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Speaker 1: Pushkin. The list of iconic rock guitarists who were also

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Speaker 1: top tier songwriters is pretty short, and at the top

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Speaker 1: of that list is none other than The Who's Pete Townsend.

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Speaker 1: He's been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,

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Speaker 1: received Kennedy Center Honors, Lifetime Achievement awards from both the

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Speaker 1: brit Awards and the Grammys, and all for good reason.

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Speaker 1: Pete's iconic power chord guitar style and early use of

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Speaker 1: synthesizers established him as a musical innovator in the sixties

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Speaker 1: and seventies. His on stage antics, smashing his guitars and

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Speaker 1: leaping halfway across the stage mid song, cemented his reputation

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Speaker 1: as a consummate rock and roll showman. It's not for

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Speaker 1: nothing that The Who were once known as the world's

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Speaker 1: loudest band. In the early sixties, The Who scored a

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Speaker 1: string of chart topping singles, but Pete Townsend wanted the

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Speaker 1: band to try for more than just pop hit, so

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Speaker 1: he set out to work writing the first ever rock opera,

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Speaker 1: a project that became the double album Tommy. Tommy's widely

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Speaker 1: considered The Who's breakout album and is considered a masterpiece

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Speaker 1: by critics. Following its release, Pete started writing songs in

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Speaker 1: a script for another ambitious project, a sci fi epic

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Speaker 1: called Life House. After that project was scrapped, which he

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Speaker 1: details in today's episode, the songs he'd written for wound

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Speaker 1: up on different releases from the band over the next decade,

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Speaker 1: including their nineteen seventy one classic album Who's Next. Last month,

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Speaker 1: The Who released an epic box set called Who's Next

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Speaker 1: Lifehouse that contains one hundred and fifty five tracks, eighty

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Speaker 1: nine of which have never been released. The set also

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Speaker 1: includes a graphic novel based on Pete's original script on

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Speaker 1: her demos, complete live concerts, posters, collectible pins. It's an

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Speaker 1: incredible set to pour over. On today's episode, I talked

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Speaker 1: to Pete Townsend about how some of the ill fated

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Speaker 1: effects of technology that he predicted in Lifehouse have actually

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Speaker 1: come to pass. He also explains why he decided to

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Speaker 1: target a specifically male audience when writing for The Who,

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Speaker 1: and gives an unexpected take on the grateful dead in

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Speaker 1: San Francisco's music scene of the sixties. This is broken

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Speaker 1: record liner notes for the digital age. I'm justin Mitchman.

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Speaker 1: Here's my interview with Pete Townsend. I was really excited

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Speaker 1: to do this interview last week, but then we kind

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Speaker 1: of had a posit so I could get this box set. That's,

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Speaker 1: dear god, what a beautiful I mean, I have some

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Speaker 1: box sets that I really like, but this is this

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Speaker 1: is something else. It's just incredible to read through as

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Speaker 1: I'm as I'm listening the memorabilia book with the pins,

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Speaker 1: the buttons, the posters, the graphic, not the detail on

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Speaker 1: the graphic novel.

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Speaker 2: It's a good, good, good attempt. It's unbelievable good.

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Speaker 1: So this is a project I've long been interested in

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Speaker 1: as a WHO fan. It seems like a project that

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Speaker 1: you've long been interested at least returned to you many times.

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Speaker 1: When did you decide that you were going to do

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Speaker 1: this treatment for this project? When did this come about?

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Speaker 2: You know, I didn't decide to do it. I think

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Speaker 2: the last big thing that I did around life House

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Speaker 2: was I did I think called Lifehouse Method, And prior

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Speaker 2: to that, I'd done a thing called Lifehouse Chronicles, which

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Speaker 2: was a gig at Sadler's Well's Theater in London, and

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Speaker 2: I tried on that occasion. That was in two thousand

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Speaker 2: tried to gather together everything that I thought my fans

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Speaker 2: and the Who fans had imagined had been a part

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Speaker 2: of Life House, because in fact, the songs that are

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Speaker 2: attributed to Life House, particularly in this package, were sort

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Speaker 2: of scattershot things that I was working on while I

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Speaker 2: was waiting to finish the project with the Who's manager,

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Speaker 2: Kit Lambert. When when I wrote Tommy, for example, it

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Speaker 2: was pretty basic, and Kit Lambert, who was always somebody

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Speaker 2: that had helped me with my songwriting and been my

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Speaker 2: mentor I was the Who's producer, came in and helped

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Speaker 2: me shape it up and make it sharper and make

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Speaker 2: it more cohesive. It was still regarded as a bit

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Speaker 2: weak by some people plot wise, but with Lifehouse, I

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Speaker 2: wrote the script and submitted it to our managers in

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Speaker 2: two parts. One was this fiction, which was basic science fiction,

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Speaker 2: and the other was a handbook for a electronic music workshop,

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Speaker 2: and I called it Barrel one for the fiction, barrel

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Speaker 2: two for the workshop, and the graphic novel worked very

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Speaker 2: very close to the film script, which I felt at

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Speaker 2: the time was very naive. You know, I wasn't a

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Speaker 2: film script writer, but it was a story, and that's

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Speaker 2: a kind of a joy for me because I was

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Speaker 2: young and I was full of ideas, and it was

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Speaker 2: a wacky idea. But what they've done in the Graphic

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Speaker 2: novel is they've allowed some some lightheartedness and some humor

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Speaker 2: and some mischievousness to get into the story. There were

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Speaker 2: two scripts. There was one written in nineteen seventy one

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Speaker 2: and another in nineteen seventy five, I think and on

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Speaker 2: those two scripts were loosely gathered together by James Harvey,

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Speaker 2: who was the guy who did the story for the

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Speaker 2: Graphic novel. And it feels cohesive, it feels fun, and

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Speaker 2: I think it will help people understand what I was

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Speaker 2: shooting for. But hey, you know, when I was writing

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Speaker 2: the songs, I had no idea a whether the movie

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Speaker 2: would ever get made. It was for a movie I

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Speaker 2: was interested in, but a movie that was that featured

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Speaker 2: live music, a movie that featured the who live at

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Speaker 2: their best working with an audience, so very much an

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Speaker 2: experiment that when we made the first steps and we

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Speaker 2: went into the Young Vic Theater in London and started

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Speaker 2: to work with audiences, that was when I realized that

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Speaker 2: it just wasn't going to work. We had a lot

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Speaker 2: of technology, we had synthesizers, we had backing tapes, We

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Speaker 2: had some great ideas, but the audience were unwilling really

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Speaker 2: to indulge in an experiment in which they might be

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Speaker 2: revealed to be in some way I don't know. And

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Speaker 2: in any case, it wasn't advertised. The actual series of

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Speaker 2: workshops in London weren't advertised. We were afraid we would

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Speaker 2: get overrun. You know, we were a big band, we

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Speaker 2: were playing too big, so we were afraid that if

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Speaker 2: we advertised it we would get besieged and people would

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Speaker 2: just want to hear the hits. So nobody really came.

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Speaker 1: And at the time, when you say the hits, just

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Speaker 1: mean that would have been this material from Tommy would

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Speaker 1: have been really what audiences at that time were wanting

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Speaker 1: to hear, would you imagine or would it have been

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Speaker 1: the earliest thing.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it would have been Tommy. It would have

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Speaker 2: been the singles as well. The singles as well, you know,

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Speaker 2: and our act at that time, even after Tommy, was

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Speaker 2: very much rooted in the early singles and some R

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Speaker 2: and B stuff. You know. One of our big songs

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Speaker 2: was Summertime Blues. We'd had a hit album with Live

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Speaker 2: at Leeds which was a live album and that featured

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Speaker 2: summertime blues. So yeah, we were playing. We were playing

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Speaker 2: a rock gigs, you know, but in the center of

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Speaker 2: our shows was Tommy, and in fact Lifehouse we hoped

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Speaker 2: would provide us with a new centerpiece for our live show.

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Speaker 2: We tended always to work with what you would, you know,

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Speaker 2: in an artistic sense, called a Tripard type show. Three parts,

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Speaker 2: you know, some very old hits to start the show,

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Speaker 2: then Tommy take the level down, and then kind of

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Speaker 2: real whack out lunelessly at the end, with long, long,

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Speaker 2: long version of my generation with lots of stretched out

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Speaker 2: jamming and stuff and guitar smashing.

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Speaker 1: I mean, the guitarist machine had been a part of

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Speaker 1: the repertoire for a bit, but the long, stretched out

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Speaker 1: version of my generation was at a bit because you

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Speaker 1: guys were tired of the song and wanted to just

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Speaker 1: do something different with it.

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Speaker 2: We were tired of everything. I think around that time

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Speaker 2: we were tired of Tommy in particular. And you know,

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Speaker 2: we had a lot of songs. We had plenty of songs.

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Speaker 2: You know, we had kids, all right. We had a

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Speaker 2: song called Tattoo. We had a whole load of songs.

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Speaker 2: We had plenty of songs to do in those days.

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Speaker 2: The sets were very sure.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: You know, the only people that were doing three hour

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Speaker 2: shows were the Dead, right.

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Speaker 1: Did you see them much in those days?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, a little bit.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: We did a gig with them called Tea in the

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Speaker 2: Park in San Francisco, and that's when I met them all,

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Speaker 2: and particularly Matt Jerry Garcia, who I just loved, was

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Speaker 2: such a great guy, really great guy.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Did you connect to the music or to the

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Speaker 1: idea of.

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Speaker 2: I connected to the idea of the dead, the idea

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Speaker 2: of you know. I remember Bob Dylan once said to me.

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Speaker 2: You know, I said to him, why are you doing

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Speaker 2: so many shows? You know, why why you're constantly on

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Speaker 2: the road. You know, don't you have a fucking life,

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Speaker 2: you know, just just on the fucking road all the time.

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Speaker 2: And he said, Pete, I'm a folks singer. And I

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Speaker 2: said yeah. And he said, well, what is a folks singer?

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Speaker 2: And I said tell me and he said, it's a

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Speaker 2: guy with a good memory and the music for songs.

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Speaker 2: So true, and he said, you know, and he said,

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Speaker 2: I've got six hundred and fifty songs and I have

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Speaker 2: to keep playing them, otherwise I forget them. And it

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Speaker 2: was a bit like that with a Grateful Dead. The

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Speaker 2: Grateful Dead were a band that could play fucking anything

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Speaker 2: that you came up with. So somebody in the crowd

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Speaker 2: would sort of saying, play Bay Fifth Symphony and they

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Speaker 2: would have a go.

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Speaker 1: You know, yeah, it's pretty wild.

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Speaker 2: But also the commitment of their fans was something that

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Speaker 2: was interesting. The big thing about the Dead I remember

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Speaker 2: was that they gave their road crew the same share

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Speaker 2: that they got themselves.

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Speaker 1: Did you know that. I did not know that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, it was a true cooperative. So nobody got rich.

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Speaker 2: Nobody they made a living, but they didn't get rich.

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Speaker 1: It stands the reason in a way, because I imagine

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Speaker 1: just setting up that wall of sound that they were

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Speaker 1: assembling must have been just as much work as in

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Speaker 1: a way is that you know, the three hour jams

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Speaker 1: that they were doing. You know, they're taking the audience requests.

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Speaker 2: But they were definitely they were real contemporaries of the band,

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Speaker 2: and they were a challenge in a sense because because

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Speaker 2: they had a connection with their audience that I was

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Speaker 2: envious of. My belief. The thing about Lifehouse was is

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Speaker 2: that there was a whole tract of thinking, which was

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Speaker 2: about the function of rock music. What was it for,

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Speaker 2: what was it best at, what could it do that

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Speaker 2: it hadn't done before? And that was an underlying theme.

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Speaker 2: It was a conversation, it was a discussion. It was

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Speaker 2: or it invited those things. It invited conversation, it invited discussion.

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Speaker 2: It challenged the whole concept of people coming to see

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Speaker 2: a band, whoever that band was, and sitting down, you know,

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Speaker 2: smoking a bit of a joint and having you know,

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Speaker 2: an experience of some sort. The idea was that for me,

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Speaker 2: was that the who had somehow stumbled on through the

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Speaker 2: mod movement, through the post war syndrome that young men

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Speaker 2: had about you know, being worthless, being disenfranchised. It was

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Speaker 2: a tremendous contrast to what was going on in the

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Speaker 2: seventies in America, which was an anti war movement, you know,

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Speaker 2: against Vietnam, and quite rightly of course, But for us,

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Speaker 2: as young men, we had been country that was actually

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Speaker 2: at the front line of war. So we believed in victory,

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Speaker 2: We believed in fighting for a cause. We felt that

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Speaker 2: America had come and taken part in the whole thing

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Speaker 2: and saved us because towards the end we were very

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Speaker 2: close to being beaten. So it was a new learning

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Speaker 2: process in a sense to come to the States and

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Speaker 2: feel that there was this pacifistic, hard driven pacifistic activist

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Speaker 2: so passive aggressive pacifism. And for me, the main thing

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Speaker 2: was this idea that music had a spiritual function rather

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Speaker 2: than a political function. Rather than a function to change society,

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Speaker 2: it was to change and communicate and uplift and provide

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Speaker 2: solace and spiritual connection to people in the audience. And

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Speaker 2: so that was part of the underlying idea about Lifehouse

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Speaker 2: was what would be a really good that is, the

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Speaker 2: equivalent of a rock band like The Who or led Zeppelin,

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Speaker 2: or an artist like Bob Dylan or Joni Mitchell or

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Speaker 2: whomever going in front of an audience, or Sliming the

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Speaker 2: Family Stone or Stevie Wonder or Prince or whomever going

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Speaker 2: in front of an audience and playing music, and the

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Speaker 2: audience going home and saying to each other, what the

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Speaker 2: fuck happened there? Because I'm different, I'm actually different.

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Speaker 1: You wanted to change people, You wanted the audience to

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Speaker 1: similar to the way that the audience was as much

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Speaker 1: a part of the Dead Show or the way that

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Speaker 1: they created an engagement between themselves and the fans. You

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Speaker 1: wanted to create a symbiosis in a way between the well.

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Speaker 2: Funny enough, I think, looking back, I'm interpolating some stuff

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Speaker 2: which wasn't actually exactly true. At the time, I didn't

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Speaker 2: really understand what the dead we were doing. I didn't

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Speaker 2: understand the San Francisco scene at all. I spent a

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Speaker 2: lot of time there, but I was a follower of

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Speaker 2: a teacher called Maha Barber, and he there were a

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Speaker 2: lot of Maya Barber people in San Francisco. There were

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Speaker 2: a lot of people who followed lots of other spiritual

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Speaker 2: masters as well. But I spent a lot of time there,

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Speaker 2: and I never really quite got the San Francisco music scene.

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Speaker 2: It seemed scruffy, it seemed disorganized, and it seemed to

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Speaker 2: need focus. It seemed to lack focus. And I suppose

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Speaker 2: what had actually happened with the Who as opposed to

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Speaker 2: the Stones, as opposed to Led Zeppelin, as opposed to

250
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Speaker 2: the Beatles, as opposed to the maybe less so the Kinks.

