Name: Roger Daltrey Says The Who Probably Won't Reunite | Letterman
Uploaded: 2024-07-05T22:08:10.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Roger Daltrey Says The Who Probably Won't Reunite | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-05. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Roger Daltrey Says The Who Probably Won't Reunite | Letterman' from Letterman on Comedy Buff. Published 2024-07-05. Transcript available.

My next guest was the lead singer for one of the most popular rock and roll
bands in the world.
He has also been acclaimed for his acting in such films as Tommy and such plays
as Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors.
Tomorrow night, this man will be a presenter at the first annual MTV Music
Awards.
Please welcome Roger Daltrey.
Yeah, Roger, how are you? Good to see you.
Yes, Eric.
That's good.
That's great.
Nice to see you.
Thank you very much.
Thanks for being here.
That's great.
That's exciting, isn't it?
But you're accustomed to that, aren't you?
It's been a long time now.
It's been two years since I was last on stage.
Yeah, well, they love you, and it's nice to hear it.
It's great.
Now, I was just told you were across the hall doing Live at Five, the Channel 4
show here in New York City.
And afterwards, somebody asked you for an autographed picture.
That's right.
Now, what was the deal there?
They'd just been downstairs to buy this photo, and they were sold a photograph,
and it was said it was the last photo they had of the Who.
And it was Led Zeppelin.
It won't get fooled again.
Did you sign it?
Of course.
Yeah, sure.
Why not?
Now, tomorrow night, the big night.
This is really going to be something, isn't it?
Is it?
Everybody seems...
I know nothing about it.
I mean, I'd just come and present a prize.
What category are you presenting?
I don't know.
I'll find out later.
They're doing a rehearsal, supposedly, today.
Now, this is a major thing.
You and other big stars from the music industry are going to be there, right?
Yes, supposedly.
It's well, you know.
It's MTV, you know.
Anything could happen.
Do you like videos?
I don't think you, as a band, you guys did many, did you?
We did a few, but, I mean, I'm not a real fan of videos.
Really?
I mean, I like watching other people do them.
I don't like doing them myself.
Why don't you like doing them yourself?
I think good music should be left to the imagination,
and I think videos take something away.
Yeah.
But, you know, I'm not knocking MTV,
because I think they're providing a service,
and, you know, the good videos are good.
Yeah, well, I guess it could go both ways.
I mean, if you had no association mentally with the song,
the video could provide you with one.
On the other hand, it might be nice to conjure your own.
There's that wonderful skit that Not the Nine O'Clock News did,
which is a nice video, a shame about the song,
and the business seems to have become that.
Yeah.
You know, the video seems to be sometimes more important.
Well, it's big business now,
and you're going to be in the center of it tomorrow night, buddy.
I am now.
I'm writing it.
Speaking of big business,
you're quite an entrepreneur yourself, aren't you?
Well, I suppose so.
Yeah, what other things do you have going on
besides your films, your plays, acting, music?
I've got a farm, which I've had for about ten years,
which I actually did work for a year.
An actual working farm?
I bought this farm, and I thought,
well, I must find out about farming.
Yeah.
So I actually took a year out and farmed for a year.
Yeah, what sort of things did you...
God, it was boring.
And then I built some lakes,
because I always promised myself that I would have a place
that I could fish at the bottom of the garden.
So I built these lakes and stopped them with trout,
and a friend of mine came down and he said,
you can't have all this for yourself.
So I thought about it, and I thought,
he's probably right, you know,
because England's not a very big country.
Can I ask you how big the property was?
I've got 300 acres.
Oh, yeah.
Well, she's not a big farm by English standards now.
Oh, really?
You can just...
About urban living off of that now, with modern farming.
But anyway, so I decided to open these trout lakes for a fishery,
and people come fishing, that's great.
You know, folks, families come in for the weekend,
by the hour?
They come for the day.
What do you charge them to come in?
They buy a ticket,
and that entitles them to catch four fish,
if they're lucky.
