When it comes to his world-famous voice, Roger Daltrey says it’s use it or lose it. And with that in mind, The Who frontman and solo artist is hitting the road this summer, with several concerts in our neck of the woods.
On the semi-acoustic tour, Daltrey will also answer audience questions during concerts June 16th at Bethel Woods, June 18 in the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, June 22 at Tanglewood in the Berkshires, and June 23 at Mohegan Sun in Connecticut.
In March, Daltrey wrapped up 24 years overseeing the annual Teenage Cancer Trust concerts, and The Who recently concluded a years-long world tour featuring the band with live orchestral accompaniment.
How are you deciding what you want to play on this tour?
With this band, it's a very broad spectrum of instrumentation. I have squeezebox and piano, no synthesizers, guitar, bass drums, percussionist Jody Linscott, and bass. And our wonderful violinist Katie Jacoby. And Simon Townsend as my other guitar partner. And Billy Nicholls as a backing singer and on a mandola. So it's a very different soundscape. But we play the same songs, and we do them in a different way. I'm finding it incredibly interesting, as is the audiences we've played this to. And it just allows us to play the songs differently and the audience to sometimes hear the song for the first time. Because it's presented in a different way.
The Who is so famous for being the loudest band. So I was wondering, when you are stripped down a little bit like this, how does your job as the lead singer change with a different approach to the material?
It doesn’t. I mean, that’s a hard one to answer. I haven’t been out front listening. I just do what I do. We do the songs we do. It's given me a bigger palette of songs to actually play, you know, it's a much broader palette of colors, musical colors, you know, and that I find really interesting.
I saw you at Tanglewood the last time you were here. And that was on the ‘Tommy’ tour. You closed the show with a really beautiful performance from the solo album that you had that year, ‘As Long As I Have You,’ which is a ballad called ‘Always Heading Home.’ And that kind of shows a different side of you as a vocalist. Can you talk about writing that song and recording that song?
Well, the lyrics were written by my writing partner and I wrote the melody. And that was a song we demoed way back in the late 80s. And it sat on a shelf that song. But then I got it out again. And it was a song that that The Chieftains heard once and always said, this is a great song, Roger, you gotta do it. But I was very nervous of it because it is so different. It's kind of angelic and almost sounds like a choirboy. But then I dug it out for that that last solo album of mine, because I don't know, the age I am now, it feels perfect. And there's something very spiritual about it. It's a great song. It's a hard song to perform, especially at the end of the show. But it's lovely.
If I remember your book correctly, you were a choirboy at one time, right?
Yep. That's where I started in the local church at the age of about 6 or 7. I can't remember exactly. But roundabout then.
What was it about rock music that really grabbed your interest?
The energy of it. I mean, because prior to that, it was all big band stuff. And Vera Lynn coming out of the war. And all of a sudden, there's this enormous energy coming out of the radio, in the music. You know, Elvis, Little Richard, Jerry Lee. You couldn't ignore it. It just grabbed my age group. You know, we were all sort of 12, 13 years old. And it grabbed us by the ears. And that was it for us. That's what we wanted to do. That's all we wanted to listen to.
How long did you think rock music and the type of shows that you were playing early on would last? Did it feel like a flash in the pan to you? Or did you see yourself doing it for quite a while?
We didn't do it with that frame of mind. We did it because we loved doing it. And all the time it lasted, we were going to be happy to do it. So that's how it appeared to me. You know? And in those days, the early Who, it's absolutely remarkable we lasted till the end of the week.
A lot of famous bust-ups between you, that's for sure. So I've heard you and I've heard Pete Townshend talking about the fact that as a singer you feel you really need to get into a song in order to do it justice. Can you explain what's meant by that?
I need to believe in it. I need to believe what I'm singing. I mean, I've been offered to do a country album and I keep getting presented the songs. But I don’t identity with ‘Down home in Virginia.’ I’m more down home in Shepherd’s Bush! So it would be a lie for me to sing that. And I would feel like I'm cheating it. I can sing a love song between two people, yeah. And obviously Who songs were so off the wall. They don't they sing to you, they sing at you. And I need songs that sing to you too. But to sing them properly to someone you need to believe in what you're singing. And that's the difficulty.
Speaking of which, on recent tours and on the ‘Live at Wembley’ album that has the band with the orchestra that I mentioned, you guys were doing a stripped down more acoustic version of ‘Won't Get Fooled Again.’ And it might surprise people to learn that you are sick of singing that song. How come?
