The Who What: “Quadrophenia” When: Tuesday, 8 p.m. Where: Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford How much: $35-$75, (201) 507-8900

By Jay Lustig

Star-Ledger Staff

Some guys have all the luck. Not only was Zak Starkey born the son of a Beatle, but now he gets to play in his favorite band.

No, the three living Beatles haven’t reunited, with Starkey (Ringo Starr’s 30-year-old son) and Julian Lennon along for the ride. Starkey is playing drums for The Who, the band that was even more inspirational to him, musically, than the Fab Four.

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And he’s doing it well. One of the best things about The Who’s six performances of its rock opera “Quadrophenia” (with a handful of hits as the encores) at New York’s Madison Square Garden in July was his feverishly busy drumming, obviously more influenced by original Who drummer Keith Moon than the more straightforward Starr.

“That’s what the music calls for,” says Starkey, who inherited Ringo’s real surname rather than his stage surname. “The Who is like this great big lurching sound. It’s the attitude and spirit you have to catch. It’s like a controlled looseness.”

Those who couldn’t see the band play in New York shows can try again Tuesday, when the tour comes to the Continental Airlines Arena.

It isn’t the first time Starkey has worked with Who members. He’s played on solo albums by singer Roger Daltrey and bassist John Entwistle, and backed both of them on “Daltrey Sings Townshend,” the 1994 tour where Daltrey sang songs written by Who guitarist Pete Townshend. Starkey has also played with his father’s on-again, off-again All-Starr Band, and backed performers like Joe Walsh and Bobby Womack.

Though he never played music with Moon, who died in 1978, he did know him well because his father and Moon were close friends. And he’s known Who music inside-out since he was a boy.

“My dad taught me to play the drums, but I learned to play on my own,” he says. “He gave me one lesson and said, ‘If you want to learn, then wear headphones and play to records.’ And I played to Who records.”

Why The Who? “It could be some sort of pre-teenage rebellion against The Beatles or something. I went with another band rather than go with The Beatles. The Who were my favorite band, and I listened to nothing else for years.”

It’s a bit surprising, then, that he didn’t rebel – or at least, fend off the inevitable comparisons to his father – by taking up an instrument other than the drums.

“But when you’re that young,” he says, “you really don’t think of that. It’s only when you’re 15 or 16 that you go, ‘Oh no!’ The drums were always around, and music was always being played in our house. It wasn’t forced down my throat, but it was very accessible for me.”

Starkey promises a show that’s more “Who-like” – i.e., more raw – than the New York shows were. The slick guitarist Geoff Whitehorn isn’t playing with the band anymore, leaving just Townshend playing rhythm and his brother, Simon Townshend, playing lead. And the narrator who was drowned out by crowd noise at the Garden has been replaced by pre-recorded film segments that tell the story.

“People are paying more attention to the story line,” Starkey says. “They’re even laughing at the funny lines.”

Not that “getting” the story is essential to enjoying this sometimes brooding, sometimes bombastic exploration of teen angst. Starkey says that when he first listened to “Quadrophenia,” the story seemed irrelevant.

The movie version, which came out in 1979, made the story come alive for him, and the script that Pete Townshend has written for the new film segments makes the story even clearer than the movie did, he says.

Starkey is not sure whether the band has any future beyond its current string of “Quadrophenia” dates. After the U.S. shows are over, he says, “we’re doing some shows in England and Ireland, and then it’s Christmas. And we’ll see how everybody feels about it then. Nothing’s written in stone at the moment.”

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