{"id":26458,"date":"2025-04-17T03:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-04-17T03:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/26458\/"},"modified":"2025-04-17T03:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-17T03:26:08","slug":"zak-starkey-breaks-silence-on-firing-from-the-who","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/26458\/","title":{"rendered":"Zak Starkey Breaks Silence on Firing From The Who"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tEarlier today, the Who<\/a> announced that they were parting ways with drummer Zak Starkey<\/a> after three decades. Rumors swirled that the group were unhappy with his performance last month when they played a pair of Teenage Cancer Trust charity shows at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall. In his first public statement since the group let him go, Starkey confirms this is indeed the case.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI\u2019m very proud of my near thirty years with The Who,\u201d Starkey tells Rolling Stone in a written statement. \u201cFilling the shoes of my Godfather, \u2018uncle Keith\u2019 has been the biggest honor and I remain their biggest fan. They\u2019ve been like family to me. In January, I suffered a serious medical emergency with blood clots in my right bass drum calf. This is now completely healed and does not affect my drumming or running.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continues: \u201cAfter playing those songs with the band for so many decades, I\u2019m surprised and saddened anyone would have an issue with my performance that night, but what can you do? I plan to take some much needed time off with my family, and focus on the release of Domino Bones by Mantra Of The Cosmos with Noel Gallagher in May and finishing my autobiography written solely by me. Twenty-nine years at any job is a good old run, and I wish them the best.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tStarkey first entered the Who\u2019s orbit in 1994 when he backed Roger Daltrey on an American tour. Two years later, he joined the Who when the surviving members reunited for a tour celebrating their 1973 LP Quadrophenia.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere were certain things that had to be in there, certain fills that had to be exactly the same because they are so Quadrophenia, if you know what I mean,\u201d Starkey told Modern Drummer in 2006<\/a>. \u201cThey are memorable fills. There aren\u2019t memorable parts, though, because everything Keith played kept changing. If you listen to \u2018The Real Me,\u2019 you\u2019re not quite playing the same thing every time, ever. Every bar comes around again, but what he played was never the exact same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Who don\u2019t have a tour on the books, but they are playing a pair of shows in Italy in late July. They have yet to announce who will replace Starkey behind the kit at those gigs. One likely candidate is Scott Devours,<\/a> who has been in Daltrey\u2019s solo band since 2009. He also toured with the Who in 2013 when Starkey was suffering from a tendon problem.<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\tAnother possible pick is journeyman drummer Simon Phillips.<\/a> He was Pete Townshend\u2019s go-to drummer on his Eighties solo albums and live shows, and he played in the Who on their 1989 reunion tour. When Starkey was unable to make a Who gig in 2000 due to his commitments with Johnny Marr and the Healers, Philips returned to the group for a single night. Townshend remains a huge admirer of his work and has recently expressed interest in working with him again.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a 2024 interview with Mojo,<\/a> Townshend said that Daltrey was in charge of putting the Who\u2019s backing band together, and that he \u201cwasn\u2019t 100% happy\u201d with his picks. \u201cI\u2019d get Simon Phillips on drums and Pino Palladino on bass, and I\u2019d dig \u2018Rabbit\u2019 [keyboardist John Bundrick] out of his bed,\u201d Townshend said. \u201cAnd I\u2019d get some fabulous shredding guitar player\u2026 but the problem is, they\u2019d all be far, far superior musicians to me.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Earlier today, the Who announced that they were parting ways with drummer Zak Starkey after three decades. Rumors…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26459,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,14566,16,15,14567],"class_list":{"0":"post-26458","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-music","10":"tag-the-who","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom","13":"tag-zak-starkey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114351176758988915","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26458","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26458"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26458\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26458"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26458"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26458"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}