{"id":6267,"date":"2025-06-22T21:12:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-22T21:12:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/6267\/"},"modified":"2025-06-22T21:12:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-22T21:12:09","slug":"the-whos-pete-townshend-addresses-zak-starkeys-exit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/6267\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who\u2019s Pete Townshend Addresses Zak Starkey\u2019s Exit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tPete Townshend<\/a> has a simple description of The Who<\/a>\u2019s turbulent split with longtime drummer Zak Starkey: \u201cIt\u2019s a mess.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a new interview with i Paper<\/a>, the legendary guitarist and songwriter opened up about the chaotic sequence of events earlier this year involving Starkey\u2019s firing, rehiring and eventual departure. Starkey, a veteran session and touring drummer, had been part of The Who\u2019s lineup for nearly 30 years.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI will miss Zak terribly. But quite what the story is, I don\u2019t f\u2014king know. I really don\u2019t know,\u201d Townsend admitted.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe confusion began in April when Townshend and The Who frontman Roger Daltrey made a \u201ccollective decision\u201d to part ways with Starkey, who is the son of Beatles drummer Ringo Starr. Days later, Townshend reversed course, stating Starkey was \u201cnot being asked\u201d to step down. But just a month later, Townshend again changed his stance, saying<\/a>, \u201cThe time has come for a change,\u201d signaling the end of their long-running collaboration.<\/p>\n

\n\tShortly after, Starkey offered his own version of events, claiming<\/a> he hadn\u2019t been \u201cfired\u201d but had instead \u201cretired to work [on] my own projects\u201d ahead of The Who\u2019s The Song Is Over farewell tour.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fallout appears to have been sparked by a misstep during the band\u2019s charity performances for the Teenage Cancer Trust at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall in March.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201c[Daltrey] came in four bars early,\u201d Starkey told Rolling Stone<\/a> in June. \u201cBut he just got lost. He blamed it on the drums being too loud, and then it got made into this huge social media thing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his interview with i Paper, Townshend addressed the same performance. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI couldn\u2019t see anything wrong. What you see is a band who haven\u2019t played together for a long time. But I think it was probably to do with the sound. I\u2019ve lost my sound man as a result,\u201d the iconic musician said.<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cI think Roger just got lost. Roger\u2019s finding it difficult. I have to be careful what I say about Roger because he gets angry if I say anything about him at all. He\u2019ll be sacking me next. But that\u2019s not to say that he sacked Zak. It\u2019s a decision Roger and I tried to make together, but it kind of got out of hand.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tDespite the turmoil, Starkey says he would return to The Who if asked.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cOf course I would,\u201d he told Rolling Stone. \u201cI said to Pete, \u2018Thirty years. In the 30 years, you put the bar so f\u2014kin\u2019 high. What the f\u2014k do I do now?,’\u201d he said. \u201cThe Who, you just don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. If you think something is going to happen, the opposite happens. If you second guess Pete, he will play the opposite. You have to go with whatever you\u2019re doing, and not think.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Pete Townshend has a simple description of The Who\u2019s turbulent split with longtime drummer Zak Starkey: \u201cIt\u2019s a…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6268,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[29],"tags":[171,7775,975,5499,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-6267","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-genre-rock","10":"tag-music","11":"tag-music-news","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6267\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}