Pete Townshend: "The musical revolution of the 60s was useless"

• Abeles y caínes.The drama of The Kinks

Pete Townshend (Chiswick, United Kingdom, 1945) is like Descartes: doubt, then it exists. He ends most of his sentences with a question, with which he asks and answers, basking his ideas coherently with regard to artistic production. What he nods firmly, no doubt, is when talking about his personal life. « At the age of five my parents abandoned me with my grandmother, a sick woman who abused me, allowed me to see sex scenes that were harmful to my age and left me with perverted people who hurt me for the rest of my life. It has taken me a lot to overcome these traumas, it is a permanent struggle, ”he says. His parents were musicians and when they rebuilt the family home, two years after residing with the debased grandmother, it was already too late to cure the evil inflicted on the small Townshend, which 20 years later was one of the biggest stars of British rock as a guitarist from The Who.

The musician presented last Thursday the novel The age of anxiety ("The age of anxiety"), the first part of a multidisciplinary trilogy that does not seem to have lethargy at 74 years old. In addition to the book, this thin man, included in the lists of the great British fortunes - he and his wife, Rachel Muller, have a fortune of more than 100 million euros - and generous patrons of associations in favor of human rights or against Drug addictions, works in an art installation that will be exhibited in 2020 and has composed an opera that will be released in 2021.

In addition, on December 6 the twelfth album of The Who, the first in 13 years, with the title of Who will go on sale. Guitarist and composer of the legendary group, exhibits a certain irony when talking about the album. "He was going to leave in July but they have delayed him until now, they must want to put him in the Christmas bonus." And he adds, in a mocking tone: «Today a record is made like a cake. First you make the piece of music, then you need a good promoter and the arrogance of believing that you will sell many concert tickets.

He continues talking about The Who, who intermittently and with some member changes has been perpetuated, more or less, from 1964 to today. Despite the distance he tries to mark with the group, he frequently alludes in his talk to the songs that gave them fame such as My generation or the rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia , which broke molds, an expression he rejects. "I have never broken any mold or like to say it," he babbles. He prefers to say that "music, electronic or not, consists in creating musical chaos and harmonic complexities that are well-known."

Nor is he excited about the 60s, when his group contributed in the United Kingdom to the musical revolution of pop and rock with The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, among others. "The revolution of the 60s was useless," he says, "it only served to color the hippies who were against the old thought, not the old. Today, revolutions occur in the streets of Hong Kong and Chile, where they are at war, or with Greta Thunberg and his crusade against climate change, ”he adds.

Several characters of The age of anxiety are creative crazy people, a relationship, that of mental affection and creativity, that has intrigued him and that he is constantly dealing with. «Before I had problems with alcohol or drug abuse, I worked helping heroin addicts. One of my best friends was addicted to heroin and I spent a lot of time with him, then I funded the detoxification aid. In the book there is only one such character, an art dealer who takes drugs; the rest are like Selena, who is a madwoman who sees angels and who thinks she has one inside, ”she explains. And he points out: «But the guardian angel is not crazy, so we better open our hearts and minds to people we think are crazy or obsessed. I have a four-and-a-half-year-old grandson who is autistic, and he detects things that we don't detect, which we think are normal.

In the talk he returns again and again to his personal life, which suffered a turnaround in January 2003 when he was arrested by the police, accused of pedophilia . Justice acquitted him after admitting that he had paid to view images of child pornography on the internet while investigating sexual abuse of minors to write his autobiography Who I am , published in 2012, in which he reported the abuses he suffered as a child. "Having been arrested and accused of pedophilia conditions my creativity," he confesses. "For example, in the novel there are things that I could not do as describe a child, because with my background I could trigger anyone's speculation ," he explains.

The Who's guitarist has doubts about his vote in the British elections next December 12. He defines himself as a socialist, but explains that he is not enthusiastic about Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the Labor Party, which has led the formation to the left. “I am a socialist, but I do not want to be labeled in these elections nor do I want Corbyn to persecute me to kill the rich; I agree to pay the high taxes that are what I have to pay and that leave me alone.

Regarding the crossroads of Brexit, he explains that he voted for the permanence of the United Kingdom in the European Union, and recalls with some sadness that when they met the result of the referendum to leave the EU, in June 2016, his youngest son, Joseph , 28, began to cry. «He and his girlfriend, who are artists, burst into tears because they had not voted; Now I am not a supporter of a second referendum . Those who voted for Brexit want to resurrect little England, and that is a thing of old, old-minded; that of Agatha Christie, the pint of beer or the roast beef on Sundays, which is so cooked that it doesn't look like beef . Although we all like these things, they don't get along anymore: the world has changed, ”he says.

Returning to the memories of its beginnings, it is claimed to be the discoverer of David Bowie. “When I met Bowie at the premiere of Tommy in 1969 at the Royal Albert Hall in London, he took care of my little brother, Simon , and they both wanted to be musicians. Then he followed his own path and began to dress in I don't know what. There we distanced ourselves because I have a very Catholic musical taste and he went for other courses ».

And as a prize for The Who fans , Townshend recalled how My generation , the biggest success of the group and one of the most remembered generational hymns of that Swinging London , emerged in 1965. «I composed the song after a very elegant woman in a fur coat humiliated me in a shop where I bought a bottle of milk. She pulled me off the tail for having better hair and wearing a fur coat. When I got home I started to compose and mark the red lines between the generations; That woman could not mistreat me for having gone to the hairdresser . Thus arose that immortal song that began by saying "People try to get us down / Just because we move / Things seem terrible / I hope to die before I get old." Today Townshend, at 74, just looks to the future.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

• music
• culture
• Rock
• United Kingdom
• Greta Thunberg
• Jeremy Corbyn
• Brexit
• London

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