Who I Am: A Memoir (47 page)

30

TRILBY’S PIANO

At first, I wasn’t worried. But after I hung up with Nick I looked out of my window and went into a panic. The house was surrounded by reporters, television satellite vans, camera crews, photographers and curious observers. At that moment, as I told a reporter later, if I’d had a gun I might have shot myself just to escape the lynching. I turned to Rachel. ‘You have to leave, and save yourself,’ I said. ‘There’s no way this is going to turn out well for me.’

‘You’ve done nothing wrong, Pete,’ she replied. ‘I’m staying. Let’s put a statement together.’

The shock really started to sink in when I was shown a copy of the
Mail
. Since my name was being withheld, there could be no mention of my work with The Priory and Broadreach, no mention of Double-O or ‘A Different Bomb’. I longed to redress the imbalance. The fact was that I had probably kept a little too quiet about my various charitable activities, but that was all irrelevant now.

Emma called. ‘At least you’re alive today, Dad,’ she said. Maurice Gibb of The Bee Gees had died overnight, leaving his family and brothers adrift and distraught. I explained the details of my situation to Emma, who was working as a journalist. ‘If it was research, then that’s what you must say, Dad,’ she urged. ‘You must tell the truth.’

I took Emma’s advice. Rachel and I knocked out a statement that she read to the assembled press in the street outside. Then we drove to her house in Teddington, where I spent the weekend quietly.

It was a very tense time. My lawyer said the police had intended to interview me informally, but were now forced to make an arrest because in my statement to the press I had admitted using a credit card. Once was enough. They made an appointment to see me at my house on Monday 13 January. They searched the house and my offices in Richmond meticulously. They were respectful and considerate, but took away family photos, videotapes, dozens of zip and optical drives, and eleven computers.

Later in the day I went to Twickenham police station. The last time I’d been in the interview room was after driving home drunk in 1972. Nothing had changed in thirty years, except for the video cameras everywhere. I was shown a cheque signed by me to pay a Barclaycard bill that included a charge for £5 to an organisation called Landslide. I didn’t remember the name, but by this time I was becoming too numb to know what was happening.

Over the weekend I had received calls organised by Jerry Hall and Keith Altham, Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Sting, Bob Geldof and dozens of friends. By Monday morning mail began rolling into my house, some of it bad, a lot of it good, but I was too exhausted to respond to it – I simply hadn’t slept.

After I made a statement, during which I was filmed and recorded for a forthcoming television documentary,
*
a detective went out and bought me a hamburger. I’d spent the whole day making tea for the police in my house, and hadn’t eaten. ‘Eat that, mate,’ he said, as he tucked into his own. ‘We know you’re on the side of the angels.’

Never has such a simple act meant so much to me.

‘You know why I go straight to the sports pages when I pick up a tabloid newspaper?’ he went on.

I shook my head.

‘Because everything that’s wrong with society is on the front page, and everything that’s good about it – endeavour and simple human achievement – is on the back.’

I had most definitely been on the front page, and it would be a discussion topic for months to come.

I was out on bail. The forensic examination of my computers could take as long as a month, or longer. The police had taken my studio computers and hard drives containing music, lyrics, recordings and pretty much everything related to
The Boy Who Heard Music
while I was right in the middle of working on it. I could start new music, but I didn’t even have my laptop. I simply had to be patient.

I knew nothing incriminating had ever been on my computers, and although I was aware of the possibility that images could easily be planted, I was more worried that excerpts of my personal diaries would get out and I would look like a self-obsessed prat, whose only interest was which car or boat I might buy next to cheer myself up. This was sheer vanity, but I was still embarrassed by it.

I was worried too that if anyone placed images on any of my computers there would be nothing I could do about it. It was a case of
mea culpa
: I had already admitted to an infringement that Professor Jenkins had made clear would have no excuse in any court. Curiosity, research, understanding, perspective or even therapy wouldn’t ameliorate this particular crime. And yet, in getting to know some of the Operation Ore squad, I knew they were honest, and my fear of being ‘fitted up’, or framed, quickly left me. At a bail meeting in the second month, I asked the Chief Investigating Officer why the forensic work was taking so long. He said it was because there were so many computers. But he also said they wanted to allow a long enough period for anyone I might have abused in the past to come forward.

