{"id":313117,"date":"2025-08-02T23:33:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-02T23:33:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313117\/"},"modified":"2025-08-02T23:33:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-02T23:33:10","slug":"the-whos-roger-daltrey-accuses-zak-starkey-of-character-assassination-after-drummers-firing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/313117\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who’s Roger Daltrey accuses Zak Starkey of “character assassination” after drummer’s firing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Who<\/a>\u2019s Roger Daltrey<\/a> has accused Zak Starkey<\/a> of \u201ccharacter assassination\u201d over comments the drummer made about his firing from the band.<\/p>\n

Starkey\u2019s time with The Who came to an end in May<\/a> after a confusing period of contradictory reports<\/a>, with Pete Townshend<\/a> finally confirming that \u201cthe time has come for a change\u201d.<\/p>\n

Starkey \u2013 who is the son of\u00a0Ringo Starr<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 had been the full-time sticksman for The Who since 1996, but\u00a0after a series of four shows at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust in March<\/a>, frictions between him and the rest of the band appeared to emerge.<\/p>\n

In June, Starkey told\u00a0NME<\/a>: \u201cRoger demanded a public apology and me admitting that I dropped two beats. So I did it, but with a duck playing drums \u2013 which is my character in the new Mantra Of The Cosmos video. Pete phoned me and he went, \u2018Try that again without the duck\u2019. I did it without the duck, got the gig back \u2013 10 days later, sacked again. Roger said he couldn\u2019t work with me no more after I\u2019d done that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Townshend said in April that there had been \u201csome communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with\u201d, but did say at the time that they had been \u201caired happily\u201d. He added that he and Daltrey had informed Starkey that they wanted him to \u201ctighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line-up\u201d, which he said at the time the drummer had \u201creadily agreed\u201d to do.<\/p>\n

After he was let go, however, Starkey disputed Daltrey\u2019s assertion that he had not been fired but had instead been \u201cretired\u201d as \u201cfukin total bollox\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Now, in an interview with The Times<\/a>, Daltrey has addressed the situation. \u201cIt was kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Explaining what happened at the Royal Albert Hall, he added: \u201cIt is controlled by a guy on the side, and we had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn\u2019t pitch.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at [Starkey] because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn\u2019t. That\u2019s all that happened. Pete and I retain the right to be The Who. Everyone else is a session player.\u201d<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the NME interview, Starkey said: \u201cPete [Townshend] said, \u2018Are you strong enough to fight for your job back?\u2019 I said, \u2018Not if you\u2019ve got to do it for me\u2019. If it wasn\u2019t for The Who, I wouldn\u2019t be playing the drums. I was a guitarist first. And then he went, \u2018Alright, let\u2019s get you your job back\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cI still talk to Roger every week on the phone, I still text with Pete all the time,\u201d he continued. \u201cI spoke to Roger a few weeks ago and he said, \u2018Don\u2019t take your drums out of the warehouse just yet in case we need you\u2019. What the fuck\u2019s going on, man? That\u2019s where we\u2019re at now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

When the news of Starkey\u2019s departure was shared, The Who also confirmed that Scott Devours would be taking on the role of drummer<\/a>\u00a0for their farewell tour. He has previously worked with Daltrey as part of the singer\u2019s solo band and he\u00a0described the weight of being their new sticksman \u201cenormous\u201d<\/a>, adding that he understood if fans were \u201cgutted\u201d by Starkey\u2019s loss.<\/p>\n

The Who\u2019s farewell tour is set to begin in Florida on August 16, and other shows across the month include stops in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York.\u00a0Visit here for tickets<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Who\u2019s Roger Daltrey has accused Zak Starkey of \u201ccharacter assassination\u201d over comments the drummer made about his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,269,453,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-313117","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-rock","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114961790532804793","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313117","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=313117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}