Roger Daltrey on The Who, his Cork pal, and why Oasis should reform
Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend on stage in Wembley, where their new live album was recorded. Picture: William Snyder
In the grand pantheon of rock heavyweights The Who carry a mythology almost as big as the band. One significant character who had an impact was ‘Irish Jack’ Lyons. The Cork-born mod arrived in London back in 1962 and would become a close associate of the group, reputedly even inspiring aspects of the iconic Jimmy character in the 1979 film Quadrophenia.
Frontman Roger Daltrey, who turned 79 last month, appears on Zoom from his home in East Sussex in sky blue tinted spectacles, neck scarf and jumper. When I enquire if he’s still in touch with the former postman now back living in Cork, he replies. “How can you stop keeping in touch with Irish Jack?”
Daltrey is laughing out loud, his cockney charm and hearty spirit summon a generation born in the aftermath of World War II. “We had a totally different environment than young people today”, he explains. “Now people would say we were really poor, we didn’t have a lot of possessions. It’s true that no one locked their house because there was nothing to steal and in some ways that’s a relief. Whatever we wanted, we had to go out and strive for; very little was given to us. The only thing we had was the love and encouragement of our parents, they had five years of hell and the memory of losing their parents in the First World War. We lived in a more healthy period both dietary and mentally we were healthy; we knew there wasn’t a Father Christmas; we knew the score”.
Raised in working-class Shepherd’s Bush, he attended Acton Grammar School with The Who’s guitarist Pete Townsend and bass player John ‘The Ox’ Entwistle. He suggests being expelled from school on his birthday was one of the best things that ever happened to him. “I was kicked out at age 15 and playing music at weekends. By 17 I was driving the van for the band and we were working six days a week. By the age of 23, we were travelling our way across America.”
Daltrey formed skiffle band The Detours, firstly playing guitar and running the band while enlisting various members until they eventually morphed into The Who by 1964. Keith Moon was the essential final recruit on drums that same year.
Despite his death in 1978 at the age of 32, the legendary drummer is still a huge figure in the folklore of popular music. “It’s because life is so full of fucking mediocrity,” Daltrey suggests.
The singer and his fellow Who bandmember Pete Townshend have a feature film in the works with Moon as a central character. Daltrey stresses it won’t be a biopic, but it will have plenty of the drummer’s infamous antics.
“I remember Keith almost burned down a hotel underneath the castle in Edinburgh back in 1966,” recalls Daltrey. “He would buy these substances in garden shops, mix it with sugar and set it alight. He’d then dampen it down and this would create an enormous cloud of smoke. The smoke began to move down the staircase of the hotel, half of Edinburgh must have been engulfed in fog.”
While being widely regarded as one of rock music’s greatest drummers, Moon also had a serious self-destructive streak. Does Daltrey think he could be helped today? “Knowing Keith as I did, no; he was an extraordinary group of people. I would have the greatest sympathy with the psychologists,” the singer reflects.
The Who managed to keep going after the tragic loss of Moon, with Kenney Jones picking up the sticks for much of the next decade, and Zak Starkey joining the band in 1996. Starkey, of course, is the son of Ringo Starr, and was actually given his first drum kit as a child by Keith Moon. It’s also his playing that can be heard on the band’s latest release, The Who With Orchestra Live At Wembley.
“If anyone thinks this is not the old time Who that dig in then I have to say we have created that sound with the orchestra,” says Daltrey of an album recorded at the London gig in 2019 with a 57-piece ensemble.
“It’s not like any other band you’ve seen with an orchestra, I’ve seen most of them and it’s nothing like that. It might look great and it sounds good but what they are playing could be done on a keyboard; this is a very different and complicated arrangement that retains the original coming-of-age energy of the music with real instruments. It gives Townsend’s music a whole different connection to the audience, it really does.”
The album came from the band’s first headline slot at Wembley Stadium in 40 years. Part of the Moving On tour that also played 3Arena in Dublin, tracks such as ‘The Real Me’ and ‘5:15’ retain their majesty on the album. “I’m not prancing around here cock-rocking,” stresses Daltrey. “That’s not my game, I leave that to other bands. I’m a singer, the passion and fire that was there the first time I ever sang those songs is still there; I’ve never lost that and I ain’t gonna forget it. I’m not kidding anyone, this is a great show that makes the bloody hair on your body stand on end."
The onstage chemistry is still there, but how have Daltrey and Townshend managed to still be a unit through so much time and the inevitable strained periods? “We don’t mix socially; that’s the secret of our relationship,” reveals Daltrey. “We get together for the chemistry that the work creates, we are friends but he’s not that type of friend.”
Some of the more petty differences were also put in perspective by health issues. Townshend has suffered with hearing issues and had a brush with cancer, while Daltrey believed he was dying as he battled viral meningitis in 2015. Another scare encouraged him to take better care of his voice.
“I had a pre-cancerous situation which has taught me to look after it ever since,” he says. “I used to do things that were totally stupid. If I had a cold I’d still go on stage and do the show but now it’s different, I cancel because otherwise I might damage my voice forever and I won’t be able to sing for a month. I’ve learned to control it. I also play gigs in my other little bands and I do charity gigs; a singer has to keep singing and you have to keep working. I might wake up with no voice one day; it comes to everyone.”
While both members of The Who have managed to find a way of working together, Daltrey says he’d also love to see Oasis following a similar path. He remains friendly with both Gallagher brothers.
“I tell them all the time ‘You’re both very good but you’re only half as good apart as you are together; blood is thicker than water’. I said to Noel ‘It’s all about the headlines, Liam’s got a big mouth but it keeps you up there’. It’s rock’n’roll wrestling, someone has to be the Jackie Pallo [a famous feuding wrestler] character, someone has to be the villain.”
The Gallagher brothers could certainly learn something from the experiences and outlook of Roger Daltrey.
- The Who With Orchestra Live At Wembley is out now on limited edition 3LP, 2CD / Blu-Ray set. For more information on live dates visit thewho.com
