Roger Daltrey isn't sure what the future holds for The Who. The 79-year-old hinted that the band may be calling it quits following a career spanning more than six decades.
"At the moment I’m happy saying that part of my life is over," the singer said during an interview with The Times published last week.
'At the moment I’m happy saying that part of my life is over,' the frontman said.
Daltrey added that any final decisions about the band's future would have to be run by guitarist Pete Townshend.
"I don’t write the songs. I never did," the singer said. "We need to sit down and have a meeting."
Townshend made a similar remark during an interview with Record Collector last month.
"I think it’s time for Roger and I to go to lunch and have a chat about what happens next," he said. "It’s a question of, really, what is feasible, what would be lucrative, what would be fun? So, I wrote to Roger and said, come on, let’s have a chat and see what’s there."
The Who's most recent performance happened at the historic Sandringham Estate in August 2023. This came after the band toured the U.K. and Europe earlier that summer.
"Sandringham shouldn’t feel like the end of anything but it feels like the end of an era," Daltrey said.
The Who has three more upcoming performances listed on its website. The band will play at benefits for the Teenage Cancer Trust on March 18, 20 and 24. Daltrey has curated these annual performances for the past 24 years, but recently announced his plans to step down.
'I think it’s time for Roger and I to go to lunch and have a chat about what happens next,' Pete Townshend said.
Daltrey's decades of work with the Teenage Cancer Trust were the main focus of his interview with The Times. He's raised £32 million for the organization over the past 23 years.
That money has helped create 27 wards designed specifically for adolescents fighting cancer.
"Twenty-odd years ago, my (doctor) told me young people with cancer were being treated on wards alongside the elderly," the singer said. "That’s not right, is it? When you’re sick, you want to be taken care of somewhere that makes you feel at home. The mental fight is as important as the physical one."
The work was inspired in part by Daltrey's sister Carol, who died from breast cancer at age 32.
"I’ll never forget the day she was diagnosed," the frontman said. "I ran around the house screaming, 'Why her? Give it to me.' She had babies – two and three years old."
The band has three more performances coming up to raise money for the Teenage Cancer Trust.
The performer famous for singing "I hope I die before I get old" also confronted his own mortality during the interview.
"Actually, being around these young people today I do ask myself, ‘What the f**k am I still doing here?'" Daltrey said. "I’m in the way. All us old farts, we really are just in the way of the young now, aren’t we?"
The Who got its start as a band called The Detours, which changed its name to the Who in 1964. The group quickly broke into the charts with hit singles like "I'm a Boy," "Happy Jack" and "Pinball Wizard." The Who has also put out several rock operas, including Tommy and Quadrophenia.
