Rabbit was true to his name, a fast keys player, in my book; he brought tricky new songs like ‘Music Must Change’ and ‘Sister Disco’ to life, and allowed us to avoid the use of stage tapes. His Hammond and piano solos were often mind-blowing. Yet, however badly Rabbit behaved, Keith was still my main concern. At these rehearsals, which we filmed, he was hilarious as ever, but I spent a lot of time attempting to get him in line.
One evening Keith invited Rabbit and me to a small gathering at Keith Richards’s house in Chelsea. Mick was there with Carinthia West, an old friend of mine I’d met with Mike and Katie McInnerney. She was tall and beautiful, the only female there. While Mick and Keith were playing old R&B records and I was bantering with Eric Idle and Ahmet Ertegun (founder and chief of Atlantic Records), Rabbit decided he’d never be an important enough rock star to attract women like Carinthia, so he tried to drown himself in a bathtub full of water. Then he leapt from a second-floor window like a jinn, and ran off down the street with no shirt.
Jeff Stein was making a biographical film on The Who, The Kids Are Alright, mainly from clips of our concert performances and TV appearances. I’d heard stories that Keith had cooked up a film project with Jeff in Los Angeles. The comedian Steve Martin and Ringo had both been co-opted into partly scripted comedy scenes. Keith was still flying back and forth from Malibu. At one important Who accountancy meeting he arrived very late, bustling in like a whirlwind direct from the airport.
‘I bring news from Hollywood!’
He had started wearing a huge fur coat, like the one Kit used to wear. He sat down, threw off his fur, swept his copies of the contracts onto the floor and put his fingers together as though in prayer. His eyes were dark and penetrating under his thick black eyebrows.
‘I have spoken to Cubby Broccoli’ – the executive producer of the James Bond movies – ‘who has agreed to cast me as the next James Bond. It will be a comedy, of course.’
‘Where did you meet Cubby Broccoli?’ I gasped.
‘The same restaurant in Beverly Hills where I met Mel Brooks,’ he said proudly. He went on even more proudly, ‘Mr Brooks gave me the theatrical rights to Springtime for Hitler.’
‘You mean you got the rights to The Producers,’ I corrected.
‘No.’ Keith looked at me as though I were an idiot child. ‘Springtime for Hitler, the play within the play, the story within the story.’
‘Ah,’ I muttered. ‘And James Bond as a comedy?’
Keith went on to deliver a concept that was not unlike the one later made famous by Mike Myers with his Austin Powers series. It was convincing. It was funny. And it was all absurd, of course.
Still, it was clearly important for Keith, and for us as his friends, to feel he could build another life. Maybe he really could be useful setting up Hollywood contacts for Who Films Ltd, our new company. Musically his drumming was getting so uneven that recording was almost impossible, so much so that work on the Who Are You album had ground to a halt. Keith went public with the fact that the recording had been prematurely interrupted by his condition. We had just about enough tracks for a record, with very little additional material to spare. ‘Music Must Change’ was completed with footsteps replacing drums.
Jeff Stein’s film on The Who was nearly completed and he wanted a current live Who show for The Kids Are Alright. He put me under relentless pressure. I was terrified Keith wouldn’t be able to hide his deteriorating condition on stage, but agreed to it.
The show, a short one at Kilburn State Cinema, was appalling. We were all out of practice. Keith was hard to drive along and I became angry very quickly. It wasn’t Keith’s fault, he was half-dead from alcohol-related exhaustion and the sedatives he was taking. There was some affectionate heckling from the Punks in the audience, and I responded with a tirade.
‘If any of you little gits wants to come and try to take my guitar away from me, you can give it a try!’
I was assuming the audience was full of Punks hoping we’d fall, and in my view of the day that’s precisely what happened.
After our abysmal performance, Jeff Stein persuaded us to do a second shoot that would be better produced, more expensively shot, and we’d only be expected to play a few selected songs such as ‘Baba O’Riley’ and ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’ before an invited audience of Who fans. The shoot was set up on the largest stage at Shepperton. Keith was in a good mood but bloated and unfit, and he found the repeated takes wearying, whereas the rest of us had the adrenaline to keep going. Keith’s earphones kept falling off, and he ended up with them taped to his head with thick black gaffer’s tape.