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Speaker 2: The Kinks were more like Who in that there was

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Speaker 2: one writer and that was me, and that I was

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Speaker 2: not just a songwriter. I was also an ex art

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Speaker 2: schoolboy whose brain had been fried by a bunch of young, radical,

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Speaker 2: forward thinking artists who wanted to return to the Bowhouse

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Speaker 2: method of thinking about art, which was not like Andy Warhol,

257
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Speaker 2: was not like William Burrows was. You know. It was

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Speaker 2: orderly and structured and scientific and the idea that art

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Speaker 2: itself had a function. So I was always looking for

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Speaker 2: that function. And I had control of the Who because

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Speaker 2: I was the only songwriter. John it Was all wrote

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Speaker 2: really good songs the bass player, but they weren't really

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Speaker 2: written for the Who. They were just written for him,

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Speaker 2: and he never took on the Who as a cause

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Speaker 2: celeb Anyway, that's another story.

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Speaker 1: He Doctor Doctor, by the way, is one of my

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Speaker 1: favorite end whistles Dunes, But well, the Pink Floyd's song

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Speaker 1: Doctor Doctor is also great.

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Speaker 2: Do you remember that?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Doctor it was.

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Speaker 2: He wrote some really good songs, he did, but they

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Speaker 2: were all very eccentric. When it came to Tommy and

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Speaker 2: I had to face up the fact that I'd had

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Speaker 2: some really terrible neglect and abuse as a young kid

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Speaker 2: at four and a half years old, which had really

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Speaker 2: kind of fucked me up for a while, and Luckily

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00:16:12,796 --> 00:16:15,956
Speaker 2: my parents got back together and everything sorted itself out

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Speaker 2: in time. I couldn't write the two songs that I needed,

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Speaker 2: one about sexual abuse and the other about bullying. And

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Speaker 2: I said to John, could you write a song, you know,

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Speaker 2: for Uncle Ernie? And could you write a song for

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Speaker 2: cousin Kevin? And he just kind of rubbed his nose

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Speaker 2: and said yep. And he came up with these two

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Speaker 2: fucking brilliant songs. I mean, cousin Kevin is is like

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Speaker 2: an Eric Sarti fuke. It's quite extraordinary. When we got

286
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Speaker 2: to the movie with Ken Russell in the seventy four,

287
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Speaker 2: I had to orchestrate it, and as I started to

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Speaker 2: analyze it, I started to realize what it is a

289
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Speaker 2: proper fugue. But anyway, yeah, he was great, but I

290
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Speaker 2: had control of the band. I did all the interviews.

291
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Speaker 2: John very very rarely spoke, you know. Roger when he

292
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Speaker 2: was asked to speak, usually spent a lot of time

293
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Speaker 2: talking about how what a pain in the ass I was.

294
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Speaker 2: Keith Moon just made jokes, you know. So I would do,

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Speaker 2: you know, a six hour fucking interview with young Wenner

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Speaker 2: for Rolling Stone, and he would publish every word you know,

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Speaker 2: so I was in this place where I could talk

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Speaker 2: the who trip as well as do it. I could

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Speaker 2: talk it, I could Did you want to die or

300
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Speaker 2: did you just feel the response? Oh? Yeah, yeah, yeah

301
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Speaker 2: I did. I did because I got feedback. And you know,

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Speaker 2: a lot of the feedback I got positive feedback was

303
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Speaker 2: from journalists. So I'd do an interview and then the

304
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Speaker 2: next time I would sit with the journalists, they would say,

305
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Speaker 2: do you mind if we sit and just hang out

306
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Speaker 2: for a while and talk. So I would learn a

307
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Speaker 2: huge amount from the journalists at the time as well,

308
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Speaker 2: you know, Dave marsh and Grew Marcus and a lot

309
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Speaker 2: of the big famous journalists of that era, and the

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Speaker 2: photographers too. You know, they they all had a passion

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Speaker 2: for what it was that that was hidden in the

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Speaker 2: music industry at the time, and in the band industry

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Speaker 2: at the time. The Beach Boys, the Beatles, the Stones,

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Speaker 2: the Kinks, that who you know, Crosby, Steels, Nash, the

315
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Speaker 2: f Jefferson Airplane, the leading figures of that period, that

316
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Speaker 2: there was something that could be done that wasn't being

317
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Speaker 2: done and won't get fooled again. I suppose was an

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Speaker 2: expression against that. You know, we are not here to

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Speaker 2: provide leadership, because leaders tend to be fly by night yeah,

320
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Speaker 2: and dictators. Anyway, the thing about what I was saying

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Speaker 2: about Life House was I wanted a model that seemed

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Speaker 2: to me to emulate what was happening with the music

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Speaker 2: business in the West, rock music in particular. And I thought, well, really,

324
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Speaker 2: in a sense, what we're doing is we're removing, We're

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Speaker 2: not confronting, We're not dealing with the conclusive of societal

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Speaker 2: decisions that one would normally make when you were exposed

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Speaker 2: to art. And this was true even of artists like

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Speaker 2: Bob Dylan, whose work was evidently political. It wasn't happening

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Speaker 2: with artists who were in the first wave of racial change,

330
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Speaker 2: like the Temptations. They were still seen to be just

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Speaker 2: a band. The conversations may have been happening with people

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Speaker 2: at home, but I never got any real sense of it. So,

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Speaker 2: in a way, I imagine that there would be a place,

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Speaker 2: a world where music was just removed completely and what

335
00:19:48,276 --> 00:19:51,636
Speaker 2: would be left. What would be left could still be dialogue,

336
00:19:51,676 --> 00:19:55,676
Speaker 2: it could still be experienced, it could be exchanges, but

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00:19:55,836 --> 00:20:00,236
Speaker 2: basically it would be a world which was very, very

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Speaker 2: easy to manipulate.

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Speaker 1: So in other words, you're sort of saying you did

340
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Speaker 1: not feel that music was being taken seriously as and

341
00:20:08,836 --> 00:20:12,516
Speaker 1: art form at the societal level. It wasn't. We weren't

342
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Speaker 1: asking the questions that needed to be asked.

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Speaker 2: No, I think every now and again, for example, when

344
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Speaker 2: the kids got shot in Ohio, Crosby Steelson n Ash

345
00:20:21,236 --> 00:20:24,716
Speaker 2: did that amazing song called for Dead in Ohio, which

346
00:20:24,796 --> 00:20:28,116
Speaker 2: was an expression, but that's rebellion, that's you know, that's

347
00:20:28,196 --> 00:20:32,316
Speaker 2: albut Camu and you know, create dangerously and rebellion. He

348
00:20:32,396 --> 00:20:35,076
Speaker 2: died in nineteen sixty, so most people don't know anything

349
00:20:35,116 --> 00:20:39,116
Speaker 2: about him now. But you know, we still we still

350
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Speaker 2: live in that place where we have to accept that.

351
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Speaker 2: You know. The synthesizer was invented by Russians in nineteen

352
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Speaker 2: twenty six. Thirty five of them were invited to meet Stalin,

353
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Speaker 2: Joseph Stalin. He gave them dinner, and then he lined

354
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Speaker 2: them up outside and he shot them all. So, in

355
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Speaker 2: a sense, the emulation the idea that musicians were dangerous,

356
00:21:02,476 --> 00:21:08,156
Speaker 2: that music was dangerous. He tried to destroy Schoenberg, he

357
00:21:08,236 --> 00:21:12,116
Speaker 2: tried to destroy Stravinsky. They both managed to get away.

358
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Speaker 2: Schumburg actually stayed but he managed to say, if we

359
00:21:15,116 --> 00:21:17,276
Speaker 2: managed to get away with this life. But you know,

360
00:21:17,596 --> 00:21:21,716
Speaker 2: of course Stalin was killing everybody. But basically that idea

361
00:21:21,836 --> 00:21:25,196
Speaker 2: that music was was was if it's dangerous, why is

362
00:21:25,196 --> 00:21:29,276
Speaker 2: it dangerous? It's because it's capable of stirring up. What

363
00:21:29,436 --> 00:21:32,156
Speaker 2: we see now in the fiftieth Anniversary of Hip Hop

364
00:21:32,676 --> 00:21:35,556
Speaker 2: is Chuck d talking about the fact that he's been

365
00:21:35,596 --> 00:21:40,116
Speaker 2: part of a miracle of societal change and racial change.

366
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Speaker 2: And it all started with, you know, a bunch of

367
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Speaker 2: boys playing one of Roger Lynn's wonderful, funny machines. And

368
00:21:47,596 --> 00:21:52,036
Speaker 2: so in a sense, I wanted something as big and

369
00:21:52,076 --> 00:21:55,396
Speaker 2: as powerful a model as that, just as I had

370
00:21:55,436 --> 00:21:58,796
Speaker 2: with Tommy. I'd made Tommy deaf, dumb and blind. I

371
00:21:58,876 --> 00:22:02,236
Speaker 2: wanted all of the participants in my story to be

372
00:22:02,716 --> 00:22:07,596
Speaker 2: effectively deaf, dumb, and blind to music to change, and

373
00:22:07,956 --> 00:22:10,436
Speaker 2: that they were happy, they were comfortable, they were safe,

374
00:22:10,636 --> 00:22:13,196
Speaker 2: but they were never going to be released. And in

375
00:22:13,196 --> 00:22:18,556
Speaker 2: a way, one of the most important things about Lifehouse

376
00:22:18,956 --> 00:22:25,636
Speaker 2: that echoes today is the danger of a bipartisan but

377
00:22:25,836 --> 00:22:29,676
Speaker 2: also highly polarized political system. And it's not just America,

378
00:22:29,756 --> 00:22:33,356
Speaker 2: it's the UK too, It's all over the world apart

379
00:22:33,356 --> 00:22:37,476
Speaker 2: from dictatorships in democracy, creating a place in which people

380
00:22:37,836 --> 00:22:41,076
Speaker 2: are separated from each other, that the conversation tends to

381
00:22:41,116 --> 00:22:44,116
Speaker 2: be people shouting at each other rather than speaking to

382
00:22:44,196 --> 00:22:49,476
Speaker 2: each other sensibly, and that music therefore has become incredibly shallow.

383
00:22:49,876 --> 00:22:54,196
Speaker 2: It's fucking brilliant, a lot of it, without question, really

384
00:22:54,236 --> 00:22:57,276
Speaker 2: brilliant stuff, but it's like the froth on the top

385
00:22:57,316 --> 00:23:00,236
Speaker 2: of the coffee, and it comes and goes very quickly.

386
00:23:00,636 --> 00:23:04,516
Speaker 2: The pop industry has always done that. It's always have

387
00:23:04,556 --> 00:23:06,356
Speaker 2: to be careful not to get canceled here, but it

388
00:23:06,436 --> 00:23:11,196
Speaker 2: always has been most effective for young girls who get

389
00:23:11,196 --> 00:23:15,196
Speaker 2: a record, listen to it together, learn dances, learn all

390
00:23:15,236 --> 00:23:17,076
Speaker 2: the songs, and then when they go to a concert

391
00:23:17,116 --> 00:23:20,156
Speaker 2: they sing. You know that. It's something that's always been

392
00:23:20,196 --> 00:23:22,796
Speaker 2: really important about pop. Sadly, it was never a part

393
00:23:22,836 --> 00:23:26,996
Speaker 2: of the whose career, not because we were ugly fuckers.

394
00:23:27,076 --> 00:23:30,036
Speaker 2: It was because I decided I didn't want girl fans.

395
00:23:30,076 --> 00:23:33,676
Speaker 2: I felt that they weren't they weren't loyal enough, So.

396
00:23:34,036 --> 00:23:36,316
Speaker 1: That was kind of real calculation at some point.

397
00:23:36,316 --> 00:23:39,516
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. When I was a kid, my dad

398
00:23:39,556 --> 00:23:42,396
Speaker 2: was in a dance band and there was this guy

399
00:23:42,436 --> 00:23:45,756
Speaker 2: who was a big heart, throb Jewish guy, handsome Jewish

400
00:23:45,796 --> 00:23:50,756
Speaker 2: guy called Frankie Vaughan. He was pre Engelbert Humperdink and

401
00:23:50,836 --> 00:23:53,836
Speaker 2: Tom Jones. He was from that era. He was like

402
00:23:53,876 --> 00:23:57,876
Speaker 2: a kind of a Sinatra type figure. But he had

403
00:23:57,916 --> 00:24:01,156
Speaker 2: this one song where he did this erotic thing. It

404
00:24:01,276 --> 00:24:03,836
Speaker 2: was like, give me the music, give me the girl

405
00:24:04,316 --> 00:24:05,676
Speaker 2: and leave the rest.

406
00:24:06,956 --> 00:24:07,356
Speaker 1: To me.

407
00:24:07,836 --> 00:24:10,596
Speaker 2: And when he sang that, he kicked a very high

408
00:24:10,756 --> 00:24:15,356
Speaker 2: kick and the girls used to scream. Anyway, one day

409
00:24:15,396 --> 00:24:19,036
Speaker 2: I was at the Norwich City Playhouse with my dad.

410
00:24:19,076 --> 00:24:23,076
Speaker 2: I was ten years old, and he came on and

411
00:24:23,116 --> 00:24:25,436
Speaker 2: he did that and the girls went mad. And I

412
00:24:25,516 --> 00:24:28,916
Speaker 2: was in the audience between two teenage girls and one

413
00:24:28,956 --> 00:24:33,516
Speaker 2: of them took off her nickers next to me. God

414
00:24:33,556 --> 00:24:35,916
Speaker 2: knows what was happening with pheromones, but I was only

415
00:24:35,996 --> 00:24:40,036
Speaker 2: ten and threw them up on the stage. Anyway, I

416
00:24:40,076 --> 00:24:41,916
Speaker 2: went back to London and I said to my best

417
00:24:41,956 --> 00:24:46,676
Speaker 2: friend Graham, and we were just getting interested in skiffle.

418
00:24:46,836 --> 00:24:50,396
Speaker 2: Around that time. Rather than Bill Haley and Elvis, there

419
00:24:50,436 --> 00:24:53,516
Speaker 2: was a kind of a folk music thing again. Yeah, yeah,

420
00:24:54,236 --> 00:24:58,036
Speaker 2: so trad jazz really, but with a guitar. Anyway, so

421
00:24:58,996 --> 00:25:00,716
Speaker 2: I said, you've got to come and see this guy,

422
00:25:00,996 --> 00:25:03,556
Speaker 2: you know, and we'll sit in the audience and maybe

423
00:25:03,596 --> 00:25:05,716
Speaker 2: these girls will take their knickers off again. Anyway, so

424
00:25:05,796 --> 00:25:10,956
Speaker 2: we go and he does thing, and all the girls

425
00:25:10,956 --> 00:25:15,756
Speaker 2: in the audience folded their arms and I went backstage.

426
00:25:16,636 --> 00:25:18,636
Speaker 2: He was a friend of my dad, So I said,

427
00:25:19,116 --> 00:25:21,796
Speaker 2: you know, mister Vaughan, I was you know, I told

428
00:25:21,836 --> 00:25:23,756
Speaker 2: my friend that the you know, the girls would all

429
00:25:23,796 --> 00:25:26,036
Speaker 2: throw the neckus. What's happened? And he said, he said,

430
00:25:26,076 --> 00:25:28,916
Speaker 2: it's over for me? And I said why. He said,

431
00:25:29,116 --> 00:25:32,396
Speaker 2: did you see that boy in the first act? I said, no,

432
00:25:32,596 --> 00:25:35,836
Speaker 2: who was? He said he was a singer called Craig Douglas.

