Roger Daltrey wants to make another album with The Who and hints at live return: “We are not retired”
Roger Daltrey has admitted that he wants to make another album with The Who and play live with the band again, insisting “we are not retired”.
The Who’s last studio album, Who, arrived in 2019, and since then, Daltrey has made a series of comments suggesting that he had no ambitions for the band to head to the studio again.
Notably, in 2023, he shut down the prospect due to the current music landscape, scathingly saying of the chances, “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago, and it did nothing. It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days.”
However, he now appears to have changed his tune and warmed to the idea, even though it sounds like a new record is unlikely to materialise anytime soon.
Daltrey told Rolling Stone in a new interview, “Well, I’d like to do another album, but I don’t know whether it will be possible.”
The iconic frontman then shared his vision for the record, “I’d like to do an album where we become more involved in the arrangement. In hindsight, partly because Pete’s demos were so good, I think one of the biggest mistakes we made in our career was trying to copy his demos.”
While The Who said their farewell in 2025 with a summer North American tour, Daltrey also left the door open for the band to return to the stage.
When asked about taking the farewell tour outside of North America, he shared, “That will have to be next year now. It won’t fall into this year because Pete’s going to have another knee op, which puts him out of action for a long while.”
Once the farewell tour is completed internationally, Daltrey said they would still perform if they were “invited to do a charity gig or something”, before clarifying of their current status, “What I’m trying to say is we are not retired.”
However, they won’t be back in the US for another tour. Daltrey, who is set to tour North America this summer, added, “We don’t want to do another tour of America. I love America. I love every place we go to in America, but after a while you seem to think, ‘Oh, fuck me. We’re back in Chicago again.'”
His latest comments come after Townshend recently hinted at more activity from The Who after agreeing a licensing deal with Primary Wave.
The guitarist said of the band’s plans for the future, “We are always trying to come up with SOMETHING special, and God Willing will continue to do that, hoping one day we can astound you the way we used to.”
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