Townshend Says the Who is Not a Working Band and Hasn't Been for a Long Time

Pete Townshend was interviewed by The New Zealand Listener and spoke in length on what he sees as the current state of the Who.

“I used to be in a band called the Who. It does not exist today except in your dreams. I am a songwriter and guitarist who – if I create the right setting – can walk on to a stage with my old buddy Roger Daltrey and evoke the old magic of the Who in the dreams of the audience.”

“The fact of the matter is that the Who as a band stopped working when I quit in 1982. However, the brand would not die. That was partly a record company hanging on to a catalogue asset, but also partly Roger’s passion for what he believed we had achieved, and could one day do again. I let go, and I think John Entwistle did too, but Roger never gave up trying to bring the band back to harmony with the brand. I might seem to be talking about the name, and just the name. But the brand had been identified very strongly with the technique we stumbled on – which was providing music for people, mainly young men, to use as a kind of therapy. They put themselves into our songs, and sometimes even into us, and we found ourselves acting as alter-egos, or myth figures. We felt quite passive in this role, and focused on our performances most of all."

You can see the whole article at the Listener website.