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From the bars to the arenas, learn the fascinating stories of how our biggest rock music legends made the leap. Each episode reveals the stories, songs and little known facts of the journey from obscurity to fame of one of rock music’s biggest stars. Join us on Garage To Stadiums as host Dave Anthony teams up with an author of a rock biography or director of a rock documentary to explore that journey, their early years, the stories behind the scenes, their top songs, and their place in music history.
Learn about the passion, talent, luck and even scandal that often came together to propel these stars from obscurity to household names.
Garage to Stadiums "The Story of The Who" Transcript
Dave Anthony 0:01
Hi there. I'm Dave Anthony and this is the Garage to Stadiums Podcast.. In each episode we tell you the story of how one of our music legends rose from obscurity to fame, and play some of the songs that mark that journey. Welcome to Garage to Stadiums. Today's episode is the story of The Who, The Who formed in 1964 in London and became synonymous with the swinging 60s in Britain. The ban were among the first artist of any kind to use the British flag as almost a brand on their clothes and albums. Known for their influential music, explosive live shows and rebellious sound whose impact on rock music and cultural landscape continues to inspire and influence generations, with over 100 million records sold. This band is truly a global phenomenon. Anchored by songwriter and guitarist Pete Townshend, an art school student, who as you will hear brought art concepts into the band's songs and stage performance. Townshend continued that innovation by creating incredible forms of rock music, modeled after operas integrating computers into music before any other band. Yet one thing remained despite all this sophistication, The Who live in concert was guaranteed to rock you, as they were considered for many years, the loudest band and rock and roll. And as you will hear, there were several tragic downsides that threatened this musical evolution to create a story like no other. Here to discuss The Who is Mark Wilkerson, author of Who Are You: The Life of Pete Townshend. Mark has quite an interesting background. He was born in England and lived there for 14 years and fell in love with his music while there before moving to the US in 1984. He spent eight years in the US Army as a helicopter crew chief before work began on the aforementioned book on Pete Townshend. A few years later, a fellow Townshend fan Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, asked Mark to join the team that put together PJ: 20 An official history of Pearl Jam to commemorate the band's 20th anniversary. Welcome to Garage to Stadiums, Mark.
Mark Wilkerson 2:14
Thanks. Great to be here.
Dave Anthony 2:17
Let's start with how you came to write the book. I understand this is one of the only books that Pete Townshend has actually participated in. Can you tell us a little bit about that? Yeah.
Mark Wilkerson 2:28
Longtime Pete and I grew up in England, who were the band that I latched on to in my adolescence and one that moved into the states and I still kept that love affair going with Pete’s Music. I self published a book back in 2005. About Pete, I sent him a copy. And it led to him agreeing to an interview for a conventionally published book, which came out in 2008. That's this one. Who are You: The Life of Pete Townshend? And yeah, it's the only biography of him that I'm aware of that has his exclusive input.
Dave Anthony 3:07
Tell us a little bit about the key members of the band Pete included. We've got Roger Daltrey, lead singer John Entwistle on bass, Keith Moon, the infamous drummer, and Pete Townshend as the driving writing force on guitar. Tell us a little bit about those four, where they grew up and maybe how they met.
Mark Wilkerson 3:30
Pete, Roger, and John are all West London. And they all wound up going into the same grammar school, which is just after age 11 through 15 or 16. Roger was a bit of a tear away and got kicked out of school at age 15. And a job at the sheet metal factory became his life. John and Roger have a very working class background. Pete was a little different. His mom and dad were both professional musicians. His dad was a scientist with the World Air Force band called The squadron errs. And so he was a professional musician mom, also Betty. She was a singer and welled up, she sang with an orchestra and then she wound up singing with this, this water heater. So Pete grew up in show business and was steeped in that and did not really have the same kind of working class background. Roger and John had jobs. After they left school Pete went into art school. So he was an art student, that little different existence. Roger was in a band called The Detours. He recruited John. And then the two of them essentially recruited Pete a little later. They had a drummer who was about eight years older than them. And that that lineup went on for two or three years. So it was a little bit later on the Keith joined
Dave Anthony 5:05
Describe a little bit about Pete's early life because I think this had an enormous impact on his writing style. And some of the hard hitting lyrics that come through in the future.
Mark Wilkerson 5:19
Yeah, I think you know that that showbiz lifestyle, Pete, there was a period there of, you know, apparent neglect where he was going off to live with his maternal grandmother for a time who his recollection are that she was basically insane. And he got to spend a portion of his childhood with her and it's very dark period. He is convinced that there was abuse during that time by some of her companions that would come over and stay with her. But definitely a lot of dark shadows were cast from that period of his childhood.
