Pete Townshend

Recorded live at iHeartRadio’s Manhattan headquarters, the rock icon reflects on The Who’s early days — including the band’s enduring bond with New York — and his own far-reaching creative evolution. In addition to unveiling the new ballet adaptation of The Who’s classic 1973 album Quadrophenia, he looks ahead to the art, projects, and possibilities that continue to inspire him after six decades of boundary-pushing work.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
iHeartRadio Live is a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:03):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Icons with Pete Townsend, as with Tommy,
whose Quadrophenia has been reimagined several times, including a new
creative outlet premiering in the United States this weekend in
New York. Tonight, you'll hear all the details from Pete
and he'll play a few iconic songs from that album.
Here's your host for iHeartRadio Icons with Pete Townsend, Jim Kerr.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Welcome to iHeartRadio Icons. We are live in New York
City with Pete Townsend and and Pete. We have plenty
to talk about tonight, but I see you brought your guitar,
so the stage is yours.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
Okay, thank you. Now my voice isn't his best. I'm
afraid I'll I'll do my best. I did a TV
show and I talked too much.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
That of course Pinball was it from Tommy and before that,
Let My Love Open the Door Here on iHeartRadio Icons.
Is there any truth to the story that there was
resistance when it came to releasing Let My Love Open
the Door as a single and on your album because
somebody somewhere said doesn't sound like Townsend.

Speaker 4 (01:32):
You know, there was resistance.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
It was Doug Morris who was my great supporter at
Atlantic Records. He brought back at Co the label for
me and Stevie Nick, who was his first two signings.
Armat Urtigon who founded Atlantic, gave him the job of
this new label, and he's gone on to great things,
of course. Doug Morris wonderful, wonderful record guy, wonderful record guy.

Speaker 4 (01:54):
Anyway, he was very supportive.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Of my first album which was with him, which was
Empty Glass, and you know, the first track was a
heavy rock track. The next track was the kind of
pop track. The next track was a heavy rock truck.
And when it got to let My Love Open the Door,
he said, I think we should leave this off. It's
too much like a sort of a I can't remember

(02:15):
his exact words. I shouldn't put words in his mouth,
but he felt it was too pop. Anyway, So the
album came out and that was the record that was
the hit, that was the radio play. And when I
did my second album with him, which was Chinese Eyes,
he I played it to him and he said, Pete,

(02:39):
where's the let my Love Open the Door?

Speaker 1 (02:44):
Well, you were just here in August for three area
shows on the whose North American Farewell Tour The Song
is Over and whose first American performance was just nearby
in the neighborhood at the RKO fifty eighth Street Theater

(03:04):
on March twenty fifth, nineteen sixty seven. So there's been
a special bond between the Who Yourself and New York.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Yeah, the whole of the Northeast, I would say, but
New York in particular. It wasn't just that it was
the first place that we came. You know, if there
was really a cultural capital.

Speaker 4 (03:25):
Of the USA, it's got to be New York. You know,
La La is big for the movies.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
You know, Chicago has its own cultural center, and it's
a wonderful city. And there's great, great, great cities in America.
And I have to say quickly that not just New York,
but the whole of America has been you know, often
say to my wife, this is this is the place
that pays my bills big time, big time.

Speaker 1 (03:55):
Well, not only have New York City Concerts Stages embraced
you and the band, but Broadway Stages two with not
one but two productions of timy two different productions of
Timing slightly different.

Speaker 3 (04:10):
Yeah, yeah, the last one. The last one got really
a great start. We were doing in a cup million
and a half a week at one point, and then
it came to the Tony Awards, and for some reason
we just got tanked by the Tony Awards. Nobody really
understands quite why that happened, but we had I did

(04:32):
get a Tony for ninety three. I'm not being greedy,
but the show slowed down and our producers decided to close.
They never really wanted us to bring it to Broadway
in the first place. It started in Chicago at the
Goodman Theater and it did eight weeks. Every seat was
sold out, great reviews, so we thought we'd bring it
to Broadway. Maybe we shouldn't have, maybe we should have

(04:55):
taken it on tour. But it's going on tour and
when it comes on tour, everybody around America we'll be
able to see. It's a great production.

