In the early days of the Who, Pete Townshend gave little thought to a solo career. Writing songs for the band, crafting albums, and touring behind them occupied nearly all of his time and mental energy.
In 1972, however, he was persuaded to shape Who Came First — a spiritual collection of oddities and demos meant only for the ears of friends and fellow followers of Meher Baba — into an official release once bootlegs flooded the market. And five years later, he teamed up with Faces bassist Ronnie Lane for the collaborative LP Rough Mix.
It wasn’t until 1980, two years after the death of the Who’s drummer Keith Moon, that he finally agreed to create a proper solo album, Empty Glass. “There was great pressure on me to release myself creatively from the constraints of only writing songs for the Who, a band that had become increasingly self-aggrandizing and pompous, anthem-like even, and allow myself the outlet of a solo album,” Townshend writes in liner notes for Studio Albums, a new eight-CD box set chronicling his entire recording career outside of the Who, which arrives this week. “Although here is a collection of solo songs, they could all have been Who songs in my opinion … Let’s not fall into the trap that I kept songs back from The Who. I never did that. I just wrote songs.”
A few days before he was due to meet up with Roger Daltrey and begin rehearsals for a pair of Who concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall to benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust, he jumped on Zoom with Rolling Stone to talk about his solo career. But as always happens, the conversation veered into all sorts of other realms.
John Entwistle made his first solo record in 1971. Roger Daltrey did his in 1973. Keith Moon followed in 1975. You didn’t do a proper one until 1980. Why were you the last?
Because I was writing the songs for the fuckin’ Who, that’s why! {read}