I worked hard, jumping up and down and leaping from one side of the stage to the other. At the time I just wanted Jeff to go back to New York and leave me alone, but I look back on the day with affection. The gathering of our fans was something special. The film director Tony Richardson introduced me to Nic Roeg, who had directed Mick Jagger’s extraordinary film Performance. We talked for some time about film, and the way existing pop and rock songs were now being used in films. The atmosphere that day was joyful and full of bonhomie.
My disenchantment with The Who at this time – mainly because of the difficulties with Keith – was growing, and like Keith I was trying to build another life. I piled up a dozen major projects, and was allowing a number of other people to haul me into theirs. Books, shops, studios, a record company, equipment rental, the revival of Lifehouse, an exhibition at the ICA, solo record deal, films and more.
By the end of the summer the Who Are You album and single were selling well without any touring to support it, we had signed a film deal for Quadrophenia, I had been commissioned by Melvyn Bragg to develop a television play called Fish Shop, and Cameron Mackintosh, who would later produce Cats, took me to Hornchurch to see a production of Tommy with a chorus of schoolkids on a gantry.
Keith came to London to attend the opening of the ‘Who Exhibition’ at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in the Mall. He was in extremely good form: he was sociable with our fans, solicitous and kind, gracious and charming. He seemed happier. I met my hero the pop artist Peter Blake for the first time, and it was a relief to find that he too – in the company of New Wave singer Ian Dury – was prone to taking a few drinks too many.
In August I made a serious attempt to connect with Keith in Malibu while playing piano on a recording session there with Rick Danko and Eric Clapton, who were working with Bob Dylan. Rick Danko, bass player and singer for The Band, took it on himself to teach me how to play New Orleans-style piano. This requires that the swing of the left hand, a rolling bass line with a kind of internal flourish, syncopates against an entirely different and more persistent swing in the right hand. Play the two together, a feat that requires suspension of belief as well as any normal rhythmic coordination, and you sound like Dr John. Play them apart and you could end up like the drunk pianist of my childhood whose left hand had a mind of its own.
In Malibu Keith was drinking very hard, and I couldn’t keep up. Instead of helping him, I got caught up in his great parade, and almost forgot why I’d gone over to see him in the first place. But something I’d said had touched him: we wanted him to come home, all of us. When I got back to London, Keith called to ask if I’d rent Harry Nilsson’s flat opposite the Playboy Club for him; he wanted to come home, but had no money. I spoke to Harry, who agreed to it, but told me he was worried. The place was cursed. Mama Cass had died in the flat. I assured him lightning wouldn’t strike the same place twice.
Bill Wyman had a place on the same block, and tried gamely to keep an eye on Keith. One evening Bill Wyman and Spyros Niarchos, son of the Greek shipping magnate Stavros Niarchos, arranged to meet Keith in his third-floor flat and have some drinks with him. Keith, in a rock tradition that he himself may have started, had hired his own minder, instructed him not to let him escape, then set about proving he couldn’t be contained. In the middle of enjoying a quiet drink, Keith drifted to the window, opened it and – without seemin
g to give the slightest thought to anything at all – simply jumped out.
Bill and Spyros ran to the window to see Keith lying on his back on several mattresses he’d previously piled in a construction dumpster. He got up, brushed himself off and shouted up past the gasping onlookers, ‘See you at the Playboy Club. Mine’s an orange juice.’
At the time Keith was juggling doctors to create confusion and to get the most medication he could, especially to relieve the symptoms of alcohol withdrawal, but he seemed determined to stay sober, at least. He rang me almost every night, almost always around midnight, to say he loved me.
In September 1978 Roger called me at my studio. He was succinct.
‘He’s done it.’
