Wednesday, October 8th, 1975

The Daily Mirror carries a story titled "Fighting Fit!"

 

Transcription:

Fighting Fit!

The group who set mayhem to music are on the road again

TOGETHERNESS is a word which rarely can have been applied to the off-stage life of The Who.

After all, the ten-year history of Britain’s oldest established, most widely appreciated pop group — none other has maintained its original lineup so long - has been punctuated with bouts of absolute mayhem.

Fights, I mean

Like the time when it took five men to separate singer Roger Daltrey and drummer Keith Moon.

Like the time when Pete Townshend biffed Daltrey with a guitar, whereupon Daltrey felt obliged to retaliate in far from friendly fashion.

“I’ve always been the odd man out, I suppose, and at times I find it quite impossible to talk to Pete, although, to be fair, that’s been my hang-up mostly.

“It’s all true,” said Daltrey this week as the group’s British tour - their first for two years - gathered steam. “But the friction between th members of the band has always provided its energy. In a way, it’s been a creative driving force.

“Anyway, The Who have always slagged each other in public.  That kind of thing has wrecked other groups, but not us.”

So it’s a happy who that have embarked on what, says Daltrey, is a back-to-basics tour.  “We’ve all decided to own up musically.  We’re a first class rock and roll band and we are playing first class rock and roll.  That’s it.

“And this is only the start of The Who getting back together. By this time next year we’ll be twice the band we ever were.”

Daltrey, who starred in Ken Russell’s film of Pete Townshend’s “Tommy,” will be back on the big screen next month when Russell’s “Lisztomania” opens in London. Cockney Daltrey plays the composer Liszt.

“It’s very bizarre and outrageous,” he says “but I’m pleased with it.  And I do want to continue acting. I’d like to do something different now.

“I mean, I can be a nasty, evil little bastard sometimes, which few people know about.  I like to play the character who’s a bit like that.”

Meanwhile, it’s Daltrey, Townshend, Moon and Entwistle Incorporated. Very much so.

And no more mayhem?  “I dunno if it’s permanent,” says Daltrey.  “And, anyway, if word gets round that we’ve melted to the extent that we NEVER fight, those rumours about the band breaking up might have some foundation.”