Pete Townshend posted a photo of his new home studio on Instagram, and gave fans an update on his work on the next Who album. Townshend has been on a roll, with the band's 2019 WHO album, topping out at Number Two, and utilizing the pandemic to prep new material for the band.
Townshend posted on Instagram, “In lockdown I’ve been writing. But also finishing off a small but powerful old style new home studio at the very top of the house. All my first studios in the ‘60s were on top floors. This studio has taken me a very long time to complete and I’m still waiting to bring up the central 24 track tape machine. Why tape? Not for the sound. Rather for the process of recording demos in layers.”
He explained, “I want to emulate the work I did on the demos of Quadrophenia. A lot of that work would have been much easier with a computer, but maybe less loose and edgy. Using the same kind of equipment I used to write Q. Needless to say carrying all this gear up 100 stairs has kept me fit. Do any of you modern studio producers still work with tape? EVER!!?”
With the initial success of the Who's Tommy in 1969, Pete Townshend was dubbed rock's latest genius. He told us that he feels that the term is often thrown around too loosely: “I think that the music business and the press that surrounds the music business thinks that rock is a black art, magicians weaving this magic — and to some extent I suppose, I agree with them. Y'know. . . but I don't think that genius is a part of rock n' roll. I think it's an instinctive process, a bit like sport. If you can do it, you can do it. You don't often know why you can do it, but you can do it.”
