1964-Pete TownshendGuitar, vocals
Roger DaltreyLead vocal
John EntwistleBass, vocals1964-2002
Keith MoonDrums1964-1978
Kenney JonesDrums1978-1988
Simon PhillipsDrums1989
Zak StarkeyDrums1996-2025
In 1969 they created Tommy, the first successful rock opera.
They played Woodstock but hated it. John Entwistle said it was "probably the worst-ever festival experience we ever had."
Before they were The Who they were The Detours, then The High Numbers.
They started out as a cover band, performing American R&B songs.
Roger Daltrey was kicked out of the band in 1965 after a fight with Keith Moon (Daltrey flushed his drugs down the toilet because he felt it was affecting his performance). Daltrey apologized, and three days later they took him back.
They made the Guinness Book of World Records for loudest concert for a show in London on May 31, 1976. The record was beaten several times before Guinness stopped listing it because too many people were losing their hearing.
Keith Moon died on September 7, 1978 after taking a lethal combination of sleeping pills and alcohol. He died in the same apartment in London where Mama Cass Elliott from the Mamas And The Papas died four years earlier. The apartment was owned by Harry Nilsson, who let friends stay there when they came to London. After Moon's death, Nilsson never came back.
"Thunderfingers" and "The Ox" were among nicknames given to bassist John Entwistle.
They left their first manager, Pete Meaden, to sign with film directors Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp. Meaden died a few years later of a drug overdose.
Entwistle was found dead in his Las Vegas hotel room on June 27, 2002. The band was to begin a tour the next day, and while they postponed the first dates, The Who did the tour anyway. A coroner's report found that Entwistle was doing cocaine before he died.
On December 3, 1979, 11 people were killed and dozens of others were injured at the Riverfront Coliseum in Cincinnati when concertgoers were trampled while attempting to enter the arena for a Who concert. Apparently the band members were on stage warming up and people outside waiting thought they were starting the show. Only a few doors leading inside the building were opened, prompting a stampede to gain entry. The Who, as well as venue officials, the promoter and the city, were all sued and found liable for the mishap. This led to a ban of "festival seating" in Cincinnati.
The Who didn't play another show in Cincinnati until May 15, 2022. At that show, they paid tribute to the victims by displaying their names and photos on screens as they played an extended version of "
Love, Reign O'er Me."
In 1983 Daltrey acted in The BBC's adaptation of Shakespeare's play The Comedy Of Errors. He played twins, both named Drumio, which are servants of another set of twins, both named Antipholus.
Daltrey is the only original member who never had a problem with substance abuse - he stuck with marijuana. He also stands out in the rock rubric for his marriage: He's been with his wife, Heather, since 1971.
Al Kooper in
Backstage Passes and Backstabbing Bastards talks about seeing The Who perform live for the first time. Kooper was watching "to see what all the fuss was about" from the wings when The Who did "My Generation" as the closing act during a 1967 event. First Pete Townsend smashed the guitar into an amp, then a mike stand, then the stage floor, before it was finally destroyed. Then Keith Moon kicked over his entire drum stand and the curtain came down on a cloud of artificial smoke. How did The Who pay for all this? Kooper reports that between shows, The Who's roadie, Bob Pridden, would be in the dressing room, gluing guitar bits and drum kits back together while constructing smoke bombs and signing microphone repair bills.
They played at halftime of Super Bowl XLIV on February 7, 2010 in Miami, Florida. Their 12-minute set included parts of "Pinball Wizard," "Baba O'Riley," "Who Are You," "See Me, Feel Me" and "Won't Get Fooled Again." Daltrey and Townshend were backed by Zak Starkey on drums and Pino Palladino on bass.
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Suggestion credit:
Bertrand - Paris, France
While answering fans' questions on thewho.com, Pete Townshend revealed that he actually preferred playing with Keith Moon's replacement Kenney Jones above Moon. Daltrey was vehemently opposed to naming anyone Moon's replacement, preferring to change drummers on a project-to-project basis. After being out-voted by Townshend and Entwistle, he reluctantly approved Jones joining the band, yet openly criticized his drumming as being wrong for the Who.
On February 8th, 1988 the Who performed for the last time with Jones when the band reunited for a three-song set at London's Royal Albert Hall during the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) awards, after receiving the prestigious lifetime achievement award. Ringo Starr's son Zak Starkey has been the Who's unofficial full-time drummer since 1996. Although Townshend and Daltrey have offered him a permanent spot as the Who's third official drummer, he has declined, preferring to remain a free agent.
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Suggestion credit:
Mark Clark - Rochester, MN
The Who Are You album was released just three weeks before Keith Moon died. The cover photo shows the band, with Moon sitting on a chair that has the words "Not To Be Taken Away" on the back of it.
Keith Moon's ashes were scattered in Golders Green Crematorium, London. His plaque reads "There is no substitute." Marc Bolan's remains are next door to his.
The band split up at the end of 1982 and didn't tour again until 1996, when they reconvened to once again play Quadrophenia. According to Townshend, the impetus for the tour was John Entwistle's financial problems - he had fallen on hard times, and the only way for him to make a lot of money was to perform with The Who. The group kept at it after this tour, entering another phase of their career.
Asked by Mojo what was the first song that he wrote, Pete Townshend replied: "My friend Graham Beard and I were about 11, and we went to see some Bill Haley movies when we were on holiday. So we wrote some songs - the only one I remember was called Bubbles. Then I got a guitar, at around 12 years old and started to try to put music to these songs we'd put together."
The most expensive drum kit ever sold at an auction is a five-piece Premier set used by Keith Moon from 1968 to 1970. It fetched more than $252,000 at Christie's in 2004.
In the early days of The Who, Roger Daltrey worked in a sheet metal factory and made the band's guitars himself.
During a Who concert on May 16, 1969 at New York City's Fillmore East, a man rushed the stage and tried to take the microphone. Roger Daltrey punched him in the face, and Pete Townshend kicked him in the crotch. The man was actually a plain-clothes policeman trying to warn them that the grocery store next door was in the midst of a five-alarm blaze. Townshend was later arrested.
The band's manager Bill Curbishley told The London Times that the 2012 Olympic Committee asked him to have Keith Moon perform the opening ceremonies. Curbishley quipped, "I emailed back saying Keith now resides in Golders Green Crematorium, having lived up to the Who's anthemic line 'I hope I die before I get old' ... If they have a round table, some glasses and candles, we might contact him."
Keith Moon had been dead for 34 years.
Regarding his professional relationship with Pete Townshend, Daltrey noted to AARP The Magazine, "He's a totally different animal than I am. He's earth; I'm water. Between the two of us, we make things grow."
Pete Townshend was bad tempered about The Who's debut album,
My Generation. In the December 3, 1965
Record Mirror, he called "
the title track "rubbish" and he said of "
I'm A Man," "I hate this." "
The Kids Are Alright" was his favorite song.
Roger Daltrey was knighted in 2025. He was honored in the King's Birthday Honours List for his services to music and charity, particularly for his extensive work with the Teenage Cancer Trust, which he has supported for several decades.