433
00:25:36,716 --> 00:25:42,116
Speaker 2: He was a teenage heart throb. They switched sides in

434
00:25:42,236 --> 00:25:46,716
Speaker 2: the concert, and so when the band started, and it

435
00:25:46,796 --> 00:25:48,556
Speaker 2: was quite clear that the other three members of the

436
00:25:48,636 --> 00:25:51,916
Speaker 2: band were mainly interested in trying to be like the

437
00:25:51,956 --> 00:25:54,196
Speaker 2: Beatles and the Stones and have screaming fans that they

438
00:25:54,196 --> 00:25:58,756
Speaker 2: could presumably shag if they were lucky. Not that we

439
00:25:58,756 --> 00:26:01,876
Speaker 2: weren't short of pretty girlfriends. We all had lovely, pretty girlfriends,

440
00:26:01,916 --> 00:26:04,756
Speaker 2: but it was just that model. Yeah. I just remember

441
00:26:04,756 --> 00:26:07,876
Speaker 2: saying to them, no, no, no, let's play to the

442
00:26:07,956 --> 00:26:10,836
Speaker 2: male audience. I'll write songs that are about boys. I'll

443
00:26:10,876 --> 00:26:14,596
Speaker 2: write songs that are about you know, boys, sexuality, about boys,

444
00:26:15,116 --> 00:26:18,916
Speaker 2: frustrations with life, you know about boys, boys, boys boys,

445
00:26:19,556 --> 00:26:22,156
Speaker 2: because you know, when a boy signs up to a

446
00:26:22,196 --> 00:26:26,596
Speaker 2: soccer company, a soccer team, that's it for life. He

447
00:26:26,676 --> 00:26:29,276
Speaker 2: supports them for the rest of his fucking life.

448
00:26:29,596 --> 00:26:29,876
Speaker 1: You know.

449
00:26:29,956 --> 00:26:33,196
Speaker 2: It's like it's like sport in the US. And it

450
00:26:33,276 --> 00:26:35,996
Speaker 2: worked for us. I mean, we drifted into a slightly

451
00:26:36,076 --> 00:26:39,436
Speaker 2: more normal audience. I suppose around the time Tom the

452
00:26:39,476 --> 00:26:41,956
Speaker 2: Tommy Movie was on, when Roger became a much more

453
00:26:41,996 --> 00:26:45,556
Speaker 2: glamorous figure. Then we started to get girls coming in,

454
00:26:45,636 --> 00:26:49,356
Speaker 2: but never the kind of female, crazy female audience that

455
00:26:49,436 --> 00:26:53,116
Speaker 2: are banned like the Stones hat or I mean, what's

456
00:26:53,116 --> 00:26:56,236
Speaker 2: interesting about somebody like Tom Jones and then Gulbert Humperdinku

457
00:26:56,276 --> 00:26:58,556
Speaker 2: a sort of British products. Was that when we were

458
00:26:58,596 --> 00:27:01,916
Speaker 2: still doing shows and coming home with maybe one hundred

459
00:27:01,996 --> 00:27:05,276
Speaker 2: dollars each, he was playing one show in Vegas and

460
00:27:05,356 --> 00:27:08,356
Speaker 2: going home with a million dollars. This is in the seventies,

461
00:27:09,236 --> 00:27:10,516
Speaker 2: was making huge money.

462
00:27:10,996 --> 00:27:15,036
Speaker 1: Zepplin seemed to somehow find some sort of balance between

463
00:27:15,276 --> 00:27:18,756
Speaker 1: really appealing to a male audience but then also leveraging

464
00:27:18,836 --> 00:27:21,236
Speaker 1: I guess the Robert plant ness of whatever it is.

465
00:27:21,356 --> 00:27:26,076
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, Robert, and Robert based himself very much on

466
00:27:26,356 --> 00:27:30,316
Speaker 2: Roger's performance in the Woodstock movie. You know that that

467
00:27:30,516 --> 00:27:34,756
Speaker 2: was the point at which Roger transformed from being short haired,

468
00:27:35,516 --> 00:27:38,636
Speaker 2: you know, not really having a job in the band

469
00:27:38,676 --> 00:27:42,436
Speaker 2: at all, but just singing the songs, to having a

470
00:27:42,516 --> 00:27:47,996
Speaker 2: really important central function. His wife ordered him this beautiful

471
00:27:48,516 --> 00:27:53,916
Speaker 2: shammy leather jacket with fringes, encouraged him to stop bleaching

472
00:27:53,956 --> 00:27:56,596
Speaker 2: his hair, to let it grow out and it went

473
00:27:56,636 --> 00:28:00,716
Speaker 2: into ringlets, and to display his body because he was

474
00:28:00,756 --> 00:28:04,476
Speaker 2: always very well built up top. And of course the

475
00:28:05,156 --> 00:28:09,996
Speaker 2: Woodstock film was huge, and in it he was beautifully

476
00:28:10,356 --> 00:28:14,276
Speaker 2: beautifully photographed, and suddenly we had a rock god.

477
00:28:14,756 --> 00:28:15,636
Speaker 1: Yeah.

478
00:28:15,676 --> 00:28:17,556
Speaker 2: But at the same time, so did Zeppelin.

479
00:28:18,116 --> 00:28:22,116
Speaker 1: Did that framing of Roger change any dynamics within the group?

480
00:28:22,956 --> 00:28:26,756
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it gave Roger much more of a sense

481
00:28:26,796 --> 00:28:30,916
Speaker 2: of being a part of a band that valued him

482
00:28:31,196 --> 00:28:34,596
Speaker 2: and knew what he was good at. Prior to that,

483
00:28:34,636 --> 00:28:38,236
Speaker 2: he it had been troublesome. He didn't drink very much,

484
00:28:38,276 --> 00:28:41,756
Speaker 2: he didn't take drugs. He was never part of the party.

485
00:28:41,956 --> 00:28:44,316
Speaker 2: He used to say that he couldn't because of his voice,

486
00:28:44,516 --> 00:28:45,996
Speaker 2: but I don't think it was the kind of thing

487
00:28:45,996 --> 00:28:50,076
Speaker 2: that he really liked anyway. But suddenly he was an

488
00:28:50,156 --> 00:28:54,156
Speaker 2: important member of the band on a functional level. And

489
00:28:54,796 --> 00:28:57,436
Speaker 2: you know, from that moment on we did have a

490
00:28:57,516 --> 00:29:00,516
Speaker 2: much bigger I think when the Who did their big

491
00:29:00,556 --> 00:29:03,476
Speaker 2: deal with Warner Brothers, which would have been nineteen seventy

492
00:29:03,716 --> 00:29:07,756
Speaker 2: eight seventy nine, I had already made one solo album,

493
00:29:07,836 --> 00:29:12,996
Speaker 2: Empty Glass, and Warner Brothers did a sweep and discovered

494
00:29:13,036 --> 00:29:17,556
Speaker 2: that the Whose audience was about seventy percent male and

495
00:29:18,276 --> 00:29:22,476
Speaker 2: thirty percent female, and my audience was fifty to fifty

496
00:29:23,076 --> 00:29:25,556
Speaker 2: and I remember being very surprised by that.

497
00:29:25,756 --> 00:29:27,236
Speaker 1: But you were the one. You were the one that

498
00:29:27,436 --> 00:29:31,036
Speaker 1: was let's right for the boys, and then yeah, you know,

499
00:29:31,116 --> 00:29:32,436
Speaker 1: and then you wow.

500
00:29:32,716 --> 00:29:36,316
Speaker 2: I think maybe I don't know quite why, but the

501
00:29:36,396 --> 00:29:40,116
Speaker 2: full force of the Who in those early days, particularly live,

502
00:29:40,316 --> 00:29:44,636
Speaker 2: was very, very aggressive, whereas Led Zeppelin were not aggressive.

503
00:29:45,316 --> 00:29:48,596
Speaker 2: They played loud, and they played and they played, you know,

504
00:29:48,636 --> 00:29:51,836
Speaker 2: the same kind of music we did, but they were

505
00:29:52,356 --> 00:29:55,396
Speaker 2: there was no sense of machisma. There was a sexuality,

506
00:29:55,436 --> 00:29:57,636
Speaker 2: for sure, but there was no none. The thing that

507
00:29:57,716 --> 00:30:02,316
Speaker 2: Whose shows was something that I suppose I felt that

508
00:30:02,356 --> 00:30:05,676
Speaker 2: with Life House we might come to change and rise above.

509
00:30:06,836 --> 00:30:09,316
Speaker 2: It was almost as though when we played tom Me

510
00:30:10,196 --> 00:30:13,116
Speaker 2: on the stage, we had to put that particular who

511
00:30:13,396 --> 00:30:17,316
Speaker 2: band on a nail, hang it on a nail, because

512
00:30:17,476 --> 00:30:20,716
Speaker 2: the the band that had to play Tommy had to

513
00:30:20,756 --> 00:30:23,636
Speaker 2: play what was basically an opera, It was a story.

514
00:30:23,716 --> 00:30:26,196
Speaker 2: It had to be presented in a way that made sense.

515
00:30:27,716 --> 00:30:32,196
Speaker 2: And therefore we just became performing musicians rather than an idea,

516
00:30:32,396 --> 00:30:36,436
Speaker 2: rather than a pack, rather than a you know, there

517
00:30:36,516 --> 00:30:41,796
Speaker 2: to challenge and to change and to steer. And I

518
00:30:41,836 --> 00:30:44,876
Speaker 2: suppose when you say, as a young man, I'm only

519
00:30:44,916 --> 00:30:49,596
Speaker 2: going to pitch my music to young men, the question

520
00:30:50,076 --> 00:30:54,236
Speaker 2: that one should be asked is why, And I would say,

521
00:30:54,276 --> 00:30:58,476
Speaker 2: because I think young men in my day, when I

522
00:30:58,556 --> 00:31:00,916
Speaker 2: was young, were really fucking lost.

523
00:31:01,396 --> 00:31:03,796
Speaker 1: They needed they yeah.

524
00:31:04,436 --> 00:31:07,156
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what's interesting is when we got to America,

525
00:31:07,596 --> 00:31:12,236
Speaker 2: I couldn't work out why young American boys identified so

526
00:31:12,396 --> 00:31:16,036
Speaker 2: much with some of the thesis, some of the ideas,

527
00:31:16,076 --> 00:31:19,476
Speaker 2: and some of the methods that I was presenting. And

528
00:31:19,556 --> 00:31:23,356
Speaker 2: although they'd never been exposed to the bombing and the

529
00:31:23,396 --> 00:31:28,316
Speaker 2: post war apocalyptic nature of the bombing that we experienced

530
00:31:28,876 --> 00:31:34,276
Speaker 2: and also they had experienced being told that they were

531
00:31:34,316 --> 00:31:39,036
Speaker 2: worthless because they weren't called up to fight. There was

532
00:31:39,076 --> 00:31:42,836
Speaker 2: no national service. There were plenty of people in the

533
00:31:42,836 --> 00:31:45,836
Speaker 2: military they didn't need anymore. And at the same time,

534
00:31:45,876 --> 00:31:49,796
Speaker 2: of course, there was marijuana. There was a degree of

535
00:31:49,876 --> 00:31:53,636
Speaker 2: political change, of artistic change or going on in the

536
00:31:54,236 --> 00:31:57,956
Speaker 2: We didn't get to America until sixty seven, and already

537
00:31:58,076 --> 00:32:00,756
Speaker 2: some of the changes in the way that young men

538
00:32:00,756 --> 00:32:02,716
Speaker 2: were valued were deep seated.

539
00:32:04,396 --> 00:32:05,756
Speaker 1: We have to take a quick break and then we'll

540
00:32:05,796 --> 00:32:08,476
Speaker 1: come back with more of my interview with Pete Townshend.

541
00:32:12,716 --> 00:32:16,516
Speaker 1: We're back with more from Pete Townsend. As I'm thinking

542
00:32:16,516 --> 00:32:20,436
Speaker 1: about one of the things that really has always attracted

543
00:32:20,436 --> 00:32:24,076
Speaker 1: me to The Lifehouse as a project, hearing the demos,

544
00:32:24,076 --> 00:32:25,996
Speaker 1: like when the Lifehouse Chronicles came out. I think I

545
00:32:26,036 --> 00:32:28,556
Speaker 1: came to that around two thousand and eight finally, and

546
00:32:28,636 --> 00:32:33,436
Speaker 1: hearing the demos. The demos are as good as the

547
00:32:33,596 --> 00:32:36,796
Speaker 1: finished songs. And that's not to say that I prefer

548
00:32:36,836 --> 00:32:38,636
Speaker 1: one over the other, because I think they're both great,

549
00:32:38,636 --> 00:32:42,996
Speaker 1: but it's like there's a sensitivity to your performance of

550
00:32:43,156 --> 00:32:46,556
Speaker 1: songs that are on For instance, Who's Next that when

551
00:32:46,836 --> 00:32:49,076
Speaker 1: it comes to the band and it gets the treatment

552
00:32:49,116 --> 00:32:52,236
Speaker 1: from John and from Keith, and from from Roger and.

553
00:32:52,716 --> 00:32:54,996
Speaker 2: But also from me as a member of that band.

554
00:32:55,276 --> 00:32:59,076
Speaker 1: Yeah, and the way you're playing is it's like a

555
00:32:59,116 --> 00:33:02,436
Speaker 1: cover version of the song I don't know how to explain.

556
00:33:02,476 --> 00:33:05,356
Speaker 1: I mean, maybe that's not that's relationship with the music,

557
00:33:05,436 --> 00:33:07,036
Speaker 1: but that that's my I think.

558
00:33:07,116 --> 00:33:09,276
Speaker 2: I think when I when I was working, whenever I

559
00:33:09,316 --> 00:33:13,036
Speaker 2: worked in the studio, I worked partly for fun. You know.

560
00:33:13,076 --> 00:33:15,076
Speaker 2: I knew that we would take the songs in and

561
00:33:15,196 --> 00:33:17,596
Speaker 2: the band would do their band thing on it. But

562
00:33:17,676 --> 00:33:19,956
Speaker 2: I was writing for the band. Of course, I wasn't

563
00:33:19,956 --> 00:33:23,596
Speaker 2: writing for myself. But when I came to do my

564
00:33:23,676 --> 00:33:27,236
Speaker 2: own albums, the difference between my demos and the finish

565
00:33:27,356 --> 00:33:31,676
Speaker 2: thing was much less. So. Yeah, the band was definitely

566
00:33:32,236 --> 00:33:35,916
Speaker 2: an aggressive, powerhouse machine. Yeah, and you know, in a

567
00:33:35,996 --> 00:33:42,876
Speaker 2: s set year, we replaced musicianship with machismo and with athleticism.

568
00:33:42,956 --> 00:33:44,756
Speaker 2: In my case, you know, I spent more time up

569
00:33:44,796 --> 00:33:46,436
Speaker 2: in the air than I did play in the guitar.

570
00:33:47,116 --> 00:33:50,316
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had you had real HAPs Some of those

571
00:33:50,316 --> 00:33:53,436
Speaker 1: photos are incredible, in the in the in the sparks

572
00:33:53,436 --> 00:33:56,156
Speaker 1: at your view and there. One of the other things

573
00:33:56,356 --> 00:34:00,196
Speaker 1: I've wondered, is to me, it felt like there was

574
00:34:00,236 --> 00:34:03,876
Speaker 1: a shift in the songwriting between Tommy and in what

575
00:34:03,996 --> 00:34:06,076
Speaker 1: the stuff they came out of Lifehouse project, Like some

576
00:34:06,116 --> 00:34:09,916
Speaker 1: of the stuff, the stuff Tommy and before felt like

577
00:34:09,996 --> 00:34:15,236
Speaker 1: it had a specifically British lilt, and Who's Next had

578
00:34:15,276 --> 00:34:17,716
Speaker 1: this sort of like American ness to it, this boldness

579
00:34:17,756 --> 00:34:18,036
Speaker 1: like this.