Dave Anthony 5:56
The early musical influences of the Detours, as you said, were the original name. They were influenced by guests what was going on in in Britain at the time, which was the R&B sort of flavoring, we're going to play a Bo Diddley song, I'm a man as played by The Who's
Dave Anthony 6:33
And that was a song that early on, you know, that was the kind of flavor of music that they played. The mod phase? How would you describe the mod phase? Like what were the mods for those that don't know? In Britain at the time? How did they get associated with that movement?
Mark Wilkerson 6:49
The mods were very fashion conscious, a little like a, I guess a subculture or, or a cult of young kids. Not necessarily in the London area. It was a cross country, but very fashion conscious, almost the opposite of the rockers who were very much in the 50s rock and roll. And like their motorcycles and long hair and denim, denim and leather jackets and kind of scruffy looking. The mods were very clean cut, very particular about the cut of their suit, jackets and trousers, and haircuts. And they rode instead of the big loud motorcycles. They rode these Italian scooters like Lambrettas and Vespas. And they were into Motown and R&B and a lot of American soul. And they had a manager named Pete meet and that, that they crossed paths with and he began to manage them. And he was very much steeped in the mod subculture and he was the doorway into The Whole month thing for The Who, you know, they dressed that way, but none of them were particularly really mods.
Dave Anthony 8:03
How did they settle on the name The Who?
Mark Wilkerson 8:07
One of the guys was watching TV one evening, and they saw a show called "Thank Your Lucky Stars". And there was a group on there called Johnny Devlin and The Detours and that necessitated a name change. So they all kind of got together over at the flat the Pete was living in with his with his roommate in art school, Richard Barnes, and sent around smoking pot and hanging out and coming up with all these crazy names that Richard Barnes came up with the name The Who, and and it's Pete was a graphic design student in art school. And I think that's a very important thing to note. And Richard Barnes, too, was a graphic design student. One of the reasons they liked The Who was it would look big on posters because it's a short number of letters.
Dave Anthony 8:53
Let’s touch on the role of Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp on the band. And these two characters it's just incredible that they become the managers of this band because they have no experience to do so.
Mark Wilkerson 9:05
Yeah, so Kate Lambert and Chris Stamp were filmmakers. They were both assistant directors and they work together on films and they were looking for an up and coming band to film for a film project. They were not looking to manage a band in any way. They were really dissimilar characters. Chris Stamp was from a real working class family, real rough and ready kind of guy. And Kit Lambert was the opposite; he was from a very classically steeped family. His dad was constant Lambert, a composer; his Godfather was William Walton the composer. His godmother was Margot Fontaine, who was the prima ballerina of the Royal Ballet and Lambert's dad was the director of the Royal Ballet. So he was from a very well-to-do family. So these guys were really very different Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp and but the one thing they had in common was both of them were absolutely fearless. They were looking for a band to make a film about. And Kit Lambert walked into a club in London and saw this band. And it was The Who and it just absolutely blew him away. He got in touch with Chris Stamp who came in and saw him a few days later. And yeah, the film quickly fell by the wayside and they decided they, you know, they wanted to, they wanted to be part of this story instead of the filming.
Dave Anthony 10:46
Next mark will tell us how Kit Lambert influenced Pete Townshend's music writing. But first, there's an incredible story about Kit Lambert that shows what a mercurial figure he was. After studying history at Trinity College, Oxford. In May 1961. He joined an expedition with two well to do Oxford friends, Richard Mason and John Hemming in an attempt to discover the source of the Iriri River in the Amazon. Lambert hoped to film the expedition as a documentary. On September 3, his expedition colleague Richard Mason was killed by an uncontacted Amazon tribe known as the Panera. While he was alone hunting for food, Lambert was initially arrested by Brazilian officials on suspicion of murdering his friend. But after a concerted campaign in Britain by The Daily Express newspaper, which had financed the expedition, he was released. Definitely an interesting fellow was killed Lambert. Lambert really starts to bond with Townshend he believes, you know, this kid and Townshend is a kid. He's literally 21 years old-ish and thinks he's highly intelligent. He's an art student. And he ultimately encourages him to start to write original tunes. And that doesn't necessarily go over well with Roger Daltrey, who I guess wants to continue to do the traditional R&B, can you tell us a little bit about Kit Lambert's influence on Townshend?
Mark Wilkerson 12:19
Lambert coming from that classical background encouraged you know, what The Who were mainly if not exclusively, a covers band at that point, doing those old R&B covers and James Brown, Bo Diddley, and he encouraged Pete to to write Pete was in art school, he was in a very creative environment. So he kind of set the tone for Pete to write, bought as his first tape recorder and to encourage that whole side of things. And of course, it just grew and grew over the years. And he also exposed Pete to classical music, you know, Pete's never shied away from, from expressing himself. And that was the first kind of big F-U you know, their first big single was I Can't Explain, but that was, you know, he called it a cake. Kind of a rip off of The Kinks.
