Who I Am: A Memoir (39 page)

Despite the pressure, I loved working on
Iron Man
. At some points I felt like a film director, slowly building a story that would come together in the editing and make sense. Wherever necessary I drew on Ted Hughes’s original text, both at the preparation stage and even in the final libretto, to advance the story.

Even with a double album I was concerned I might not have enough time. The CD format allowed more time than vinyl, but in 1986 record companies still released both, so I was constrained. At best, I had 75 minutes. The average musical ran for 135 minutes, and
Phantom of the Opera
ran for three hours. So I was working on two versions of
Iron Man
: a soundtrack that would work as a freestanding version of the story, and a longer theatrical score.

I worked through the summer. Simon Draper was still fully committed to putting out a double album, but Doug Morris in New York had become unsettled. Doug and Bill Curbishley were very good friends, and what they both wanted from me – and for me – was hits, not smartass musicals. They knew I would always want to innovate, but they were looking for something from the
Iron Man
project that I didn’t think it could deliver – hit songs that would get radio play.

In September 1988 Bill Curbishley and I spoke about making a new album with The Who to celebrate their twenty-fifth anniversary in 1989. This was as much my idea as Bill’s. At Faber editorial meetings I’d lost count of the number of anniversaries of famous writers that triggered new campaigns or new books.

There was mounting pressure on me to return to The Who. Live Aid and a one-off performance for the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) had created sparks. Neither show was great, but they set the cash registers ringing. And I wasn’t at all sure that without The Who I could generate enough money to give a new child the chance of a good life and a decent education. My two daughters were growing up. We were not a perfect family, but by the appalling measure of show business we had done OK. We’d survived, and that was the main thing.

My first suggestion to Bill was to make a record with Chris Thomas producing, and maybe record songs not written by me but selected from among the favourites John, Roger and I might bring to the table. Bill approached MCA records, who still owned the majority of The Who’s back catalogue. They offered $1 million for a new record, which didn’t seem enough to me, although I couldn’t speak for Roger and John. Chris Thomas’s manager asked for a high percentage and a very large advance. Bill Price’s engineering would cost at least as much over a twenty-four-week schedule, possibly more. Studio charges, even if we used Eel Pie – my own studios – at cut rates, would take care of what was left.

Bill said that if we toured we could expect double or even triple the amount. If The Who were to tour, say twenty-five dates over six weeks, not only would the record advance increase, but corporate sponsorship could be tied to the twenty-fifth anniversary. The dates themselves could net each Who member $1 million each week. After tax and deductions I could end up with £4 million, and be set up for the future; so would the child Karen and I still hoped to have or adopt. This windfall would also allow me to continue my intensive work on
Iron Man
, for which I was having trouble finding an ending.

I finally completed
Iron Man
with vocal sessions from John Lee Hooker in New York, and Deborah Conway and Nina Simone in London. John Lee was great to work with as the Iron Man; we did it pretty much line by line. Nina was magnificent, and did a fantastic job as the Space Dragon. Doug and Bill had persuaded me to make one track on the album a Who track, and I chose Arthur Brown’s song ‘Fire’. It nearly fitted.

Atlantic wanted a single album, instead of the double that Virgin had contracted me for, so the project of culling the songs was one I completed with clenched teeth. I had the feeling this was a terrible mistake, but felt I had no choice.
Iron Man
, after two years’ solid work, felt as though it was being set aside and The Who were crashing back into my life yet again.

By 1988 my studio at the boathouse was no longer an amusement or place of refuge and creativity (it isn’t wrong to say that musicians ‘play’ together). It had become a business. The Synclavier cost as much as a house; the Focusrite desk would cost as much as an even bigger house. I loved putting studio equipment together, and was proud of my business, but didn’t feel I could ‘play’ in my studios any more.

So, never much interested in cars apart from their ability to transport me quickly and safely, I turned to boats – my new train set. I bought
Blue Merlin
, a 46-foot motor-sailer with roll-away sails and a powerful bow-thruster, so it could be sailed and manoeuvred singlehandedly. I sold a lot of precious guitars to make the deal: two De Angelicos, the Gibson Flying V that Joe Walsh had given me (boy, was he pissed off when he found out), the Guild Merle Travis, a double-neck white Gibson and a few lesser ones.