Dozens of people spoke up on my behalf, but Roger was the most vocal, allowing himself to get angry about the absurdity of my arrest. Clearly, his own future was at risk if I was convicted, but he went further than he needed to on my behalf. His solidarity with me, his faith in me and his rage at the injustice against me is something I will never forget.

While I waited, I hired security to keep guard on my house twenty-four hours a day and continued working at Oceanic, mixing a surround version of
Tommy
. I decided to buy myself a house in the South of France. My legal bills would be huge, but I didn’t want to give up my long-standing dream of a house by the sea. I was, of course, also running away to get some peace from the press.

Letters still arrived – my staff sorted them so any particularly nasty ones were probably set aside – but 80 per cent were supportive. I began to reply to each one with a short handwritten card. ‘Thank you for your faith in me. I will never forget you.’
†

With nothing to do but wait, I decided to schedule a long-overdue hernia operation, having pulled a muscle while riding a pushbike in the park. When I was under anaesthetic my surgeon also did a colonoscopy, and he found a large pre-cancerous polyp that would almost certainly have taken me on the same path as my father had it not been discovered. So there was at least one major upside to my arrest.

I was finally given a date when I was to be re-interviewed by the police: 7 May. On that day I would either walk away a free man, or be charged and arraigned. Or, if any skullduggery had taken place on the part of my accusers, I might even be jailed. Then I received another missive. Bhau Kalchuri, once Meher Baba’s youngest nightwatchman, now Chairman of the Avatar Meher Baba Trust in India, wanted to have lunch with me on 20 May. It seemed a very good omen. I could think of no better birthday present.

These past few months had passed so slowly that I began to wonder about the nature of time itself: when you get past the age of about 45 time begins to speed up, and it takes a while to get used to it, the years suddenly falling away faster and faster. Waiting for my computers, time crawled by interminably. At least it would all be over soon.

News began to leak out that I would be offered a caution. My lawyers and I attended Kingston police station and the officer who had arrested me seemed ill at ease. It quickly became apparent what was going on. My computers were completely clean, all eleven of them. In the enormous quantity of other collateral taken from my home, only a few photos of my own two infant daughters running naked in Jamaica had been set aside. The grease pencil circles over their bodies made me weep. But at least I would be vindicated.

This was not to be. At Kingston police station I was offered a choice. I could accept a caution and low-profile listing for a limited period of time as a sex-offender, or go to court. My case was too high profile to be dealt with in any other way, despite the fact that there was a prevailing sense that I had been well intentioned. If I went to court I could safely tell the truth, and the truth wouldn’t incriminate me, but after waiting four and a half months for my computers to be scanned I was utterly exhausted; I was in no frame of mind to live through another eternity – this time in court. Even though it might do some good for the cause I still longed to shout about from the rooftops, I didn’t think I would survive it.

I wish now that I had gone to trial, but perhaps that is a foolhardy notion. Instead, I have relied on my friends and the general public to speak for me – until now.

Vindication for me emerged a couple of years later, when the investigative journalist Duncan Campbell forensically examined the hard drive for the Landslide website. He reported that he could find no evidence I had entered it, or subscribed to it. I had, he said, apparently admitted to something I didn’t do. It’s obvious now, since credit-card companies were persuaded to refuse payments to Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks in 2011, that all along they could have refused to take payments for questionable porn sites. Ironically, that’s probably what they did in my case.

As I feared, the sex-offender label came back to haunt me at the 2010 Super Bowl in Miami, when protest leaflets were distributed by local children’s advocates that picketed at the stadium. At a press conference in Miami I said:

It’s an issue that’s very difficult to deal with in soundbites. It’s a big thing, and it’s sad. I feel like we’re on the same side. I think if you know a family that has suffered the issue of childhood abuse or anything of that sort, you know that common-sense vigilance is the most important thing, not vigilantism. […] If anybody has any doubts about whether I should be here or not, they should investigate a little bit further. Everything you need to know, funnily enough, is out there on the internet.
‡

I wondered how to thank all those who had supported me and decided I should get off my high creative horse, stop worrying about my hearing so much, and make a record and tour with Roger. In 2004 we played in Japan, for the first time, and Australia, which we hadn’t toured since The Who’s disastrous ‘hiccup’ in 1968. This time our shows in Australia were a triumph – for me a renewal and for The Who’s ancient career a kind of rebirth. I received my updated American visa on 30 December 2004.

