Pete Townshend - Rolling Stone 1968 interview

It was 40 years ago this week that Pete Townshend, guitarist for British band The Who talked to a then-young heterosexual music fan named Jann Wenner for his new music magazine Rolling Stone. In the interview, he speaks (at length!) on other musicians, The Who themselves, his 'complex' story of Tommy that was currently in his head, and more. Fascinating and exhausting stuff. No 15-second snippets here, my friends.



With aging glasses on, it's fun to read about how Townshend somewhat callously regarded his band's output then, but today he and longtime Who partner Roger Daltrey speak about it in such rarified airs. They've obviously gained deep appreciation for their musical career, much like a fine wine. You can read the whole interview here.

Here's a tongue-in-cheek reply about The Who's recording process then:

What approach do you use?

"The only way I can describe it is to go through it: We walk in, we set up our equipment and through the talk-back will come, "Can we hear the bass guitar, please?" And then for quarter of an hour it's clang, clang, where the bass guitar microphone is corrected and so on. Then "Can we hear the bass drum, please?" and clang, clang, another quarter of an hour and "Can we hear the top kit?" and Keith plays the top kit and "Can we hear the guitar," the guitar's always good. The guitar really is good the first time.

But by this time, of course, you're pissed off at the whole proceedings. All you want to do is go out for a drink so that's usually what happens. We all go out for a drink and come back in and we seem to have screwed up the balance a bit. So "Just a quick check on the bass guitar" and a "quick check" on bass rhythm and you go through the whole proceedings again. "Okay, we're ready to go!" Then you find that the number's only half routine, that you've forgotten something, and so by the time you've worked the routine out, the balance is lost again and you have to start all over again. And this is the way the Who record."

The Who are touring the US this fall - see them if you've never.