“We’re still friends. We still talk all the time,” Starkey, 60, exclusively told The Post while promoting his upcoming one-man show at the Gramercy Theatre in New York City on Feb. 20. (the New York Post report)
“But The Who has an addiction to friction, and tempers flare,” he continued. “I’m not the guy with a temper, really. I’m just a guy who won’t be walked all over, and I don’t think that I should be treated unfairly and not be able to speak up.”
Starkey, who is the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr, was abruptly sacked by the “Baba O’Riley” rockers last April before being reinstated a few days later.
The following month, however, he was booted again — this time just weeks after Daltrey, 81, and Townshend, 80, announced their 18-date “The Song Is Over” farewell tour across the US and Canada. That tour concluded in October.
Starkey claimed his initial departure was connected to an altercation between him and Daltrey during a performance of the band’s 1971 hit “The Song Is Over” at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March.
“I got fired,” he explained to The Post. “I was asked to make a public statement apologizing for dropping beats, which I did, and I was rehired.”
The famous drummer went on to claim that Daltrey and Townshend wanted him to release a statement saying he was leaving the group voluntarily after he was fired for the second time.
“So I said nothing. Then they made a statement saying I’d moved on, inferring I’d quit,” Starkey continued. “So I went back and said, ‘Look, I didn’t f–king quit, you fired me. That’s a lie, and I’m not going to f–king lie.'”
Starkey suggested that he rejoined The Who a third time, and was fired a third time, shortly after an interview he did with the Telegraph was published in June.
“A little bit more time went by, and I spoke to Roger a few times, and then he basically said don’t take your drums from our storage facility because we probably want you back,” Starkey recalled.
“Then a couple of days later, an article came out in the Telegraph, which I had done a few weeks before, and I got fired, again, the next day,” he added.
Starkey first joined The Who as a touring drummer in 1996. His godfather, Keith Moon, was the band’s original drummer since 1964 until his tragic death from an ac
Starkey said he remembers The Who’s Super Bowl halftime show in particular because the stage collapsed and his drum kit dropped 20 feet onto the ground below.
“I wasn’t sitting on it. I was approaching it, and the stage collapsed,” he told The Post. “Because they have to make that stage in 12 minutes and get it down in 12 minutes. It’s incredible. They have to practice it every single day.”
“But the middle of it, the section that I was sitting on, collapsed,” he continued. “I wasn’t there, but my drum kit was f–ked up, man. It was cracked.”
Although Starkey’s drums were left “badly damaged,” the band had a spare set. “We just put the cracked ones in the back so you couldn’t see them,” he said.
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