Pete Townshend gave fans an update on the upcoming Who box set, which is currently in the works for later this year. Townshend told Mojo: “2021 would have been the 50th anniversary of the Who’s Next album and a good opportunity to do a box set and to have conversations about it. But we missed it for obvious reasons. And so in 2022, there is a box set and the box set is to some extent being perfumed by the fact that I’ve been working with a guy called Jeff Krelitz on a Lifehouse graphic novel, and we’re hoping that that will come out around the same time. There’s talk of a documentary, all of this stuff. It makes me want to run away (laughs).”
He touched upon the missing Who track from the era he mentioned in a recent Instagram post and gave an update on its inclusion on the set: “The record company had found a track they said was from the Lifehouse sessions. This track, called 'Ambition,' had Keith Moon, John Entwistle and me playing on it. And then I found a demo that I had done at home with a vocal. So they were like, 'Well, let’s just get Roger (Daltrey) to do a vocal on the version that the other guys in the band did, and we can add it to the record and it will be brand new.' So I spent a week reconstituting or finishing off the demo, sent it to the record company, and they said, 'Ahhhh, no. . . Maybe you could put it on a solo album?' So I said, 'Well, y'know, there’s reason it’s never been released before. It’s because it’s crap!'”
Pete Townshend recently appeared in a video for Britain's RadioX and answered “The Most-Googled Questions” about him. He spoke frankly about the relationship between artist and fan: “As a creative musician, you look to your audience and what you find your audience needs. It needs science — maybe not music. But if you can't give them the science, what do you give them? You give them hope, you give them uplift, you give them distraction.”
