Mojo - The Music Magazine

The genius of Pete Townshend and The Who, by Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder...

What Pete Townshend means to me is almost unquantifiable; it's like his music and his writing, even the pitch of his voice, are all part of my DNA. Those records - The Who's albums, Pete's solo work, even the demos I got a hold of as bootlegs - they were like a solid tree in the windstorm of my adolescence. It was like hurricane conditions, emotionally, and his music was the thing I could hold onto. I'm certainly not alone in having that experience. To me, it was a true lifeline.

It would be tough to argue that there was a better live band. I'd have to say the only one that comes close is maybe Fugazi. I first saw them play at San Diego Sports Arena, June 18, 1980. It was the summer after the Cincinnati show [where eleven Who fans were crushed to death during a performance at the Riverfront Coliseum], and Kenney Jones had been drumming with them for about a year... They still had the fire, they were really explosive.

People always say you should never meet your heroes, and for a while I tried to stick to that, to not meet Pete. Because he was the one guy, you know? If it went sideways, if he'd been an asshole or something, I wouldn't have known what the meaning of my life was [laughs].

Then I went to see two shows down in Berkley, where Pete was playing solo after the Psychoderelict album came out. I was standing somewhere around fifth row, and a woman came up to me and said, I work for Pete, and he'd love to meet you after the show. And that was right as the lights went down. It was a little nerve-wracking.

The first or second song was Rough Boys, and all of a sudden he stops singing and is staring right at me, missing out a whole line or two of the song. And then he comes back in with the line, "I want to bite and kiss you" [laughs]. And I thought, This is terrifying!

And then I was brought backstage, and he couldn't have been kinder or gentler. And at that time, I was a little wigged out, and looking back I feel bad about it, but he asked me, How are you? And that opened a whole can of worms, because I wanted to be honest with him. "I dunno Pete, this is hard right now." And he was helpful to me then, as he's always been helpful. And Roger too, and Entwistle was a great friend, and some of their family, the Townshend clan, Roger's daughters... They're like a big family, and it means so much me, to be accepted into that tight group. You can't help but learn a lot.

Pete and Roger both called after Roskilde [nine Pearl Jam fans were crushed to death during the group's 2000 performance at the Danish festival, in a grim echo of The Who's Cincinnati tragedy]. I was apoplectic, I was in the foetal position, I was a hundred feet underwater and I didn't know where the surface was, but they were at least able to get me up to the top without getting an embolism. I'll never forget that.

I've investigated and lived through almost every line of his work. When I was 15, 16, I remember relating to the songs off The Who By Numbers, but fifteen or so years later, when I had become the same age Pete was when he wrote those songs, the resonance was so much more powerful, especially lines like "How many friends have I really got?", off of [Who By Numbers track] However Much I Booze.

I reckon I listen to Pete's music - in some shape or form, whether it's solo stuff or live stuff or whatever - twenty or thirty times a week. And now it's part of my kids' upbringing.

Eddie Vedder was talking to MOJO's Stevie Chick

Pete Townshend photo courtesy of Ross Halfin