Who I Am: A Memoir (43 page)

Ticket sales in New York for
Tommy
waned. The show could have survived if we’d been able or willing to reduce running costs; on Broadway a minimum number of musicians is required, so we were paying for five who stayed home every night. The computer-controlled scenery required a larger technical team than usual, and strong New York trade unions made sure every small job was done by a separate backstage crew member. The fact remains, though, that the incredibly slick production in New York was what made the show so good.

Bill Curbishley had always said that in the New York area The Who had a very solid fanbase of around 450,000 souls who could be relied on to come and see us play, a proportion of whom would support whatever any of us did as solo artists. I’m not sure every Who fan went to see
Tommy
at the St James Theatre, but by the time it closed in June many more than 450,000 people had seen it.

I retreated to
Nuovo Pensiero
in Falmouth Marina in Cornwall whenever I could; I had more civilised living facilities on the yacht than in The Cube. Occasionally I took the boat to the Helford river to be closer to Joseph, who loved spending time on the water. I had a TV set with videos to watch, and a small jet-ski he and I rode around on. The sea is the last bastion of freedom and liberty from restrictions for both kids and old geezers on the water – at least it was then. I began to think seriously about whether I could live on a boat in London somewhere.

Joseph had started at Ibstock Place School, and when it was my turn to run him to school he liked listening to Jazz FM on the radio. He began to listen to jazz albums at home, digging into my large vinyl collection, and became particularly fond of John Coltrane. I don’t know how he remembers our time together but I had a lot of fun, and we made each other laugh.

Joseph’s favourite game was ‘Obstacle Course’: I would rearrange furniture, drape blankets that formed tunnels and climbing steps, and keep the time as he attempted to break his personal record for getting around the course.

Paul Simon and I were respectful friends, introduced by Mo Ostin, but had fallen out over his breaking the artists’ boycott in South Africa. He had been forgiven by Mandela, and he was reaching out. He is a towering songwriter, and I appreciated his desire to reconnect to me. He invited me to perform at a charity event for a children’s ambulance and paramedical service of which he was a patron in New York.

I agreed, then pulled out, then decided to perform after all. He was gracious about it. I was nervous, I suppose – I had no band assembled. I called Billy Nicholls, who still worked as my music director when required, and explained that I had been playing piano almost every day since I moved into The Cube, and I’d like to play piano at the show. I had never played it in public before, and to do so at such an event was a leap of faith.

Paul’s band was put together by the jazz great Wynton Marsalis. I was using a MIDI piano that allowed me to add other sounds to the piano itself. In New York the rehearsals were pleasant and easy. Paul is a perfectionist, working long hours, but is also a supreme team leader.

The show wasn’t recorded, but I enjoyed performing, especially being on stage during ‘Call Me Al’ with the brass playing the famous chorus kick between verses. I played ‘Eminence Front’ on piano, with a fair bit of extemporisation. I’m sure the musicians on stage, mostly Juilliard scholars, regarded my noodling as just that, but it felt good, and the audience liked it.

I was wearing the same musical cloak as when I performed with Roger at Carnegie Hall, but this time I really was solo. The Who were not summoned, and it seemed that people were not only more forgiving of experiment, but anxious to see me do something different. Paul and I played ‘The Kids Are Alright’ together. Afterwards Des and his wife congratulated me and a girl grabbed me and whisked me away.

My beloved mentor Sam Sylvester told me that if I was really living in a ‘garden shed’ I had only myself to blame. I deserved better. I went to view the very grand Petersham House near the Thames. I liked the idea of using its ballroom as a studio. It was a fantastic property and the price seemed reasonable.

‘I’m surprised you haven’t viewed The Wick,’ the agent said. ‘Isn’t it large enough for you?’

‘The Wick?’ I didn’t know it was for sale, but it turned out to have been on the market for a while. ‘How much is it?’

‘About the same as Petersham House.’

‘I’ll buy it.’

‘Which one?’

The agent wasn’t used to rock ’n’ roll.

‘The Wick.’

‘But you haven’t viewed it,’ she cautioned.

‘I don’t need to view it,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy it.’

My counsellor told me I was mad; another trusted advisor warned me I’d be ‘rattling around like a ghost in a great big empty house’. What I felt I needed was somewhere I could start writing the book you’re reading. I wanted a retreat, somewhere to keep all the files, press cuttings, photos and memory-joggers I might need to tell this story.

