Most of the group stuff I rememberer clear as a bell. The mid-1960s, less to do with the band so much but more with what I was doing when the band wasn’t onstage maybe it’s because I was drinking a lot, but it’s kind of weird. I’ve had four quite big concussions, like 10 minutes. It worries me when they talk about concussion and dementia. There are quite a few bits missing since I’ve had four quite serious concussions in my life. He’d write down everything I said and we’d go over it give it more clarity.Īre there any parts of your life that were blurry and you couldn’t remember clearly? Some of the words have to be a bit different. As he wrote it, of course, the spoken language isn’t what you can read comfortably. All he had to do was write down what I said and he put it together and finally got it into a book shape. He interviewed me when I didn’t know if I was ever coming out of the hospital. He was one of the few people allowed to see me when I had meningitis. Over a period of three years we did interview after interview. He pieced it together to see how he could build it into a story. Then he would take everything I said and then he put it together almost like a film director, but for books. What I did was find a journalist friend of mine that did an interview with me for hours and hours. But until you actually write it all down, I didn’t have a clue whether I had a story in me or a journey or a book people might be interested in. I didn’t know it yet because I don’t know whether my life is very different than anyone else’s life. I just wanted to see if I had a good book in me. Didn’t I do a lot!” It’s a real dichotomy. It can leave you a bit wishing you’d done more, but then equally when you look back at it all you think, “Fuck me. It’s been kind of weird and a little like falling off a cliff and seeing your life go before your eyes. Then you suddenly realize, who has fires in their bellies today? I mean, I listen to a lot of the bands that are out there, and there’s an awful amount of emperor’s new clothes. The fire in their bellies, it was brilliant. I like Florence and the Machine, but it’s mostly old people like Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry. What’s the music that still moves you the most? Before the surgery, I thought, “I might not be able to sing when I wake up, but if that’s how it’s gonna be, that’s how it’s gonna be.” It’s like Tony Soprano says, you know, “Whatcha gonna do?” If you get it, you might as well make it your friend.
There’s no point in worrying about things like that. I didn’t realize I had a pre-cancerous condition, but it was getting very, very difficult to sing at the end. What was it like knowing it might be gone forever? You nearly lost your voice almost 10 years ago, before throat surgery. You’ve got to remember that singers aren’t like guitarists. I do, because I don’t want to be overweight. When I was a sheet-metal worker, I did build my body for a film where I played a prisoner that lifted weights. I do about 20 minutes in the gym twice a week, some light weights and the rowing machine. People don’t believe me, but I don’t do much. You’re in pretty remarkable shape for 74. With the arrogance of youth I was like, “Fuck it, I’ll start another band.” They brought me back when I promised not to start any more fights. We ended up having a bad fight and I got thrown out for four or five weeks. And he came slashing at me with the bells of a tambourine. I had an altercation with Pete one night after I flushed his drugs down the toilet. My fight-or flight-instinct - if I ever felt it was going to get nasty on me, I would fight. I’m a little guy and I used to get bullied quite a bit when I was young. What has being in a band for more than 50 years taught you about compromise? They went in really good blokes, and they came out complete assholes.
Hopefully I never turned into an asshole, ’cause I saw so many people coming out of the bathroom. It used to affect my singing, and all I ever wanted to be was a good singer. You try getting three people on acid from the Monterey Pop Festival all the way to London! I was the one that didn’t take the acid.
I had to, so I could keep the others in line. You were the only member of the Who to not have to deal with a major substance-abuse problem. But underneath it all, I worshipped the ground she walked on. At the end of every tour, however long we were away, and whatever had gone on during the tour, I’d be on the first bloody plane back to her. I think ours survived because I was always honest with her. Very few rock-star marriages have lasted that long. You’ve been married to your wife, Heather, since 1971.
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