This gave me the deposit, and
Blue Merlin
became the yacht that would finally allow me to become a real sailor. My new toys would almost certainly cost me as much as my old ones, and be far less obviously useful in my career. But I loved boats and the sea, and my time sailing was like a meditation.

On 22 September Bill told me that most American promoters he’d spoken to thought there was no need for a new Who album.
Why spoil a good thing?
All we had to do was tour. They predicted The Who would be the number one ticket in 1989, overtaking Led Zeppelin, whose last tour had been in Europe in 1980. The offers for sponsorship were very good, which meant we could afford to have a larger band like the one I’d used with Deep End, which had created an immensely forceful sound, but at decibel levels less than half those produced by The Who. I was still experiencing hearing trouble, tinnitus and occasional pressure problems, and I wanted to hang on to what I had left.

‘I am superstitious,’ I wrote in my diary on 4 December 1988. ‘The last attempt I made to work with The Who coincided with Minta’s hospitalisation for pneumonia. When I tried to play in New York for Amnesty, my father died. When I played in Cannes a terrible
mistral
-cum-hurricane threatened my televised concert. At Brixton, Karen became ill. The Who have their collective karma: Cincinnati, Keith, and Kit. Do we really have the right to celebrate a 25th anniversary?’

The former members of The Who met the next day for seven hours. Bill Curbishley was there, and Frank Barsalona and Barbara Skydell from Premier Talent, who would produce our tour, were over from New York to advise us. Frank was just as twitchy as he was when he bullied me to play at Woodstock twenty years before. Bill looked tanned and relaxed, as he spent a lot of time in Spain. Barbara Skydell played the role of soothing matron, belying her true power and influence in the music industry – putting together tours for some of the biggest names in the business, Tom Petty, Keith Richards and The Clash.

Roger shifted in his chair, and John slid his finger up and down the side of his nose as he always did at such times. There was an air of expectancy and tension in the room, but this was a friendly group – we all liked each other, and there was affection akin to love in this reunion. Still, my heart was beating so fast I felt dizzy.

Several times John said he had produced a new set of equipment that would enable him to play quieter. Roger revealed he had written songs with someone called Nigel; they felt society needed ‘unpolitical’ material of the kind The Who produced in the late Seventies. But I could tell that Roger was worried. He may have felt this whenever he contemplated a new tour, but it was a new feeling for me.

After many hours of discussion, clearly very concerned that the meeting might end without a conclusion, Bill asked that we stay at the hotel until we’d made a decision. He suggested various sponsors for the tour, such as General Foods, and when we rejected them he suggested we could give half the money they gave us to various charities – which could be as much as $8 million.

The unending pressure of the meeting began to make me feel manic, so we took a break. Back in the room, I became more and more unsteady. At six o’clock something strange happened: the atmosphere became charged anew: Roger became more attentive, Bill sped up the pace, and sheets of paper appeared with numbers and dates written on them. Rehearsals would begin in May, possible warm-up gigs in June, then away for the tour with a gap from 1 to 17 August.

By 6.20 I was hallucinating: people were developing auras. I didn’t want to do this. We were actually talking about tour scheduling. At 6.25 Roger was going to leave – he had to go. Where, I wondered. At 6.30 I was feeling sick. I wanted drugs. I was anxious. I wanted to see Karen. At 6.33 Roger was leaving; he would miss the final resolution of the meeting. At 6.40 Karen rang, wanting to go to her archaeology class. Minta was ill in bed; when would I be back?

A few minutes later Frank asked me if I was all right; I said no. Barbara asked me how the plan looked, and I said it looked terrible, I felt scared and I wanted to die. She laughed: apart from that, how did it look? I got up to leave, said goodbye to all those nice people, and left. By the time I got in the car I already felt much better. Booking a tour like that can feel a little like knowing that you will soon enjoy a lottery win.