Speaker 1 (05:02):
But how your artistry has been presented has been so
unique for a rock performer. I mean Tommy of course,
an album, your stage show with the Who, the Broadway productions,
the hit motion picture Quadraphenia. We've got now a ballet
to talk about right next door here in New York

(05:24):
City at City Center, which is which is a historic
and beautiful theater. Quadraphenia, a rock ballet, is playing at
City Center in Manhattan tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday. Now, you're
no stranger to ballet because you took ballet lessons when
you were a kid.

Speaker 4 (05:42):
I did.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Yeah, between the ages of three and a half and five,
I took ballet lessons and I was the only boy.
It's a bit, it's a bit like that Billy story.
What was his name, Billy something?

Speaker 4 (05:57):
Yeah, And.

Speaker 3 (05:59):
I was the only boy in a class of about
twenty four girls.

Speaker 1 (06:02):
But the boys have to lift the girls, so you
must have been busy all the time.

Speaker 4 (06:07):
No, no, no, we were just learning how to behave.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
And apparently I didn't behave because I got the slipper
on my bare bomb in front of twenty four very
pretty little girls. And I'm amazed it didn't turn me
into a premium pervert.

Speaker 4 (06:28):
But it was.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
And I don't dream about it and I don't ever
want it to happen again.

Speaker 1 (06:35):
Well, speaking of Quadrophenia, you know that that's such a
personal work for you, based on real life observations of
the social conditions that you grew up in and experienced
in England in the post war years and in the
fifties and into the sixties.

Speaker 4 (06:52):
Could you, ever, when.

Speaker 1 (06:54):
You were composing Quadrophenia have envisioned it as.

Speaker 3 (07:01):
You know, I wonder about this kind of question, Jim,
because you know, we never know looking forward what's going
to happen to us. And you know, we never sit
and try to envision our lives, and if we do,
we're wasting our time, you know, I think, you know,
Quadrophenia was written not even with any thoughts of social relevance.
It was written because The Who had lost touch with

(07:24):
their fans. You know, we absolutely had. We were a
big band, We were playing stadiums, you know. We Keith
Moon was really not very well. He was taking a
lot of drugs, drinking a lot. He was great fun still,
but his playing was starting to fall off, and I
felt that the band had lost touch with its roots.

(07:46):
So Quadraphenia was a way for me to relink The
Who with their roots, with which their original fan base,
which was the Mods.

Speaker 4 (07:55):
In nineteen sixty four.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
I wrote a song Cale Can't Explain, and at the
gold Hawk Club where we did a residency in Shepherd's
Bush where we played every week, a little deputation of
mods and one girl, five boys and one girl. I
can remember all their names, I could recite them now.
And they came back and they said, you know, Pete,

(08:19):
we just want to tell you we want you to
write more songs like this. And I said, well, what
do you mean and they said, we want more songs
like this one? And I said, what's so special about it?
And they said, well, it's it's a song about what.
And I said, well, it's about a boy who falls
in love and can't explain to this girl. And they went,
that's it. We can't explain, so we want you to

(08:42):
do it for us. And the next song I wrote
was my Generation.

Speaker 4 (08:45):
All right, well.

Speaker 1 (08:50):
You've chosen two songs from Quadrophedia to perform for us. Sorry,
you chose two songs from Quadrophina I did.

Speaker 4 (08:57):
Indeed, yeah, and not easy to play.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
I keep saying this, but this is, this is this
is harder than working with the who I can tell.

Speaker 1 (09:34):
I just want our friends in the audience to know.
I can't even begin to explain how exciting it is
for me to be standing a few feet away from
one of the world's greatest artists as he performed.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
That a very.

Speaker 3 (09:51):
That's available for bar mitzvahs and weddings from Quadrophenia.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
That was I'm One, followed by now you're going to
see something very interesting right now, those of you who
are here in our studio audience in New York. There's
a big screen behind us, and you are about to
see a scene from Quadraphenia the Rock Ballet, in which
Ace Face and Mod Girl are dancing to an orchestral

(10:19):
version of the song that Pete just performed, Drowned. And
for those of you who are listening on the radio,
unfortunately you won't be able to see the video, but
you will hear the music from the ballet.