580
00:34:18,236 --> 00:34:22,236
Speaker 2: Well, I think my I abandoned my old approach of writing,

581
00:34:22,476 --> 00:34:24,716
Speaker 2: and I decided what actually happened was that when I

582
00:34:24,796 --> 00:34:28,356
Speaker 2: was demoing before, I used to go from machine to machine,

583
00:34:28,396 --> 00:34:31,276
Speaker 2: stereo machine to stereo machine, got very good at it

584
00:34:31,356 --> 00:34:34,676
Speaker 2: and made very fine sounding demos. But when I started

585
00:34:34,756 --> 00:34:37,596
Speaker 2: work on Lifehouse, I'd got a studio tape machine, an

586
00:34:37,596 --> 00:34:39,836
Speaker 2: eight track machine, was one of the first people to

587
00:34:39,916 --> 00:34:42,316
Speaker 2: use Doldby, so I could do lots of bounce downs

588
00:34:42,356 --> 00:34:45,156
Speaker 2: and you know, end up with equivalent of sixteen to

589
00:34:45,196 --> 00:34:49,356
Speaker 2: twenty performances with backing vocals and stuff. But the band

590
00:34:49,436 --> 00:34:52,916
Speaker 2: that I modeled my demo sound on was The Band,

591
00:34:53,716 --> 00:34:56,236
Speaker 2: And it was because the album The Band, by the

592
00:34:56,276 --> 00:35:00,396
Speaker 2: band who had spent a lot of time then supporting Dylan,

593
00:35:01,276 --> 00:35:06,836
Speaker 2: was recorded by them in a barn, and their previous

594
00:35:06,876 --> 00:35:08,956
Speaker 2: album Big Pink was done in a house called Big

595
00:35:09,396 --> 00:35:12,316
Speaker 2: and was again recorded so not in a conventional studio.

596
00:35:12,876 --> 00:35:14,996
Speaker 2: So I felt it was possible for me if I

597
00:35:15,036 --> 00:35:19,196
Speaker 2: had the right equipment, to make a demos where I

598
00:35:19,276 --> 00:35:22,396
Speaker 2: played the drums, the bass, the guitar, did the backing vocals,

599
00:35:22,436 --> 00:35:25,356
Speaker 2: played the you know, the Lowry organ. At the time,

600
00:35:26,036 --> 00:35:28,916
Speaker 2: Hammond organ was on everything, and Hammond organs have this

601
00:35:28,996 --> 00:35:32,676
Speaker 2: wonderful sound, but they all sound the same. Whereas Garth

602
00:35:32,796 --> 00:35:36,076
Speaker 2: Hudson was a magician, you know, he used to take

603
00:35:36,116 --> 00:35:40,116
Speaker 2: this organ, is old Lowry organ and make it sound

604
00:35:40,196 --> 00:35:42,716
Speaker 2: like all kinds of things. And so I had a

605
00:35:42,756 --> 00:35:44,956
Speaker 2: Lowry organ, and which is how I stumbled on the

606
00:35:44,996 --> 00:35:48,516
Speaker 2: sound for Barbara Riley. It was built into the organ.

607
00:35:48,596 --> 00:35:51,756
Speaker 2: I just modified it a bit with synthesizers. So that

608
00:35:51,996 --> 00:35:56,996
Speaker 2: was my reference track, was that album. That was what

609
00:35:57,116 --> 00:35:59,556
Speaker 2: I was listening to. And when we got in with

610
00:35:59,636 --> 00:36:05,356
Speaker 2: Glynn John's eventually after the failure of the recording in

611
00:36:05,356 --> 00:36:07,676
Speaker 2: New York, where we did some good recordings, but we

612
00:36:07,756 --> 00:36:10,876
Speaker 2: never got very far because Lambert was not really with

613
00:36:11,076 --> 00:36:16,356
Speaker 2: us anymore. Glynn took those tracks and I think actually

614
00:36:16,396 --> 00:36:18,876
Speaker 2: he sort of anglicized them again a little bit. He

615
00:36:18,956 --> 00:36:21,316
Speaker 2: gave them a bit of the kind of you know,

616
00:36:21,516 --> 00:36:26,196
Speaker 2: the Olympic Studios reverb based airiness that he was so

617
00:36:26,316 --> 00:36:29,796
Speaker 2: famous for. My demos are certainly funky.

618
00:36:29,996 --> 00:36:33,956
Speaker 1: Your demos they're amazing. They're really beautiful. They're really beautiful,

619
00:36:34,076 --> 00:36:36,716
Speaker 1: and it's a testament to your songwriting that it can

620
00:36:36,796 --> 00:36:39,716
Speaker 1: work as well as they did with you know, in

621
00:36:39,756 --> 00:36:41,516
Speaker 1: the way that you recorded them, and that they worked

622
00:36:41,556 --> 00:36:44,356
Speaker 1: as well as they did with the group, and then

623
00:36:44,356 --> 00:36:47,676
Speaker 1: that even hearing being all the finally hear these record

624
00:36:47,676 --> 00:36:49,916
Speaker 1: plant sessions from New York, that the work as well

625
00:36:49,916 --> 00:36:52,956
Speaker 1: as they did with Leslie West playing over them really

626
00:36:52,996 --> 00:36:55,236
Speaker 1: bringing like I mean, it's just like incredible, Like the

627
00:36:55,356 --> 00:36:57,116
Speaker 1: versatility of the songs is wow.

628
00:36:57,236 --> 00:37:00,596
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was fun working with Leslie. Leslie was always

629
00:37:00,596 --> 00:37:04,476
Speaker 2: a huge fan of the Who, but particularly of me.

630
00:37:05,196 --> 00:37:09,036
Speaker 2: He used to compare me to every other lead guitarist

631
00:37:09,156 --> 00:37:11,156
Speaker 2: and I because I used to wrong myself down a

632
00:37:11,236 --> 00:37:13,516
Speaker 2: little bit and say I can't play like Eric Clapton

633
00:37:13,556 --> 00:37:15,516
Speaker 2: and I can't play like Jimmy Page, but I'm the

634
00:37:15,556 --> 00:37:17,556
Speaker 2: best rhythm player in the world. And he used to say, yeah,

635
00:37:17,596 --> 00:37:22,276
Speaker 2: you can play. They're all playing fucking cliches. And he

636
00:37:22,396 --> 00:37:26,276
Speaker 2: was a good buddy, and so he happened to be

637
00:37:26,356 --> 00:37:30,796
Speaker 2: there working with Felix Papilladi on a Mountain recorded by

638
00:37:30,796 --> 00:37:36,116
Speaker 2: their band Mountain, and I invited them to break in

639
00:37:36,196 --> 00:37:40,196
Speaker 2: the studio for us. Kit was away. He arrived the

640
00:37:40,236 --> 00:37:42,436
Speaker 2: second day we were there, so that first day we

641
00:37:42,476 --> 00:37:43,716
Speaker 2: played that track with them.

642
00:37:44,716 --> 00:37:47,996
Speaker 1: And by the time you got back to London and

643
00:37:48,076 --> 00:37:50,276
Speaker 1: recorded at the Olympic, and I think you did at

644
00:37:50,356 --> 00:37:53,516
Speaker 1: least one track in the Rolling Stones mobile mobile bus,

645
00:37:53,996 --> 00:37:56,436
Speaker 1: it just didn't feel rate to bring someone else in again.

646
00:37:57,156 --> 00:38:00,116
Speaker 2: No, we brought we brought in a violinist for the

647
00:38:00,236 --> 00:38:03,116
Speaker 2: end of Barbara Riley, but that was all right.

648
00:38:03,316 --> 00:38:03,516
Speaker 1: Yeah.

649
00:38:03,676 --> 00:38:08,356
Speaker 2: No, we were not a band that collaborated with other musicians.

650
00:38:08,676 --> 00:38:12,396
Speaker 2: You know, John Elwisill when he started solo touring. John

651
00:38:12,476 --> 00:38:15,476
Speaker 2: did the Ringo all Star band tours. I think he

652
00:38:15,516 --> 00:38:17,556
Speaker 2: did it four or five times when the Who were

653
00:38:17,556 --> 00:38:21,356
Speaker 2: inactive for whatever reason, probably because I was writing and

654
00:38:22,596 --> 00:38:25,796
Speaker 2: he loved performing. John he loved playing. He loved playing,

655
00:38:26,516 --> 00:38:28,756
Speaker 2: and I was never crazy about it. I was never

656
00:38:28,796 --> 00:38:32,236
Speaker 2: crazy about touring. I was never that crazy about performing.

657
00:38:32,476 --> 00:38:34,636
Speaker 2: I knew I was good at it, but you know,

658
00:38:34,676 --> 00:38:36,876
Speaker 2: I didn't know why I was good at it. And

659
00:38:36,956 --> 00:38:40,716
Speaker 2: I still don't. I still don't know why I'm so

660
00:38:40,916 --> 00:38:43,156
Speaker 2: good at performing. I suppose I have to put a

661
00:38:43,196 --> 00:38:46,116
Speaker 2: lot of it down to the history my childhood, because

662
00:38:47,196 --> 00:38:49,276
Speaker 2: growing up with my dad's band. You know, I feel

663
00:38:49,396 --> 00:38:52,836
Speaker 2: very comfortable on stage, and I feel very comfortable backstage,

664
00:38:53,356 --> 00:38:56,596
Speaker 2: But I don't get that excited. It feels like a

665
00:38:56,716 --> 00:38:58,676
Speaker 2: job to me. It feels like a job that I

666
00:38:58,756 --> 00:39:01,956
Speaker 2: do well, that I don't have any arguments with. But

667
00:39:02,036 --> 00:39:04,516
Speaker 2: it doesn't set me on fire. You know. When I

668
00:39:04,556 --> 00:39:07,556
Speaker 2: see some artists about to go on stage at Clusterbury

669
00:39:08,196 --> 00:39:11,236
Speaker 2: or someone like that, they're so excited and so thrilled

670
00:39:11,276 --> 00:39:13,356
Speaker 2: that they almost like, you know, they could go up

671
00:39:13,396 --> 00:39:16,036
Speaker 2: in the air like a balloon. I don't get that.

672
00:39:16,436 --> 00:39:18,476
Speaker 1: Is there anything that does set you on fire in

673
00:39:18,476 --> 00:39:18,836
Speaker 1: that way?

674
00:39:19,676 --> 00:39:22,396
Speaker 2: Well, I really like being at a recording studio. Yeah,

675
00:39:22,516 --> 00:39:24,876
Speaker 2: to some extent, Yeah, yeah, of course there are things.

676
00:39:24,916 --> 00:39:29,036
Speaker 2: But I think I think musically speaking, I feel like

677
00:39:29,436 --> 00:39:32,196
Speaker 2: the whole picture, the whole you. I mean, when we

678
00:39:32,276 --> 00:39:36,156
Speaker 2: opened up this conversation, you you talked about, you know,

679
00:39:36,196 --> 00:39:38,596
Speaker 2: in a sense, the idea of me as a as

680
00:39:38,636 --> 00:39:41,316
Speaker 2: a renaissance man, being able to do various things, and

681
00:39:41,996 --> 00:39:44,836
Speaker 2: so there are moments in everything that I do where

682
00:39:44,876 --> 00:39:47,956
Speaker 2: I get a kick. It's just that thing that some

683
00:39:48,036 --> 00:39:51,276
Speaker 2: performers get that they just love it. You know who

684
00:39:51,356 --> 00:39:56,156
Speaker 2: I talked to a lot about this was Tina, you know, yeah,

685
00:39:56,196 --> 00:39:59,396
Speaker 2: And I said, what fucking happens to you on the stage?

686
00:39:59,556 --> 00:40:01,356
Speaker 2: And she just looked at me and she said, Pete,

687
00:40:01,516 --> 00:40:05,476
Speaker 2: what fucking happens to you? Same thing. She didn't know

688
00:40:05,556 --> 00:40:11,236
Speaker 2: who that person was. She was quiet, shy, sad, would

689
00:40:11,236 --> 00:40:14,436
Speaker 2: walk onto the stage and bang, you know, and I

690
00:40:14,516 --> 00:40:16,356
Speaker 2: look at myself on the stage, and I don't know

691
00:40:16,396 --> 00:40:17,396
Speaker 2: who that person is.

692
00:40:17,676 --> 00:40:21,836
Speaker 1: Do you remember the first time that person appeared on stage? Yeah?

693
00:40:21,956 --> 00:40:24,396
Speaker 2: I think I do. I think it was we were

694
00:40:24,436 --> 00:40:27,196
Speaker 2: doing a little We was just a school band and

695
00:40:27,236 --> 00:40:30,036
Speaker 2: we were doing some show and it was we did

696
00:40:30,116 --> 00:40:34,076
Speaker 2: the gig and then I got off stage and went

697
00:40:34,156 --> 00:40:37,676
Speaker 2: into the crowd and we'd been playing. The new dance

698
00:40:37,756 --> 00:40:41,596
Speaker 2: of the era was the Twist Chubby Checker's song The Twist,

699
00:40:41,916 --> 00:40:45,916
Speaker 2: which is really significant because it was when men started

700
00:40:46,236 --> 00:40:52,116
Speaker 2: to dance on their own right, super super important because

701
00:40:52,116 --> 00:40:53,996
Speaker 2: there was this whole group of people in the in

702
00:40:54,036 --> 00:40:58,036
Speaker 2: the male brigade, who would pretend I don't dance. I

703
00:40:58,076 --> 00:41:00,076
Speaker 2: could but I don't. I just wait till the end

704
00:41:00,116 --> 00:41:01,756
Speaker 2: and then I go and pull a bird and take

705
00:41:01,756 --> 00:41:04,716
Speaker 2: her home and I'll marry her. Maybe you know that

706
00:41:04,796 --> 00:41:06,796
Speaker 2: kind of stuff. But then there were the boys like

707
00:41:06,996 --> 00:41:09,916
Speaker 2: John Emwistle was a great driver, was really good at it.

708
00:41:10,036 --> 00:41:14,436
Speaker 2: And anyway, I started to dance, and I remember being

709
00:41:14,476 --> 00:41:17,156
Speaker 2: surrounded by this group of boys and girls who were

710
00:41:17,156 --> 00:41:20,796
Speaker 2: clapping because I was dancing. I was thinking, Wow, I

711
00:41:20,796 --> 00:41:24,756
Speaker 2: should do that on the stage. It was a bit

712
00:41:24,836 --> 00:41:28,076
Speaker 2: like a scene from you know, a corny movie.

713
00:41:28,556 --> 00:41:31,236
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, like then the Footloots or something.

714
00:41:31,436 --> 00:41:33,796
Speaker 2: Yeah.

715
00:41:33,956 --> 00:41:37,996
Speaker 1: Your dad was Cliff Townsend, who was quite an accomplished

716
00:41:38,036 --> 00:41:39,756
Speaker 1: musician over in the UK.

717
00:41:40,236 --> 00:41:43,756
Speaker 2: And had a solo career. Briefly. Norri Paramore, who had

718
00:41:43,756 --> 00:41:47,276
Speaker 2: discovered the artist Cliff Richard, signed my dad to a

719
00:41:47,316 --> 00:41:51,076
Speaker 2: series of solo recordings playing it was Cliff Townsend and

720
00:41:51,196 --> 00:41:52,636
Speaker 2: he's singing saxophone.

721
00:41:52,836 --> 00:41:53,196
Speaker 1: Wow.