There was a more critical issue: I had wanted to buy The Wick several times in my life, and it had always been Karen who discouraged me. She hadn’t liked the idea of the
rock star house on the hill
that it represented, and when we were together I had respected that. But now I could fulfil my dream. Ronnie Wood had lived there, and Mick Jagger and Jerry Hall lived just down the street. I could hardly believe the house was available and that no one had snapped it up. It seemed like a wonderful portent.

It also forced me to face up to something. Until now Karen and I had shared the same address and made our entrances and exits from the same property, even if I was living at the bottom of the garden. If I did go ahead and buy The Wick, I would be making a very obvious statement that I was no longer cohabiting with my wife and family.

27

A NEW HOME

During rehearsals for the London
Tommy
I did a deal with Windswept on my song publishing. This was to be a good relationship: they worked my catalogue deeply, emphasising less well-known songs. The deal allowed me to settle down to another long period of creative work – with the long hours of staring at a blank sheet of paper that always entails. It also meant I would be able to buy The Wick.

Nick Goderson, in-house accountant for me at the boathouse in its heyday as a commercial studio, suggested the company could buy The Wick’s lower floors for use as recording studios and offices. Of course by making this purchase I had ended the marriage. The
done thing
was that Karen would get the family home. In this case she would get both family homes, but looking back I have to say ‘quite right’.

Meanwhile, in what felt to me to be an affirmation that I had become somehow newly cool, Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons fashion house invited me to be the mature model in her catwalk show in Paris during Fashion Week, January 1996. She was showing a Mod-inspired collection and wanted me to lead a posse of younger men and boys in a kind of street gang. My lieutenant was Jimmy Pursey, lead singer of Sham 69.

Much of the fitting was done by Japanese women who hadn’t been prepared for the fact that I was no longer a string-bean youth. There was a lot of letting out at the waist. After the first fitting I decided I couldn’t hack it, but before I could escape Rei pleaded with me to carry on. The fashion crowd were just about the worst audience I had ever performed for in my life. I had never experienced the cold, sneering imperiousness of people with such absurdly high self-regard, and I had imagined a livelier event, like the one in London I’d attended for Fashion Aid.

One important thing I learned: I might be
perceived
as cool by someone like Rei Kawakubo, but I didn’t
feel
cool. Cool is definitely something that can be superimposed onto a person. James Dean was seen to be cool although he was a mess of insecurity. On stage as a musician I was capable of doing something I couldn’t manage in any other part of my life – I could act a role. I could perform using an exaggerated aspect of my character that at other times was hidden. No one had ever successfully argued with me on stage, not even Roger Daltrey. Offstage, truth be told, I am a mouse, albeit a mouse with mood-swings.

The London
Tommy
previews began on 20 February. The last preview before press night on 4 March was dedicated to the Teenage Cancer Trust. This was the first time I had facilitated any kind of donation to TCT. The charity was the brainchild of my doctor, Adrian Whiteson.

TCT was dedicated to providing scanners for clinics treating young cancer victims. Cell division is very fast for the young, and if cancer cells aren’t found quickly patients can die within a few months. I added money to the ticket receipts and planned to present the cheque myself at a reception at the Armoury Hall in the City after the show.

The young actor Alistair Robins, playing the role of the father, took me aside.

‘Could I present the cheque?’

‘No, you can’t,’ I said, laughing. ‘This is mostly my money and I’m the one donating it.’

‘It would mean a lot to me,’ he persisted.

‘It means a lot to me too.’

‘I’m a survivor of teenage cancer,’ he said. ‘I was within inches of death and the youth cancer team at St Thomas’ saved my life. We all called St Thomas’
Tommy’s
, you know.’

I looked at the handsome, vital young man. How could it be possible? That moment tied me to the work of TCT until the present day.

And of course Alistair Robins proudly presented the cheque on behalf of the entire London
Tommy
company.

The day after I signed a contract to write my autobiography in May 1996 I completed the purchase of my new house, The Wick. It was a momentous occasion: there would be no going back for me in my marriage. The house needed work and I began by creating the study in which I would begin to write this book. (Yes, I know, it has taken a very long time, so I hope you enjoy it!)