Dave Anthony 13:23
We get to sort of, I guess, a few things coming together here. It's their first album, called my generation. It's interesting, they've got the traditional R&B stuff that you mentioned, and yet they've come up with their own creations obviously "The Kids Are Alright" is one of them.
And the breakaway hit, that really puts them on the map "My Generation"
Dave Anthony 14:08
Talk about the impact of this song from the sound of it and sort of what the public thought of it.
Mark Wilkerson 14:15
Yeah, it was, you know, some people call it like the first punk song. I mean, it was very much kind of an F-U. I mean, it even has the stuttering. So it's got the implication of an fu where he says, Why don't you all fade away? You know, Pete apparently wrote it in response to a car that he had parked outside that he had bought. It was an old hearse that apparently the Queen Mother saw and reminded her of her husband's funeral and asked to have it towed away. And he was just basically, you know, he said it was a response to that. But yeah, my generation was just, it was out of nowhere and it was like, yeah, like a punk.
Dave Anthony 14:58
So there's a few things being combined here. You've got aggressive lyrics or provocative lyrics, you've got loud thundering music, Keith Moon, Townshend and Entwhistle on bass.
Mark Wilkerson 15:10
Yeah, I think certainly they all said that things changed when Keith came on board. With an engine like that in your band, things are gonna get more aggressive and louder. John and Pete were constantly engaged in a war for volume. So the volume was getting louder.
Dave Anthony 15:29
Mark the smashing of instruments was a real shocking addition to The Who's stage show. Tell us a little bit about how this came about.
Mark Wilkerson 15:37
I had been at art school and had seen Gustav Metzger who was an auto destructive artist who put up plastic sheets and spray them with acid and that was his art watching the acidity eat away the plastic. There was another guy that came in to the art school and saw a stand up bass in half. So Pete was exposed to all these odd ideas, you know, and he said that the first time that they smacked that he smashed a guitar was actually by accident. He was a I think it was the railway hotel and his guitar. There was a very low ceiling and his guitar at the top of his Rickenbacker, which are pretty delicate anyway, hit the ceiling and broke the headstock off and he said he saw some snickering from his art school friends in the crowd. So he just decided to go ahead and smash it and look at him like it meant to do you know, and then create an expectation the next time so then Keith joined in and all of a sudden now you've got Pete and Keith smashing up their equipment. So you've got the loudness and the aggression, the smashing of the equipment and of course Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp were filmmakers they were very much into the visual side of things. So when they became the managers, they would join in and throw smoke bombs from the side of the stage as well so it became a spectacle in a very effective way.
Dave Anthony 17:07
The album number two "A Quick One" starts to explore the concept album a little bit with songs like "A Quick One While He is Away". It's a nine minute mini-story with a variety of mini performances within that nine minute structure.
It also has Run Run Run", "Boris the Spider", a song written by bassist John Entwistle, which becomes kind of a staple of their shows.
And oddly, I noticed the "Theme from Batman" is on that album as well.
Mark Wilkerson 18:06
You know, the first album had a couple of James Brown covers on it. Bo Diddley cover. It wasn't all Pete There was some early Pete writing the second album, he started to kind of spread his wings a little bit. And you can see the Kit Lambert influence. He's starting to experiment a little bit and, you know, not copy the kinks. For example, the song is a quick one while he's away. He called it a mini opera. And it was a thematically linked, little, little story. So this is Pete's early, early days of starting to kind of weave a narrative into his music and stretch out a little bit. So he was starting to find his footing as a composer and starting to really engage in that storyline concept. So yeah, that led to the big rock opera, "Tommy".
Dave Anthony 19:06
And just to touch on "The Who Sell Out" album, I think it's really unique in that they write songs like "I Can See For Miles", which is a big hit for them.
And they mix in a satire of commercialism all through the album, and literally, I mean, the cover has Pete putting deodorant on and Roger Daltrey sitting in a bathtub full of Heinz Baked Beans. They've even included fake commercials on that album for Heinz Beans and, and this song about great shakes.
Speaker 1 19:49
I love you. This is Keith Moon of The Who here. Doesn't know great SHAKE, SHAKE Maxine's great shakes, milk chocolate and great shakes cherry vanilla flavour.
Mark Wilkerson 19:57
Yeah. So "The Who Sell Out" I was a little bit of a response to, you know, pirate radio was going on at the time. And there was a, there was an Act that shut down these offshore radio stations that played a lot of music that wasn't readily available. So that was really appreciated by, you know, the younger generations. But it was a pretty cool idea. So
Dave Anthony 20:22
You mentioned earlier the concept album, this is the innovation continuing Lambert, as you said, his dad was a British composer, he loves opera, classical music. He encourages Townshend to keep exploring these many stories, these frameworks, the big break out is coming in the form of "Tommy" talk a little bit about that album. And what it did for this band.
