Simes recalls: "Around 2004, Roger was living in Van Nuys, California, and had assembled a charity band named The How. He wasn’t pleased with the band’s guitarist so he replaced him with a second guitarist, who was later also fired. Roger asked the band members, “Doesn’t someone know a guitarist that can play The Who?” I got a phone call from Roger’s musical director who asked me to attend a rehearsal.
The story that follows is dreamlike or a scene from a movie . . . I went to the band’s makeshift rehearsal space at a nightclub in West Los Angeles, set up my amp, and began tuning my guitar. Suddenly, Roger sauntered in the front door with guitar in hand, nonchalantly playing ‘Behind Blue Eyes’. I started playing it with him...
W played the entire song together and I sang the backing vocals. At the end of the song, Roger turned to me smiling and said, “That’ll do!” Then he introduced himself, “…Roger.” In other words, we exchanged introductions only after we had played music together!"
We played two shows, a warm-up at the same nightclub, and a bigger show at the Henry Fonda Theater in Hollywood. At the first show, Roger squeezed his way through the packed house and asked me, “How would you fancy putting together a quartet and doing some corporate shows?”, to which I answered, “I would fancy that!”
Later, I organized an audition in North Hollywood where Roger, Simon Townshend, and I tried out 33 musicians, and then selected Scott Devours as the drummer, Loren Gold as the keyboardist, and Jon Button as the bassist. Roger called the band No Plan B, and we did several tours, including a world tour of Tommy and an opening spot on two tours with Eric Clapton.
I first met Pete Townshend at Shepperton Studios when he attended a Tommy rehearsal with Roger’s band... ...as he seemed to appreciate the efforts I took to resurrect the vocal harmonies from the original recordings, and to tease out the minutest details of the arrangements.
The second time I was with him was when Pete joined Roger on stage at the Royal Albert Hall for a Teenage Cancer Trust concert. Playing ‘Baba O’Riley’ at the Royal Albert Hall was the one time that Pete and I played guitar together on stage. When it was time for the solo, he graciously motioned me to play it. Suffice to say, I was amazed to be on stage with Pete.
When Zak Starkey, for medical reasons, was unable to play the San Diego show, I received a phone call at home at 9.00am from The Who’s co-manager Robert Rosenberg, asking whether I could find a replacement drummer for the show. I called Scott Devours...
In 2012, Pete contacted me to help him and Roger organize the musical sequence for The Who’s performance at the London 2012 Olympics. Of course, I was honored and delighted to do the work.
For the Quadrophenia & More tour later that year, with Roger’s urgings, Pete decided to try my hand at orchestrating the music for the production. I wrote out all the vocal harmonies, and arranged and scored the horns and synthesizer parts. I also created four-part string arrangements, as using string players was a possibility. I hired two brass players, J G Miller and Reggie Grisham, both of whom could play trumpet, trombone, mellophone, and euphonium.
The horn parts comprised five parts, so the two horn players played two of the parts, and I handled the remaining three parts on keyboards with custom-made samples. I made a dozen new audio tracks for live use. I made over 300 mixes of the songs, trying different tempos and keys for various songs. I also inducted John Corey as the pianist. On a side note, both Pete and Roger think John’s piano-playing is inventive and extraordinary.
And then I showed up at the first Quadrophenia rehearsal in Florida. Pete looked at me and said, “Well, we can only have one leader, and you, Frank, are the leader, so tell us what to do…” So, I suggested that we try playing Quadrophenia top to bottom, and then go back and work out the trouble spots as needed. Pete said, “OK. That’s what we’ll do.”
Frank Simes was born in Tokyo, Japan and began studying guitar at the age of ten. During his fascinating career in music Frank has played guitar with the likes of Mick Jagger and Stevie Nicks; been a songwriter for Surreal McCoys, David Lee Roth and The Whizz Kidds as well as serving as musical director for The Who and Roger Daltrey.Frank also worked on film for The Who (Quadrophenia Live in London) and Don Henley (Inside Job) among others.
