He's a rock god, adored by many and worth millions. Yet The Who's Pete Townshend has regrets. 'I always feel I wish I'd left before the band got famous and been an artist,' says the former art school student. 'I think I would have been happier.'
Pete Townshend regretted ever forming the band.
"I first considered leaving, Pretty much day one. I always wanted it to be as brief as possible, and it hasn’t been. ... This is not a judgment on them. It’s a judgment on me. … Immediately I started to realize it wasn’t a job that I like. I didn’t like the the traveling. I didn’t like being onstage. I didn’t like the fact that it all seemed like all the other guys in the band just wanted to get girls. It didn’t seem like art to me, and I’d been to art school.”
'What would I have done differently? I would never have joined a band. Even though I am quite a good gang member and a good trooper on the road, I am bad at creative collaboration.' “My ears, right wrist and shoulder would work more efficiently. In all other respects I am in extremely good shape.”
Townshend said that he thinks that despite the band’s legacy he thinks he’d have done even better as a solo performer. He also said would be in better health now if he’d gone down that route.
"It's very difficult to collaborate with other musicians. One is they love performing. I don’t love performing. I don’t like being on a stage. I don’t mind being on a stage, I don’t hate it, but it doesn’t fill my soul in the way that you see some performers, where just their soul is filled through being on the stage. That’s not me.”
"If I was in a studio, like with a really, really great musician, or with a group of really great musicians, I think I would find it very hard. I often do find it very hard. I find it difficult to collaborate. I find it very difficult looking in the eyes of another musician. I find myself looking to my own energy to express myself. So I’m very different to most musicians in that respect.”
"Fans are always telling me that Quadrophenia either changed their life or helped them in some way. I"m not sure Jimmy does find clarity or redemption. What is clear, is that he yearns for it. I think that yearning for meaning is what people relate to."
"I was a mod. No question about it. The other three guys in The Who were not. My best friend at art college Nick Bartlett and his older brother Tim were the sharpest mods I came across, I hung out with them as much as I could.
The thing is that anyone could be a mod. You didn"t need to be working class. I once hung out with a group of mods in Brighton with a girl, and we slept under the pier and chased rockers.
The rest of the band had gone home. I wanted to feel a part of something, I always have. The mods allowed me that. When I went our clubbing in Soho, dancing I came across some of the Faces of the day.
Phil the Greek, Julie Driscoll, Rod Stewart, David Bowie, Marc Bolan, Micky Tenner, Sandie Sargent and, of course, the Small Faces themselves. I was always close to the greatest Face of them all, Peter Meaden, and if The Who hadn"t got in the way I would have embraced the mod movement far more deeply. But my position on the stage allowed me a good view of what was going on.
I became someone who gave a voice to some of those mods. But I was a part of what was happening. When LSD hit London I moved on, like so many others."