Mark Wilkerson 20:48
They put out a series of songs, it didn't do very well and the pressure was starting to mount and it certainly wasn't helped by the fact that they were smashing all their equipment. So they were financially not in a good place, musically, not in a good place. The pressure was increasing on Pete, who now at this point is you know, he's the creative leader of the band. And he's got Kit Lambert in his ear, of course, you know, telling them to be fearless and to go for broke and he decided to do just that. So, he decided to write a full album of thematically linked music, which Kit Lambert insisted was an opera. So they called it a rock opera. Meanwhile, of course, Pete had been introduced to the teachings of this Indian spiritual master named Mehar Baba, who said that he was God in human form. This was in 1967, that people became aware of Mehar Baba. And he wasn't one of the, you know, gurus that said send me money and you know, bought a bunch of Rolls Royces or anything. He didn't ask for anything other than adherence to his principles. So he was a more believable, more authentic character that didn't ask his followers for anything and had a series of teachings in book form. So this the "Tommy" album, this is me loosely interpreting Baba’s teachings, but you've got your, your, your normal, everyday average person. And your goal is to elevate to God realization is to rise to a higher plane where you're much more aware, or, in tune with, with God. And Pete was trying to use a metaphor for what the average person who is not what they called God realized, is like, so he came up with this metaphor of deaf, dumb and blind. And that's, that's what he was trying to get across. If you listen to "Tommy", it doesn't necessarily come across. So Pete started the "Tommy" project by writing a song it's like the Keystone kind of song to "Tommy" it's called "Amazing Journey"
Mark Wilkerson 23:18
And then he started just building and adding on pieces around it. And he built an overture to add to the classical music parallels. So yeah, "Tommy" became this, this enormous thing it was released in 1969. And, and it just, it shifted The Who to a completely different level.
Dave Anthony 23:37
Yes, it certainly gave Pete Townshend the image of I mean, this guy is brilliant to have conceived such an epic approach to rock music. And also the fact that you know, he's combined these teachings. He was so mature for his age in the sense that he was what 22 or so in ‘67 to discover Mehar Baba and then apply those learnings and incorporate the rock opera. I mean, he was just so ahead of his time at such a young age. And I guess the first sort of "Tommy" going big was featured in the Woodstock film.
Mark Wilkerson 24:24
They played Woodstock and they went on late weren't super happy with the circumstances they'd all had drinks spiked with acid and it was muddy and you know miserable backstage and they go on stage right before dawn and yeah, Pete said all of a sudden we have the best light show on the planet because the sun came up right at the end of during see me feel me right at the end of "Tommy" so didn't have a didn't have a great experience there. But the performance itself became legendary.
Dave Anthony 25:09
Let's play a few cuts off of "Tommy" right now we're going to play "Tommy, Can You Hear Me?"
Dave Anthony 25:24
we're gonna play "Pinball Wizard". Which interestingly was a song written almost as a joke to get a reviewer who loves pinball to give the album a good review. They came up with pin Pete comes up with "Pinball Wizard"
"We're Not Going to Take It".
Mark, we talked about Mehar Baba and his influence on Pete in terms of creating stories, writing lyrics, frameworks for stories. There's another key influence that has its impact on Pete and it's from someone called Terry Riley, can you explain to the audience who Terry was? And how did that greatly influence Pete for the next era of song creations?
Mark Wilkerson 26:33
Yeah, so Terry Riley was a synthesizer, a composer who was an innovator on the synthesizer. Specifically with, with looping on this synthesizer, his album called Rainbow and curved air came out in 1969. It was very influential on Pete, who, you know, ‘69, The Who were gone, touring "Tommy", but ‘70. And into ‘71. The next big thing was being created, especially 1970. So the looping of the synthesizers became a huge influence on Pete’s next project, which, like I was saying about "Tommy", how it was a metaphor for the human experience and our limitations when it comes to being quote, God realized. His next project was a similar thing. Instead of making people deaf, dumb and blind, it was a somewhat kind of post apocalyptic world, heavily polluted, where the government controls the populace, keeping them indoors, feeding them experiences in these things called experienced suits. And there's questions as far as Is the world really still polluted? Or is the government just using it to control this everybody sitting in their house living in these experienced suits being fed experiences through this network called the grid, which is this is the 1970s writing this stuff. And it sounds like the Internet, you know, but again, this is Pete making us the equivalent of deaf dumb and blind, it's the equivalent of not being God realized that we've got all these limitations on our, on our senses. So it's another metaphor for not being God realized. So Baba is all over the lighthouse project. But you know that that heavy use of synthesizer in this album was extremely innovative in 1971. It was not a normal thing for rock bands to be using a synthesizer in such a key way at that time.
