A band of bruisers: Why did The Who hate each other?
Being in a band is a bit like being in a sitcom couple. You can’t just be settled and happy; you have to be docked in tempestuous bays and as close to the brink of a breakup as a clumsily assembled house of cards sitting happily on a fault line. You have to do this for the sake of drama, for the necessity of action and the vibrancy it brings—for the sake of the story. The Who grasped the narrative of the zeitgeist of the counterculture like no other.
The Beatles were rightly seen as the confounding centre of the world. The Rolling Stones operated as the shadowy figures cast by the Liverpudlians’ shine, and The Kinks were a kitchen sink drama incarnate. The Who, however, were not musicians du jour, they weren’t sonic storytellers or pop poets, they were, by and large, a group of kids who had picked up some instruments and had something to say. It meant they were able to deliver a message like no other group could. This really was their generation, and in-fighting was as central as the trail they helped to blaze.
In truth, the band were always fated to be a bit turbulent. Keith Moon rightfully earned himself the nickname ‘The Loon’ and, despite his powerhouse performances, was largely mentally absent from contributing to the group outside of any savant-like stage or studio performances. Pete Townshend was a freethinker interested in epiphanies and channelling “the voice of God” into his work, and while he found a counterpart in the wilds of Moon’s character, he operated in a completely different way. While an Acton boy, Roger Daltrey was essentially a signing farmer in tight pants with a penchant for trout fishing and fisticuffs, he rubbed the city boys up the wrong way. And poor old John Entwistle was a simple, reserved bass obsessive, likely unable to truly contemplate the maniacal behaviour he would witness both in and outside of the music.
Things got off to a violent start in their career. In 1966, Keith Moon and John Entwistle were waylaid for a gig because they wanted to have a quick chat with their hero, Bruce Johnston from the Beach Boys. A quick chat, however, became a few drinks, and by the time they showed up for the evening gig in Berkshire, Townshend and Daltrey had already started the show without them hiring the rhythm section from the opening band, Jimmy Brown Sound.
Entwistle and Moon stormed the stage. ‘The Loon’ was enraged that someone had been allowed to use his kit, he complained to Townshend that they could damage it before he had had the chance to smash it up entirely. When that moment came at the end of ‘My Generation’, a cymbal accidentally crashed into Townshend’s leg. He then proceeded to crash his guitar into Moon’s face. It was a sign of things to come. While the formerly mentioned British invasion groups were built out of tight-knit units, familial connections and childhood memories, The Who were an assemblance of dissonant entities.
“I wasn’t hurt, just annoyed and upset,” Townshend explains in his memoir. “Keith and John had been over two hours late. Then I swung out with my guitar not really meaning to hit Keith. I lost my grip on the instrument and it just caught him on the head.” A brawl then ensued among the band, and things were never quite the same from then on. In fact, although the music might have been magical and they shared some awesome moments together, that brotherly fighting just sort of mutated from one battle to the next, including the moment Daltrey flushed away Moon’s pills only to receive a punch on the nose for the act and to find his bandmates agreeing the singer had gone a step too far.
Even today, it still continues. As Townshend declared regarding the differing politics of the remaining members: “I’m a Remainer, he [Roger Daltrey] is a Brexiteer. I believe in God, he doesn’t.” And this odd attraction/repulsion of opposites also manifests itself on stage still. As Townshend explains: “Roger comes over to me, stands next to me and makes some kind of soppy smile, which is supposed to communicate some kind of Everly Brothers relationship we have for the audience, which isn’t actually there.”
The guitarist continues, “It’s supposed to be an act where I’m supposed to collude like ‘we know each other very well, we look like enemies, but we are friends really’ kind of look. Often that will be the moment where I look him in the face and go ‘you fucking wanker’ and he gets angry when I do that,” Townshend says amidst a fit of laughter. In fact, he takes the damnation of continuing the band a step further: “It seemed like a good idea about six months ago, but I hate performing and The Who and touring. But I’m innately good at it, I don’t find it hard.”
That might be all well and good in its own acerbic way, but Townshend was heavily criticised when he declared that he “thanks God” that Moon and Entwistle are no longer with us. “They were fucking difficult to play with. They never, ever managed to create bands for themselves. I think my musical discipline, my musical efficiency as a rhythm player, held the band together,” Townshend told Rolling Stone.
He later declared that he was just being “ironic”, but aside from the callousness of his comments, it does help to define why the in-fighting was so profuse. Moon was just out there for a lark wondering why Townshend was being so stuffy, Daltrey found his self-crowning pompous, and Entwistle was just wondering why they could all get on with it and have a good time. Meanwhile, Townshend was, indeed, putting the most energy into the outfit and wondering why the others couldn’t just take it a little bit more seriously.
The result was musical magic that came at the crushing cost of the exhausted members behind it who bickered, backstabbed and made up like brothers. The Who likely did hate each other from time to time, with some moments lasting longer than others. But what family doesn’t?
