The Who are gearing up for the release of a new record, and group member Pete Townshend has taken part in a new interview with the Rolling Stone where he said “thank God” his late bandmates Keith Moon and John Entwistle are “gone.”
In the interview, the publication asked about the Who’s current stage setup, which includes a couple of video screens that flash images of Moon and Entwistle. “I asked Townshend if he ever got nostalgic looking up at the pictures of his fallen bandmates,” the interviewer wrote. “He snorted like an old horse.”
The Who’s Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend bicker, grumble and record without ever being in the same room. But they can still conjure old magic https://t.co/8tO2In53Ju pic.twitter.com/Kv509qMTxf
— Rolling Stone (@RollingStone) November 25, 2019
“It’s not going to make Who fans very happy, but thank God they’re gone,” Townshend explains. “Because they were fucking difficult to play with. They never, ever managed to create bands for themselves. I think my musical discipline, my musical efficiency as a rhythm player, held the band together.”
Moon, who is one of rock’s most renowned drummers, died of an overdose in 1978, and Entwistle died of a cocaine-induced heart attack more recently in 2002.
“‘John’s bass sound was like a Messiaen organ,’ he says, waving his angular limbs,” the article reads. “‘Every note, every harmonic in the sky. When he passed away and I did the first few shows without him, with Pino [Palladino] on bass, he was playing without all that stuff… I said, ‘Wow, I have a job.'”
Lead photo courtesy of Phyllis Keating.