Dave Anthony 28:42
Right. Another influence of Townshend on the history of music, that technology in fusion, the synthesizer additions, his love of technology. I mean, there's footage of him programming these things. It's like programming a mainframe computer. I mean, these things are huge. And as you said, it led to not necessarily the "Lifehouse" project. You're right, he almost first sees the Internet. It's an incredible vision that he has. Yeah, but it leads to Who's Next in ‘71 and it features songs like bargain
"Baba O'Reilly", which is named for Mehar Baba, and Terry Riley, so that's where that comes from.
He also has "Won't Get Fooled Again", which is obviously another epic song that they put out.
Dave Anthony 30:07
And "Behind Blue Eyes" are all on that whose next album which is probably their most popular albums anyway.
Dave Anthony 30:25
Things came full circle in 1973 with another concept album. It's called "Quadrophenia". What's the intent of this album and why was it popular?
Mark Wilkerson 30:38
Yeah, so "Quadrophenia" was in many ways the first time they'd kind of started looking back; it was kind of heavily steeped in mod culture the time period of The Whose Inception. It's about adolescence and about love, the search for love and for acceptance. Yes, you know, there's a lot of mod culture in there. There's a lot of this kid's relationship with his friends and his parents and the girls and, and just searching yearning for love. So, as
Dave Anthony 31:11
Mark says the album "Quadrophenia" told the story of the mods and rockers
Love Reign O’er Me.
Mark Wilkerson 31:45
Friction in the band, you know this was Pete's project. You know, like I said he was the producer and he wrote all the music and there was a lot of bickering within the band about mixing levels during the rehearsals. This is where Roger punched Pete and knocked him out. So these were really tumultuous times in the history of an always tumultuous group.
Dave Anthony 32:11
Yeah, Mark, that's an interesting jumping off point to talk about the sort of dysfunctional relationships in this band, which really are truly unbelievable. For example, in your book, you talk about Pete Townshend, the primary songwriter at odds with lead singer Roger Daltrey, Pete is also frustrated by Keith Moon’s increasingly drunk and erratic behavior.
Mark Wilkerson 32:33
You know, I think it was Bill Curbishley, whose manager said it was the tension within this band, that's what created the energy like that tension had to be there. You know, people have asked Pete and interviews or Roger, you know, what do you guys do away from the stage when you're hanging out there? Like, we don't? They're not. They don't get together, you know, offstage, if that relationship isn't really there, it's a creative partnership. And it's always there's always been a degree of uneasiness between the two of them, and it's boiled over to, you know, some physical stuff. Years ago at this point. Roger was the you know, he was the bandleader and kind of ruled with his fists in the early days. And then Pete took over and I think there was some resentment there between. Now there was a shift in power. I asked Pete recently, and Pete said, the, the, this is 1966. We're talking about, he said, the other members of The Who were just awful to be around. So he did not even in those very early days, he did not like hanging out with the guys in the band. But it's just that that clicked when they all got on stage when they were all together. It's just that engine fired up, you know?
Unknown Speaker 33:55
Mm hmm.
Mark Wilkerson 33:56
So it's almost like we're stuck with each other.
Dave Anthony 33:59
We've got "Quadrophenia" come out in ‘73. Ultimately, that was turned into a film later in the 70s. With Sting of The Police in that film, tell us a little bit about the 70s era.
Mark Wilkerson 34:14
Usually band managers are trying to work to keep their band members from becoming addicted to drugs, but it was the other way around with The Who Chris Stamp and Kit Lambert both wound up having issues with, you know, hard drugs in the early and mid 70s. So there was a change in The Who management at that time.
Dave Anthony 34:40
The "Tommy" movie comes out, doesn't it? Yeah.
Mark Wilkerson 34:43
‘75 the "Tommy" movie comes out. Pete said he almost lost his mind doing this. He did the soundtrack to that movie, which means meaning the actual film soundtrack So Ken Russell, the director would tell him I need 30 seconds of this Pete would have to make it and then if they had It didn't and all of a sudden it's 26 seconds, you'd have to cut tape and redo it. And he said he was actually later asked to do the soundtrack to the film Blade Runner and he turned it down. He said it really he said he almost had a nervous breakdown during the "Tommy"" film. So it was a pretty manic period.
Dave Anthony 35:21
And the "Tommy" film features Jack Nicholson, Oliver Reed, Ann-Margret, Elton John and Tina Turner, like it's quite a star-studded cast. Roger seemed to become "Tommy" literally on stage when they first performed it. He becomes "Tommy" in the movie and certainly becomes that frontman of The Who that's widely recognized.