A couple of days later my emotional pendulum swung yet again, and I spoke to Bill and told him I couldn’t go through with any tour plans. I wrote to Roger and John saying that everything had felt all right when it was hypothetical, but once I started hearing about cities, towns and stadiums I began to feel nauseous. My last word was that The Who were finally, completely, irrevocably over.

Of course it wasn’t true.

Karen and I travelled together to New York at the beginning of 1989, where I was inducting The Rolling Stones into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Being there, especially meeting Little Richard, who was inducting the late Otis Redding, made me feel that continuing to perform with The Who might not be such a bad thing after all. Little Richard was still so alive he seemed to be wired into the city’s electricity grid. His induction was extraordinary, conducted entirely in Otis Redding’s voice, which he brilliantly mimicked. Keith Moon writ large.

I began my Stones induction speech by saying: ‘Keith Richards once told me that I think too much. The truth is, I talk too much, but I don’t
think first
… The Rolling Stones are the only group I have felt unashamed about idolising. Each one of them has given me something as an artist, as a person, and as a fan. It would be crazy to suggest here that all the things they gave me were wholesome, practical and useful …’

I carried on in a similar, deeply affectionate vein, and meant every word of it.

While in New York I had a meeting with Ina Meibach, our attorney, who had done some basic maths. If I agreed to do the tour and made a new Who album, it would be hard work but in the year ahead I would be generating £14,000 every day. I wondered – and I’m not joking – would that be enough, but I very quickly came around. I couldn’t pass up this kind of money. My emotions oscillated once more as I considered that this windfall would also keep Roger and John secure. Finally I decided to commit.

‘I’ve had enough, Pete,’ Karen said. ‘We can’t go on like this.’

She took her dog Blue and went off for the entire day, not returning until late. She had been to Stonehenge to think things through. She was seriously thinking of leaving me, and I could understand why. This wasn’t the first time Karen had threatened to leave. She had sat with me through a number of dramatic mood-swings and was probably beside herself with confusion about whether I was in charge of my own life, or at least the part of it that I wanted to share with her. When she was angry she said that when our girls left home life with me alone would be pointless, that we lived alongside each other, not with one another.

I didn’t disagree. In fact I had actually tried hard to live a parallel life, so I could do my work and Karen could conduct her own life in her own way. This seemed ideal to me. In any event, she wasn’t happy.

This was ironic, because from where I stood things in the family were still looking and feeling pretty good. Minta was 18, taking a year off school before going to university. She found it hard to get up in the morning, as I did, but once she was up and about she worked hard every day. Emma was at King’s College, Cambridge, studying Economics and History. Her boyfriend James was an organ scholar.

The difficulties Karen and I faced were resolved – at least for a while – when she became pregnant in March.

The Who tour was announced in April. I did a week of PR in New York, and the rest of the time I spent plugging
Iron Man
, which had been released to critics that month. Coca-Cola had shown interest in using one of the songs, ‘A Friend Is a Friend’, for a summer ad campaign.

During rehearsals for the tour I was worried about my hearing, and insisted that the drums be placed in a booth during rehearsals. Instead, Bob Pridden put me in a booth with my guitar, which made me feel that my problem was not really being taken seriously enough. We rehearsed for several weeks, learning over fifty songs, many from my solo career.

Before I left for the tour Karen went for an ultrasound scan. When she came back I was still in bed.

‘It’s a boy,’ she said, and started to laugh.

I leapt up. Fuck, I was happy. How did that work? This was the affirmation I had been hoping for: I really had been getting my family life right after all. Karen and I had hiccupped a few times, but that was to be expected. As Paul Simon said, ‘When something goes right, it’s likely to lose me, it’s apt to confuse me, it’s such an unusual sight.’ Emma, Minta, and now a son. Actually, I wasn’t just happy. I was euphoric.

In mid-June the band moved to Glens Falls, Saratoga, for six days of technical rehearsals there. Our first show was at the Civic Center. The band sounded good from the start, even in the echoing, empty hall. I was travelling with seventeen pieces of luggage, much of which was my portable recording studio. I had two young men working for me as porters to transport it and set it up at each hotel.