722
00:41:53,316 --> 00:41:55,796
Speaker 2: Yeah. And he did a recording of Unchained Melody that

723
00:41:56,196 --> 00:41:58,476
Speaker 2: nearly got in the charts, but it had been recorded

724
00:41:58,476 --> 00:42:00,116
Speaker 2: by about four other artists.

725
00:42:00,276 --> 00:42:04,756
Speaker 1: Wow. Your relationship with him musically, would you say there

726
00:42:04,796 --> 00:42:07,316
Speaker 1: was a strong bond between you guys musically speaking?

727
00:42:07,676 --> 00:42:10,956
Speaker 2: No, it was terrible He really didn't think that I

728
00:42:10,956 --> 00:42:15,356
Speaker 2: would ever be a musician. He encouraged me to look

729
00:42:15,396 --> 00:42:19,716
Speaker 2: at journalism because I'm a good writer, and art because

730
00:42:19,756 --> 00:42:23,436
Speaker 2: I could draw, and he steered me away from music.

731
00:42:23,956 --> 00:42:26,836
Speaker 2: When he realized that I could play the guitar, well,

732
00:42:27,676 --> 00:42:30,476
Speaker 2: he did start to encourage me. He tried to get

733
00:42:30,476 --> 00:42:34,036
Speaker 2: me to join a small band that he ran and

734
00:42:34,076 --> 00:42:36,396
Speaker 2: do a summer season with him. But by that time

735
00:42:36,796 --> 00:42:38,956
Speaker 2: I was at Art College and I was already in

736
00:42:39,036 --> 00:42:42,556
Speaker 2: the WHO band that was starting to develop, so it

737
00:42:42,636 --> 00:42:45,916
Speaker 2: was sort of sort of too late. Whereas my mother

738
00:42:46,676 --> 00:42:50,836
Speaker 2: was really supportive, you know. She got the school band

739
00:42:50,876 --> 00:42:53,156
Speaker 2: that I was in, the detours with Roger and John.

740
00:42:54,396 --> 00:42:59,876
Speaker 2: She got us auditions, she got some really great shows.

741
00:42:59,916 --> 00:43:03,396
Speaker 2: She knew she'd been an agent for while, a music agent.

742
00:43:03,476 --> 00:43:05,396
Speaker 2: She was started. She met my dad and she was

743
00:43:05,436 --> 00:43:08,436
Speaker 2: a singer in a beautiful voice, and my dad had

744
00:43:08,436 --> 00:43:11,236
Speaker 2: a lovely voice too. I'm very proud of the fact

745
00:43:11,276 --> 00:43:13,716
Speaker 2: that all me and all my three brothers have got

746
00:43:14,076 --> 00:43:17,516
Speaker 2: something of their vocal nature. That's something about the voice,

747
00:43:17,516 --> 00:43:21,236
Speaker 2: which is nice and it's nice to have. But no,

748
00:43:21,356 --> 00:43:24,716
Speaker 2: he wasn't useful, but he was a huge influence because

749
00:43:24,756 --> 00:43:28,036
Speaker 2: of his discipline. You know, he used to drink a lot.

750
00:43:28,476 --> 00:43:31,796
Speaker 2: He was pretty wild, really good looking guy, but he

751
00:43:31,916 --> 00:43:34,036
Speaker 2: was a bit of a waste trel. You know. He

752
00:43:34,116 --> 00:43:37,396
Speaker 2: used to bet on the greyhound dog racing a lot.

753
00:43:37,876 --> 00:43:40,436
Speaker 2: He fritted away a lot of money. You know. I

754
00:43:40,556 --> 00:43:43,596
Speaker 2: bought him his first car, I bought him his first house.

755
00:43:44,076 --> 00:43:47,836
Speaker 2: You know. Yeah, he was you know, it was always broke. Wow. Yeah.

756
00:43:47,876 --> 00:43:50,636
Speaker 2: But he would get up in the morning and practice

757
00:43:50,676 --> 00:43:53,636
Speaker 2: the clarenet for two hours. And I remember teasing him saying,

758
00:43:53,676 --> 00:43:56,996
Speaker 2: you know, you're playing all this fucking per coffee off

759
00:43:57,076 --> 00:44:00,236
Speaker 2: and god knows what, and then you're going to a

760
00:44:00,356 --> 00:44:07,156
Speaker 2: dance hall and going And I always used to do

761
00:44:07,196 --> 00:44:10,156
Speaker 2: this to my dad, used to go and here Dad

762
00:44:10,476 --> 00:44:12,636
Speaker 2: comes the really exciting bit that you have to spend

763
00:44:12,636 --> 00:44:15,996
Speaker 2: two hours a day playing dirt dirt.

764
00:44:16,196 --> 00:44:16,476
Speaker 1: You know.

765
00:44:16,956 --> 00:44:19,636
Speaker 2: Everything that they played was really basic and simple.

766
00:44:19,956 --> 00:44:21,596
Speaker 1: Did he take that in a good natured way?

767
00:44:22,196 --> 00:44:24,756
Speaker 2: He used to laugh, but you know he had a

768
00:44:24,836 --> 00:44:28,796
Speaker 2: couple of phone calls. I remember when I was still

769
00:44:28,836 --> 00:44:31,036
Speaker 2: living at home, I would have been about fifteen, because

770
00:44:31,076 --> 00:44:34,076
Speaker 2: I left home when I was sixteen, maybe sixteen and

771
00:44:34,076 --> 00:44:36,116
Speaker 2: a half. I came back home for a while as well.

772
00:44:36,156 --> 00:44:38,956
Speaker 2: In my middle years, mid middle teens.

773
00:44:38,756 --> 00:44:40,356
Speaker 1: But he was.

774
00:44:40,396 --> 00:44:43,036
Speaker 2: One day got a phone call from a guy who said,

775
00:44:43,036 --> 00:44:44,916
Speaker 2: have you got a bass clarinet? And he's just say, yes,

776
00:44:44,996 --> 00:44:47,196
Speaker 2: I do have a bass clarent. He said, could you

777
00:44:47,236 --> 00:44:49,716
Speaker 2: play the pro coffee off bass clarinet concerto? And he

778
00:44:49,756 --> 00:44:52,636
Speaker 2: said is it written? He said yeah, he said, I

779
00:44:52,636 --> 00:44:55,716
Speaker 2: can play anything you put in front of me. Went

780
00:44:55,756 --> 00:44:59,876
Speaker 2: to Wigmore Hall and did this BBC broadcast of a

781
00:44:59,876 --> 00:45:02,996
Speaker 2: pro coffee off bass clarinet cantata or something. I can't

782
00:45:02,996 --> 00:45:04,636
Speaker 2: know what it was, but it was a procoffee of

783
00:45:04,756 --> 00:45:08,556
Speaker 2: thing that's beautiful. So he was a brilliant reader and interpreter.

784
00:45:09,156 --> 00:45:10,876
Speaker 2: But he was in a swing band, you know, and

785
00:45:10,956 --> 00:45:15,516
Speaker 2: the swing band world was like punk because you know,

786
00:45:15,636 --> 00:45:18,796
Speaker 2: Glenn Miller in America and the Squadronaires my dad's band.

787
00:45:18,836 --> 00:45:23,236
Speaker 2: Then they were there to raise spirits, you know, of

788
00:45:23,316 --> 00:45:27,996
Speaker 2: people that would probably be dead in two weeks. You know.

789
00:45:28,036 --> 00:45:31,436
Speaker 2: They weren't forces sweethearts, but they were providing and they

790
00:45:31,436 --> 00:45:34,716
Speaker 2: were considered, you know, because in those days military music

791
00:45:34,796 --> 00:45:38,316
Speaker 2: was brass bands. So the people that put together the

792
00:45:38,316 --> 00:45:41,156
Speaker 2: Glenn Miller Orchestra and the Squadronaires in the UK were

793
00:45:41,196 --> 00:45:45,116
Speaker 2: air Force. The Air Force. People were not serious military.

794
00:45:45,156 --> 00:45:47,596
Speaker 2: They were like, you know, the Navy was the Navy,

795
00:45:47,676 --> 00:45:49,956
Speaker 2: the Army was the army, but the Air Force were

796
00:45:49,996 --> 00:45:52,956
Speaker 2: these stupid fuckers that went up and flew planes about

797
00:45:52,996 --> 00:45:55,756
Speaker 2: and crashed them, and they cost millions of dollars. I

798
00:45:55,796 --> 00:45:59,036
Speaker 2: remember I did a thing in Chicago recently when Tommy

799
00:45:59,156 --> 00:46:02,076
Speaker 2: was on there, and I told this story, and somebody

800
00:46:02,116 --> 00:46:04,276
Speaker 2: in the audience told me the name of the guy

801
00:46:04,836 --> 00:46:08,876
Speaker 2: who allowed what he called pop music. They called it

802
00:46:08,876 --> 00:46:14,076
Speaker 2: some thing that music to be part of the military exercise.

803
00:46:14,196 --> 00:46:16,356
Speaker 2: I grew up with that. I grew up with the

804
00:46:16,356 --> 00:46:22,036
Speaker 2: fact that my dad was yeah, big band, Yeah, super cool,

805
00:46:22,596 --> 00:46:27,636
Speaker 2: super cool, sort of smoochy music and really beautifully written.

806
00:46:28,036 --> 00:46:30,116
Speaker 2: And then of course as I got older, I realized

807
00:46:30,156 --> 00:46:33,756
Speaker 2: that bands like the Baisy Band and Duke Ellington and

808
00:46:34,076 --> 00:46:36,596
Speaker 2: Woody Harman and all these people were people that had

809
00:46:36,636 --> 00:46:40,556
Speaker 2: influenced my dad's playing in his music, but were also

810
00:46:40,676 --> 00:46:46,036
Speaker 2: people that I really got into and loved, and particularly Arlington,

811
00:46:46,116 --> 00:46:50,396
Speaker 2: who was kind of crazy genius composer. So I grew

812
00:46:50,516 --> 00:46:53,196
Speaker 2: up with that and it was just the most wonderful

813
00:46:53,196 --> 00:46:55,196
Speaker 2: place to be the main thing being able to go

814
00:46:55,276 --> 00:46:58,156
Speaker 2: and be a little kid and go and you know,

815
00:46:58,476 --> 00:47:01,796
Speaker 2: be part of the dance hall world. And I remember

816
00:47:01,836 --> 00:47:04,436
Speaker 2: once a story I often tell. It's a great story.

817
00:47:04,476 --> 00:47:07,116
Speaker 2: As I was my dad was doing a summer season

818
00:47:07,316 --> 00:47:10,276
Speaker 2: in a holiday venue up in the north of England

819
00:47:11,076 --> 00:47:14,076
Speaker 2: and there was this beautiful, big ballroom and I was eleven,

820
00:47:14,156 --> 00:47:17,076
Speaker 2: I think so I was eleven. I may have been

821
00:47:17,956 --> 00:47:23,116
Speaker 2: just starting to think about girls seriously. And I got

822
00:47:23,156 --> 00:47:26,236
Speaker 2: myself a milkshake and I sat up in the balcony,

823
00:47:26,476 --> 00:47:29,396
Speaker 2: which was a big square balcony, not like a theater balcony,

824
00:47:30,036 --> 00:47:32,436
Speaker 2: and these two girls came and sat outside me. They

825
00:47:32,436 --> 00:47:36,476
Speaker 2: were about eighteen, and in those days would have been

826
00:47:36,516 --> 00:47:40,156
Speaker 2: fifty eight fifty nine something like that. Girls used to

827
00:47:40,196 --> 00:47:45,756
Speaker 2: wear these big flowing frocks and decolotage, you know, bosoms

828
00:47:45,796 --> 00:47:49,916
Speaker 2: hanging out, beautiful hair, lots of makeup. And he went,

829
00:47:50,076 --> 00:47:52,396
Speaker 2: what are you doing here, little boy? You know? And

830
00:47:52,396 --> 00:47:55,596
Speaker 2: I said, oh, I'm here because my dad's in the band.

831
00:47:55,636 --> 00:47:57,916
Speaker 2: And they went, oh, your dad's in the band, and

832
00:47:58,036 --> 00:47:59,836
Speaker 2: said I said, which one is he? And I said

833
00:48:00,116 --> 00:48:02,236
Speaker 2: that one there and she went she said to her

834
00:48:02,276 --> 00:48:04,476
Speaker 2: friend across me. They sat either side of me, said

835
00:48:04,516 --> 00:48:08,836
Speaker 2: across me, oh damn, it, he's married, he's got a son,

836
00:48:09,276 --> 00:48:13,716
Speaker 2: damn it. He was the one I liked. And then

837
00:48:13,756 --> 00:48:19,196
Speaker 2: they're thinking, Wow, I get this, I really fucking get this.

838
00:48:19,316 --> 00:48:21,916
Speaker 2: And then the other one said I want the drama.

839
00:48:22,836 --> 00:48:24,796
Speaker 2: This is a guy called don Ken or something. He

840
00:48:24,876 --> 00:48:28,156
Speaker 2: was a Scottish boy. He was really handsome, and I

841
00:48:28,236 --> 00:48:31,156
Speaker 2: realized that he was handsome, and that my dad was handsome,

842
00:48:31,396 --> 00:48:34,676
Speaker 2: and that these two girls wanted to have sex with

843
00:48:34,716 --> 00:48:38,756
Speaker 2: these two boys. And there I am with my milkshake.

844
00:48:39,676 --> 00:48:42,436
Speaker 2: I also I also saw some dark things. I was

845
00:48:42,436 --> 00:48:46,476
Speaker 2: telling somebody today about being at this particular ballroom and

846
00:48:46,476 --> 00:48:49,556
Speaker 2: a whole bunch of teddy boys coming in and suddenly

847
00:48:49,596 --> 00:48:53,236
Speaker 2: starting to beat up certain boys. And two police officers

848
00:48:53,276 --> 00:48:56,396
Speaker 2: came in, and these teddy boys pulled out iron bars

849
00:48:57,156 --> 00:49:01,196
Speaker 2: and they practically beat these two policemen to death and

850
00:49:01,276 --> 00:49:03,836
Speaker 2: ran away, and there was blood on the pavement, and

851
00:49:03,916 --> 00:49:06,156
Speaker 2: these guys were helped out, and I remember being there

852
00:49:06,196 --> 00:49:08,076
Speaker 2: watching it and thinking, what the fuck?

853
00:49:08,276 --> 00:49:08,476
Speaker 1: You know.

854
00:49:09,236 --> 00:49:12,236
Speaker 2: So there were ups and downs, but most of it

855
00:49:12,316 --> 00:49:15,756
Speaker 2: was glorious, you know, And it made me confident that

856
00:49:15,836 --> 00:49:18,916
Speaker 2: this business, this show business, this music business that I'm

857
00:49:18,956 --> 00:49:22,276
Speaker 2: still a part of, is a wondrous place to be.

