“Figurehead anarchists”: When Pete Townshend out-drunk the Sex Pistols in 1977
When punk rock exploded onto the airwaves during the 1970s, some members of rock and roll’s old guard were understandably frightened; here was a new generation of abrasive, anarchic songwriters coming to take their crowns. They were louder, dirtier, and more rebellious than anything that had come before, but, as far as Pete Townshend was concerned, they couldn’t drink like the old-timers.
The Who were far from being past it by the time that punk came along, but they weren’t the youthful post-war rebels of their earlier days, either. ‘My Generation’ and its amphetamine-fuelled modernist revolution had long since been committed to the rear-view mirror, in favour of expansive, experimental rock operas like Quadrophenia, and the stadium shows that came with those colossal records.
Yet, the band were among the few of British rock’s old-guard that were accepted by the newly emerging punk generation. After all, the short, sharp anthems of the punk age were indebted to the sound of The Who’s early work, which many of punk’s architects had been raised on.
Fittingly, then, Townshend seemed to welcome punk with open arms, too. In fact, the Sex Pistols’ Johnny Rotten came very close to playing the lead role in the 1979 film adaptation of Quadrophenia, before Phil Daniels came along. As Townshend saw it, it was time to pass the rock baton on to the next generation.
That spirit manifested itself in a particularly chaotic drinking session between Townshend and the Sex Pistols back in 1977. By that point, the guitarist had become well-accustomed to some heavy nights on the bottle, and it is fair to say that he drank his younger counterparts under the table.
“Rock ‘n’ roll’s going down the fucking pan! You’ve got to take over where the Who left off, and this time, you’ve got to finish the fucking job.”
Pete Townshend to Paul Cook and Steve Jones
Seemingly, though, that drinking session became the start of an unexpected friendship. “Steve and Paul became real ‘mates’ of mine in the English sense,” Townshend once noted. “We socialised a few times. Got drunk (well, I did) and I have to say to their credit, for a couple of figurehead anarchists, they seemed sincerely concerned about my decaying condition at the time.”
Helping to drag the guitarists from a particularly dark time with The Who, those nights spent in the pub spurred on the creation of The Who’s legendary 1978 single ‘Who Are You’, which became a late-period triumph for the band, released mere weeks before drummer Keith Moon tragically passed away.
Despite some of his 1960s contemporaries viewing the new age of punk rock with ageing resentment, then, Pete Townshend used its newfound inspiration as a means of getting back his own songwriting spark, with the added influence of copious amounts of ale.
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