Throughout my life I haven’t been able to feel any great emotion when someone close to me dies. It’s a terrible defect that makes me appear cold-hearted. I’m sure it’s my own weird way of coping. In the case of Keith, my reaction was immediate and completely irrational, bordering on insane. Instead of letting The Who gently fade, and picking up the solo career I had started with Rough Mix with Ronnie Lane, I confounded everyone. I even surprised myself when I called a meeting with Roger and pressed him to join me in taking The Who on the road. John was still in shock, but fully prepared to join us.
This idea was madness. Among other things, I was seriously worried about my hearing. I was hearing birds singing all the time, night and day. It was the beginning of tinnitus. But the real absurdity of persuading Roger and John to join me on tour in a new Who with a new drummer was that I had already begun a new life in anticipation of never touring with any band ever again.
The incredibly charged emotions around Keith’s death made me lose all logic. I was convinced that everything would be OK if we could only play, perform and tour. I now see that, although I had worried for a long time about Keith dying, I had never really believed it would happen. I was shaken to my foundations, and my mind flipped.
Without grief, in its usual manifestation, I had to find a different way to deal with my loss. You can say I was in denial. Keith had been a pain in the ass, but he had also been a constant joy. Once he’d gone, something irreplaceable was missing from the magnificent boardroom at Shepperton. The fur coat, the grand schemes, the Cubby Broccoli and Mel Brooks visions. There was something missing from Ramport Studios as well. All that was left was a sense of his ghost, playing the drums, laughing as he played ‘Who Are You’ with his earphones on fire.
The building is now a doctor’s surgery. How very fitting.*
At Keith’s funeral Roger was the one in the band who seemed most affected – perhaps that’s why I took charge. It had been Charlie Watts whose eyes were full of tears as he remembered his old friend; my eyes were hard and dry.
Phil Collins called me and offered his services, and I knew he would make a great drummer for us. But he was building a solo career, and was still touring and recording with Genesis. How could it work? He assured me he could do it. But I wanted Kenney Jones. He was my friend, I had worked with him quite a bit, and I liked the idea of having a drummer who kept strict time so I didn’t have to do it. I felt Kenney’s work with The Small Faces had been inventive but restrained; ‘cool’ is the word.
In addition to putting together the new band I was swept up in other work. The Quadrophenia movie was going into production: Johnny Rotten and I had met, got drunk, become friends and talked about him playing the lead, but we both agreed he shouldn’t try to play a tidy little Mod. My bookshop Magic Bus opened with great ceremony. The Hornchurch Tommy show was headed for the West End and I was funding it.
Ina was the person setting up potential solo deals for me in the US, reporting to Bill Curbishley. When she got wind of the fact that I was considering backing out of making a solo album now that The Who was back in harness, she flew to London and came to our house in Twickenham.
The evening began with Ina as a family friend. Karen knew her pretty well, and thought of her fondly. As the evening passed, that fondness ebbed away. What Karen heard was yet another voice urging me to pursue my creative duty to myself, when I had promised her I wouldn’t take on a solo deal until The Who were really finished. Ina knew for certain that my heart was no longer in the band. She felt I wasn’t doing what I needed to do creatively. Therefore the problem I would face if I just careered on with The Who would become spiritual in nature, and very dangerous for me. A solo deal would give me the chance to express myself, to make records the way I wanted to make them.
Ina’s advice a few years before, to let Roger win for once, had proved correct, and had led to an unexpected renaissance for the band. I was convincing myself that Ina was probably right this time as well, when Karen picked herself up and went to bed, having made it clear she was against the plan. I sat with Ina until late and got drunk, feeling deeply torn.
The next day Ina arranged for me to meet Walter Yetnikoff of CBS, who offered me an astounding deal, which included an additional life-changing non-recoupable sum as an inducement. A couple of days later I met Doug Morris from ATCO, part of the Atlantic group headed by Ahmet Ertegun. They offered me exactly half of what Walter had proposed, with no inducement, but I felt as soon as I met Doug that he was the guy for me. Then I met a few other record-company figures as well; delighted by the passion and commitment they were all showing, I began to get confused.
