After weeks of to-ing and fro-ing and head-scratching Instagram posts, Zak Starkey has thrown fresh light on his protracted exit from The Who.
In an interview with the Telegraph, the drummer confirmed that it was some dropped beats at the band’s second Albert Hall show in March that led to his ‘retirement’/ sacking and that it was Roger Daltrey that instigated the move, rather than Pete Townshend.
It all arose from the decision to play the Who’s Next track The Song Is Over, which Starkey had suggested as “a treat” for fans. The song hadn’t been part of their regular set ist for some time and the drummer says it was a combination of this, plus a lack of rehearsal and the fact Daltrey “took a bit out” of the song because it’s so long, that meant that, on the second night, “Roger [came] in a bar too early.”
“I got it right and Roger got it wrong,” is Starkey’s summation. But it seems this minor error (you can check out the performance in question below) which long time Who fans – even if they detected it – would have surely made allowances for, was enough for him to be handed his P45.
“I got a call from Bill [Curbishley], the manager,” said Starkey. “He says, ‘It’s my unfortunate duty to inform you’ – it’s like Porridge or something – ‘that you won’t be needed from now on. Roger says you dropped some beats.’ I watched the show and I can’t find any dropped beats. Then Pete had to go along with it because Pete’s had 60 years of arguing with Roger.”
It seems that, after this, Townshend phoned Starkey and asked if he was prepared to fight for his place in the band. Initially, the drummer said no, but later changed his mind.
Yet the reunion didn’t last long: “Two weeks later it was like, ‘Roger says he can’t work with you no more, and we’d like you to issue another statement saying you’re leaving to do your other projects’ and I just didn’t do it because I wasn’t leaving [of my own volition].”
He also says that he’s fallen out of love with drumming and now prefers guitar: “Have you seen what a guitar looks like? It’s like a woman. A drum looks like a pot of biscuits. You can’t play the drums and watch telly.”
Now out of the Who and having missed out on the Oasis gig, he claims he’s even offered his services to Bob Dylan “because he’s the only person that’s anywhere near Pete lyrically”. And has he had a reply? “Course not, it’s Bob Dylan innit?”
Confirmation - if any were needed by now - that Zak Starkey is something of a character...
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