Mark Wilkerson 35:46
Yeah, definitely, you know, 1969 when the "Tommy" album comes out, Roger comes into his own on the stage in a way that he had not before he was all of a sudden the rock God, you know, he just went through a transformation and, and "Tommy" was kind of the conduit for that for sure. But yeah, so then the film kind of cemented that. And, of course, Roger began an acting career on the side, Pete started getting into a little bit of solo work around this time in 1976. So they're kind of starting to head off in different directions a little bit. And after Who's Next and you know, 70, around 75, Keith moves off to the US, he moves out to Malibu and doesn't play the drums very much and doesn't take care of himself very much. And the live work begins to kind of dwindle, he puts on weight. Punk was starting to or had started to emerge by that point. 76 Pumpkins started coming out and, and The Who were being looked at as dinosaurs somewhat. And that had started, you know, when Pete was doing The Who’s introspective thing in 75. So this was more like a continuation of that. But yeah, the music was changed. It was part of that. And of course, the "Who Are You" song was based on, you know, an evening where Pete was hanging out, I think it was at the speakeasy with a couple of guys from The Sex Pistols. And it was after a drunken evening, disillusioned conversation with them. Where he's, you know, he's passed out in the Soho doorway, and the song is him waking up.
Dave Anthony 37:47
The interesting thing about the ‘70s is, as we play into the latter half is the addictions really starting to take a toll. And there's a number of kind of, I guess, negative events that start happening.
Mark Wilkerson 38:03
Yeah. So in September 1978, Keith Moon had stopped drinking, and he was having seizures as a result of that. So the doctor prescribed him anti seizure medication. And he overdosed on it and died in September 1978. So yeah, after Keith had died, they quite quickly made an announcement the morning of Keith's death. And, of course, the inevitable questions come from the press. Are you going to continue and quite quickly, they announced that yes, we are, you know, we want to carry on, which of course was controversial in itself. Pete chose Kenny Jones, from the small faces to play drums. And, and that was another kind of source of contention between him and Roger who didn't feel that that was the right fit.
Dave Anthony 38:55
And apparently you wrote that Phil Collins offered to be the drummer.
Mark Wilkerson 39:00
Yeah. Phil Collins had said he wanted to do it. I'm sure there was no shortage. People that wanted to do that, in 1979 was a, you know, horrific incident in Cincinnati where members of the audience were crushed trying to enter the building because a soundcheck was going on and they thought the concert had started. So, it was one tragedy after another and then shortly after that Kit Lambert died, Pete’s mentor. So this is just back to back to back to back tragedies. And Pete definitely dove into initially alcoholism into alcohol. It was just a very heavy, dark period for the band. The alcohol use quickly kind of spiraled into other drugs at A van and heroin and cocaine, some 79, 80, 81 and into the very early ’82, Pete was in a really bad place and overdose at least once where he wound up in the hospital being revived after he turned blue one night.
Dave Anthony 40:19
And incredibly, he's able to put out a solo album in 1980, which features a song gets a hit song for him called "Let My Love Open The Door".
Mark Wilkerson 40:44
"Let My Love Open the Door" becomes a hit, which is another you know, this is what I love about you know, an example of what I love about Pete. "Let My Love Open the Door" sounds like a song to a pretty girl or whatever. And if you listen to Pete talking about it he said, I'm actually singing as God I'm this God's voice and I'm singing. I'm saying to you, you know, Let my love open the door. It's a much more spiritual song than it was initially a community. It's very, very spiritual, spiritual and may not appear to be at first glance and I love the depth and the consideration and everything behind what he creates.
Dave Anthony 41:23
It's interesting you talk about the depths and his creativity. Mehar Baba, you know, he's followed him forever. And yet, in his personal life, the drugs and the alcohol is so counter to what Mehar Baba preaches. How does Pete square all that?
Mark Wilkerson 41:42
I think the adherence to law I think, you know, with all of us, we can try to align ourselves with certain principles. And, you know, sometimes you do a better job of adhering to him than others.
Dave Anthony 41:57
It's interesting. He then goes on to become an editor at a publishing house, Faber & Faber in 1983, showing what a diverse talented man this that he truly is.
Mark Wilkerson 42:08
Yeah, definitely. Some of the, you know, some of his friends have told me, you know, and described him as a polymath and I think that's, you know, certainly apt description, it seems like anything that he puts his mind to, he can become an expert in the studio, the technical side of things. Towards the mid 80s. He put out a book called The horse's neck have his own, you know, his short stories, and became an editor at Faber & Faber started a bookshop and a book publishing company eel pie, in addition to those solo albums, so he was very much kind of branching out on his own. But they went into the studio with the producer, who produced the Eagles and did face dances, which was, you know, had you better You bet.
