{"id":27680,"date":"2024-07-19T05:30:02","date_gmt":"2024-07-19T09:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=27680"},"modified":"2024-07-19T07:55:53","modified_gmt":"2024-07-19T11:55:53","slug":"the-best-bits-from-my-roger-daltrey-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/19\/the-best-bits-from-my-roger-daltrey-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"The ‘Best Bits’ from My Roger Daltrey Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I recently interviewed Roger Daltrey for a short feature [LINK HERE<\/a>]. Here are some of best bits (so to speak) that didn\u2019t make it into that story. \u2013 bk<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Bill Kopp: I often wonder about interpretive singers who primarily sing lyrics written by others. I think of Frank Sinatra as the pinnacle of that. In your case, do you take a \u201cmethod actor\u201d approach and try to inhabit the mindset of those songs, or do you simply just sing them? <\/b><\/p>\n

Roger Daltrey:<\/strong> I have to inhabit the song totally. I always see the song as expression, as I look at the lyrics. And it’s my job is to be the connection between the lyric and the heart of someone who’s listening. I like to move people with the song; I can’t \u201cjust sing\u201d a song, because I would feel I would be doing nothing.<\/p>\n

I remember reading an interview; it must have been 40 years ago. I’m going to paraphrase, but you said something to the effect of, \u201c<\/b>N<\/b>obody writes songs like Pete Townshend, and nobody sings them like me.\u201d And that has stuck with me, because it’s absolutely true. <\/b><\/p>\n

Well, it’s true. When you listen to Pete Townshend’s writing, it’s from a very different perspective than most songs. What made The Who was the fact that were four complete individuals and we all had kind of little micro rhythms between us that made us different. And that was a gift. The moment Keith Moon joined this band, it was quite obvious that we were different. And that’s when I knew we would make it. We were never going to out rock and roll the Rolling Stones. But as soon as Keith Moon joined, we were going to out-rock<\/i> anyone. We weren’t rock and roll.<\/p>\n

Since your solo tour is semi-acoustic, does that give you opportunities to do that sort of VH-1 S<\/i>torytellers<\/i> kind of thing where you give a little bit of background of a song before you play it? <\/b><\/p>\n

I do some of that, yeah. One of the [audience] questions the other night, for instance, came out the blue. What was my favorite Kinks song? I’ve always been a huge fan of The Kinks and Ray Davies. And so I attempted \u2013 in fact, I did play \u2013 the first verse of \u201cDays,\u201d which is a beautiful song.<\/p>\n

Speaking of explaining\u2026 o<\/b>n the early dates for the original <\/b>1973 <\/b>tour in support of <\/b>Quadrophenia,<\/b><\/i> <\/b>you <\/b>tried to do some describing <\/b>of that<\/b> story to the audience. And that sort of fell flat, didn’t it? <\/b><\/p>\n

Well, it did in my<\/i> head. \u201cOh, God. Oh, stop, stop.\u201d It was like being on a school bus with a broken clutch.<\/p>\n

We sorted it out, though. First we did it with the actor. Secondly, I rewrote the dialogue. Pete’s dialogue is bit like his books: a little overblown. We put [the Jimmy character] on a screen, but it was still \u201cStop, start, stop.\u201d And in the end I said to Pete, \u201cI’m not doing Q<\/i>uadrophenia<\/i> anymore unless we do it as we conceived it: as music. And I’ll make any kind of story you want. I’ll do it in visuals, just on the screen.\u201d Which is what we did on the last time we did a tour of it [2003]. I did all that.<\/p>\n

The songs that you sing with <\/b>T<\/b>he <\/b>W<\/b>ho have stood the test of time; they still sound fresh and not dated today. <\/b>W<\/b>hy do you think that is? <\/b><\/p>\n

I don’t know. I do agree with it. I think there’s no doubt about that. That was part of the genius of Pete working with the tape loops, and the voicings that he uses on guitar. He very rarely plays a straight chord. It just sits in the head a little differently. Maybe it just has more weight of import; I don’t know. I wish I could answer it, but I do know what you’re talking about. I’m not being big headed, but I think we are correct; it doesn’t seem to date.<\/p>\n

I’m not going to be at any of the current run of shows because you’re not coming anywhere near me. But if you add another leg and get closer, I will be there. <\/b><\/p>\n

You never know, the way the music business is now. We can’t get insurance for Covid, so we could get canceled at any time. Everything is so precarious for the music business. But if it does work and we get good reviews, if it goes down well and it draws good audiences, there will be more legs.<\/p>\n

If were to go back in time 60 years and ask the <\/b>R<\/b>oger who was singing with the <\/b>H<\/b>igh <\/b>N<\/b>umbers at the <\/b>R<\/b>ailway <\/b>H<\/b>otel, if he could imagine himself at 80 still singing \u2013 much less touring \u2013 what do you think he would have said? <\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cFuck off!\u201d<\/p>\n

That’<\/b>s<\/b> it? <\/b><\/p>\n

Yeah. Yeah, that would have totally been it!<\/p>\n

T<\/b>hank you for talking with me, and thank you most of all for a lifetime of music. The <\/b>W<\/b>ho has been the soundtrack of my life, and I’m 60, so I’ve been listening for a very long time. <\/b><\/p>\n

Well, it was a good, fun interview. All the best, man.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I recently interviewed Roger Daltrey for a short feature [LINK HERE]. Here are some of best bits (so to speak) that didn\u2019t make it into that story. \u2013 bk Bill […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27681,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[2533,2190],"class_list":["post-27680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-roger-daltrey","tag-the-who","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27680"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27833,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27680\/revisions\/27833"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27681"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}