March 1, 2007

It might seem like a strange time for Pete Townshend to be revisiting his solo work. After all, last year's "Endless Wire" reunited him with Roger Daltrey for the first album of new material from the Who in 24 years, and the band is currently in the middle of a lengthy, worldwide tour.

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"I Am Afraid," (included on "Definitive") a song about fear for our children's future, and our constant abnegation of our duty to change, and thus our despicable hypocrisy, went as deep as I could go as a writer ...

Yet, the incomparable guitarist and songwriter recently released two retrospective projects -- "The Definitive Pete Townshend" compilation and a CD/DVD Dualdisc reissue of "Rough Mix," his outstanding 1977 collaboration with former Faces bass player Ronnie Lane. In a series of e-mail interviews, Townshend said that it wasn't difficult to switch gears from working with the Who to thinking about his own back catalog. "With music, once you get rolling, the problem is to try to keep rolling," he wrote. "When you slow down or stop, it's very hard to get going again."

Townshend, 62, has long taken an active role in curating his music. The three volumes of the "Scoop" series collect demos, outtakes and alternate versions of his songs. He is now working through his albums to update the sound and add rare tracks, which began last year with an expanded version of his 1972 "Who Came First" solo debut. Meanwhile, he maintains an extremely active website, www.petetownshend.co.uk, which offers his online diaries and the complete versions of some of his musical and fictional narrative works; participates in his girlfriend Rachel Fuller's web-based music performance and chat show, "In the Attic" (www.intheattic.tv); and, continues to make plans for Who material, both present and future.

As he explains below, the distinctions between these different outlets make little difference. This rock and roll visionary sees a common purpose that runs throughout all his work. "I have always tried to release the listener at some level," says Pete Townshend. "That's what I think I'm good at when I do my job properly."

MSN MUSIC: How involved were you in these re-issues? It seems that you work closely on all decisions regarding the Who catalog -- are you equally scrupulous with your solo work?

PETE TOWNSHEND: I elect producers and archivists and let them get on with it. On my "Scoop" collections, I was facing sifting through over 1,000 recordings for each CD. I left that job to Helen Wilkins, and always loved the selections she made -- and feel sure I would not have made the same decisions. Matt Kent and Jon Astley have revisited most Who and solo projects, and have famously encountered fans as allies and activists in this role. It can be a thankless task. I listen to the final collections, check the liner notes, but that's as far as it goes.

What do you think the "Definitive"/"Best Of" construct means at this point? Presumably, most fans are digitally selecting and assembling their own favorite songs from your work, so do these still serve the same function they used to? And, since so many of your albums have been so driven by narrative and theme, how do you feel about the ability of listeners to mix and re-assemble your songs?

You're right, it is becoming less important in the digital age. However, this is commercially-driven output, intended to appeal to collectors (hence extra tracks), but mainly to allow new fans to travel through a catalog with relative ease. A CD is a quicker way to do this than downloading, believe it or not.

Narrative themes or not, the narratives serve a single purpose for me -- to generate songs. Once written, they should stand alone, as well as in sequence. Perhaps, brought up as I was on a tradition of standard songs written for Broadway musicals, sung by great singers like Frank and Ella, I long for the tangential songs, the ones that stand alone. But when the narrative context is well known -- as it is with "Tommy" and "Quadrophenia" -- I can get away with scene specific songs like "5:15," about a train journey, or "Pinball Wizard," about a pinball competition.

Some of the songs I wrote for "Psychoderelict" are among the most profound I've written. "I Am Afraid," (included on "Definitive") a song about fear for our children's future, and our constant abnegation of our duty to change, and thus our despicable hypocrisy, went as deep as I could go as a writer -- I could never have written it for my own voice, but my screwed-up hero could sing it.

Do you think your solo work has been misunderstood or undervalued?

Not sure why I would think that. In one sense, all my songwriting has been misunderstood because what has been taken to be personal often is not. One song I wrote for a solo project, but eventually gave to Roger for one of his solo albums, was "After the Fire." This song was interpreted as being a song about an old rocker who yearns for the good old days. Roger was teased about it -- "Oh, the Who were a fire, were they? More like a damp squib!" In fact, the song was written about the collapse of Apartheid.

A song like "I'm One" from "Quadrophenia" is a song we can all identify with -- that proud, but slightly futile idea that each of us is special enough to mean something, just as we stand. In fact, we know that is not enough -- each of us must fight for recognition, we must submit to (an)other's power, we must sensibly fear our enemies, we must be prepared to battle for our children's safety, etc. The song, though, hangs on to an idea that just being "one" -- being unique -- is enough. That is not what I believe. And yet the song is universal.

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