Pete Townshend on The Who's longevity: "This wasn't a career that I chose. It chose me"

9 May 2025, 12:47 | Updated: 9 May 2025, 18:55

Pete Townshend poses for portrait photographs after the announcement of The Who: The Song Is Over, The North American Farewell Tour on Thursday, May 8 2025. Picture: Scott A Garfitt/Invision/AP/Alamy

By Jenny Mensah

The legendary Who songsmith and guitarist has revealed what has sustained him through the band's long and illustrious career.

Loading audio...

Pete Townshend believes that the relationship between creativity and performing has sustained his longevity.

The Who took part in a press conference this Thursday (8th May) to announce their plans to embark on their 2025 The Song Is Over North American Farewell Tour, with the Townshend at the Iconic Images Gallery in London and frontman Roger Daltrey joining live on video link.

When asked by Radio X Classic Rock's Sunta Templeton, about how they'd explain their longevity over the years, the Who's legendary songsmith and guitarist replied: "This wasn't a career that I chose. It chose me and that act of hypnotism really changed the way that I performed."

The My Generation rocker went on: "Creativity has been what's sustained me rather than performing, so getting to this point where we're about to go back and represent ourselves to an American audience and address the fact that everything comes to an end is a very poignant time, but it's been about the relationship between the audience and us."

Townshend went on to credit the fans who were "patient" with them during times of their inactivity for allowing them to continue to do what they've been doing when they do return to the spotlight.

The 79-year-old rocker added: "There were long periods when we've been inactive for nearly 11 years in the '80s and what's so interesting is that the fans have patiently waited and often we don't perform as much as many bands do. So a lot of of our fans have been patiently waiting for a long time to see us, so the longevity is something that's just happened. Time passes as you get older and goes faster and faster until you find yourself here and you have to accept that you can't do what you used to do."

Pete Townshend talks The Who's longevity

Read more:

The rocker also noted that their peers and fellow elder statesmen who continue to work have provided inspiration for him, but for him, listening to songs he wrote decades ago and performing them onstage provides him a way with connecting to his past while "closing a circle".

He mused: "On the other hand, and I don't know whether Roger agrees... there's a sense of liberation doing solo stuff, but when we look at artists like The Stones, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan, one is inspired to think 'What could we do that would be new or different?'

"And I think for me the joy is when I'm on stage and I when hear Baba O'Reilly rippling away and I think 'I wrote this when I was 26'. You know it was an electronic piece of music." He laughed: "'Wasn't I clever?' And then we have to perform it.

"So for me it's the link between the creative stuff and the performing. [...] Whatever we play, there's going to be a chance I've written it, so there's that sense of closing a circle. Having one last grab at trying to bring that thing to life. You know some of the songs from the Who's Next album kind of paved the way for stadium rock".

Pete Townshed at The Who's special announcement of their final North American tour. Picture: Faysal Hassan for Live Nation

The Who will take a final lap of the US and Canada on The Song Is Over tour playing a string of 16 dates in total.

The shows will kick off at Florida's Amerant Bank Arena at 16th August and will include a show at New York's Madison Square Garden, before coming to a close at MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on 28th September.

Tickets will be available starting with a Citi presale and through The Who Fan Club, beginning on Tuesday 13th May.

Additional pre-sales will run throughout the week ahead of the general onsale, which starts on Friday 16th May at 10:00 AM local time via thewho.com/tour/.