858
00:49:22,516 --> 00:49:24,996
Speaker 2: You know, it's not about being rich and famous. It's

859
00:49:25,036 --> 00:49:29,676
Speaker 2: a place where you're dealing with the mystery of music

860
00:49:29,756 --> 00:49:34,796
Speaker 2: and the wonderment the magic of music, and also the

861
00:49:34,836 --> 00:49:37,876
Speaker 2: way that music. In those days, the function was to

862
00:49:37,956 --> 00:49:42,156
Speaker 2: bring people together to dance, to make love, to kiss

863
00:49:42,596 --> 00:49:46,036
Speaker 2: in a back alley, maybe for the girl to get pregnant,

864
00:49:46,036 --> 00:49:48,716
Speaker 2: to have children, to start a new life after the

865
00:49:48,756 --> 00:49:53,636
Speaker 2: misery of two world wars. And the music was designed

866
00:49:53,676 --> 00:49:58,036
Speaker 2: for that, the atmosphere was designed for that. And then

867
00:49:58,156 --> 00:50:00,556
Speaker 2: suddenly there I am, you know, in this place where

868
00:50:00,636 --> 00:50:04,836
Speaker 2: I'm looking at Why don't I have a value? Why

869
00:50:04,876 --> 00:50:08,076
Speaker 2: don't I have a meaning like my father? Why you

870
00:50:08,076 --> 00:50:10,836
Speaker 2: know I wasn't asked to fight. I've not been asked

871
00:50:10,836 --> 00:50:16,316
Speaker 2: to join the army. I'm grateful to be free. But then,

872
00:50:16,356 --> 00:50:17,916
Speaker 2: you know, I knew that the war had ended with

873
00:50:17,956 --> 00:50:22,716
Speaker 2: the nuclear bomb. With the atom bomb, the glorious Oppenheim

874
00:50:22,836 --> 00:50:27,116
Speaker 2: is now making loads of money. And I suppose jacked

875
00:50:27,156 --> 00:50:31,276
Speaker 2: into rock music after me being a big jazz fan,

876
00:50:31,956 --> 00:50:38,036
Speaker 2: jacked into rock music is the way to express that disenfranchisement.

877
00:50:38,156 --> 00:50:42,196
Speaker 2: It's big words about silly stuff, really, but.

878
00:50:42,236 --> 00:50:43,996
Speaker 1: The path is quickly for a break and then we'll

879
00:50:44,036 --> 00:50:47,036
Speaker 1: come back with more from my chat with Pete Townsend.

880
00:50:51,516 --> 00:50:54,556
Speaker 1: We're back with the rest of my conversation with Pete Townsend.

881
00:50:55,556 --> 00:50:59,396
Speaker 1: The use of Organs synthesizers that you started to do.

882
00:50:59,996 --> 00:51:03,876
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating that at a similar time that

883
00:51:03,916 --> 00:51:07,876
Speaker 1: you're starting to ease these things. Malcolm Cecil is the

884
00:51:07,916 --> 00:51:11,196
Speaker 1: great producer. He was a friend of my dad's right

885
00:51:11,276 --> 00:51:14,396
Speaker 1: and he worked with Stevie Wonder on his class of records.

886
00:51:15,276 --> 00:51:19,156
Speaker 2: He did a lecture. He did a lecturer eating art

887
00:51:19,156 --> 00:51:23,316
Speaker 2: school when I was sixteen, and he was playing his bass.

888
00:51:23,316 --> 00:51:24,756
Speaker 2: He said, you know, you can do anything with a

889
00:51:24,836 --> 00:51:28,396
Speaker 2: musical instrument, and he got his bow and he started

890
00:51:28,436 --> 00:51:31,356
Speaker 2: to bang the bass with the bow. And my friend

891
00:51:31,396 --> 00:51:34,316
Speaker 2: Dick Seaman went up to him and said, you can

892
00:51:34,396 --> 00:51:37,516
Speaker 2: do anything, can you? And he said, yeah, anything, anything

893
00:51:37,556 --> 00:51:39,036
Speaker 2: at all you want to do with a bass, you

894
00:51:39,036 --> 00:51:40,396
Speaker 2: can do it. And he put it on its side

895
00:51:40,396 --> 00:51:42,156
Speaker 2: and he sat on it and he turned it back

896
00:51:42,196 --> 00:51:44,956
Speaker 2: to front and banged the back of it. He said,

897
00:51:44,956 --> 00:51:46,956
Speaker 2: this is a machine. You know, you can do anything

898
00:51:46,956 --> 00:51:49,476
Speaker 2: with it. So Dick Seeman went and got a saw,

899
00:51:49,676 --> 00:51:54,636
Speaker 2: a wood saw, and Malcolm Cecil soared through his strings

900
00:51:55,396 --> 00:51:59,476
Speaker 2: and as the saw went through the top, It hit

901
00:51:59,516 --> 00:52:02,716
Speaker 2: the belly and made a notch in the belly of

902
00:52:02,756 --> 00:52:04,636
Speaker 2: his bass, which I used to see. I used to

903
00:52:04,636 --> 00:52:06,396
Speaker 2: go and see him at Ronnie Scott's and he had

904
00:52:06,396 --> 00:52:10,876
Speaker 2: his bass with a saw notch in the He was

905
00:52:10,996 --> 00:52:15,516
Speaker 2: fucking radical. He was radical, So me smashing guitars was

906
00:52:15,556 --> 00:52:18,756
Speaker 2: partly inspired by him, as well as Gustav Metzka, who

907
00:52:18,836 --> 00:52:22,036
Speaker 2: was a considered you know, auto destructive artist who wanted

908
00:52:22,116 --> 00:52:25,396
Speaker 2: us all to save the planet by stopping flying and

909
00:52:25,836 --> 00:52:29,476
Speaker 2: stopping being so bourgeoires to need big cars and television

910
00:52:29,476 --> 00:52:32,596
Speaker 2: sets and all of that stuff. Anyway, he wrote to

911
00:52:32,676 --> 00:52:35,076
Speaker 2: me about a year before he died. He wrote me

912
00:52:35,116 --> 00:52:35,556
Speaker 2: a letter.

913
00:52:36,036 --> 00:52:37,556
Speaker 1: Wow, is it just a couple of years ago? Then?

914
00:52:38,196 --> 00:52:40,996
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, because it's only recent, isn't it. He was

915
00:52:41,956 --> 00:52:45,596
Speaker 2: He was with Robert Margolev, wasn't he worked with and.

916
00:52:45,636 --> 00:52:50,756
Speaker 1: They built that big synthesizer that were you aware of

917
00:52:50,796 --> 00:52:52,556
Speaker 1: what he was doing with that stuff at that time?

918
00:52:53,156 --> 00:52:55,356
Speaker 2: You know? It was after me, It was after me.

919
00:52:55,516 --> 00:52:58,076
Speaker 2: He was still in a jazz band. He was in

920
00:52:58,116 --> 00:53:02,276
Speaker 2: a band called the Johnny Something Quintet. The floortist in

921
00:53:02,396 --> 00:53:04,436
Speaker 2: that band was going out with a girl in my

922
00:53:04,476 --> 00:53:08,516
Speaker 2: class eeling that I fell in love with and kind

923
00:53:08,516 --> 00:53:12,356
Speaker 2: of crazy. Anyway, The interesting thing about the synthesizers was

924
00:53:12,436 --> 00:53:16,116
Speaker 2: that the Beatles had already got hold of a Mogue synthesizer.

925
00:53:16,356 --> 00:53:18,836
Speaker 2: It was being operated for them by a guy called

926
00:53:18,876 --> 00:53:22,556
Speaker 2: Chris Thomas, who was working for George Martin. Chris Thomas

927
00:53:22,596 --> 00:53:27,516
Speaker 2: became my record producer. I had produced Chris Thomas's first

928
00:53:27,556 --> 00:53:31,916
Speaker 2: record in a band called The Cat, so I knew Chris,

929
00:53:32,116 --> 00:53:35,796
Speaker 2: so I heard stories about this amazing thing that they

930
00:53:35,796 --> 00:53:38,876
Speaker 2: were working with. And then the Beatles came out with

931
00:53:38,956 --> 00:53:42,316
Speaker 2: Maxwell's silver hammer, Bang bang, then with a bit of

932
00:53:42,396 --> 00:53:46,796
Speaker 2: some weird synthesizer noises, and so I knew about synths.

933
00:53:46,836 --> 00:53:50,716
Speaker 2: But in the UK, a guy called Petersenoviev, who was

934
00:53:50,756 --> 00:53:54,636
Speaker 2: an electronic music musician, decided to make his own synthesizer,

935
00:53:55,556 --> 00:53:59,636
Speaker 2: and he made one called the EMS Electronic Music Studios

936
00:53:59,716 --> 00:54:02,476
Speaker 2: Putney because they were based in Putney, a small box.

937
00:54:03,036 --> 00:54:06,756
Speaker 2: So I bought one, and it made me realize that

938
00:54:07,316 --> 00:54:10,156
Speaker 2: there was a language there that was that I could

939
00:54:10,236 --> 00:54:12,476
Speaker 2: tack on too, in a sense, tack on to rock

940
00:54:12,516 --> 00:54:15,636
Speaker 2: and roll. And then I heard that he had a

941
00:54:15,716 --> 00:54:20,556
Speaker 2: music computer. It was a punch paper computer. I met

942
00:54:20,636 --> 00:54:23,156
Speaker 2: him a few years before he died, and he told

943
00:54:23,156 --> 00:54:25,356
Speaker 2: me that he never got it to work. But anyway,

944
00:54:25,436 --> 00:54:28,156
Speaker 2: I then started to meet other people like Roger Powell,

945
00:54:28,516 --> 00:54:31,236
Speaker 2: who was working went on to work with Todd Rungren

946
00:54:31,516 --> 00:54:35,156
Speaker 2: who was working for ARP. A guy called David Friend

947
00:54:35,956 --> 00:54:40,596
Speaker 2: was a marketer for the ARP. Alan Perlman made a

948
00:54:40,796 --> 00:54:44,636
Speaker 2: mood like synthesizer and I bought one. So I was

949
00:54:44,716 --> 00:54:47,956
Speaker 2: a great believer in the fact that synthesis would not

950
00:54:48,156 --> 00:54:51,276
Speaker 2: just be about music, would not just be about making

951
00:54:51,316 --> 00:54:55,956
Speaker 2: funny noise for electronic music mort Subotnek or you know whomever,

952
00:54:56,716 --> 00:55:00,396
Speaker 2: but would be able to jack into a computerized system

953
00:55:00,436 --> 00:55:04,716
Speaker 2: to produce very very tailor made musical harmonies and stuff

954
00:55:05,196 --> 00:55:11,276
Speaker 2: according to data that could be produced by analyzing people's minds, bodies,

955
00:55:11,876 --> 00:55:14,956
Speaker 2: temperaments and stuff, which is at the heart at the

956
00:55:14,956 --> 00:55:19,676
Speaker 2: heart of the experimental side of the Lifehouse project. Yeah,

957
00:55:19,756 --> 00:55:21,116
Speaker 2: it was in two phases.

958
00:55:21,356 --> 00:55:24,276
Speaker 1: I mean so much of that sort of that concept

959
00:55:24,276 --> 00:55:27,676
Speaker 1: to me seems to obviously resonate today with making music

960
00:55:27,716 --> 00:55:32,276
Speaker 1: with AI. Right, AI applications potentially for making music, I

961
00:55:32,316 --> 00:55:35,636
Speaker 1: guess is what's sort of starting to occur now what

962
00:55:35,796 --> 00:55:37,436
Speaker 1: you had envisioned in some way.

963
00:55:37,796 --> 00:55:40,156
Speaker 2: No, I don't know, I think. I mean, what's really

964
00:55:40,196 --> 00:55:42,796
Speaker 2: interesting is I was one of my counselors, one of

965
00:55:42,836 --> 00:55:46,076
Speaker 2: my supporters when I was working on Lifehouse was a

966
00:55:46,116 --> 00:55:50,076
Speaker 2: guy called Tim Seuster. He was a friend of Carnheinz Stockhaus,

967
00:55:50,116 --> 00:55:52,796
Speaker 2: and I met Stockhouse when I was working on Lifehouse,

968
00:55:53,836 --> 00:55:57,276
Speaker 2: and I met the people in the BBC Radiophonics workshop

969
00:55:57,316 --> 00:55:59,716
Speaker 2: as well. But Tim Suster said to me one day, Pee,

970
00:55:59,796 --> 00:56:01,916
Speaker 2: I'll have a tab behind my ear. You'll have a

971
00:56:01,956 --> 00:56:03,836
Speaker 2: tab behind your ear. I'll be able to send you

972
00:56:03,916 --> 00:56:06,636
Speaker 2: the melody and you'll be able to send me the counterpoint.

973
00:56:07,556 --> 00:56:10,196
Speaker 2: And I said what through the air And he said, yeah,

974
00:56:10,236 --> 00:56:13,396
Speaker 2: through the air. So but in my story it was

975
00:56:13,436 --> 00:56:18,876
Speaker 2: all tubes and wires running through the streets. And I

976
00:56:18,916 --> 00:56:22,236
Speaker 2: didn't get the Wi Fi bit that I didn't see

977
00:56:22,236 --> 00:56:25,036
Speaker 2: that happening there. And no, I didn't see that coming.

978
00:56:25,436 --> 00:56:29,996
Speaker 2: So the thing about the the AI issue of today

979
00:56:30,236 --> 00:56:33,476
Speaker 2: is that we're in a very very strange place at

980
00:56:33,476 --> 00:56:36,156
Speaker 2: the moment and it's not like the Internet at all.

981
00:56:36,636 --> 00:56:39,596
Speaker 2: It won't have the same I don't think. I can

982
00:56:39,636 --> 00:56:42,716
Speaker 2: only say what I think. A lot of it is

983
00:56:42,796 --> 00:56:48,316
Speaker 2: based on search engines very much like exotic Google and

984
00:56:48,516 --> 00:56:52,476
Speaker 2: bing and God knows what gathering data and gathering images,

985
00:56:53,076 --> 00:56:55,316
Speaker 2: you know. But if you go to you know, Adobe

986
00:56:55,356 --> 00:56:57,876
Speaker 2: Max and you say, I want a picture of a dragon,

987
00:56:58,996 --> 00:57:02,516
Speaker 2: you know, holding a nude girl in its mouth, you know,

988
00:57:02,636 --> 00:57:08,396
Speaker 2: set in an ice field with snowmen and pixels, it

989
00:57:08,556 --> 00:57:12,076
Speaker 2: knows what to do, it knows where to gather those images.

990
00:57:12,596 --> 00:57:16,436
Speaker 2: But that has got to be junk. However beautiful it is,

991
00:57:16,636 --> 00:57:21,196
Speaker 2: however extraordinary it is has come. On the other hand,

992
00:57:21,636 --> 00:57:26,916
Speaker 2: what's so extraordinary is that when we challenge ourselves as artists,

993
00:57:26,996 --> 00:57:30,636
Speaker 2: we'll often use that kind of shorthand. We'll often say,

994
00:57:30,876 --> 00:57:33,236
Speaker 2: I want to write a rock song. I want it

995
00:57:33,276 --> 00:57:36,916
Speaker 2: to be sexy. I want it to be something you

996
00:57:36,916 --> 00:57:38,756
Speaker 2: can dance to. Want it to have a bit of.

997
00:57:38,756 --> 00:57:42,476
Speaker 1: An edge, have a groove like this song, yeah, groove.

998
00:57:42,316 --> 00:57:45,676
Speaker 2: Like this yeah. So in a sense, AI at the

999
00:57:45,716 --> 00:57:49,876
Speaker 2: moment is only looking backwards. It's when AI starts to

1000
00:57:49,916 --> 00:57:54,836
Speaker 2: look forwards. For example, supposing AI which will be wonderful

1001
00:57:55,036 --> 00:57:59,716
Speaker 2: for international translation. It could save the planet. You know,

1002
00:57:59,796 --> 00:58:04,516
Speaker 2: while the dictator in China is talking to the dictator

1003
00:58:04,716 --> 00:58:07,236
Speaker 2: in America, whoever happens to be in power at the

1004
00:58:07,236 --> 00:58:11,036
Speaker 2: time about what's going to happen with Taiwan. You and

1005
00:58:11,116 --> 00:58:15,796
Speaker 2: I could be having street level conversations with Cantonese kids.

