The Who’s Pete Townshend “not crazy about touring” and “doesn’t have a relationship with the guitar”

As The Who look ahead to their farewell tour of North America, Pete Townshend has explained why he doesn’t enjoy being on the road and why he “doesn’t have a relationship with the guitar”.

• READ MORE: Pete Townshend tells us about his new Quadrophenia ballet and the future of The Who

Yesterday (Thursday May 8) saw the rock icons announce details of their ‘The Song Is Over’ farewell tour hitting the US and Canada this summer – while also casting doubt over the chances of ever playing in the UK and Europe again.

During a press conference in London, 79-year-old guitarist Townshend doubled down on past claims that he “doesn’t love performing” as it “doesn’t fill my soul”.

“Everybody in this room knows the truth, so it would be pointless for me to lie,” he told the gathered media at London’s Images Gallery. “I’m not crazy about touring. I’ve never really been crazy about touring – but performing, once I’m on stage, [that’s different]. I was hypnotised once as a little boy by my dentist, who was very much into hypnotism, so whenever I walked on stage, I would do my best.

“I thought I was going to be an artist. I was at art college, that’s what happens. I get on the stage, I remember that post-hypnotic suggestion, and I do my best. That’s how it works for me. I find it easy; it’s always been easy. But being on the road is not a great way to live. You leave your family behind and so on and so forth.”

Speaking to the press conference via Zoom, frontman Roger Daltrey then explained why the band were looking to call it a day – and what playing in the US meant to them.

“You’ve got to remember where we come from: post-war England, the land of Spam and jam sandwiches,” said Daltrey. “Every young musician’s dream was to make it in America. That was where you first heard the pulse of rock music coming from. To have America take us to its heart means so much.

“It’s got to come to an end one day. It’s great to do it while I can still sing the songs, Pete can still play guitar, and we can still play the songs with vitality. There’s something about the way the music was written and the sentiment behind it that doesn’t seem to age like a lot of rock music does.”

Later in the press conference, Townshend was asked why he’d taken to playing a Fender Stratocaster on stage when he opened up about how he felt about the instrument he’d become an icon for.

“I’m not the person to talk to about guitars – I don’t have a relationship with the guitar,” he replied. “It’s a tool. Quite a few famous guitar players have spoken about the guitar as a tool. We’re in an era now where some guitars have been made for hundreds of years, like Stradivarius violins. They become incredibly valuable because they’re old and they’re collectable and rich people will pay huge amounts of money for them, but they’re still a slab of wood with strings.

“I practice a lot on the guitar a lot at home if I can, on acoustic and electric. I have an acoustic and electric guitar in the bedrooms of all the various places where I live and work. Recently I bought two guitars online – a Paul Reed Smith [PRS] guitar and a Jackson, which is made by Fender now I think – and they completely blew me away. On stage, I have to go back to something which is proven and isn’t going to fall apart in my hands, because I’m pretty brutal.”

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Visit here for more information on The Who’s ‘The Song Is Over’ 2025 North American farewell tour.

It currently seems unlikely that there will be a final album from The Who, with Townshend last year sharing his desire to do so but seeing “a bit of a river to cross” in convincing Daltrey.

When NME asked the frontman about the possibility of a new LP in 2023, he laughed: “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago [2019’s ‘WHO’], and it did nothing. It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don’t know why, but that’s the fact.”

The band’s last appearances in the UK were at London’s Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust shows back in March, where Daltrey revealed that he was “going blind” and they played ‘The Song Is Over’ live for the first time with Bill Murray in the crowd.

The gigs also led to the brief apparent sacking of drummer Zak Starkey after something of an on-stage row, before Townshend revealed that he hadn’t been asked to leave and was still very much part of the band.

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