When I viewed The Wick I discovered an amazing thing. Back in 1973 when my company Trackplan was building home recording studios for the pop and rock performers of the day, one commission had been to create a room for Ronnie Wood in his home – then The Wick. I had recommended a Neve BCM10 desk, like the one I used at home, and an eight-track analogue machine. The cables had been laid and the room soundproofed with noiseless air ducting and heavy doors.

Ronnie had made a lot of music there with The Faces, Bobby Womack and the Stones. When he decided the Neve wasn’t right for him, he ordered a Helios and sold me the Neve, which I still had in storage. Nothing had been changed since Ronnie left. All I needed to do was wheel in a tape machine and the Neve mixing console and I could start using the studio straight away. I decided to keep this studio pure old-fashioned analogue, my only concession to digital recording being one of the first RADAR recorders you could hide away in a rack, for use only when we needed more tracks than usual.

I was still looking for a place for my huge Synclavier rig. I decided to use the oval garden room in which Ronnie, Steve Winwood and I had rehearsed for Eric Clapton’s Rainbow concert in 1973. This was a large room, big enough for a grand piano, all my old analogue synthesisers, the Lowrey Berkshire organ I’d used for the
Who’s Next
tracks and a bunch of more modern MIDI racks.

I was excited about my new home but deeply regretful for what it declared about my failing marriage.

My solo ‘Best of’ album,
Cool Walking
, was to be released in May; to support it, I appeared with Peter Gabriel and Michael Stipe in Los Angeles for a VH1 TV show for
Witness
, a human rights organisation. On the same trip I did two solo shows at the Hard Rock. Jon Carin was my sideman, covering backing vocals, rhythm loops and effects, backing tracks and playing keyboards. Together we sounded like a band. I did a couple of other such solo events in San Francisco and at the Supper Club in New York.

A celebrity concert performance of
Quadrophenia
was held in Hyde Park in June 1996 for the Prince’s Trust. Harvey Goldsmith was organising the show and Phil Daniels, who had played Jimmy in the movie, was the narrator. I agreed to invite Roger to sing the lead, and he agreed subject to John playing bass and Zak Starkey playing drums.

Oh dear. This was The Who again, however you branded it.

The show was fun, but clunky. Stephen Fry was the Hotel Manager, and the Bellboy was played by Ade Edmondson. Harvey Goldsmith had suggested Gary Glitter for the Godfather, whose first contribution to the show was to get overly hyped up during a soundcheck: swinging his mike stand around, he bashed Roger in the eye so hard it broke his eye-socket. Roger simply wore a patch and soldiered on.

We also did a week of
Quadrophenia
concerts based on the Hyde Park production at Madison Square Garden, New York, in July. The shows were superb. Phil Daniels dealt with the bawdy audience just as my actors had done in
Psychoderelict
, by shouting louder over it. Karen brought Joseph. He’d never seen me perform before. The next day he took me rollerblading in Central Park, and taught me how to build up speed simply by lifting alternate skates, and how to stop by dragging one skate.

In September 1996 the
Daily Mail
revealed that I had left the family home in Twickenham and moved to The Wick, a sign that my marriage was over. I was still living in The Cube, and wouldn’t move my home base until November, but the news was out. Despite the joy of having a new home where I could cook, bathe, dress and live in comfort at last (with plenty of room to play with Joseph), I fell into a depression.

This time there were no manic swings. This was conventional depression. It was appropriate for me to feel sad about what was happening. This was the end of a long struggle for Karen and me to remain connected through marriage. I knew the bleakness would pass eventually.

Rehearsals for the US tour of
Quadrophenia
were conducted at Nomis studios in Shepherd’s Bush. During the week I chatted with the extremely attractive studio receptionist, who seemed to like me. On the last day, 4 October, I looked up to see Zak Starkey with a girl who at first I took to be his wife. She was young, mid-twenties, with the most extraordinary eyes. One thought crossed my mind: I don’t care whose wife she is, I really want to get to know her. After all my romantic fluttering in the States I felt as silly about this as I expect I appear now, but I was absolutely certain she would be in my life one day.

Later she approached me. Her name was Rachel Fuller. She was a sparky, edgy girl, self-possessed and alive, extremely attractive and very funny. She gave me some kind of quack ear medication to pass on to my friend, the songwriter Billy Nicholls.

