{"id":167806,"date":"2025-05-12T13:02:13","date_gmt":"2025-05-12T13:02:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/12\/pete-townshend-would-have-been-happier-without-the-who\/"},"modified":"2025-05-12T13:02:13","modified_gmt":"2025-05-12T13:02:13","slug":"pete-townshend-would-have-been-happier-without-the-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2025\/05\/12\/pete-townshend-would-have-been-happier-without-the-who\/","title":{"rendered":"Pete Townshend would have been ‘happier’ without The Who"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Pete Townshend thinks he would have been “happier” without The Who<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Pete Townshend would have been happier without The Who<\/p>\n

The 79-year-old musician – who co-founded the band in 1964 – has always felt the group were “beneath” him and he believes he’d have preferred to have followed his love of art instead.<\/p>\n

He told The Daily Mail newspaper’s Weekend magazine: “I always feel I wish I’d left before the band got famous and been an artist. I think I would have been happier…<\/p>\n

“I was deeply into a college course about how art was going to have a revolutionary function. So I felt The Who<\/a> were a bit silly, maybe a bit beneath me, I’m afraid.”<\/p>\n

Asked how he sees things now, he said: “I feel the same. I think they feel beneath me.”<\/p>\n

\nAnd Pete admitted bandmate Roger Daltrey is unimpressed by his stance.<\/p>\n

\nHe said: “Roger and I have conversations about this. Sometimes he thinks I should be more grateful…<\/p>\n

\n“I should have left, I think. That’s OK. I don’t regret feeling that. It’s just that there was a life I could have had that I missed.”<\/p>\n

\nThe ‘My Generation’ hitmaker never expected The Who to be around for more than a year.<\/p>\n

\nHe said: “I expected The Who to self-destruct in six months. That’s why I threw myself into performing in a bloody manner. I hurt myself on the stage. I smashed guitars I could only just afford. But my personal manifesto was absolute, ‘This is a brief moment in music history. It won’t turn into…’ Well, what it turned into.”<\/p>\n

\nThe ‘Pinball Wizard’ rocker has moments of feeling he is a “genius” when he’s on stage, but admitted performing live “does nothing” for him.<\/p>\n

\nHe said: “I’ll keep going as long as I feel it. We’ll be on the stage and I’ll be thinking, ‘What the **** am I doing here?’ <\/p>\n

\n“Then the first few tricky bars of ‘Baba O’Riley’ will begin and I’ll think, ‘I’m a f****** genius. I should be here, because this is my music.’<\/p>\n

\n“People say I get well paid for doing a job I like. I do get well paid but I don’t like it. I don’t like being on the road. I don’t like being on stage. It does nothing for me. It makes me insincere.”<\/p>\n

\nThe guitarist noted there are some perks to his job.<\/p>\n

\nHe said: “The money is great.”<\/p>\n

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Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

12 May 2025 Pete Townshend thinks he would have been “happier” without The Who. Pete Townshend would have been happier without The Who The 79-year-old musician – who co-founded the band in 1964 – has always felt the group were “beneath” him and he believes he’d have preferred to have followed his love of art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":167807,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[8926,11009,8927],"class_list":{"0":"post-167806","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-up","8":"tag-pete-townshend","9":"tag-roger-daltrey","10":"tag-the-who"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167806"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167806\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167807"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entertainment.runfyers.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}