Pete heeft weer een aantal vragen beantwoord op de officixc3xable website. Enkele citaten:
Over kleding:
"Ixe2x80x99ve always been interested in fashion, and there have times Ixe2x80x99ve been a fashion victim (thankfully I mainly skipped the hippy look). No regrets, even for some silly xe2x80x9880s haircuts; we all had them. We have become older while a whole range of fashion looks have passed by. The one I wish had passed sooner, but seems to have stuck, is the rock xe2x80x98nxe2x80x99 roll xe2x80x98I have the merchandisexe2x80x99 look. You wouldnxe2x80x99t catch me wearing any of the glamorous items they sell on this website. I bite the hand that feeds me perhaps? You buy a t-shirt, I make about 2xc2xa2 after tax. Only young Japanese kids or Emos seem to be able to wear a t-shirt with some decrepit old rock bandxe2x80x99s slogan or ikon on it and still look cool. But our audiences today have a whole range of looks"
Over het publiek:
"In the xe2x80x9860s our audience members feared the end of the world from a massive hydrogen bomb conflict with Russia. Then in the mid-xe2x80x9870s they were told their planet was soon going to freeze over. Now they are ashamed to use heat in their homes, drive their cars, or explain to their kids how itxe2x80x99s OK for them to fly to see Grandma 2,000 miles away. So what I see mainly is a desire to rise above fear. (…) Although the setting and conditions are different, audiences today have the same problem our audiences had when we first started to perform: they feel impotent to change the course of human events. (…) We feel especially useless to deal with the small details around us (especially over-complicated recycling bins), and our elected leaders always seem to be so clumsy and see things in such black and white. That has not changed since the end of World War 2. So our music works pretty well today. Younger people are often surprised that they can feel some comfort or release in our music. We in the Who are surprised as well"
Nervositeit:
"I have never been nervous. I would admit I sometimes get slight diarrhoea but I donxe2x80x99t really know how to spell it. Actually my nerves manifest as extreme boredom and I often fall deeply asleep just before we get our thirty-minute call. Ixe2x80x99m like one of those little animals from Australia or the Burmese jungle who, when you threaten to attack them, pretend to be dead. (…) feel safe backstage, even safer on stage. That might be why I am such a big mouth, and so reckless on stage: I really do feel safe. (….) I find it hard to pretend I am always happy doing what I do. Making music is xe2x80x98playxe2x80x99 after all, and people around me hope that Ixe2x80x99m having fun doing it. But I donxe2x80x99t have any fun at all performing. It is fulfilling, and therefore makes me happy overall, though that doesnxe2x80x99t always show on stage"
"No journalist has ever made me feel nervous. I can write about music as well as most music critics, better sometimes. None of them can do what I do. The bastards, the parasites, they are all slimy vampiristic scumbags. I may go a tad too far. Given the right breaks, the right advice, they could approach what I do. (…) Maybe some journalists are just too nervous to face one and half hundred million people on live TV and play a series of bum notes like I just did in Miami? Pussies".
Over zijn broer Simon:
"Ixe2x80x99m a big fan of Simon and have enormous respect for him. Hexe2x80x99s also one of my beloved younger brothers, so I feel lucky to have him work with the touring Who band, but he might have more scope when working with Roger. At least Ixe2x80x99m not there getting in the way. (…) Whatever the Who do from now on will involve Simon, but I hope he doesnxe2x80x99t stop working creatively on his own music"
Mogelijkheid van een solo-tour?
"Ixe2x80x99ve done a fair bit of solo work. I could get snappy now and say I donxe2x80x99t want to do solo shows that might make it even harder to fit in future Who shows. Roger enjoys performing. I donxe2x80x99t as a rule, but I have had moments of joy on stage working solo, just as I have working in the Who. Ixe2x80x99m good on my own. I know that. Ixe2x80x99ve proved it. But at the moment Ixe2x80x99m not for hire"
Op tour met Quadrophenia?
"I think I am inspired to perform that RAH version of Quadrophenia again in a similar way, in gracious and auspicious surroundings. (..) But for me, this version of the story feels a little wooden now to play on a long and extended tour. So I am not inspired to take it out on the road. In fact the very thought of touring it is making me want to settle down for nap with my head by Zakxe2x80x99s bass-drum-pedal"
Over zijn bril:
"I wore untinted glasses at the RAH so I could read the score. Someone had to. In fact the dark-glasses I usually wear on stage these days have prescription lenses so I can see my guitar neck, but not all you ugly bastards in the front row. You know who you are. So now you know about the glasses. And the hat I usually wear, but forewent at the RAH, of course contains special hearing equipment, and also hides my extraordinary and embarrassingly abundant new head of hair that has been implanted using electrolosyisical membranonic infrasupcraneous insertion techniques. Isnxe2x80x99t it amazing that we can get a man on the moon but we canxe2x80x99t help poor old Pete Townshend to grow new hair or fix his dodgy hearing?"
Fragments 