Rolling Stone May 1984

BY MICK BROWN
LONDON

With the release of Parting Should Be Painless, his first solo album
since the demise of the Who, Roger Daltrey is clearly a changed man.
His clothes are more dapper. His aura is more ? should we say? ?
mature. But the biggest difference appears to be in Daltrey's
attitude; the former lead singer of the Who, one of the most idealistic bands in the history of rock & roll, is now a pragmatist, fisrt and foremost.

"I don't have any illusions anymore," says the forty-year-old Daltrey. "The illusion that rock & roll could change anything ? I don't believe that. That the Who was this strange machine that could do anything ? I don't believe that. I've changed. Who would have ever
thought that I'd end up saying I want to be an all-round entertainer?
But that's what I want to be. Not that I ever want to go to Vegas…."
Daltrey thinks for a second. "Although one day I might do it ? just
for a laugh."

It is significant that in Britain Daltrey has become almost better
known as an actor than as a singer. During the last two years, he has
made his Shakespearean debut in a television presentation of The
Comedy of Errors; has played MacHeath in The Beggar's Opera, which was directed by Jonathan Miller, one of Britain's leading theatrical
figures; and has starred in a short film called Bitter Cherry. Andnow, while he shits in his manager's London office, Daltrey's main concern appears to be how he can raise the final 2 million pounds needed to begin his pet project, directing a film about the Kray
twins, Britain's most notorious gangland figures.

One can't help but wonder if singing has become an afterthought in
Daltrey's life. "I love singing, and I don't want to stops," he says.
"My solo career during the Who's schedule was simply never enough for
me, and there are all kinds of music I like to sing that the Who didn't cover. Now I've got the freedom to do what I like, when I like."

Parting Should Be Painless, Daltrey's fourth solo album, demonstrates
his eclectric tastes - it includes a track written by Eurythmics
("Somebody Told Me") and one penned by Bryan Ferry ("Going Strong") ?
but its overall feel steers it towards the AOR and easy-listening makers.

Musically, says Daltrey, the LP covers areas he had wanted the Who to
pursue. "Pete[Townshend] and I both said the Who was an alternative to
heavy metal, but toward the end, John got more into that and Pete and
I further away from it. Because we were compromising so much, we ended
up just settling into what we knew how to do best. It bored Pete to
tears, too."

Even though he acknowledges that the Who had not really recorded a
good album since the death of Keith Moon in 1978 and that the group
had toured "to death," Daltrey, perhaps even more than Townshend,
continues to believe that the Who had a symbolic importance greater
than the fruits of their work. "We kept our ideals, a sense of
fairness and giving people hope, and for that reason the Who was a
valid thing to keep going," he says. "I was very upset when it
finished. Pleaed for Pete, because he's now free to do what he wants,
but upset because my visions were obviously different."

Still, Daltrey's illusion that the Who could change the world was
finally shattered by Townshend7s increasing involvement with drugs and
his addiction in 1981, "For years, Pete had been responsible for keeping me away from all that; I'd always been taught by him that everything is within you. And then, when he became a drug addict himself, I suddenly though, 'Fuck me, we're human.' It really distressed me to see a man I love very dearly doing that to himself, because heroin changes people permanentaly, weven when they come off it."

Daltrey says he has hardly seen Townshend since the group played its
last show in 1982. "He's stuck himself into a different world, and he's not very communicate these days, Townshend's best stuff always came out of his worst problem ? I've always said it, and he's always denied it. But now that he's dried up a little bit as a writer, he's
come to realize I'm right. But I'd hate to think he'd have to go through more hell just to write songs. I just hope he's happy; that's the only thing I care abou"

For his own part, Daltrey appears to have come of the group in the
best position of all. His acting and singing careers are intact, and
he seems healthy and well adjusted. "I miss the Who very much," says
Daltrey. "But it's over for good now, and you can't live in the past,
I've got my own life to get on with."