Pete Townshend: "I always wanted to be a journalist."
My 1978 interview transcript with The Who legend, Part 1.
This has been a major period in my 50-year relationship with The Who.
Over the past few months, my musical project with Paula Lucas, Hudson Palace, covered “I’m A Boy” and “Tattoo,” and dared release them. I say “dared” because it wasn’t until this last year or so that I thought I could ever do a Who song justice on “tape.”
Also over the last few months, in fact for nearly all of the year that I have been on Substack, I have been posting interview transcripts that I conducted around 1996-97 for my Keith Moon biography. That list has included John Entwistle, Oliver Reed, Jeff Beck, and Alice Cooper, with more to come. (Access full list of posts here.)
In September, we commemorated the Silver Anniversary of that biography – Dear Boy in the UK and elsewhere, Moon in the US - with a multi-media presentation here in the Hudson Valley, and with a YouTube interview for my UK publishers Omnibus Press.
In March, I got to see The Who perform one more time, at the Royal Albert Hall, and from the center of the third row no less. (See below, with Eddie Vedder.) You can read my review here.
In April I learned that at last, after six years working with The Rock Academy here in the Hudson Valley, I finally get to direct a Who show! Rehearsals start in July, performances in September.
In May (today at time of typing, May 17), Hudson Palace released “I’m A Boy” and “Tattoo” as a “virtual” double A-side 7” tribute single, “Tattoo Boy.”
To celebrate and coincide, it has been my plan for a while to post the first part of my 1978 interview with Pete Townshend, conducted for my fanzine Jamming!, on May 18.
And then two weeks ago, I woke to an e-mail from Pete – not something I am accustomed to, in case you are wondering – to say that he heard our Hudson Palace interpretation of “I’m A Boy.” ‘I love it!!! Thank you,’ he wrote. I’m not too shameless to say that this meant the world to me. Our version has had considerable airplay, and that reaction, coupled of course with Pete’s note, gives me enormous encouragement to continue making music.
And so, to that 1978 interview. Excerpts were published in Jamming! 6. But they were mere excerpts, deftly edited. This is the first time ever that I have published the entire manuscript. Not surprisingly, given that it was a conversation that almost filled a C-90, it will come to you in two parts.
The interview is for paid subscribers of Tony Fletcher, Wordsmith. If you are already a paid subscriber, thank you: your contribution helps keep this account going. If you are still on the free plan, and you are also a Who fan. this may be your perfect moment to upgrade. Not only do you get this interview, you get access to all of the other Who-related interview transcripts that were behind the paywall (and they are golden), access to all of the archives, and the exclusive Crossed Channels podcast, which I host with
of this parish. (Our latest episode is on Blondie. You can preview here.) All of this for a monthly price less than that of a single fancy coffee.One other important thing about this here Substack account. It comes without advertising. There are no sales pitches here for dodgy Medacs, Odoronos or other unproven toiletries. (Though just like The Who Sell Out, an exception is allowed for my own products!) You will not get interrupted by a political broadcast, let alone a deep fake. I do not sell your data. By maintaining an e-mail list, I hope to avoid trolls and the other unsavoury aspects of social media. I also prefer to communicate directly with my reader base, rather than go fishing in a sea of doom scrollers. And certainly, I enjoy writing. Nonetheless, for those of us who are writers, it is also our work. Pete Townshend notes in the 1978 interview, as per the headline, “I always wanted to be a journalist.” But given that he admitted recently, “My idea of an ordinary lifestyle is pretty elevated,” I can only say he chose the more lucrative path: Rock Stardom.
The introduction below is from my memoir Boy About Town.1 I should add that myself, Chris, and Jeff were all 14 at the time. I believe Ray was 16. As I observe in this introduction, I was too young to have my interview chops down, but reading back, I am reasonably satisfied with some of my follow-ups. And what I like about this interview is that, much like when I interviewed Paul McCartney about three years later, Pete seems to be enjoying going over the most basic tenets of his creative life journey to date, in considerable detail. As a Pete primer, it’s pretty good.
I have added some footnotes where they seem relevant. I would just say to bear in mind that the interview was conducted in October or November 1978, and should be read in the context of that time.
Enjoy!
“And then Ray scored an interview with Pete Townshend.
Ray hated The Who. But he knew how much I loved them, and how much an interview would mean to me (and to Ray, in terms of his authority), so he’d travelled out to Townshend’s book shop, Magic Bus, in Twickenham, and dropped off a copy of the current issue and a letter, and although he was told not to hold out any hopes, he got a phone call barely three days later from Pete’s assistant, setting up an interview date.2 Why Townshend agreed to the request, we weren’t sure. Perhaps he was spurred to call us by the sight of Paul Weller on the front cover. Or maybe he was rarely approached by fanzines and figured it was about time one of us gave him the time of day. It was always possible he really liked the magazine. But it didn’t really matter. It was Pete Townshend and he had said yes.
I stared at the pictures on my wall. That photo of him in mid-air, Gibson above his head, at Woodstock. The poster from the Marquee residency of ’65 (also given away with Live at Leeds) with his arm raised high above his Rickenbacker. And the full-colour poster I’d had on my wall since Charlton, of The Who in their mid-70s glory, with Daltrey twirling his microphone and Townshend, alongside him, in mid-glide, his upper body located directly above his legs, but with his hips somewhere else entirely, as if an optical illusion created by standing in front of a hall of mirrors. No matter how he held it, where he wore it, the guitar always looked good on Pete. And now I would be going to meet him, to talk with him one-on-one.
Well, not quite. Four of us set off for his office in Richmond that October half-term morning: Ray, myself, Christopher Modica and Jeff Carrigan. And because there were four of us, we were inevitably late getting together and getting going. And because we were late getting going, and it was a long journey via public transport, we arrived for our 11am interview at lunchtime.
Townshend’s assistant, thoroughly unimpressed, told us to wait, though at least she didn’t tell us to go home and come back when we were more professional. Eventually, we were shown through to a kitchenette, where we found Pete, in customary short beard and moustache, wearing a nondescript black jumper with a white shirt collars folded over the top, looking more like a school teacher than a rock star whose new LP was currently number two in the American charts. He made an opening remark about the surprising size of our “posse” which didn’t exactly put us at ease. Then he sat down in a wicker rocking chair that almost swallowed him up, at which I – because I wasn’t going to let anyone else steal this moment, regardless of who had actually secured the interview – started asking questions.”