But was not universally liked, I think it's one of those albums that stands up better if you look at it now. And then another one came out in 1982. It's hard,
Dave Anthony 43:20
This album contains the song "Eminence Front".
Mark Wilkerson 43:30
You can look at pictures of Pete and just see that he's not in a good place. He really got into the clash around that time that he certainly expressed maybe a little bit of insecurity around the based on what The Who were currently doing versus what the newer bands like The Clash were doing, you know, yeah, you know, that they didn't feel like their place was as secure.
Dave Anthony 43:50
That insecurity is so deeply rooted relative to the punk movement. You touched on it there. Here's the guy that practically invented the modern approach to rock synthesizer, technology, the aggression of my generation, the F-U attitude, and here he is feeling like punk is taking his place or something.
Mark Wilkerson 44:15
I think it's at his core, being an artist and wanting to move forward and wanting to create the feeling that they kind of stalled a little bit, and he's now being passed by a band. And you know, they're still playing, you know, my generation and, and songs from "Tommy" and songs from life house stuff from 1971 and previous, and it's 1974 or 5,6,7,8. So I think that's where it's rooted. And I think that's why in the 80s You know, he had this desire to, to branch out and do the solo stuff.
Dave Anthony 44:52
So The Who do another tour, sort of a farewell tour in ‘82. They did their farewell tour but came back for subsequent tours, the 25th anniversary tour in 1989. In ‘90, they're inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with Bono doing the induction ‘93 "Tommy" becomes a Broadway play until ‘95. And then I guess we move into the 2000s and we've got the death of John Entwistle in 2002.
Mark Wilkerson 45:21
And then yeah, early 90s Broadway "Tommy" creates a new song or two and it blows up, it wins multiple Tony Awards, and it's out there for a couple of years.
Dave Anthony 45:35
The role of The Who in music history, what do you think their place in music history will be?
Mark Wilkerson 45:43
The first thing I can think of is truth tellers, no pretense of wanting to be a mirror to the audience wanting to reflect the reality that they see in front of them. Passion? Yeah, I think honesty, passion. That's what that's what I see when I see you know, The Who on stage, especially at their peak.
Dave Anthony 46:06
Well, it's interesting. There's been innovation as you said, they were instrumental in developing the Marshall amps. They brought lasers to their stage shows bringing the artistry to the stage smashing instruments, it's almost like performance art.
Mark Wilkerson 46:21
Yeah. Very much being forward thinking artists, but it's just like, you know, again, that that tension that they had, just watching that chemistry between those four guys in a live setting, something magical happened there, you know,
Dave Anthony 46:39
The Who were widely considered the best live rock and roll band in the world. I mean, from probably what the late 60s on?
Mark Wilkerson 46:48
Yeah, from "Tommy", you know, Woodstock summer ‘69. Onward. Yeah. Until what ‘76 When Keith had started to put on weight and as well, they kind of came off the road in ‘76 They didn't really play in ‘77.
Dave Anthony 47:04
Who do you think they've influenced?
Mark Wilkerson 47:07
Oh, certainly, you know, so when I was so I was born in ‘69. And in England in ‘79 is when I really got into him the "Quadrophenia" movie came out and the mod revival happened and the jam were the biggest, they were huge and they were very yeah they I mean visually they were the Union Jack. They embraced all of that kind of mod imagery. And Paul Weller played a Rickenbacker. And so The Jam certainly were one of the bands with the most obvious link and again another one with a very obvious link is Pearl Jam. I mean, Eddie Vedder is is a Pete Townshend you know, devotee they owe a huge debt to The Who as well but it's pretty amazing the the people that kind of come out of the woodwork praising Pete There was an interview just a couple of days ago that came out with Brian May, who you know his guitar style and Pete's guitar style are not very similar. But Brian May is hugely respectful of Pete and what he's done and how you said he basically invented rock guitar so the respect for Pete is quite universal it seems like yeah,
Dave Anthony 48:24
I've read that Freddie Mercury loved The Who as well and Liam Gallagher of Oasis, even McCartney of The Beatles has cited The Who as influences on I guess a couple of their songs like "Helter Skelter" so yeah, pretty pretty wide ranging and as you mentioned the punk movement Sex Pistols etc. They recorded The Who song - Substitute - we're down to that point where we asked our guests to choose three songs and some sort of scene that connects them all or or why you chose them.
