Roger Daltrey remembers being warned off LSD by one of the drug’s premium distributors. Ultimate-Guitar.com reported Daltrey’s recalling the incident while appearing on Brian Johnson – Life On The Road Show. The Who singer told the AC/DC frontman: “When I first went to San Francisco, we met a guy who was making all the LSD, a guy called Owsley (Stanley), otherwise known as the Bear. He was making all the LSD for the government, they were doing experiments with it, and he made Purple Haze, and everybody was taking this, he said, 'You must never ever take chemicals, just stick with the weed and you'll be alright.'”
Daltrey, who was not quite a choirboy while on tour, revealed, “Something about the way he said it to me sank in. . . I’ve never touched the chemicals, I completely stayed away from it, and it was Owsley's words — because I saw so many really great friends, they go on a trip and they never come back, friends that were there one day and gone the next. And not just gone-dead — gone in their heads and never came back. Incredibly sad. I mean, death would have been a nicer release, to be honest.”
Although the Who’s life on the road is legendary — and by all accounts a blast no matter which way you cut it — Roger Daltrey maintained that he wasn’t able to truly let his hair down in fear of the whole operation collapsing without someone keeping on the straight and narrow: “I was the only straight one. Someone had to be straight in the band, ‘cause I was dealing with one alcoholic — probably drug addict — in Keith, (laughs) Pete was an alcoholic, (laughs) John was an alcoholic. So, I mean someone has to be straight. The only drug I could do was pot, and I didn’t do that every often ‘cause I couldn’t sing on it ‘cause it dries your throat up. So, it kept me away from it. I was very, very lucky.”
