Roger Daltrey Reveals Last Who Album Cost Him Money

Although Pete Townshend is working on material for a new Who project, Roger Daltrey revealed that the band's 2019 WHO album actually put him in the red. Daltrey spoke to Uncut and said, “Will there be another Who album? I don’t know. There’s no record market any more. Everybody talks about streaming, but have you seen what artists get from that? It’s a joke. It was great to have an album out there, something that the fans liked, and I was really proud of it. But far too much money was spent making it. It went out of control completely and ended up costing me money. I can’t go on doing that.”

He explained the mixed emotions he has with recording new Who music: “At the same time, I love exploring Pete's songs. He’s such a different writer and so incredibly adept, musically. He’ll present me with demos that are very patchy on the vocal side, because he knows that I’ll get to the heart of it. It’s sometimes like entering a cave with no torch and four matches.”

Daltrey went on to detail how he approached the new Townshend material, explaining, “I’ll do a lot of takes in the dark before I find the glimmer of where it’s going. In the initial stages of a demo I’ll approach the song as though I’m painting a picture. It’s a canvas and I’m sketching and sketching, gradually building up what I feel a song needs to be in order to touch people.”

Over the summer, Roger Daltrey spoke candidly about future Who projects and the band being forced off the road due to the pandemic, during a webcast interview on TheWho.com. Daltrey answered fan questions posed by his old friend, and the band's webmaster, famed artist Richard Evans.

When pressed about the new Who music Pete Townshend has been working on for the band during lockdown, Daltrey sounded positive — but still cryptic: “We did have a conversation about something — I don't wanna talk about it, 'cause it might never happen. It sounded very promising and the only person that could do it would be Pete, and if he writes it, let's see where we are. But, I mean, I don't know what the point of a new Who album would be? I mean, I ended up. . . the last Who album (laughs) cost me money to make (laughs) — I don't know if I'm gonna carry on for that very long, because at the moment, y'know, we're all out of work. I've got savings, but they won't last forever. We're much better off than most, but it won't go on forever and I can't go on paying to make music. That's a fool's game, y'know?”