1006
00:58:17,076 --> 00:58:19,836
Speaker 2: We could use our jargon, they could use their jargon.

1007
00:58:19,956 --> 00:58:23,156
Speaker 2: We'll be sitting at our computers zooming battles and forwards,

1008
00:58:23,156 --> 00:58:26,436
Speaker 2: and we hearing each other heart to heart at a

1009
00:58:26,516 --> 00:58:30,036
Speaker 2: level which is so familiar. You know. We could actually say,

1010
00:58:30,076 --> 00:58:31,916
Speaker 2: you know, what flavor of ice cream do you like?

1011
00:58:32,116 --> 00:58:34,316
Speaker 2: And they're going to say, well, I'm not keen on vanilla.

1012
00:58:34,396 --> 00:58:36,316
Speaker 2: You know that kind of stuff, low level, high level,

1013
00:58:36,356 --> 00:58:40,156
Speaker 2: whatever it happens to be. It will completely disable the

1014
00:58:40,236 --> 00:58:46,396
Speaker 2: manipulating dictators who say Americans are your enemy, you know,

1015
00:58:46,716 --> 00:58:49,476
Speaker 2: or in our case, the Chinese are our potential enemy.

1016
00:58:49,676 --> 00:58:49,876
Speaker 1: You know.

1017
00:58:50,036 --> 00:58:52,396
Speaker 2: You meet them, you talk to them, and you think, well, hey,

1018
00:58:52,396 --> 00:58:54,836
Speaker 2: they're just like us, they just have a different language.

1019
00:58:55,076 --> 00:58:57,556
Speaker 2: So I think in a sense, ai can conquer that.

1020
00:58:58,396 --> 00:59:04,236
Speaker 2: But it's when you say, for example, you know, chat GTP,

1021
00:59:04,796 --> 00:59:07,996
Speaker 2: I write me a CV, I want to be a

1022
00:59:08,036 --> 00:59:10,676
Speaker 2: guitar player, I want to be in a band, I

1023
00:59:10,716 --> 00:59:12,956
Speaker 2: want to play R and B music. I want to

1024
00:59:13,716 --> 00:59:16,036
Speaker 2: blah blah blah blah blah. I've done you know I've

1025
00:59:16,076 --> 00:59:18,676
Speaker 2: got a music course. I did a course at a university,

1026
00:59:18,796 --> 00:59:21,716
Speaker 2: but it was literature and services and so, and I

1027
00:59:21,756 --> 00:59:24,596
Speaker 2: want you to write my CV for me, and Jack

1028
00:59:24,636 --> 00:59:28,436
Speaker 2: Tip actually says to you, Pete, you're making a big

1029
00:59:28,516 --> 00:59:32,916
Speaker 2: mistake here. If that ever happens, if it just does

1030
00:59:32,996 --> 00:59:35,236
Speaker 2: what I fucking asked it to do, then I'm very

1031
00:59:35,316 --> 00:59:38,836
Speaker 2: happy to have AI. I used it for the first

1032
00:59:38,836 --> 00:59:43,236
Speaker 2: time last night. It's been built into to an organizer

1033
00:59:43,276 --> 00:59:47,036
Speaker 2: that I use called Clickup, which is a task manager

1034
00:59:47,236 --> 00:59:49,236
Speaker 2: which I use because I've got so many projects i'm

1035
00:59:49,316 --> 00:59:52,316
Speaker 2: juggling with. It's not the most popular, but I really

1036
00:59:52,476 --> 00:59:56,676
Speaker 2: like it. And they've just introduced AI and one of

1037
00:59:56,716 --> 01:00:02,556
Speaker 2: the pages is a long, long, long essay about my project,

1038
01:00:02,556 --> 01:00:06,196
Speaker 2: The Age of Anxiety, which is a young musician who

1039
01:00:06,276 --> 01:00:12,116
Speaker 2: hears the anxiety of people in his audience, gets distressed, quits,

1040
01:00:12,396 --> 01:00:15,996
Speaker 2: meets an old rock star who has gone through a

1041
01:00:16,036 --> 01:00:19,556
Speaker 2: similar experience of disenchantment with rock music and become an

1042
01:00:19,596 --> 01:00:22,116
Speaker 2: actor and then that hasn't worked out either, and just

1043
01:00:22,156 --> 01:00:26,116
Speaker 2: says to him, listen, if you're feeling crazy, embrace it.

1044
01:00:26,796 --> 01:00:30,796
Speaker 2: The reason why I just did that chat was because

1045
01:00:30,916 --> 01:00:36,756
Speaker 2: yesterday I gave this six page description of my thesis

1046
01:00:36,956 --> 01:00:41,396
Speaker 2: for my play and said summarize it. And that's what

1047
01:00:41,436 --> 01:00:43,876
Speaker 2: it said, and it's a really good summary.

1048
01:00:44,156 --> 01:00:47,436
Speaker 1: Wow. I don't know you personally, but having followed your career,

1049
01:00:47,556 --> 01:00:50,916
Speaker 1: knowing a bit about from Afar, you're far from a technophobe,

1050
01:00:51,396 --> 01:00:55,836
Speaker 1: seem to have embraced technology wholeheartedly throughout your career. You

1051
01:00:56,116 --> 01:01:00,356
Speaker 1: do see some practical useful application of AI.

1052
01:01:00,796 --> 01:01:03,716
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, absolutely, yeah, I do. I do. I think

1053
01:01:03,716 --> 01:01:06,556
Speaker 2: it will help in all kinds of ways that will

1054
01:01:06,596 --> 01:01:09,716
Speaker 2: surprise us when they happen, just like the Internet has.

1055
01:01:10,156 --> 01:01:13,756
Speaker 2: And of course the Internet has its dark side, very

1056
01:01:13,836 --> 01:01:18,396
Speaker 2: very dark side, but then so does social media, you know,

1057
01:01:18,476 --> 01:01:21,116
Speaker 2: and social media could actually be described as having a

1058
01:01:21,196 --> 01:01:23,876
Speaker 2: dark side in the music industry, you know, because in

1059
01:01:23,916 --> 01:01:27,436
Speaker 2: a sense what's actually been happening is that very very

1060
01:01:27,476 --> 01:01:31,156
Speaker 2: few artists has started to monopolize the majority of streaming

1061
01:01:31,916 --> 01:01:34,716
Speaker 2: to the extent with the long tale which was predicted

1062
01:01:34,756 --> 01:01:38,276
Speaker 2: when the Internet started, there will be a long tale

1063
01:01:38,636 --> 01:01:40,956
Speaker 2: which will be the interesting part will be all the

1064
01:01:40,996 --> 01:01:44,476
Speaker 2: people that are doing all the interesting personal stuff is

1065
01:01:44,556 --> 01:01:46,876
Speaker 2: become so clogged up.

1066
01:01:47,516 --> 01:01:47,716
Speaker 1: You know.

1067
01:01:47,756 --> 01:01:50,876
Speaker 2: You go on, you go on to Spotify and go

1068
01:01:50,956 --> 01:01:53,436
Speaker 2: into some of the Apple is the same title as

1069
01:01:53,476 --> 01:01:57,036
Speaker 2: the same You go into an area which nobody else

1070
01:01:57,116 --> 01:01:59,676
Speaker 2: is listening to, and you hear the most extraordinary stuff.

1071
01:01:59,676 --> 01:02:01,636
Speaker 2: You hear it on you know, SoundCloud, you hear it

1072
01:02:01,716 --> 01:02:05,156
Speaker 2: on band camp. You'd make discoveries and you think, who

1073
01:02:05,156 --> 01:02:07,396
Speaker 2: the fuck is this? They're brilliant, they're a genius. But

1074
01:02:07,956 --> 01:02:12,276
Speaker 2: they've got twelve followers. You know, it's sort of tragic

1075
01:02:12,356 --> 01:02:16,076
Speaker 2: what's actually happened, because not that all of those people

1076
01:02:16,156 --> 01:02:18,356
Speaker 2: could ever have been famous. You know, we're used to

1077
01:02:18,396 --> 01:02:21,156
Speaker 2: the Star System being a place which they you know,

1078
01:02:21,236 --> 01:02:23,316
Speaker 2: which that guy, I can't remember his name, but he

1079
01:02:23,356 --> 01:02:26,436
Speaker 2: called it black Swan's you know where a black Swan

1080
01:02:26,516 --> 01:02:29,036
Speaker 2: is somebody that's just extremely lucky to be in the

1081
01:02:29,116 --> 01:02:32,076
Speaker 2: right place at the right time. So no, but with

1082
01:02:32,156 --> 01:02:35,516
Speaker 2: respect to AI, I'm hopeful, but I'm not going to

1083
01:02:35,556 --> 01:02:37,916
Speaker 2: say it's inevitably going to be a good thing, because

1084
01:02:37,916 --> 01:02:42,756
Speaker 2: I think it's when it becomes what drives a machine

1085
01:02:43,276 --> 01:02:46,036
Speaker 2: that we have to be careful. I think I have

1086
01:02:46,116 --> 01:02:48,036
Speaker 2: to give personally, I have to give the credit for

1087
01:02:48,196 --> 01:02:52,596
Speaker 2: my ability to bounce off new ideas is because of

1088
01:02:52,636 --> 01:02:54,676
Speaker 2: my training at Art College. You know, the team of

1089
01:02:54,756 --> 01:02:57,996
Speaker 2: people that were running the course when I was sixteen.

1090
01:02:58,836 --> 01:03:03,596
Speaker 2: Were radical thinkers, you know, and they were predicting the

1091
01:03:03,636 --> 01:03:07,756
Speaker 2: eminence of personal computers, which took thirty or forty years

1092
01:03:07,756 --> 01:03:10,836
Speaker 2: to arrive. You know, they were their students. You know,

1093
01:03:10,916 --> 01:03:14,236
Speaker 2: don't learn to draw because you don't need to that

1094
01:03:14,436 --> 01:03:16,436
Speaker 2: kind of thing. You know, what you actually need to

1095
01:03:16,476 --> 01:03:19,996
Speaker 2: do is you need to learn how to start a conversation,

1096
01:03:20,196 --> 01:03:23,756
Speaker 2: to create communication, but most of all, to understand that

1097
01:03:23,796 --> 01:03:26,076
Speaker 2: the most important thing about art in the modern world

1098
01:03:26,196 --> 01:03:30,476
Speaker 2: is creating a channel for feedback. Feedback from your client,

1099
01:03:30,556 --> 01:03:34,236
Speaker 2: feedback from your audience, feedback from other artists, conversation with

1100
01:03:34,356 --> 01:03:38,796
Speaker 2: other artists, so that art becomes bigger than society and

1101
01:03:38,996 --> 01:03:43,236
Speaker 2: bigger than small chunks of society. And what's interesting now

1102
01:03:43,356 --> 01:03:46,236
Speaker 2: right now, you know, I've got the Chuck d book.

1103
01:03:47,036 --> 01:03:51,516
Speaker 2: He's a great drawer mind signed, which is very cool. Yeah.

1104
01:03:51,956 --> 01:03:55,596
Speaker 2: I was working on some theater piece and the kid

1105
01:03:55,876 --> 01:03:59,956
Speaker 2: that lived opposite my studio, his bedroom was right opposite

1106
01:03:59,996 --> 01:04:01,956
Speaker 2: my window, so when I was sitting at my keyboard,

1107
01:04:01,956 --> 01:04:05,396
Speaker 2: I could see him, young kid, he was about fifteen.

1108
01:04:06,196 --> 01:04:10,316
Speaker 2: The wall was plastered with public enemy posters. So one

1109
01:04:10,396 --> 01:04:11,996
Speaker 2: day I thought, I've got to check these guys that

1110
01:04:12,116 --> 01:04:15,756
Speaker 2: they were really hard to find. They weren't easy to find,

1111
01:04:15,756 --> 01:04:18,196
Speaker 2: but I found them and it felt like this, this is

1112
01:04:18,196 --> 01:04:26,316
Speaker 2: some black guy who's very, very angry with me, and

1113
01:04:26,396 --> 01:04:29,116
Speaker 2: he's shouting at me a lot, and he's making stuff

1114
01:04:29,196 --> 01:04:30,676
Speaker 2: up on the spur of the moment, and a lot

1115
01:04:30,716 --> 01:04:34,036
Speaker 2: of it sounds pretty threatening. But now, of course I

1116
01:04:34,116 --> 01:04:35,596
Speaker 2: kind of look back at it and I think, you know,

1117
01:04:35,676 --> 01:04:38,196
Speaker 2: the whole journey of it has been through wholes you know,

1118
01:04:38,236 --> 01:04:41,156
Speaker 2: from Jay Dilla, questlove and all of that stuff. It's

1119
01:04:41,156 --> 01:04:44,356
Speaker 2: turned it into a high level art form but also

1120
01:04:44,636 --> 01:04:47,476
Speaker 2: also a political success story.

1121
01:04:48,396 --> 01:04:50,836
Speaker 1: Like so you you follow hip hop? You you are

1122
01:04:50,876 --> 01:04:53,516
Speaker 1: interested in the production of of hip hop?

1123
01:04:53,596 --> 01:04:56,596
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I read that. I read the Diller book,

1124
01:04:56,676 --> 01:04:58,956
Speaker 2: which is cool, so you get his life story.

1125
01:04:58,996 --> 01:05:01,036
Speaker 1: My friend Dan Charnis wrote that incredible.

1126
01:05:01,996 --> 01:05:05,756
Speaker 2: Tell him I love it. I love it. I love it.

1127
01:05:05,636 --> 01:05:09,236
Speaker 2: It's because he was such an interesting young man and

1128
01:05:10,116 --> 01:05:11,916
Speaker 2: I wish he'd been around. And of course the Who's

1129
01:05:11,916 --> 01:05:17,516
Speaker 2: bass Player for a while, Yeah yeah, and he Kipino

1130
01:05:17,596 --> 01:05:21,236
Speaker 2: played based on the Miseducation of Lauren Hill.

1131
01:05:21,556 --> 01:05:23,756
Speaker 1: Shit, man, do you have to be not much anymore?

1132
01:05:23,756 --> 01:05:24,316
Speaker 1: Of these days?

1133
01:05:24,516 --> 01:05:26,476
Speaker 2: Like I had this thing recently where I met a

1134
01:05:26,516 --> 01:05:30,476
Speaker 2: young guy on Instagram who'd done a beat every day

1135
01:05:30,516 --> 01:05:32,876
Speaker 2: for a year, because I'd tried to do that a

1136
01:05:32,916 --> 01:05:35,356
Speaker 2: few times, try to write a little song every or

1137
01:05:35,396 --> 01:05:38,156
Speaker 2: even a verse of a song every day for a year,

1138
01:05:38,196 --> 01:05:39,996
Speaker 2: and I would get to sort of fifth of January

1139
01:05:40,036 --> 01:05:42,796
Speaker 2: and give up. And he did a whole year. And

1140
01:05:42,836 --> 01:05:45,196
Speaker 2: I just wrote to him, sent him a DM and

1141
01:05:45,276 --> 01:05:47,156
Speaker 2: just said it was fantastic, and got to know him,

1142
01:05:47,716 --> 01:05:50,676
Speaker 2: helped him with a few things, and brought him to

1143
01:05:50,756 --> 01:05:54,836
Speaker 2: my studio and he wanted to look at a while.