Speaker 4 (10:31):
Which was orchestrated by my wife, Rachel Fuller. There we go, Pete.

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Those artists that the audience just saw on the screen,
they're dancing with their bodies while they're acting with their faces.

Speaker 5 (11:00):
It's really pretty incredible. Yeah, to see. Well, that's you know,
great ballet is that way. What's interesting about Cordraphenia the
Ballet is that it's a hybrid really, you know, it's
we're used to seeing in theater musicals, in Broadway musicals,
we're used to.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
Seeing peek kids dance, and you know, when people train
to be actors in musicals, they.

Speaker 4 (11:24):
Have to learn to dance.

Speaker 3 (11:26):
But most of these kids are trained in ballet, so
the kind of things that they do is Romeo and
Juliet and stuff like that, you know, so.

Speaker 4 (11:34):
This was a different journey for them.

Speaker 3 (11:36):
The three boys, the three principal boys, Paris, Dan and Syrian,
were at the very first workshop and they put together
this first little bit with our Sadly, our choreographer Paul Roberts, sweet, sweet, fantastic,
talented guy. He got cancer before the show finished in
London and died, and we wanted to bring him here to.

Speaker 4 (11:58):
New York, but unfortunately we'd have to bring him in spirit.
But we miss him terribly.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
But he and this group of three boys created this
fantastic poetic action right at the beginning of the piece,
and it's lasted. It was what made me feel that
this would work. There's a new poetry in there. It's
rock and roll for sure. You know, this is about
mods and rockers. The rockers don't get much of a

(12:24):
look in, but it's mainly about mod kids, and you know,
sixty two sixty four, that kind of period when we
were all struggling to find who we were.

Speaker 1 (12:34):
Well, for those few people who may not really know
much about Quadraphinia, what would be a quick summary of
the story.

Speaker 3 (12:43):
You know, it's about a young boy who as soon
as the ballet opens you can see that he's in trouble.
He very very quickly finds himself in front of a psychiatrist.
We skipped the preacher from the album. We had a
preacher on the album, and we skipped him.

Speaker 4 (12:59):
And he.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Has a struggle with his mother, he has a struggle
with his dad. He finds it hard to fit in
with a gang. He falls in love with this beautiful
girl and who is with somebody else, and he has
his moment with her. She gives him some time, but
not very much, and slowly but surely, he then finds

(13:23):
that even his favorite band, the Who.

Speaker 4 (13:28):
Let him down. And how do they let him down?

Speaker 3 (13:32):
They let him down in just the way we were
letting down our fans in nineteen seventy three. We were bloated,
paid too much money, egoistic, out of control, getting headlines
for dressing up as that Olf Hitler.

Speaker 4 (13:49):
All of that stuff rock and roll basically.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
And he recognized that, and so he felt even his
great heroes the who had let him down. So everything
lets him down, and at the end of the story
he finally loses it. He takes a load of drugs,
He gets on a plane to Brighton, He goes to
Brighton Beach, He hangs out with a bunch of mods
and they get into a fight with a bunch of rockers.

Speaker 4 (14:14):
This happened in real life. Of course, I was there.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
I was there in August when the very very last
Mods and rocker fight happened on the beach, and I
missed the train home and slept under the pier, took
a few purple hearts and chatted to the boys and stuff.
So the whole mod movement for me was really really important.

Speaker 4 (14:35):
But he ends.

Speaker 3 (14:36):
Up as sort of I think, as I did, searching
for a spiritual answer, and he ends up out on
a rock all on his own. And I won't give
away the ending of this one, because we never know
when we look at the movie whether whether Jimmy lives
or dies. We don't know when we listen to the
album whether he lives or dies. Does he commit suicide

(14:58):
or does he carry on what actually happens, but in
this play we've dealt with it very elegantly.