Rachel had stood by me through my whole ordeal and our love has continued to deepen to this day. Her writing with Jo Youel of the pop band Scarlet was going from strength to strength; having obtained a record deal with Doug Morris she began to make plans for recording, and her album
Cigarettes and Housework
was released in 2004 to great reviews.
§

She also began
In the Attic
, a live weekly chat and acoustic music webcast, taking over a small studio in Oceanic, arranging the room with a single camera. It was great fun, something to look forward to every week, and Mickey Cuthbert and my brother Simon both became regulars. I did a walk-on most weeks, and often played an old song, and joined in with guests like Martha Wainwright.

I was still trying to create songs to help advance the story of
The Boy Who Heard Music
. These songs sounded different to almost everything I’d written in the past – except perhaps some of the writing I’d done for the stage version of
Iron Man
. I was doubtful any of them would work on a Who album, and I needed Roger to allow me very broad creative space if I was to include them. ‘In the Ether’ was a song for the voice of an old man, a ghost, singing from beyond reality. ‘Heart Condition’ (still unrecorded) was about a man’s helpless love for the partner of his best friend.

‘Trilby’s Piano’, written for
Stella
some time before, sounded like a show tune, but the person who inspired it, who had been the first person to encourage my noodling and tell me I was a ‘real musician’, had been so important to me. The belief she instilled in me had kept me going through my darkest days.

31

INTERMEZZO

On 19 May 2005, my birthday, Jerry Hall bought me a miniature Yorkshire terrier; I named her Wistle after John and his dog Scruffy, who had listened to our first rehearsals in his home in Acton when we were twelve or thirteen. Two months later I was still thinking of John and missing him when The Who performed with Pink Floyd and Paul McCartney at Hyde Park for Live 8. The Who’s set was incendiary, far better than Live Aid, and I enjoyed seeing Bob Geldof smiling happily on the side of the stage.

The press made much of the competition between The Who and Pink Floyd, but the atmosphere backstage was friendly. It was good to see the towering Roger Waters working with David Gilmour again, and it was the last time I got to see Rick Wright, who had purchased my big Bösendorfer piano from me when I closed my studio years before. We all wondered if Floyd would reunite and tour. Their show was perfect, I thought, but Roger and David never quite reconciled. It was remarkable that they joined together this one last time, and I felt privileged to be in their midst.

In summer 2005 Bob Pridden, Billy Nicholls and Myles Clarke started work on
Endless Wire
, the forthcoming Who album. The album was ready to put together by spring 2006. By that time we were rehearsing, anticipating one of the longest tours of our entire career. I continued to work on the album throughout the tour, carrying a complicated mobile recording studio rig. I had complete control of the record, something Roger regretted because he had wanted to record as a band, but it did give me the opportunity to take some chances.

Including songs like ‘In the Ether’, ‘Trilby’s Piano’, ‘You Stand By Me’ and ‘Marty Robbins’ allowed me to divide the vocal work almost evenly between Roger and myself. In so doing, I deferred going directly on to a solo music project or, for the time being, pursuing my music-theatre projects. It meant a lot when Dave Marsh told me he thought it was a good album. I wanted it to feel as though there was a continuity with The Who’s previous albums, but also from my own solo albums.

We would begin touring on 17 June 2006 at – appropriately – Leeds University, and the last show was to be on 9 July 2007 in Helsinki. Rachel came with me, doing
In the Attic
live webcasts from many of the shows, and also pioneered
Attic Jam
, an acoustic music event she and her assistant Carrie Cooke put together. I loved having Rachel with me on the road, though we both found the travelling and the intense schedule arduous.

Endless Wire
, The Who’s eleventh album, was released on 30 October 2006, and it was the band’s first new album of original material since
It’s Hard
in 1982. I really enjoyed making this album, and it’s one I’m proud of. It also garnered the best reviews of any Who album since
Who Are You
in 1978. It underpinned the first world tour worthy of the name by The Who: over three years we performed in support of it on every major continent except Africa and South America.

