Pete Townshend thinks he would have been “happier” without The Who.
Pete Townshend would have been happier without The Who
The 79-year-old musician – who co-founded the band in 1964 – has always felt the group were “beneath” him and he believes he’d have preferred to have followed his love of art instead.
He told The Daily Mail newspaper’s Weekend magazine: “I always feel I wish I’d left before the band got famous and been an artist. I think I would have been happier…
“I was deeply into a college course about how art was going to have a revolutionary function. So I felt The Who were a bit silly, maybe a bit beneath me, I’m afraid.”
Asked how he sees things now, he said: “I feel the same. I think they feel beneath me.”
And Pete admitted bandmate Roger Daltrey is unimpressed by his stance.
He said: “Roger and I have conversations about this. Sometimes he thinks I should be more grateful…
“I should have left, I think. That’s OK. I don’t regret feeling that. It’s just that there was a life I could have had that I missed.”
The ‘My Generation’ hitmaker never expected The Who to be around for more than a year.
He said: “I expected The Who to self-destruct in six months. That’s why I threw myself into performing in a bloody manner. I hurt myself on the stage. I smashed guitars I could only just afford. But my personal manifesto was absolute, ‘This is a brief moment in music history. It won’t turn into…’ Well, what it turned into.”
The ‘Pinball Wizard’ rocker has moments of feeling he is a “genius” when he’s on stage, but admitted performing live “does nothing” for him.
He said: “I’ll keep going as long as I feel it. We’ll be on the stage and I’ll be thinking, ‘What the **** am I doing here?’
“Then the first few tricky bars of ‘Baba O’Riley’ will begin and I’ll think, ‘I’m a f****** genius. I should be here, because this is my music.’
“People say I get well paid for doing a job I like. I do get well paid but I don’t like it. I don’t like being on the road. I don’t like being on stage. It does nothing for me. It makes me insincere.”
The guitarist noted there are some perks to his job.
He said: “The money is great.”