I'm sick of it because it does doesn't seem to have worked. We keep getting fooled all the time. Every time there's something comes up that we need to put up cross on a piece of paper we seem to have the wool pulled over our eyes. But seriously though, I am sick of the Who version of it because it's it is so tied to the track and it becomes impossible to move. It's still a brilliant track and I can listen to the record, but performing it I find a little dull.
Do you like the acoustic version more?
I much prefer that because it allows me to see it like a jazz song, like a blues song and move it all over the place. But once that track starts up and synthesizers, you're stuck on rails. I find it boring.
What about ‘Naked Eye,’ any chance that will emerge on this tour?
Again, I can play all those songs easily, with this band, very easily. And that's the beauty of this band. The scope of songs that I can play with this band is far greater than anything I can do with the Who.
I want to ask about another maybe softer one and that's ‘Tea & Theatre,’ which is a really beautiful song. You've brought it out live a few times over the years. It sounds to me very autobiographical about you and Pete. Is that how you look at it?
It certainly is. We've been together now for over 60 years. Actually Pete joined the band in 1962, so work it out, 62 years ago, and so that song is very much biographical. We did it all. But then we lost people on the way, which hurts, you know. But equally that’s what life is. Very rarely all your friends are still alive at our age.
You turned 80 this year and you've been talking about your mortality in a lot of recent interviews that I've seen. What's your perspective like today? Is that something you think about a lot?
I’m not negative about it. It was all related to retiring from running those Teenage Cancer Trust shows at the Royal Albert Hall, which I've resigned from doing it after 24 years, simply because to carry it on, I would have to put my name on a piece of paper that guarantees for it to go on for another five years. Now, I don't feel that's a responsible thing to do in a charitable position, is to lumber them with a five-year contract that I might not be around to fulfill, you know.
I mean, you're in really good shape.
Listen, we can't take anything for granted at our age, every day is a bonus. And I'm happy with that. That’s all right. But it's more of my responsibility to the charity. And I've got other things I want to do within the charity, which in today's world, have become more important to the charity. Someone else, young people need to do that, because young people drive the music business forward. I'm an older generation. I've done it all the time. I've done it and happy to do it. If we don't get anyone to pick it up, I will step in at the last minute. Of course I will. I'm not leaving the charity. I’ve got other things to do for it.
Like a lot of Who fans, I'm obviously interested in knowing what the future holds. Where do you see the group going in the next year or two?
I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. But at the moment, there are no plans at all. And I really do not know whether there be any more Who.
And you said you're kind of at peace with that.
I'm at peace with it. And I don't know whether there needs to be any more Who.
Is there a time period in the band's history that you think of the most warmly about?
Yes, from 1967 through to 1975, 1976. We were red hot. We didn't work enough, but we were red hot. And it was fantastic time. We actually had fun. And what a band it was.
I want to wrap up by asking you a hack question, but I'm going to find a way around it. So, you're taking questions from the audience during this tour. And I have to imagine that you are asked about swinging the microphone probably every day. Will you swing the microphone on a semi-acoustic tour?
Only if anyone wants to come up and have a lesson in how to do it. Which could be fun, and let them let them see how bloody difficult it is!
Do you remember the first time you tried it?
I kind of do. It was at the Marquee Club, a blues club in London. And then Pete started swinging his arms and attacking the speakers. It was in late 1964 and I was just bored. And it was such a small stage. You couldn't do much with it. And then come 1965 It just developed, it just got bigger and bigger. As the stages got bigger the swinging got bigger. What I was trying to do was knit something together with between Pete's leaping and bouncing like a jumping bean and his arm swinging, Moon’s lunatic drumming, with John’s static position, the front of the stage, it needed more than just being static. And I couldn't be Elvis. I've never been that. So I just thought it needed something to kind of knit the energy together. And the mic swinging just developed and I hope it worked.
Do you do a lot of guitar playing on this particular tour?
Not a lot. I can do it. I do enough. You know, too many guitars jingling and jangling away can ruin the sound.
I think we're out of time, Roger, but while I have a chance, I just want to say thank you so much for all of the music and I will take the opportunity to say to you: Be lucky.
Oh, thank you. You gotta think lucky and be lucky. If you think lucky, you will, in the end, be lucky.
