“My father, a brilliant musician, didn’t believe in me”: Pete Townshend attributes his guitar-smashing antics to feelings of rejection from his father
Pete Townshend has long been synonymous with the violent poetry of smashing guitars on stage. But in a new interview, the Who guitarist suggests the act was perhaps less about spectacle than resentment – specifically, the sting of a father who didn’t believe he was “worthy of a decent instrument”.
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“I was a geeky young kid with a big nose who wanted to be an artist or a journalist, not play in a rock band,” says Townshend in a recent chat with the New York Times. “My father, a brilliant musician, didn’t believe in me and allowed my grandmother to buy me a [expletive] old guitar that I couldn’t play.”
“Some of my guitar-smashing antics probably started because it had become a symbol for me of the way my father had not considered me worthy of a decent instrument.”
The admission also sets the tone for the rest of the conversation, where Townshend’s candor stretches beyond family wounds and into the very business of rock and roll. Asked if pop music itself is a swindle, the guitarist replies: “The swindle starts when you become a property and don’t belong to your fans anymore.”
“You belong to record companies, to promoters, to managers. The audience worships you for what you’ve done years before. They’re not interested in anything new. For Roger and I, it’s difficult to do anything other than feel like we’re a Who tribute band.”
Still, Townshend says he hopes to keep working with Roger Daltrey in some capacity, even if the Who as an entity winds down. “If he doesn’t want to do a Who album, I’d love to write songs for him for a solo project.”
That possibility hangs over the band’s farewell tour, which is set to conclude on 28 September at Las Vegas’s MGM Grand Garden Arena. Beyond that, the future of the Who, Townshend admits, is “in Roger’s hands.”
“I’m 80, I don’t like being away from my family, my studios, my dogs and my friends. I’m not looking to spend the next five years of my life waiting to [expletive] drop dead on the stage,” he says. “The end of the tour could give Roger and I permission never to call each other again. I hope that doesn’t happen.”
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
