“He was like a blubbering baby”: The Who album that absolutely destroyed Keith Moon
There are endless quotes about drummers providing the energy to musical outfits, but none fit the story of Keith Moon quite like Neil Peart’s, who once described his instrumental comrades as the “engine” of any given band.
There are few words more apt in describing Moon’s contribution to The Who, whose ferocious energy fired up like a powerful V8 engine as the band launched into the rock and roll stratosphere. While Pete Townshend was arguably the most important member of the band’s innovation, and Roger Daltrey in their performance, Moon was integral in bringing it all together, and his wild energy on the kit was simply irreplaceable.
It made all of his wild antics somewhat easier to stomach, for his off-stage chaos went hand in hand with his on-stage brilliance. And so Townshend and co would accept the fact that their drummer was the ultimate rock and roll hellraiser, and almost steward him through the hedonism of the 1970s to ensure that the band fulfilled their obvious potential.
But come the end of the decade, it all began to come at some cost. Moon’s drug and alcohol addictions spiral, with the drummer gaining a considerable amount of weight that, most tragically, changed the way the drummer viewed himself.
Then in ‘79, the band released the film The Kids Are Alright, which showed the band, including Moon, at their very best. But the screening sent him into an even deeper state, for he was confronted with the reality of his struggles and saw just how quickly he had changed.
“He was like a blubbering baby. He was crying. He was devastated,” Daltrey explained, after organising a private viewing for Moon ahead of its release. He continued, “And I kept saying to him: ‘Keith, you’re the star of the fucking film, you’re brilliant. Without you in it, it would be as dull as dishwater.’ And he’s saying: ‘Yeah, but I’m overweight, I can’t drum any more.'”
Daltrey offered the role of quiet comforter, but at that point, the internal damage was done for Keith. The physical cost of his full-throttle rock and roll lifestyle had offered up some evident side effects, and so the subtle realisation that things were slowly changing was understandably difficult for Moon.
Daltrey explained, “It must have been like falling off the edge of a cliff for him, because he saw this beautiful young kid go from looking 16 years old to looking forty in a very short space of time, and he found it very hard. I said to him: ‘Don’t worry, Keith. It’s just because we haven’t been on the road for two years. We’ll get you fit. We’ll get a gymnasium at the studio, I’ll come down with you, and we’ll train, and I’ll get Pete back on the road, and you’ll soon be fit.'”
The tale becomes even sadder when Moon tragically died at the age of 31 in September 1978, six months before the film was released to the world. But as Daltrey explained, the film didn’t show Moon as he saw himself – instead, it was a fitting tribute to a vitally important rock and roll drummer who gave everything to his craft.
