ROGER DALTREY SAYS A WHO VIDEO GAME IS COMING NEXT YEAR

10/28/2009

Roger Daltrey says that the Who will be launching their own musical video game next year. The Who frontman told masslive.com, "The game, yeah, yeah, they're going to be doing a Who one next year. There is one planned. (The idea) is fabulous. Anything that gets non-musical people interested in music is wonderful. In my opinion, music is our last true great freedom. They can burn our books, they can burn our paintings, but they can't stop us singing and making music."

Daltrey did not specify whether the game would be released as part of the Rock Band or Guitar Hero lines.


Pete Townshend says that every few years a new set of fans discover the Who. He feels the band's latest career upswing was a direct result of their 2005 performance at London's Live 8 concert: "The music just tends to sort of last -- you know, we tend to get these renaissance where... like the most recent was when we played Live 8, and suddenly there's a whole new younger audience interested in what we do. They don't know much about us, but they're interested."


Getting the clearances for the Who's equipment will prove to be a tough task for the game's producers. Although throughout the band's career, Keith Moon faithfully played Premier drums, Pete Townshend and John Entwistle bounced around numerous different guitars and basses -- much like the Beatles did. George Harrison's son, Dhani Harrison, who played a crucial behind-the-scenes role in getting The Beatles: Rock Band off the ground, explains some of the snags in dealing with clearances: "It's obviously got to be as historically accurate as possible, which we achieved. I mean, part of my job was to go around with every single company and get clearances on everything. Y'know getting Rickenbacker -- we had over 20 different companies licensing their name and likeness. And before, if you look at Rock Band or if you look at Guitar Hero, there's only really Fender or Gibson that has licensed anything to the game. We had Ludwig, Martin, Fender, Gibson, Gretsch, Hofner -- y'know all of these different companies, getting them to work together, and a lot of them don't like each other."


Roger Daltrey's Use It Or Lose It solo tour rolls on tonight (October 28th) in Durham, North Carolina at the Durham Performing Arts Center. Daltrey will be on the road through the end of November.