Pete Townshend
Pete Townshend
Peter Dennis Blandford "Pete" Townshendis an English musician, singer, songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, best known as the lead guitarist and songwriter for the rock band The Who. His career with the Who spans more than 50 years, during which time the band grew to be considered one of the most influential bands of the 20th century...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionGuitarist
Date of Birth19 May 1945
CityLondon, England
responsibility thinking people
It makes me angry when people insist that I have a responsibility to do what they think I should do.
thinking produce incumbents
I think we are incumbent, I am incumbent, the Who is incumbent, anybody that produces anything by me is incumbent by my Englishness.
writing thinking firsts
Good old Pete. That's me. But I find it hard to think of myself in the first person when I'm writing about The Who. So many times he has willingly sat down to write about the good old Who. Isn't he too old to masturbate?
thinking long records
Bob Dylan did the first really long record - Like A Rolling Stone - I think it was four minutes.
thinking interesting people
But what was interesting about what the Who did is that we took things which were happening in the pop genre and represent them to people so that they see them in a new way. I think the best example is Andy Warhol's work, the image of Marilyn Monroe or the Campbell's soup can.
drama thinking artist
I only really started to go to plays and to be interested in drama 20 years ago when as an artist I was already well-rounded. I think I'm more disciplined today.
drama thinking theatre
What I'm trying to do is find either existing properties or come up with properties or angles or stories which will create music drama. It's my obsession and most of all I would like to remain working in theatre. I think it's very much alive.
song pain thinking
I think I probably would have enjoyed to keep my own private pain out of my work. But I was changed by my audience who said your private pain which you have unwittingly shown us in your early songs is also ours.
band believe dependent duty family guide help rest roger simply ticket whom
I simply believe we have a duty to go on, to ourselves, ticket buyers, staff, promoters, big and little people. I also have a duty to myself and my dependent family and friends. I also want to help guide Roger and the rest of the band at this time, all of whom have been shaken by John's death.
child research sexually
I think I may have been sexually abused as a child and I was doing research into it
common low mass money paid people performers
I don't view the fans in the way that most performers do. As a mass of people who have paid money, I know what they want. It's a very, very, very, very, very low common denominator.
almost distinct everybody exactly learned pop quite reflect
What we learned quite early on is what was really important to early British pop that we produced-and this is where we were distinct from almost everybody else in this respect-is that it had to reflect exactly what the audience wanted us to say.
art brian bullied happier
To be completely honest, I think if I hadn't been bullied into the band, I would have been happier as an art student. I would have been happier in a Brian Eno world.
chord incredible lethal looking order picked visual whereas
I used to try and make up visually for what I couldn't play as a musician. I used to get into very incredible visual things where, in order just to make one chord more lethal, I'd make it a really lethal looking thing, whereas really it's just going to be picked normally.