If you have a project, a campaign or a scrap of any kind, you’d want Roger Daltrey, the frontman of the Who, on your side. Deeply philanthropic, fiercely loyal and, just turned 78, still fizzing with energy, he’d always have your back. Not what you’d necessarily expect from the veteran singer of a band who have sold 100 million albums, produced classic hits such as My Generation and Who Are You and still perform sell-out shows around the world.
A formula for the narcissistic rock’n’roll life, you might think, especially when you consider that two of the band’s members died of drug overdoses: the drummer and legendary hellraiser Keith Moon at the age of 32 in 1978, and the bassist John Entwistle, who at 57 suffered a cocaine-induced heart attack in bed with a Las Vegas stripper in 2002.
But Daltrey says: “I was the sensible one, it was me and three addicts. I had to protect my voice.” Now he and the other surviving member, the guitarist and writer Pete Townshend, will be performing in an acoustic version of the Who (“costs low and maximum profit”) in the traditional week-long annual Teenage Cancer Trust concerts at the Royal Albert Hall in London; the all-star line-up on other nights includes Ed Sheeran, Madness and Liam Gallagher.
The concerts were Daltrey’s idea in 2000 and have raised many millions since. Then came the pandemic. “The charity has taken a £6 million hit,” he says wearily.
It’s hard anyway, raising money for older children: “Put a child with a bald head on a poster and our hearts are pulled towards that. It’s not the same with a teenager.” The cancers are mostly rare and there’s not enough money devoted to research.
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Over the course of our interview, he lays into random targets: “Radio 4? Since it’s gone woke, it’s gone down the toilet.” On streaming: “Criminal! Britain led the world in music and threw it away to American technology. They don’t pay enough for musicians to live on.” And politicians: “Parliament? You’ve never met so many drunks at four o’clock in your life.”
He cheerfully admits to being somewhat terrified of going back into the old routine on stage. There is a Who tour in America that bookends a UK summer solo tour, Who Was I. “We haven’t done anything big in two years and I hope it’s still with me. Two-hour shows are not easy.”
He is getting into shape. “I walk at least two miles a day and I live in a house where every room goes up or down stairs.”
Holmshurst Manor in East Sussex, which he has shared with his wife, Heather, since 1970, and dates from 1610, is set in 35 acres, which he farms, and encompasses a trout lake and a microbrewery that he recently set up to provide work for locals. He also has his own gym, where he does cardio for his lungs and works out with weights. “But I have to be careful not to get too pumped up because I’m shrinking,” he says with a laugh. “I go wider but I can’t go taller . . . I’m bloody happy I’ve kept the barnet.”
In 2017 he had a month-long stay in hospital for meningitis that was so severe he didn’t think he was going to make it and rang friends to say goodbye. He’s convinced that his meningitis treatment made him smaller (he was never a tall chap). “The drugs they gave me for viral meningitis made me shrink.” Whether medically accepted or not he says: “When I went for my medical for the next tour, I’d shrunk two inches in five years.”
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Talking about his illness, he adds: “We’d done a gig in Paris where it was 45 degrees on stage and basically I think I cooked my brain. I lost all my salts and now I have to deal with that and not sweat too much. I take a physio on the road with me.”
His solo tour will feature a Q&A with the audience. “As I’m rather deaf it’s going to be hard hearing the bloody questions,” he says, laughing. He has lost the top register and without his hearing aids it is just a mumble. “It’s the price we pay for what we did. You can feel very isolated.”
Last year they celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary and endearingly he remembers their ceremony in a Battle register office “like it was yesterday, it was lovely, very low-key.” He married at 20 when his girlfriend Jackie became pregnant, but he left to pursue his dream of success in rock and the marriage failed. He nabbed Heather from under Jimi Hendrix’s nose 55 years ago when he met her in a club. Hendrix had pursued her in vain for months and even written Foxy Lady for her. “But she came home with me and never moved out. Boy am I glad she didn’t.”
He obviously adores her. “She’s an extraordinary woman. She’s improved me but didn’t try to change me.
“I’m not the perfect husband and I was totally honest from the beginning. Away from home on tour for months.” He has said that infidelity should not be a reason to break up. “That takes an incredible person,” he says. “I spotted a good one, I spotted a keeper!”
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The 50th anniversary party was a real family gathering, although not the full set. “It’s harder to get them together, they are all over the place.” He has eight children — three with Heather, plus his first son and a son from an affair. Then there are three daughters who arrived separately and unexpectedly in his life, after he was 50, from affairs with three different women. He has 15 grandchildren, from the youngest who is two and a half, to the oldest who is 27.
His kids range from age 41 to 58. He has embraced them all: “I can’t be Dad to all of them, to those who didn’t grow up with me, but I can be Roger and love them all.” Daltrey is determined to get them all together for the first time for his 80th. He sang “Hope I die before I get old” in the song My Generation, but says that age is not important to him.
“Years don’t mean much to me, it’s the life you live. Some people live many years and have no life at all. I’ve had friends who’ve died young who’ve lived incredible lives.” The fact that life is now closer to the end than the beginning? “That depends if you think there’s an end. I think that some part of you will never leave the universe.”
He says he quite likes funerals. “Everyone turns up and says nice things about the person who’s died, you go to the pub, everyone is glad to be alive and goes home happy.” But he doesn’t want one of his own. “No!” he says, and laughs. “Paper bag up the dump. I don’t want any fuss at all.”
The Teenage Cancer Trust at the Royal Albert Hall: March 21-27, 2022. Tickets from teenagecancertrust.org. Roger Daltrey’s UK tour runs from June 20 to July 17. Tickets from thewho.com
Roger Daltrey’s perfect weekend
Saturday football or family film?
Lunchtime football on TV is a must-watch, or if I’m doing anything on my model railway, I’ll have 5 Live on
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Reality TV or Scandi noir?
Even the sex life of a toad would be better than reality TV
Safari in Kenya or skiing in Verbier?
Paddling in Southend
Debenhams or Dior?
In this day and age, TK Maxx
Rich Tea or Chocolate Hobnob?
Ooh . . . wicked. Biscuits don’t like me, you suddenly develop this lump around your middle. Rich Tea
Twitter or Instagram?
Neither. Nokia
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Not a smartphone?
It’s incredibly smart, I can make phone calls on it
How many unread emails in your inbox?
Probably 20 unanswered. People expect an instant reply, but some things you have to chew over
Signature dish?
I can cook but it can get a bit messy so Heather won’t let me
I couldn’t get through the weekend without . . .
Seeing my family
