The Who’s Roger Daltrey said the comments Zak Starkey made about him following his tumultuous ouster from the band were “incredibly upsetting.” The singer also offered a slightly new version of the events that led to the drummer’s exit in a recent interview with The Times.
Starkey (who is Ringo Starr’s son) spent nearly 30 years drumming for the Who, up until this spring when he was fired, re-hired, then fired for good. The turmoil dates back to a somewhat sloppy performance at a charity show at London’s Royal Albert Hall in March.
Daltrey has accused Starkey of playing too loudly and making mistakes. Meanwhile, Starkey has claimed it was Daltrey who made the mistakes, like supposedly missing his intro on a performance of “The Song Is Over.”
Neither side of the fight has held back in the press since then. For instance, Starkey told Rolling Stone that Daltrey “just got lost,” while in an interview with The Telegraph, he said, “What happened was I got it right and Roger got it wrong.”
Responding to Starkey in The Times, Daltrey said, “It was kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting.” He added that Starkey’s response to everything “was crippling to me.”
According to Daltrey, the main issue at the Royal Albert Hall show was actually a technical one. During live shows, the Who use electronic drums so Daltrey can hear them in his in-ear monitors, with Daltrey explaining: “It is controlled by a guy on the side, and we had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn’t pitch. I was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at him because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn’t. That’s all that happened.”
He added of public perception of the “The Song Is Over” incident, which was captured on video and shared widely online, “An audience can see what’s happening on stage and have a complete misunderstanding of what’s actually going on.”
But while a mishap over sound levels might seem like something all parties would be able to address and overcome, Daltrey remained firm in the Who’s decision to ultimately out Starkey. “Pete [Townshend] and I retain the right to be the Who,” he said. “Everyone else is a session player. You can’t replace [original drummer] Keith Moon. We wanted to branch out and that’s all I want to say about it.”