Speaker 4 (15:05):
Well.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
For those who have listened to the Quadrophenia album, or
saw the movie, or perhaps saw The Who play the
album in concert and have tickets to Quadrophenia, what would
you wish them to come away with this weekend after

(15:27):
experiencing your ballet.

Speaker 3 (15:29):
They'll hear, they'll feel the story in the way that
I intended. I think, I mean, seriously, I think the
thing about making a subtle, heartbreaking album with a band
like The Who was tricky because we were at the
height of our bombast. You know, incredible recording skills, you know,

(15:51):
great musicianship. John Entwistle's horn playing on the album was
just spectacular. My synthesize a player with spectacular Roger's voice
was just superb, particularly on Lovering on Me though that
that stuff told the story. But people had to, in

(16:12):
a sense look at the album sleeve and read the
story that I'd written on the album jacket to get
the story. This one, you get the story, and also
you get a chance to interpolate, you know, to inject
your own stuff.

Speaker 4 (16:28):
That's what good art is about.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
This is a really artistic production as well as being
fantastic fun and.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
It's great to watch. It's beautiful.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
The audiences in the UK went nuts for it, so
I'm hoping the same thing will happen here well.

Speaker 1 (16:49):
And the iHeartRadio app there's a talk back feature and
a listener Chris from New York City. Chris Brewster asks
which one of your performances throughout your long, incredible career
stands out as your favorite?

Speaker 4 (17:09):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (17:10):
You know, we've done two five hundred performances, so I
don't know that I can honestly answer.

Speaker 4 (17:19):
I'd have to pick something out of the air. You know.
I think.

Speaker 3 (17:25):
I didn't like Woodstock. I should have loved Monterey back
in sixty seven, the first big pop festival, but Jimi
Hendrix was on as well and kind of blew me away, And.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
So I don't know.

Speaker 3 (17:41):
I think maybe maybe the first the first concert in
San Francisco.

Speaker 4 (17:50):
Bill Graham had a place called the Film.

Speaker 6 (17:53):
All and he used to he used to combine jazz
stars with rock band. So we went on and we
go to this and remember my dad was a jazz musician,
so I grew up with jazz music and dance band music,
and we go to the theater and Cannibal Adelie, the
great jazz player who was used to work with Miles

(18:15):
Davis and all these guys. He played on Miles's greatest record,
Kind of Blue. If you haven't heard it, you must
listen to it, and you'll recognize it when you hear it,
because it's everywhere in the world. But he was supporting though,
and I just thought of Cannibal addedly as being a legend,

(18:35):
you know. But he liked us, and he was very
friendly and very supportive, and so that was great until
Bill Graham said, you know, you do two sets, and
I can remember saying, well, that's fine, but how long
are the sets? He said, of each is an hour

(18:57):
and a half, and I think we only had like
seven songs.

Speaker 1 (19:02):
Well, for those of us in the New York metropolitan area,
we will forever be grateful to you for your outstanding
performance at Madison Square Garden at the concert for New
York City. After nine to eleven, okay, play some more
songs for us. Pete Townsend on iHeart Radio Icons. Pete

(19:30):
Townsend on iHeart Radio Icons, Let's See Action and before that,
Behind Blue Eyes and last night on television you included
Behind blue Eyes on your list of your five most
favorite songs of your own. Yes, but behind blue Eyes

(19:52):
was on your list of five, and the song that
you chose as your favorite whose song of all time?
Will actually be hearing that just a few minutes right
here on this stage. You said you had maybe ten
years left as a creative, so you know you're doing
all sorts of interesting things. Theatrical projects are projects, book projects.

(20:16):
You know, there was this album once. I don't know
if you've heard of it. It's called Who's Next. Well,
my question for you now, Pete Townsend, is what's next?

Speaker 4 (20:28):
Well with Who's Next?

Speaker 3 (20:29):
That was based on a movie script I wrote for
the Who called Life House, And there's been a graphic
novel of Life House, which I really really love. So
and you know, I predicted pretty much everything that was
going to happen in the future in Lifehouse. I didn't
set out to do that. I'm not trying to be
a smarty pants.

Speaker 4 (20:47):
It just did. That was the story. But also Jeff Creulitz, who's.

