Dr. Who

There's been talk of a new Who album for six years. Why such a long delay?
We did a press conference in 2000 where Roger and John both announced they'd written songs for a new Who album. I was shocked. I went to Roger and said, "So you've written some songs, have you? Would it be possible for me to hear them?" Of course he hadn't written any songs. He still hasn't. And I went to John and said, "Have you written any songs?" He said, "Yeah, I've got 'undreds. But I'm not playing them to him." I said, "Who's him?" And he said, "Roger. I'm not having my songs sniffed out by him." And that was that.

I had to try to rescue them because Roger had committed publicly to the idea that we were going to make a record, and he felt he'd look like a complete idiot if we didn't make any new music. So we did "Real Good Looking Boy" and "Old Red Wine" for [the greatest-hits collection] Then and Now. But I couldn't be driven by Roger's needs. He'd never been a part of the Who's creative engine. He longed to be a part of it, he longed to be able to wish it into existence, but it required me to come up with a piece of work I felt convinced I could carry for the rest of my life.

You were talking about how being in a band is like a marriage. But you and Roger have gone through a lot of separations in your forty-two-year marriage.
The idea of a commitment in a relationship is that it's somehow of a higher value if it's unconditional. In a business relationship, it's of a higher value if it's conditional. In other words, Roger and I feel we've achieved the most if he's getting what he wants and I'm getting what I want. I realized that if I went to Roger and tried to honor our relationship, the chemistry we have together on a creative basis, that I had to take responsibility for the bit I always do and he would come in afterward, as he has always done.

When Roger and I were on our last tour with John, I sat with our manager, Bill Curbishley, on the last day and asked, "Are we gonna do this again?" He said, "If you want to, we can always do it again." And I said, "Is there any possibility that we're enabling John Entwistle? Rather than helping him, what we're actually doing is sending him home with, after tax, probably a million dollars, half of it's probably gonna go up his girlfriend's nose." God rest her soul, she's dead now. I thought, "I don't need to play old Who songs. I could sell them to fucking CSI." When John died, I decided that if I were to ever go back on tour with Roger, it has to be artistically driven. I thought, "If we're going to do this, we have to have new music, and it has to come from me."