Friday, June 18th, 1965

Roger is interviewed in New Musical Express under the headline "The Who Use Force to Get Sound They Want." He declares "I never want to grow old. I want to stay young forever," but then declares if he were no longer in a group, "I think I'd do myself in."

 

Transcript:

 

THE WHO USE FORCE TO GET SOUND THEY WANT!!

The WHO (l. to r.): ROGER DALTREY, JOHN BROWNE, KEITH MOON and PETER TOWNSHEND.

HE sat tensed against a hard-backed chair, dressed in a Carnaby Street blue jacket and with a blond, Mod hairstyle that showed dark at the back. And he spoke slowly and uncertainly.

“I never want to grow old,” he said. “I want to stay young for ever.”

This was my introduction—via vocalist Roger Daltrey—to the weird and way-out group called the Who who are climbing the NME Chart with their current disc, “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere.”

There’s a strangeness, a sort of vicious strangeness, about these four beatsters from Shepherds Bush. And they admit it.

They talk quite happily about the way lead guitarist Pete Townshend handles his guitar, smashing it hard against an amplifier when the mood takes him. Pete says it produces an unusual sound; and I can well believe him.

They’ve already had a taste of chart success with “I Can’t Explain,” but the Who weren’t particularly happy about that record.

Says Roger: “We just did it to get known. As time goes by we’ll do the kind of thing we really like, really way-out.

“Arguments? Sure, we have ‘em all the time. That’s why we get on so well. It kind of sharpens us up. We’ve all got kind of—well, explosive temperaments—and it’s like waitin’ for a bomb to go off.

“If it wasn’t like this we’d be nothin’. I mean it. If we were always friendly and matey … well, we’d all be a bit soft. We’re not mates at all. When we’ve finished a show and we’ve got time off, that’s it. We go our own ways.

“We’ve done all kinds of stuff since we started. Skiffle, trad, blue beat, pop. We got sick of pop and we went over to r-and-b and long hair, then the Stones came along, so we changed.

“With the Stones around, people were beginning to say we were copying them. But we don’t copy anyone. We play the way we feel.”

The James Brown style is going to be the next big thing, according to the Who. They’ve been playing his material for some time and they think it will catch on quicker than people think.

Mind you, it wasn’t so long ago that it looked as if they might have to give up the beat scene altogether. Times were hard, and they weren’t made any easier by the Who’s liking for the very best guitars and equipment.

“We’d be having a lean time,” says Roger, “but we’d go out and get ourselves up to the neck in hire purchase debts because we wanted a new amp. We spent 2,000 quid that way. But our stuff is the best in the world!”

That “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere,” hit disc was composed at 3 am, he adds, when he and Pete were locked in a room to make them concentrate on songwriting. The recording session was due the day after.

For once, Pete forgot his other interests (“he’s very political, a right Bob Dylan”) and the job was finished as dawn broke over Shepherds Bush.

As Roger Daltrey was leaving he turned and said, quite seriously: “If I wasn’t with a group I don’t know what I’d do. It means everything to me. I think I’d do myself in.”

ALAN SMITH.