At one point I asked Ahmet for his advice, as a friend. I suppose I wanted the man who had worked with Ray Charles to say he wanted to work with me, but he made it clear this would be Doug Morris’s signing, not his.
‘Just decide, Pete,’ was what he advised. ‘Make a choice. Whatever you do, this is a great time for you.’
20
ROCK STAR FUCKUP
The new Who started rehearsing at Shepperton in April 1979 with Rabbit and Kenney, who we were still auditioning. I managed to persuade Roger and John to let me rehearse a four-piece brass section to bring our many unplayed Quadrophenia tracks to life. We spent an entire month working.
I felt that the old Who was dead and buried along with Keith, so for me the new band was a new opportunity, one I could never have taken had Keith lived on. I became suspect in this matter; some people felt that I had been happy, or at least opportunistic, about Keith’s death. Sometimes I may have come close to admitting, in a clumsy expression of gratitude, that tragedy could lead to rebirth.
Roger, on the other hand, always regarded The Who as part of a personal continuum, a story that began in 1960 when he had formed his first band, and continued when he had invited first John, then me, to join him straight from school. He wanted the band to evolve, to replace Keith with someone as expressive and passionate; Roger admired Kenney’s drumming, and liked him as a human being, but felt he wasn’t the right drummer for the band.
I told Roger I’d carry on with The Who, but only on my terms. If he didn’t feel comfortable with that, I could make solo records and do shows on my own. The future was very much still up in the air, and I have no idea what Bill Curbishley would have been advising Roger behind the scenes.
In May 1979 the new Who performed their inaugural show at the Rainbow in London. It went on a bit – I think that was my fault – but it felt good. I was happy, and it showed. The exhaustive rehearsals paid off. Kenney was great, and Rabbit inspired me at every turn. Roger played the hard man in a leather jacket, his hair cut short. He was fantastic that night, and so was John. The reviews were good, too.
A week later I took Karen and some friends to Cannes for the premières of both Quadophenia and The Kids Are Alright. I chartered an old classic yacht, Moonmaiden, where we slept. The Who played two concerts at Fréjus amphitheatre during the premières, so we didn’t have much time to take part in the celebrations, but the press received us with great warmth and seriousness, and we felt honoured to be there with two movies.
There was no hiding the fact Karen was getting sick of me, my selfishness, my overwork, my drinking. Some close friends advised me she married a rock sta
r, what did she expect? But that wasn’t it; Karen had grown up, whereas I was having difficulty doing so, in or out of rock.
What most annoyed her, I think, was my failure to make a choice – to either choose music and let her build a life around what was left, or just tell the world to fuck off and become a reliable husband and father. I had complained to her about the spot I was in, and she had advised me, usually with deep empathy, but I didn’t listen – even though she was the only person who knew the whole story. Instead, I followed my nose (never difficult in my case) from one day to the next.
Karen was working very hard on her teaching course, doing well, and would obviously get a good degree. Every morning she received a phone call from a young man called Ben, whom she arranged to pick up en route to college. Her face always lit up at the sound of Ben’s voice. She made no secret of the fact that they had spent time together while working, and she dropped him off home every evening. At the end of May her course involved a final week away somewhere, and I was left with the kids. When she came home she was glowing. I couldn’t tell whether it was intuition or paranoia that made me feel that she and Ben had connected. I didn’t ask. She may have thought I didn’t give a shit, but in truth I was panic-stricken.
After Cannes The Who did two quick shows in Scotland, first in Glasgow, then in Edinburgh, where I got spectacularly drunk at a nightclub, and while idiot-dancing I tore my trousers. I wasn’t wearing any underpants and my tackle was hanging out. It was only when I woke up after my first night back in London and took a shower that I saw in the mirror that I was covered in bruises, scratches, love-bites and teeth-marks. Even my neck. Karen couldn’t have failed to notice, surely. I vaguely remembered a red-headed girl grabbing me, but I must have blacked out completely after that.
Who I Am: A Memoir Page 29