Mark Wilkerson 49:03
Yeah, I was thinking of songs that are kind of overlooked by The Who so yeah, the three that I chose the first one is called "Pure and Easy". It's a song that was basically the cornerstone song for the "Lifehouse" project, the best bits of "Lifehouse", but the cornerstone song kind of the equivalent to Amazing Journey in the "Tommy" album was "Pure and Easy". It's the central thought song to the To The Who thing so "Pure and Easy". My second choice would be on The Who by Numbers album. It's a song called Imagine a Man. It's a really beautiful kind of acoustic based song. It's almost like a "Behind Blue Eyes" song Under "Who By Numbers". It's absolutely beautiful.
Mark Wilkerson 50:21
So "Imagine a Man" It puzzles me as to why it's not as well known as it should be. And then the third one didn't come out on an album at all for whatever reason it's called "Naked Eye". It's very iconic kind of construction, Who song and in a live setting. It's phenomenal. The live recordings of the songs are the best which is the case with quite a few songs, but yeah, "Naked Eye" so so those are my three "Pure and Easy", "Imagine a Man" and "Naked Eye". Those are the three that don't seem to be talked about as much as they probably should.
Dave Anthony 51:16
Right. Mark's, it's been a pleasure to have you. I encourage everyone to pick up that book that you wrote, really appreciate you being on today.
Mark Wilkerson 51:23
Thanks for taking the time. I appreciate it.
Dave Anthony 51:31
Some closing notes on The Who. The Who songs have been featured in a number of film and television programs including CSI, movies like Goodfellas, School of Rock, American Beauty, and almost famous The Who was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, being inducted by Bono of U2.
Some interesting other notes on the way back on May 31 1976, a concert show in London by The Who was so loud that a Guinness World Record was created. Not surprisingly, all these years later, Pete Townshend suffers from severe hearing loss. Did you know that Roger Daltrey once acted in a Shakespearean play. In 1983, the BBC did a screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "The Comedy of Errors". In this play, Roger acted the part of the twin servants named Dromio.
Our guest Mark Wilkerson mentioned today Keith Moon's habit of blowing up toilets with explosives so it's probably important to talk about the infamous Holiday Inn incident. Here's the crazy story. Moon was celebrating his 20th birthday on tour in a Holiday Inn in Flint, Michigan. The record company had given Keith a five tier birthday cake. Rather than slice it up neatly for the guests. He started hurling pieces of it at other guests, including the road crew and members of the band. When the hotel manager came in to stop the chaos, Keith promptly shoved the rest of the cake in the manager's face. Not satisfied with that. He then ripped off one of the guests trousers and the guests in turn ripped Keith's pants off except his underwear came off with it. Michigan State troopers were by now already on the way to arrest the half naked Keith. So what did Keith do? He made a run for it. But he slipped on the slimy mixture of marzipan and icing that was all over the floor and fell face first to the floor and knocked out his front teeth and was taken to the hospital. After returning from the hospital. He apparently proceeded to find a Lincoln Continental in the parking lot of the hotel and drove it into the swimming pool. All told, there was a wrecked cake, permanent damage to curtains, carpets and ceilings that cost the band $25,000, six cars damaged during a fire extinguisher fight in the parking lot. One Lincoln Continental in the pool and one missing front tooth. Needless to say, The Who were forever banned from all holiday ends.
Not surprisingly, Keith Moon was considered hyperactive since his early childhood. A grammar school art teacher even made the following remark in his report card, "retarded artistically idiotic in other respects". While his music teacher wrote Keith has great ability but must guard against a tendency to show off.
How many of you remember "The Muppet Show"? If not, check out our bonus coverage at our website for clips of the crazy "Muppet Show" drummer named Animal who played drums crazily and liked to blow things up off stage. Well, guess who he was based on? Yep, Keith Moon’s on and off-stage antics.
For more on The Who’s career visit Garage to Stadiums.com where you can see our bonus coverage of The Who which includes video clips of various concerts and appearances throughout the decades and other cool facts and memorabilia, you can also see our show notes and transcripts for all of our episodes at our website. We've even made it easy for you to build a killer playlist available for download for each performer. We featured on a Garage to Stadiums episode, including a playlist on today's band The Who. You can find the link to the apple and Spotify playlist in our bonus coverage section of our website or search for Garage to Stadiums playlist on the Apple or Spotify sites. Follow our show on your favorite podcast platform to be alerted when our next episode drops. And you can now follow our Instagram page for more interesting rock'n'roll tidbits posted regularly. We hope you enjoyed our show today's special thanks to our guest, Mark Wilkerson, author of Who are You: The Life of Pete Townshend.
Thanks also to our producers Aminah Faubert and Connor Sampson and our program director Scott Campbell. You've been listening to Garage the Stadium, another Blast Furnace Labs production. I'm Dave Anthony, see you next time for another Garage to Stadiums story.