Hero Ground Zero: the four groups who inspired Pete Townshend’s fictional band
The Who is a band that has influenced some of the most successful acts that have followed them. Oasis, Queen, and Green Day have all cited them as a source of inspiration over the course of their careers. But from where did Pete Townshend get his inspiration for ‘Hero Ground Zero’? The track appears on The Who’s 2019 eponymous album, but Townshend’s idea began brewing long before that.
The song’s title is more than just that. It is not sung from the perspective of Townshend but that of a fictional man who fronts a band called Hero Ground Zero; it’s all pretty meta. It’s difficult to picture if this band fit into a specific time period as the imagination doesn’t exactly lend itself to a strict sense of time, but the band carries influences from real acts of the 1970s.
Townshend explained that Hero Ground Zero’s sound lies “somewhere between ELO [Electric Light Orchestra], The Who, Led Zeppelin, and Fleetwood Mac. They were a huge prog rock band. He wanted to be in a movie, which he confesses in the song,” which is rather explicit in the line “Every rockstar wants to make a movie”. If it’s every rockstar, perhaps we can expect a film adaptation of Townshend’s work soon…
The influences are perfectly sourced, as there is a hugeness to the song that is a great blend of a prog sensation and cinematic orchestra. The melody echoes those of Stevie Nicks, and of course, there is the undeniable presence of The Who.
Originally, ‘Hero Ground Zero’ was written by Townshend to open an opera he was working on titled Age of Anxiety as a massive orchestral number. Townshend sent it to Roger Daltrey back in 2016, and when he loved it, they knew that the track had to be featured on their next project.
Despite Age of Anxiety being initially conceived as an opera in 2008, the project went on to be developed into a multi-media sensation. It became a novel, published in 2019, that has been in The Times Bestsellers list and has received great acclaim. On top of that, the project is also an art installation, with Townshend sharing, “It’s the life I should have led had I not been in The Who and came out of art college in 1966 and pursued a career as an artist.” Even almost 60 years later, Townshend found ways to show the world the true extent of his enormous artistic ability.
The multi-media project’s goal is clear for him, as he told Mojo, “I wanted that on the album to create a link between what I’m doing with Roger and The Who and what I plan to do next.”
The track ‘Hero Ground Zero’ is a perfect display, as it maintains the iconic sound of The Who while exploring new avenues. The song made its live debut at Wembley on July 6th, 2019, on their Moving On! tour. On this tour, Townshend dedicated the song to playwright Robert Blacker, who once described one of the characters he wrote as a “hero, ground-zero”, which inspired the title of the song.
