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
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.
art collect five guitar listen players playing properly records until
I didn't start to collect records and listen to guitar players properly until I went to art school, when I'd already been playing for five years. So my style was already formed, and that's why I think it's so unique.
bush ended felt original
I felt that The Who had ended because we'd lost touch with our original Shepherd's Bush audience.
although dig obvious
Although I dig my guitar playing, I think it's kind of an obvious situation; I play what I want to play within my own restrictions.
dug hear knew notes playing supposed
When The Who first started, we were playing blues, and I dug the blues and I knew what I was supposed to be playing, but I couldn't play it. I couldn't get it out. I knew what I had to play; it was in my head. I could hear the notes in my head, but I couldn't get them out on the guitar.
absolute bring conviction enter god slightly trust worship
In a sense, the god we trust politically is a slightly different god than the one we bring into the fray when we enter a rock concert. One of the things I can say with absolute conviction is that I worship that god.
came early edited minutes record twenty version work
Some of our early work was two minutes twenty when it actually came out on vinyl, very, very, very short. Sometimes if you made a three-minute record they would make you do an edited version for radio, particularly in America.
although anomaly considered developing family guitar jack played uncle war worked
My father had played the guitar when he was young, and my uncle Jack had worked for Kalamazoo, before the war, developing guitar pickups. So there was a kind of family thing about the guitar, although it was considered something of an anomaly then.
allow internet music ourselves power promised rock salvation saw uniquely willingly
I saw the Internet as being something which would allow power mongers to control us, and that we would willingly go to that if it promised us salvation - if it promised to show us who we were and let us find ourselves as we had, uniquely in our generation, through rock music.