#54 Pete Townshend (The Who) 1996 Interview

In this episode, we have a founding member of The Who, Pete Townshend. At the time of this interview in 1996, Townshend was 51 years old and was promoting his greatest hits record. In the interview, Townshend talks about his plan to no longer make records, the remixing process of Quadrophenia, what’s now important to him, and finding a Jimi Hendrix master in his warehouse.  The interview is conducted by Steve Harris. To learn more about Steve please check out our podcast-only interview with him, which is out now. Full transcript 00:00 - Intro 01:00 - Start of Pete Townshend interview 01:38 - His non-defined image of himself 04:19 - His ability to write story-oriented albums 05:41 - Why it’s very hard to write songs 06:51 - His plan to no longer make records 08:26 - Why he is releasing a compilation album 09:33 - The notion that he hates the Japanese 11:30 - Developing Quadrophenia for a concert theater piece 12:57 - Which album he thinks is The Who’s best 15:08 - The backstory of when The Who revived ‘Quadrophenia’ for Prince’s Trust Concert 18:58 - Remastering old Who albums 20:23 - Writing chamber plays 21:32 - The difficulty of working in movies 22:26 - His lack of enjoyment for music theater 23:28 - What connects music from the ’50s and animation 24:37 - What’s important to him now 26:12 - The remixing process of Quadrophenia 26:57 - The previous poor mastering process of Who records 28:36 - Finding a Jimi Hendrix master in his warehouse 29:38 - The unfinished rock opera “Lifehouse” 32:04 - The mods 30 years later 33:35 - What he found hypocritical playing Black music 37:39 - Chapter 25 39:01 - The songwriting that went into “My Generation” 41:32 - Kurt Cobain and the song “My Generation” 43:18 - Seeing Jimi Hendrix a couple of weeks before he died Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.