And those four fish, you know,
they could catch four fish that weigh 12 pound each,
or they could...
What's the biggest fish they've hauled out of there?
This year, I think the biggest was about 16 pounds.
That's pretty good.
That's a good trout.
Yeah.
Now, what do they pay to get into fish here?
It's 12 pounds 50 a day,
which is about $18.
Probably about $12 now.
I haven't seen a pound today.
But it's about $18.
So it's not bad.
So they could conceivably go in there
and get four giant fish.
It's not a bad deal.
They could come out with probably 40 pounds worth of fish.
Yeah, yeah.
But it works out an average of...
Now, that's a very...
2.5 fish per person.
2.5?
Yes.
It's funny it works out like that.
That's a very...
I would not have thought of doing that
to make a lot of money.
There's a lot to learn about fish.
I mean, there's a lot to be learned from fish.
Is trout primarily?
Trout, yeah.
All right.
Whoa!
Very nice.
How does it feel to be a Shakespearean actor now?
That was a great experience.
Yeah, I would guess so.
Yeah, it was great.
It seems to me like anybody who decides to do that
not necessarily coming from a theatrical background
or even coming from a theatrical background
is really asking for trouble.
But you did very well on it.
It was...
Yeah, it was...
I was so naive.
I know nothing about it.
Yeah.
And my agent phoned up and said,
do you want to go up for this part,
the comedy of errors?
I said, what's that?
He said, well, it's by Shakespeare.
And I said, oh, no.
Oh, God.
I can't stand Shakespeare.
But I went up.
He said, well, yeah.
He said, go for it.
He said, because it's a good play
and you might learn to like it.
So I looked at it
and I went for the audition.
Yeah.
And to my surprise,
I actually got it.
And once I started working on it,
I just fell in love.
You did fall in love with him.
Oh, yeah.
He's quite good, you know.
I think he'll make it.
And you also got nice reviews for your work,
which is...
That's got to be really nice.
Yeah, they were good to me.
Yeah, very good to me.
Now, when you were working with The Who,
by the way,
will that ever happen again?
Will the group ever perform?
Well, I don't know.
I mean, Pete doesn't want to do it with The Who,
but he changes his mind a lot.
Yeah.
I don't think so,
but you never know.
I think I'll work with Pete again.
Now, when you guys were at the end of it,
was there any friction?
Could you get along all right?
Was any of that a problem?
The friction kept us alive.
It kept us creative.
It's when we started to get along
that it all started to go wrong.
That's true.
We were all so busy
trying to get on with each other
that we forgot about
what we were there to do sometimes.
Yeah, but you're saying
you and Pete Townsend
will probably work again,
but maybe not as The Who.
No, I don't think
that it's important that it's The Who.
I think I find it very hard
to find rock and roll music
that fulfills me
as a singer
after singing Townsend lyrics
for 20 years.
He's a fabulous writer.
He's brilliant.
Do you have,
after your experience with Shakespeare,
do you have a different perspective
on rock and roll?
Has it changed a little bit?
Does it seem a little less significant,
about the same, more?
No, it's, uh,
yeah, I find that rock and roll
doesn't accommodate
the feelings of middle age very easily.
I mean, I don't feel the same.
Rock and roll insists
that I perform and behave
like I did 20 years ago.
And I don't feel like that anymore.
And it's,
and that's what I don't like about it.
Yeah, yeah.
All right.
Uh, listen,
tomorrow night,
I'll be watching
the first annual MTV Music Awards.
And you're not sure what category?
No, I think it's the
best performance video.
All right, all right.
How many categories
can you get for videos?
I don't know.
I guess the color,
black and white.
Yeah, black and white.
On and on.
What should be fun?
The amount of, uh,
nice, tasty ladies.
Yeah.
There's plenty of them on there.
Yes, sir.
Roger Daltrey,
nice meeting you, Roger.
Thank you very much.
Well, uh,
we'll be back, bro.