1144
01:05:54,836 --> 01:05:56,916
Speaker 2: It's a piano that was his thing. I want to

1145
01:05:56,916 --> 01:05:59,076
Speaker 2: see all. I've got one to come and see it.

1146
01:05:59,396 --> 01:06:03,276
Speaker 2: He lived fairly nearby, so he came, very shy young man,

1147
01:06:03,516 --> 01:06:05,916
Speaker 2: and he started to tell me about you know, I said,

1148
01:06:05,996 --> 01:06:08,156
Speaker 2: where did you learn about this slack beat thing that

1149
01:06:08,196 --> 01:06:11,236
Speaker 2: you do? Because it's really fucking slack. Sometimes it's so

1150
01:06:11,316 --> 01:06:13,316
Speaker 2: slack that you can't work out where the rhythm is.

1151
01:06:13,756 --> 01:06:17,716
Speaker 2: And he said, I'm a fan of Questlove, So I said,

1152
01:06:18,276 --> 01:06:22,116
Speaker 2: sort of rings a bell, and I got my computer

1153
01:06:22,236 --> 01:06:24,956
Speaker 2: out and I did it Jay Diller on Questlove. I

1154
01:06:25,036 --> 01:06:28,396
Speaker 2: saw Pino's name, so I got Pino on a zoom,

1155
01:06:28,676 --> 01:06:31,876
Speaker 2: and Pino was so thrilled to meet this young guy

1156
01:06:31,956 --> 01:06:34,676
Speaker 2: who was such a big fan of Jay Diller and Questlove.

1157
01:06:35,516 --> 01:06:39,316
Speaker 2: And this guy Brynn Morgan, who's a Welsh boy. Pino's

1158
01:06:39,356 --> 01:06:44,316
Speaker 2: Welsh is now sending beats to to Pino whether anything

1159
01:06:44,356 --> 01:06:47,156
Speaker 2: will happen who. So it was a really nice coincidence.

1160
01:06:47,196 --> 01:06:50,596
Speaker 1: That's amazing. I like People's last record at all. Yeah,

1161
01:06:50,596 --> 01:06:53,476
Speaker 1: it was so fucking cool, so.

1162
01:06:53,316 --> 01:06:56,876
Speaker 2: Interesting was yeah, yeah that I'm so glad you heard it.

1163
01:06:56,876 --> 01:06:58,916
Speaker 1: It was good, really cool stuff.

1164
01:06:58,996 --> 01:07:00,996
Speaker 2: And I think they're going to make another one. And

1165
01:07:01,036 --> 01:07:04,156
Speaker 2: he's such a charming guys. He got into the Who

1166
01:07:04,236 --> 01:07:06,796
Speaker 2: by you know, we we were about to do a

1167
01:07:06,836 --> 01:07:10,996
Speaker 2: big tour. John Atmusall decided to kick the tour off

1168
01:07:11,036 --> 01:07:13,956
Speaker 2: that was starting in Las Vegas with a with a

1169
01:07:13,996 --> 01:07:17,076
Speaker 2: cocaine binge in a hotel in Las Vegas. He was

1170
01:07:17,596 --> 01:07:20,996
Speaker 2: he got into bed with a prostitute who professed to

1171
01:07:21,036 --> 01:07:24,036
Speaker 2: have said I'm taking your friend into bed and I'm

1172
01:07:24,036 --> 01:07:29,476
Speaker 2: going to fuck him to death, and she did. She

1173
01:07:29,556 --> 01:07:32,916
Speaker 2: fucked him to death. And we had this big tour

1174
01:07:33,676 --> 01:07:37,556
Speaker 2: set up happening the next day, and I said, I

1175
01:07:37,756 --> 01:07:41,556
Speaker 2: wonder if I can find Pino so I got Pino

1176
01:07:41,636 --> 01:07:43,196
Speaker 2: on the phone and he was just getting on a

1177
01:07:43,196 --> 01:07:46,116
Speaker 2: plane from Florida. He'd just been working on the Lauren

1178
01:07:46,196 --> 01:07:49,076
Speaker 2: Hill album, and I said, will you come over? And

1179
01:07:49,116 --> 01:07:51,156
Speaker 2: he just came over and we did three days in

1180
01:07:51,196 --> 01:07:55,316
Speaker 2: a rehearsal studio. We canceled Las Vegas in three days

1181
01:07:55,316 --> 01:07:57,196
Speaker 2: in a rehearsal studio. He was with the band for

1182
01:07:57,236 --> 01:07:59,436
Speaker 2: a quite a long time. I think he got fed

1183
01:07:59,556 --> 01:08:01,956
Speaker 2: up with her, but he was good while it lasted.

1184
01:08:02,036 --> 01:08:03,396
Speaker 1: I got to see him with you guys a couple

1185
01:08:03,436 --> 01:08:07,076
Speaker 1: of times. That was a great show. Yeah, I mean

1186
01:08:07,196 --> 01:08:09,876
Speaker 1: your example of you bringing the the guy doing a

1187
01:08:09,876 --> 01:08:12,596
Speaker 1: beat to day to your studio, I mean, just just cool,

1188
01:08:12,756 --> 01:08:15,876
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm sure you guys didn't get that. No,

1189
01:08:16,396 --> 01:08:18,476
Speaker 1: I'm sure there was enough of a disconnect between what

1190
01:08:18,556 --> 01:08:21,476
Speaker 1: you guys in the mid sixties were doing, you know,

1191
01:08:21,596 --> 01:08:22,316
Speaker 1: when you're eighteen.

1192
01:08:22,556 --> 01:08:26,236
Speaker 2: There were exceptions, you know, when we did Tommy at

1193
01:08:26,236 --> 01:08:29,076
Speaker 2: the film or Leonard Bernstein came and got hold of

1194
01:08:29,116 --> 01:08:31,156
Speaker 2: me afterwards, he brought his daughter to see the show

1195
01:08:31,196 --> 01:08:33,436
Speaker 2: and got hold of me and shook me and said, Pete,

1196
01:08:33,476 --> 01:08:35,316
Speaker 2: you've got to do more of this. You've got to

1197
01:08:35,316 --> 01:08:37,796
Speaker 2: do more of this. It's such great work. You know,

1198
01:08:37,876 --> 01:08:41,956
Speaker 2: the storytelling, you know, the vivacity of the music, the

1199
01:08:42,036 --> 01:08:45,796
Speaker 2: lyrical sensibilities of it. It's just wonderful. You must do more,

1200
01:08:46,396 --> 01:08:48,316
Speaker 2: and you must bring it to Tanglewood. And we took

1201
01:08:48,316 --> 01:08:50,036
Speaker 2: it to Tanglewood. He was the director there.

1202
01:08:50,196 --> 01:08:52,116
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, wow.

1203
01:08:52,156 --> 01:08:54,836
Speaker 2: So there have been exceptions, and I think even as

1204
01:08:54,876 --> 01:08:57,796
Speaker 2: a young man too. In the fact, I've recently written

1205
01:08:57,796 --> 01:09:01,756
Speaker 2: a song about it about Chris Barber and Humphrey Lyttleton,

1206
01:09:01,836 --> 01:09:06,956
Speaker 2: who were two jazz players, so crossover from what we

1207
01:09:07,116 --> 01:09:11,316
Speaker 2: call traditional jazz, which would have been Louis Armstrong basically

1208
01:09:11,796 --> 01:09:16,556
Speaker 2: inspired jazz and bebop, and they were just in between

1209
01:09:16,676 --> 01:09:25,716
Speaker 2: those two stools. They invited artists like The Who and

1210
01:09:25,836 --> 01:09:29,036
Speaker 2: many other acts in London at the time, and the Stones,

1211
01:09:29,076 --> 01:09:32,676
Speaker 2: who were playing R and B onto their stages, which

1212
01:09:32,716 --> 01:09:36,956
Speaker 2: were jazz stages. They invited us in and they gave

1213
01:09:37,036 --> 01:09:42,716
Speaker 2: us airtime and they were encouraging. And Chris Barber, who

1214
01:09:42,756 --> 01:09:46,556
Speaker 2: was a jazz musician, his wife, Otterley Patterson, was a

1215
01:09:46,596 --> 01:09:49,676
Speaker 2: really great jazz singer. They were married and they were

1216
01:09:49,876 --> 01:09:53,956
Speaker 2: twosome and they were national treasures as it were. You know,

1217
01:09:53,996 --> 01:09:57,556
Speaker 2: they ran the Marquee Club and they invited us in

1218
01:09:58,516 --> 01:10:00,436
Speaker 2: and he used to sometimes get on stage with his

1219
01:10:00,476 --> 01:10:04,436
Speaker 2: trumpet and join into you know, R and B songs

1220
01:10:04,436 --> 01:10:07,636
Speaker 2: that we were playing I'm a Man and Smokestack, Lightning

1221
01:10:07,676 --> 01:10:11,036
Speaker 2: and stuff like that. And Humphrey Lyttleton, who was who

1222
01:10:11,116 --> 01:10:15,156
Speaker 2: knew my dad, was another trumpeter who was who did

1223
01:10:15,316 --> 01:10:19,436
Speaker 2: lots of stints at Ronnie Scott's Club in London, and

1224
01:10:19,556 --> 01:10:24,476
Speaker 2: Ronnie Scott. We premiered Tommy to the press at Ronnie

1225
01:10:24,516 --> 01:10:27,996
Speaker 2: Scott's Club and we were very loud for the club.

1226
01:10:28,236 --> 01:10:32,156
Speaker 2: But he was a sax player like my dad, a

1227
01:10:32,236 --> 01:10:36,356
Speaker 2: tenor player. And he came afterwards and he said, Pete,

1228
01:10:36,356 --> 01:10:38,476
Speaker 2: that was fucking great. You know, you must do more.

1229
01:10:38,556 --> 01:10:41,076
Speaker 2: And at that time, you know, I was dabbling with

1230
01:10:41,156 --> 01:10:43,756
Speaker 2: the idea of doing more concept work, but I was

1231
01:10:43,756 --> 01:10:47,236
Speaker 2: so encouraged by lots of well not lots of people,

1232
01:10:47,316 --> 01:10:49,796
Speaker 2: but certain key people. There were people that were.

1233
01:10:49,996 --> 01:10:52,676
Speaker 1: Did the validation meant to mean something new from those

1234
01:10:52,676 --> 01:10:52,916
Speaker 1: from the.

1235
01:10:53,116 --> 01:10:55,956
Speaker 2: Oh yeah yeah, yeah, particularly for me because they were

1236
01:10:56,236 --> 01:10:59,236
Speaker 2: they were from my dad's world, you know, and my

1237
01:10:59,356 --> 01:11:01,796
Speaker 2: dad had been unable to give me that validation.

1238
01:11:03,276 --> 01:11:03,916
Speaker 1: That makes sense.

1239
01:11:03,996 --> 01:11:06,196
Speaker 2: I don't know that he even came to see us

1240
01:11:06,836 --> 01:11:08,116
Speaker 2: when we were a school band.

1241
01:11:09,236 --> 01:11:11,996
Speaker 1: Did he see you once you became the who ever?

1242
01:11:12,236 --> 01:11:16,756
Speaker 2: Now? And again he wasn't keen. Yeah, he used to

1243
01:11:16,796 --> 01:11:18,556
Speaker 2: say as a joke, he used to say, you know,

1244
01:11:18,636 --> 01:11:20,516
Speaker 2: you guys have put us out of work. You know,

1245
01:11:20,596 --> 01:11:27,196
Speaker 2: we we we need fourteen musicians on stage minimum, you know,

1246
01:11:27,276 --> 01:11:30,116
Speaker 2: to raise seventy five decimals. You know, you guys come

1247
01:11:30,156 --> 01:11:32,876
Speaker 2: in with your big amplifiers and there's only four of

1248
01:11:32,916 --> 01:11:33,996
Speaker 2: you making a noise.

1249
01:11:34,116 --> 01:11:36,636
Speaker 1: You know, Come on, Dad, put you in a car,

1250
01:11:36,756 --> 01:11:37,436
Speaker 1: but you a home.

1251
01:11:37,956 --> 01:11:40,676
Speaker 2: Well, the car was the best thing, the first car

1252
01:11:40,756 --> 01:11:42,796
Speaker 2: I bought him. He'd had an old banger, you know,

1253
01:11:42,836 --> 01:11:46,476
Speaker 2: but I bought him a brand new Series one Range

1254
01:11:46,556 --> 01:11:48,836
Speaker 2: Rover for very first one, which was like a big

1255
01:11:48,916 --> 01:11:52,076
Speaker 2: high car and it only did nine miles to the gallon.

1256
01:11:52,156 --> 01:11:53,556
Speaker 2: So I used to have to send him money for

1257
01:11:53,596 --> 01:11:56,716
Speaker 2: petrol as well. But then I bought the house that

1258
01:11:56,756 --> 01:12:00,076
Speaker 2: they rented that they lived in, and my two brothers

1259
01:12:00,156 --> 01:12:03,316
Speaker 2: now live in that house, so two flats of each other,

1260
01:12:03,476 --> 01:12:06,796
Speaker 2: so it's still a family home. But yeah, he was lovely.

1261
01:12:06,916 --> 01:12:09,036
Speaker 2: My dad and we went boating together. We bought a

1262
01:12:09,196 --> 01:12:11,876
Speaker 2: boat together, and we used to go out on the

1263
01:12:11,956 --> 01:12:15,476
Speaker 2: River Thames and we both drank a lot, so we

1264
01:12:15,516 --> 01:12:17,476
Speaker 2: would drink buddies and that's fun.

1265
01:12:18,036 --> 01:12:21,716
Speaker 1: Yeah, man, Pete Townsend, thank you so much. Well, I

1266
01:12:21,716 --> 01:12:25,236
Speaker 1: mean for all your deep writing over the years, songwriting,

1267
01:12:25,276 --> 01:12:28,196
Speaker 1: all the music, sticking together all these years putting out

1268
01:12:28,196 --> 01:12:30,916
Speaker 1: incredible music. And thank you so much for this beautiful package.

1269
01:12:31,436 --> 01:12:32,436
Speaker 2: It's lovely to talk to you.

1270
01:12:32,756 --> 01:12:38,276
Speaker 1: Thanks again, thanks to the legendary Pete Townsend for sharing

1271
01:12:38,396 --> 01:12:41,356
Speaker 1: so many incredible stories from his career. The Who's new

1272
01:12:41,396 --> 01:12:45,636
Speaker 1: box set Whose Next Lifehouse is out now. You can

1273
01:12:45,636 --> 01:12:47,756
Speaker 1: hear a collection of all of our favorite Who songs

1274
01:12:47,796 --> 01:12:50,836
Speaker 1: and other songs mentioned in this episode on a playlist

1275
01:12:50,836 --> 01:12:54,556
Speaker 1: at broken Record podcast dot com. Subscribe to our YouTube

1276
01:12:54,596 --> 01:12:57,836
Speaker 1: channel at YouTube dot com slash broken Record Podcast, where

1277
01:12:57,836 --> 01:13:00,756
Speaker 1: you can find all of our new episodes. You can

1278
01:13:00,796 --> 01:13:04,516
Speaker 1: follow us on Twitter at broken Record. Broken Record is

1279
01:13:04,516 --> 01:13:07,236
Speaker 1: produced with help from Lea Rose and Eric Sandler. Our

1280
01:13:07,276 --> 01:13:10,956
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Speaker 1: us on your podcast app. Are theme musics by Kenny Beats.

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Speaker 1: I'm justin Richmond.