Speaker 3 (20:52):
The guy that put the comic together, and I just
had coffee this afternoon, he reminded me that I also
sort of invented the Sphere because the Life House closes
with this huge concert, and if you go to the Sphere,
watch out because in Life House the audience gets so
high they disappear.

Speaker 1 (21:11):
Well, have you given any consideration to maybe having a
residency at a place like the Sphere?

Speaker 3 (21:18):
You know, I've not been, I've not seen it. I'm
very excited by it. You know. The people that run
it wanted it to be a place where bands would play.
And the guy that built it is the guy that
runs the Madison Square Garden, and he's a big music
fan and a rock band fan, and he wanted it

(21:40):
to be about music with fantastic visuals. Since then, of course,
it's become a medium where there's some storytelling. So maybe,
you know, Lifehouse might be great for the Sphere.

Speaker 4 (21:52):
I don't know, but we shall see.

Speaker 1 (21:54):
Well, The Who wrapped up their North American tour a
little over a month ago in California, and then there
was a backyard benefit in Los Angeles for teen Cancer America.
It must have been, you know, a bittersweet few days
filled with some nostalgia when the tour was all coming

(22:14):
to an end, and quite like you and Roger to
end it all performing at a charitable event, because I
know you've done so much of that, a lot more
than most people know about.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
Yeah, and that's true for me personally too. But you know,
I don't think that's That's not why I do what
I do. You know, I do what I do because
I love being creative more than I do performing. I'm
happier being creative. I'm happier being in my studio writing songs.
I'm trying to get back into painting pictures because as

(22:48):
a kid I went to art school, so that stuff is.
And you know, so many musicians do paint, you know,
Joni Mitchell, Chrissy Hind, Bob Dylan, loads of people paint,
and so I am making art of all kinds. But
I think the charity stuff, if you had a load
of money, that's what you would do. It is, isn't it.

(23:11):
It's what you would do. And the problem is is
when you start to get a buzz from giving money
away and you give away too much, and then you
look at your bankman balance and you think, oh my god,
it's empty, and thank god. Then you can come back

(23:32):
to the WHO and say to Roger Daltry, let's go
on tour.

Speaker 1 (23:37):
Well, will you go on tour in other parts of
the world. You said farewell to US America.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
What we didn't say farewell. We did a farewell tour.
Farewell tour, Yes, Elton John did.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Elton John did three hundred and thirty shows. We did
twenty two. We've got a few left if you want them,
we're ready to get.

Speaker 1 (24:04):
When you came out here at the beginning of the show,
you said that you talked too much last night and
you didn't think your voice was in very good shape.
I've got to tell you you've shown no evidence that
that is in fact true, because you have sounded absolutely
amazing tonight. You have been a part well of a

(24:26):
lot of the people here in this room and who
are listening on the radio all over America. You've been
a part of their lives in some cases since they
were you know, young kids or teenagers. In other cases,
you have been a part of people's lives from the
moment they were born.

Speaker 4 (24:42):
They were babies.

Speaker 1 (24:46):
They were babies in the kitchen with their mother feeding them, babysuit,
with whose songs coming out of the radio.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
On top of the reflections, not.

Speaker 3 (24:55):
Just the who let's face it, you know, look, this
country is a great history of music going back to
the thirties and forties, even the twenties. And I grew
up with all the music from the forties and the
fifties with my dad, and there's my life with British
bands and American bands in particular. Just this whole journey

(25:15):
from the sixties on was when we made that change
and we decided that music was going to matter.

Speaker 4 (25:21):
It wasn't just going to be about dancing.

Speaker 2 (25:23):
You've been listening to iHeartRadio Icons with Pete Townsend. For
more information on Quadraphedia, a rock ballet, go to Nycitycenter
dot org. And for all things on Pete Townsend and
the Who, go to the Who dot com.

Speaker 4 (25:36):
Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
iHeartRadio Live is.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
A production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
Was produced, edited and mixed by Jordan Runtagg.

Speaker 2 (25:46):
If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave
us a review. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, listen to
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