‘Fragments’, a kind of homage to Baba O’Riley, was based on a harmonic maths system developed by Lawrence Ball for what I was now calling the Lifehouse Method project, which involved the automatic creation of tailor-made music for individuals over a web portal. Many strands were drawn together on this record; it felt like the best-balanced creative outing for me for many years, combining many of my own private ambitions, but also underscoring the long-established fact that my greatest achievements had always been under the Who umbrella. Most the album’s songs were also used in the musical adaptation of
The Boy Who Heard Music
, which I had been working on since 1999. This débuted as part of the Powerhouse Summer Theatre workshop series at Vassar College in New York State. The idea for this was again floated by the stalwart Ethan Silverman. One day we will stand together in the stalls and watch a show we have put up together.
*

Roger started having real health troubles towards the end of 2006. In Chicago he collapsed on stage, then hurried off, and I had to carry the last twenty minutes of the show alone,
Psychoderelict
style. I was worried about him and told him so.

After a holiday break we embarked on the third and final leg of the tour, which would take us from Reno to Florida, and on to Mexico and South America. In Tampa Roger finally hit a wall and announced before the show that he couldn’t perform. Rachel and I had an
Attic Jam
planned in Austin at South by South West, and decided to spend longer there while Roger recuperated in a Miami hospital.

Roger had been struggling with throat problems, which later turned out to be due to pre-cancerous lesions. At the time none of us knew what to do, but Roger battled like the fighter he is to do good shows. This made it all the more stunning when he finally admitted he could go no further, and shows were cancelled. It might seem strange, but I was glad that at last he had given himself permission to fail, knowing that none of our fans would have wanted him to hurt himself. My feelings for Roger had matured – I loved him and wanted only the best for him – and I sensed that was what he wanted for me too. It would always be difficult for each of us to help the other, but we would find a way to do just that in the future.

Roger’s medical breakdown was a wake-up call. The Who owed some South American shows to the tour promoters, so we made recompense with another fairly long sweep in Europe. This was another opportunity for Rachel and me to do live webcasts, using a dedicated Airstream caravan equipped for the job. We started in Lisbon, performing in Madrid for the first time – I played the best guitar of my career at that show – and also a number of festivals. I loved the whole tour. It not only inspired me but gave me great hope for the future.

Nick Goderson, still effective chairman/president of my companies, had been diagnosed with cancer of his neck, and was undergoing chemotherapy. Without his benign hand on the reins, I splashed out, attempting to indulge my inner artist and get some music flowing. In 2008 I bought myself a creative studio in a wooded area of Surrey, a fifty-minute drive from my home, and leaving the largest room otherwise completely empty I put a Yamaha Concert Grand Disklavier piano in it. This allowed me to improvise, recording the mechanical performance when I felt ready; I could then listen to the piano playing back what I’d recorded as I stalked around the room, singing whatever lyrics came into my head.

This is where the first music for my new opera
Floss
began.
Floss
is hopefully going to be a kind of
son et lumière
event –
The Wall
meets Cirque du Soleil. I have already composed some good music, written some lyrics I am pleased with and arranged special studio systems to help me tackle the technical challenges I see ahead. This is another
Quadrophenia
for me, almost as technically challenging as
Lifehouse
, but today I do have the computers I need to overcome almost every technical obstacle. I am still working on this as I write this book, and it is proving to be one of the most ambitious projects I’ve taken on.

It’s a dark tale of a young man called Walter Doxtader, who puts his pub-rock career behind him to create a labyrinthine garden. He starts to hear the almost musical sound of the shared anxieties of all the middle-class families around him who fear for their children’s future. His young wife is Florence Spritzler (Floss). Her tempestuous story is the other strand at the heart of the tale; a horse rider, she is loosely based on Louise Reay, but I don’t want to give too much more away. I’m very excited about this project.
†

Nick finally passed away in 2010. He was a much-loved friend, and it is an understatement to say that I miss him. He was fundamental to my career for so long, joining me in 1983 as in-house accountant for my music-publishing company and studios, moving on to being a commercial manager who worked closely with Who managers Bill Curbishley and Robert Rosenberg. At his funeral I met his baby daughter for the first time, whom he named Aminta after my own daughter.