roger also maintained that The Who will continue to play shows after the farewell tour wraps up.
“We’re not giving up as a band,” he noted. “We might do a couple of residencies. Hopefully, Pete and I won’t stop making music.”
More About The Who’s Farewell Tour
The Who launched their “The Song Is Over: The North American Farewell Tour” on August 16 in Sunrise, Florida. After playing the trek’s second date on August 19 in Newark, New Jersey, the band postponed the next two scheduled shows because of an unspecified illness.
The postponed concerts were to have taken place August 21 in Philadelphia and August 23 in Atlantic City, New Jersey. According to a Facebook post, fans with tickets to the shows should hang onto them as new dates likely will be scheduled soon.
The Who’s next concert will take place Tuesday, August 26, at Fenway Park in Boston. The last confirmed date of the outing is scheduled for September 28 in Las Vegas. Visit TheWho.com to check out the band’s full current itinerary.
(Photo by Larry Marano/Courtesy of Amerant Bank Arena)
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