‘What are you doing here?’ I asked her.

‘I’m doing some orchestrating,’ she explained. ‘For Ute Lemper,’ the famous German chanteuse and actress. Then she was gone, working a room full of more interesting men than me.

I didn’t see her again that day, but before we broke down our gear I wrote her a note asking whether she’d be interested in working with me on some orchestrations while The Who were on the road in America – a preposterous ploy, even though I really was in the market for a good orchestrator. Still, it might work. I gave the letter to the receptionist to pass on.

The North America
Quadrophenia
tour was a blur for me. Karen brought Joseph to Vancouver and then LA. Karen had tried her damnedest to understand me, but it was hard for both of us. We both felt terribly sad for our children, especially for Joseph, but he seemed happy enough. Of course he loved it when we were all together, however tense we felt sometimes. I remembered that feeling from my own childhood at age seven when I returned from my time with Denny and my parents were awkwardly rebuilding the family.

The press maintained that The Who had lost their way. I played acoustic guitar most of the time; my playing was what really held the rhythm together and defined its subtlety. Acoustic was far better for this purpose than electric. Who fans were irritated by me, however, and there was much talk of everything being much improved if only ‘Pete would strap on an electric guitar’.

I had insisted the tour be advertised as
Quadrophenia
and not ‘The Who’, but with the three surviving members on stage every night there were moments of that old magic – which for me seemed enough – but from the audience’s point of view such sparks seemed to ignite an old hunger that needed to be further fed. Certainly the orderly procession of music that was
Quadrophenia
left little room for anarchy or spontaneity.

We worked for a couple of days back at Nomis to tighten up sections of the show, and to try reducing the number of brass. While I was there I asked the receptionist about the letter I’d given her to pass on to the girl who was working with Ute Lemper.

‘Are you mad?’ She was looking quite fierce.

‘What?’

‘You spend the whole week chatting me up, then ask me to pass a letter on to some other girl, probably half my age. It went in the bin.’

One evening, having taken Joseph to Karen’s house and put him to bed, I fell asleep watching MTV in my studio at the bottom of the garden. It was a kind of psychedelic video show, with fractal animations set to rap music and modern R&B. I woke in a dream-state and tried to remember what I had been dreaming about.

It quickly came back to me, as did another dream that didn’t replace the first one, but, oddly, ran alongside it. Then another dream, then another, each dream vivid and lucid and ongoing. I lost track of where I was, and in an attempt to record what was going on I sat at my piano and recorded myself speaking about what was happening. Later, I called this piece ‘Wired to the Moon’.

After several hours whatever natural chemicals were flooding through my brain slowed down, and I was able to sleep. It was terrifying and overwhelming. I wondered if it was some form of Alzheimer’s or, even worse, that I had progressed to full-blown schizophrenia.

When this didn’t happen again for a week or two, I took it to be an aberration, and got back to work. I was committed to the idea of developing a conventional, serious Broadway musical. It seemed to me that this was my true destiny.

My vision for the internet was as a kind of theatre. I saw the ideal website as a venue for rehearsals, workshops, plays, performances, readings, interviews – all the stuff of my career gathered under one cyber-ceiling. Television had been doing this for years, but the internet might one day allow individual creative people to run their own small broadcasting companies.

Broadband wasn’t yet available in 1996. The internet was still accessed by phone line, and at first text and low-quality photographs was all it was good for. As always, my deep cynicism and pessimism led me to believe – as I had predicted in my soporific Royal College of Art lecture – the porn industry would drive technical advances, just as it had for the domestic video market back in the mid-Eighties. I was amazed at how quickly organisations like
Hustler
and
Playboy
had managed to establish credit-card systems providing membership to online magazines. There was obviously big money in it.

I was still determined to keep working as a producer to set up new music-theatre projects. John Scher, one of a handful of promoters Bill Curbishley trusted completely, was still pushing hard to get me to develop
Psychoderelict
, either for the theatre or as a performance vehicle for me. I flew by Concorde to New York to meet him and Kevin McCollom, director of the Ordway Center theatre group in St Paul, Minnesota. I awoke from napping when a loud bang shook the plane. The plane continued to shake; it got worse and worse until the wheels touched down in Halifax and we were ferried by another plane to New York. I was surprised to find that I’d stayed calm throughout.