Townshend Says No New Who in ’05

Our Tom Johnson reported this in September ’03: Pete Townshend’s

main creative work will be songs for a new Who album. These will be based on his story, now complete, The Boy Who Heard Music. He and Roger plan to demo the new material before the end of the year prior to going into record the album in March 04. This of course will be the band’s first studio album since 1982’s ‘It’s Hard.’ The proposed release date for the album is the early Summer and the idea is to follow it up with a US and UK tour, taking in other regions in 2005.

Now Townshend relates on his website that his previous prediction was overly optimistic:

The new Who album has been delayed, not cancelled. The release date I had hoped for in the late spring or very early summer was whipped from under my nose after three years of writing. Shows we hoped to do in the early summer seemed to fizzle, and we lost our drummer to Oasis until January 2006. All alternatives proposed, and which I have desperately considered, do not fit in with my current commitments. I am committed to record the music for my new story The Boy Who Heard Music. I am also completing my autobiography later this year. Sadly, this forces a postponement of the planned Who activity this year for some indeterminate time.

I had lots of plans, but no hard schedule. And that is what has created this predicament. It’s probably my fault, because I work very slowly in the studio, and either no one believed I was actually recording, or they got tired of waiting. I should say that Roger has done what he calls sketch vocals on several tracks I produced, and the results are very exciting. But I feel I can’t tour any more with the Who without a new record. So until that record is actually in my hands, I must hold my breath and live in hope.

With only Pete and Roger left, I am perplexed as to what would constitute a new Who album anyway: is it a state of mind? A certain way of writing and producing? A more marketable name for the Pete and Roger show? Sounds like it’ll be a while until we find out.