“I said, ‘How you doing?’ and he said, ‘Pete, I’m broke’”: Pete Townshend recalls the final time he spoke to Jimi Hendrix, weeks before his death
It’s often – correctly – assumed that with fame and icon status comes fortune. But it’s not always a given. If such an artist is mishandled by labels, management and other officials who cover the business side of music, the money can quickly dry up.
And as Pete Townshend says in a new interview with NME, The Who were certainly subject to their share of mismanagement and business executives taking excess royalties in their day.
READ MORE: Pete Townshend says The Who are “not a band”: “It’s a group of musicians that Roger has chosen”
Asked whether it still makes sense for established artists to make new albums, Townshend replies: “Haha! It’s never been about the money. The Who never made any money from fucking records anyway. Our managers were criminals. I’d never seen a Who royalty statement prior to our first audit, which we did while we were making Quadrophenia.
“It emerged that Kit Lambert [former manager of The Who] had stolen all of my Italian publishing royalties to buy himself a palace in Venice. There are black swans in our business, and they’re the ones that always mop up all the money.
He goes on to recall an encounter he had with late guitar icon Jimi Hendrix in during the final two weeks of his life.
“I saw him in LA in the last two weeks of his life,” he remembers. “He was happy, he was really nice to me, and he hadn’t always been in the past. I said, ‘How you doing?’ and he said, ‘Pete, I’m broke.’ He was huge, and he was broke.
Townshend adds, though, that he was never in the business for the money. “I lived in a little house in Twickenham by the Thames, I was happy to be by the water. I had one car. I had a tiny little studio, I was really happy. I had a beautiful wife, lovely kids, great friends and never wanted for anything really, except some time to myself and some time to have with my family.
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Source: www.guitar-bass.net
