Guitarist Pete Townshend has frankly discussed The Who in a new interview, saying the legendary group are little more than a brand.
Townshend is a founder member of the group, who still write and record together. There are now only two original members of The Who remaining in the band, following the untimely deaths of both Keith Moon and John Entwistle.
During an interview with The New Zealand Listener Pete Townshend says “I used to be in a band called the Who. It does not exist today except in your dreams. I am a songwriter and guitarist who — if I create the right setting — can walk on to a stage with my old buddy Roger Daltrey and evoke the old magic of the Who in the dreams of the audience.”
Continuing the songwriter said “I think the audience can appreciate that the old Who will never function again as they once did. Roger and I know how to do what we have always done, but we are much more conscious of the process now, the device of letting our audience live out their own wish while we play the old songs.”
Townshend went on to claim that The Who exist primarily as a brand, and admitted that his love for music diminished after the group went on hiatus for the first time in 1982.
“The Who as a band stopped working when I quit in 1982. However, the brand would not die. That was partly a record company hanging on to a catalog asset, but also partly Roger’s passion for what he believed we had achieved, and could one day do again. I let go, and I think John Entwistle did too, but Roger never gave up trying to bring the band back to harmony with the brand.”
