Roger Daltrey is not comfortable with getting any pushback on social media. The Who belongs to him and Pete Townshend, and if they want to fire someone, they can, thinks the vocalist. That is 100 percent true, but it is how the person is terminated that matters.
The oddness of the situation stems from long-time drummer Zak Starkey being fired after a March 30 benefit concert went bad. Daltrey was horribly off-key during the gig, and the band sounded bad. Daltrey blamed what happened on Starkey's bass drum being so loud that the singer could not get his pitch correct.
Instead of fixing the issue for next time, Daltrey appears to have fired Starkey, or didn't fire him and Starkey quit, or Pete Townshend fired Starkey, or something else. The Who made a mess of the situation. To compound things, Starkey appears to have been brought back for a short time, only to be fired again.
The Who's Roger Daltrey can't stop talking about Zak Starkey
Zak Starkey, drummer for the Who for 29 years and son of Ringo Starr, has been the only person in the mess who has remained consistent in what happened. He said he got a call that he was fired, something completely unexpected, and is a scapegoat for a one-off problem the Who had during a concert.
The whole situation appears to have been overblown, with a lot of the blame for that falling on Roger Daltrey.
In a recent talk with The Sunday Times, however, the singer doubled down on not taking any blame, as he said, "(The sound) is controlled by a guy on the side, and we had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn't pitch. I was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at (Starkey) because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn't. That's all that happened."
As far as fans blaming Daltrey for the fallout, he said, "It was kind of a character assassination, and it was incredibly upsetting. Pete and I retain the right to be The Who. Everyone else is a session player."
OK. Let's be real. While Zak Starkey is never going to be known as the Who's drummer (that moniker belongs to the late Keith Moon), any person who has played with a band for three decades is much more than just a "session player." He is a part of the band.
Secondly, fans reacting to Daltrey's actions of firing Starkey, re-hiring him, and then firing him again, isn't character assassination. They are simply expressing a widely held view of how the vocalist handled the events with the drummer.
Roger Daltrey also said he is nervous about being able to complete the band's current tour. Nearly a decade ago, he was diagnosed with meningitis, which makes it difficult for Daltrey to control his body temperature, and this could affect him having the stamina to go on with the tour. Who knows? Maybe Zak Starkey will get blamed for that, too.