Sir Roger Daltrey on The Who, his band at The Piece Hall in Halifax and enjoying silence

“I listen to the silence,” he laughs.

“What little I’ve got left of my hearing, after John Entwistle finished with my right ear and Townshend finished with my left, I want to keep.”

“What little I’ve got left of my hearing, after John Entwistle finished with my right ear and Townshend finished with my left, I want to keep.”

If he’s putting something on the stereo, it’ll probably be baroque classical music, he says. But if he’s cooking dinner, he quite likes to stick some classic rock hits on the television to filter through from the next room.

“I can pretend I’m 21 again,” says the frontman – perhaps even the ultimate example of that role – who is now 81.

It would be a sorry classic rock selection without something by The Who, one of the major British bands of the 20th century – an explosive musical force which gave us unforgettable tracks such as The Kids Are Alright, Behind Blue Eyes, Won’t Get Fooled Again, Baba O’Riley, Who Are You and Pinball Wizard .

My Generation, their first album, named after another of their biggest songs, was released almost 60 years ago.

That comes as disturbing news. “I didn't realise it was 60 years, it feels like yesterday,” says Sir Roger, whose knighthood for services to music and charity – he is a major part of the Teenage Cancer Trust – was announced as part of the King’s Birthday Honours last week, after this interview.

He is talking to The Yorkshire Post from Sussex, his home of many years – “it's a forgotten part of the country, which is why I like it” – ahead of a date with his own nine-piece band at The Piece Hall in Halifax on July 30.

As well as his solo material, the audience can expect Who numbers, but not as they know them. “Everybody wants to hear the big Who hits. I'm attached to The Who, I can't escape that, so I give it to them but we don't do it the way The Who do it. We do Substitute, for instance, with a piano accordion solo” – he is chuckling at the very idea – “a squeezebox solo and a harmonica solo. It’s just very different and for some reason or other it opens up the lyrical content of the songs, which is very important in those songs. It freshens up the ears, makes you listen.

“And we do the same thing with Won't Get Fooled Again, for instance, we do the same intro, it's the same notes, but it's played on instruments, on a squeezebox or violin. It's really interesting, the things we do with the songs.”

Won’t Get Fooled Again, alongside the likes of Baba O’Riley, incorporated hypnotic synthesiser parts, but Sir Roger is enjoying the alternative approach.

“It's wonderful to be able to play songs that you've played for a long time, but play them in a different manner, with different voicings on the instruments, with no tapes and no synthesisers – everything’s done on instruments. It's just wonderful to have that freedom.”

If only he could get rid of smartphones, too, just as Bob Dylan did when Sir Roger saw him in concert before Christmas last year.

“I think people in the audience filming aren't listening as intently as they would if they were just listening,” he says.

There’s the familiar name of Townshend in Sir Roger’s band, but it’s Pete’s younger brother.

“Simon Townshend has been with me in every band I've ever had, doing solo shows,” says Sir Roger, adding that he is “every bit as good a guitarist as Pete and every bit as good a singer, and a wonderful guy to work with.”

The band features other old friends too: John Hogg on bass, Doug Boyle on guitar, Steve Weston on harmonica, Jody Linscott on percussion, Billy Nicholls on backing vocals, Katie Jacoby on violin, Geraint Watkins on keyboard and Scott Devours on drums.

New music by The Who – the last album, WHO, came out in 2019 – doesn’t sound likely anytime soon.

Sir Roger says he has to be inspired and hasn’t spoken to Pete Townshend – the only other living original member of the band after the deaths of drummer Keith Moon in 1978 and bassist John Entwistle in 2002 – about the prospect.

Is it right that they don’t actually talk that much in general?

"No, we don’t talk that much. I do find it difficult to sometimes understand what Pete's trying to communicate because he changes like the tide.”

Very different, naturally, from the youthful energy that propelled them through the 1960s and 1970s, a whirlwind period during which they became icons of the British Invasion, performed at legendary concerts like Woodstock, wrote rock operas Tommy and Quadrophenia, and recorded the famous Live at Leeds album from the University of Leeds Refectory in 1970.

“When you look back on our workload during those early years, how we ever survived it, I do not know,” says Sir Roger. “I mean, you’d look at where we are in the country. I say we're in Southend one day and we're in almost John O’Groats the next, and this was before any motorways or anything. How did we do it? We were sometimes doing three shows a day, things like that. It was extraordinary and the one thing I always remember, about almost every album cover we ever shot, the photographer always wanted us up too early.

"Anything before two o'clock in the afternoon was too early because you hadn't got to bed until four in the morning.”

What does he think set The Who apart from their peers?

“The rhythmic chemistry is very, very different than most rock bands, for sure. And we kind of subconsciously realised that we had to be something different than the Stones. We couldn't be the Beatles, we couldn't be the Stones and we couldn't be the Kinks. How do we become what we are? Fortunately, at that time, there was the mod movement coming through, and they took us as their band - I don't know why - but they did and it worked.”

Sir Roger Daltrey performs as part of the TK Maxx presents Live at The Piece Hall 2025 series on July 30. Tickets: www.thepiecehall.co.uk/event/roger-daltrey