Legendary Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member and front man for the Who Roger Daltrey has a solo North American tour on June 10. So he stopped by Bill Maher‘s Real Time on Friday to do some reminiscing on his long career and what comes next.
After thanking Daltrey “for all the entertainment over the years,” Maher got right to the point: “I don’t remember seeing you with a shirt,” he said, offering a brief montage of Daltrey in his prime, sans shirt.
“A little bit too much information,” Daltrey said, and then admitted, “I get incredibly hot when I sing. It’s like a furnace.” Still, he allowed, at 80 years old, he’s more likely to keep the shirt on this time around.
They tripped down memory lane, with Daltrey revealing the iconic cover of Who’s Next was a composite of an obelisk holding up a slag heap, which in turn led to a pissing contest among the band members.
Maher asked whether his longtime bandmate, Pete Townshend, appreciates Daltrey. “People don’t listen to songwriters. They listen to songs,” Maher prompted.
“We’re still together,” Daltrey said, allowing that “there’s always been friction. But I think he knows.” Daltrey made the case that the friction drove the art. “We existed on friction,” he said. “That’s where any good creation comes from.” Bands, he said, “are really about chemistry.”
Daltrey showed his age when he referred to being in a band in his younger days as the only straight guy with “three addicts,” and how they would consume vast amounts of whatever was in front of them.
One of his plans beyond the tour is concluding a biopic of the late Who drummer Keith Moon, whom Daltrey said was “extraordinarily talented. He was fantastic. They called him sloppy, but he was anything but.” Daltrey allowed that Moon was a “rollercoaster” at times, but said the biopic would be “joyous, it’s tragic, there’s so much narrative. I want to put it on the screen.”
Daltrey was born in a tube station during WWII, and his family lived in the rubble and suffered poverty for 15 to 20 years after that. His first guitar was something he made himself, since there was no money to purchase one. But when the Who formed, they used huge cabinets as a way to impress their crowd that they were talented, he said.
His favorite song to sing after all these years? After some hemming and hawing, Daltrey nominated Love, Reign o’er Me by the Who.
This week’s panel discussion featured Kellyanne Conway, former senior counselor to President Trump, Fox News contributor, and author of the #1 New York Times Best Seller, Here’s the Deal: A Memoir, and Joshua Green, Bloomberg Businessweek national correspondent and author of The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and the Struggle for a New American Politics.
The panel argued about abortion, the 2016 and 2020 presidential elections and how 2024 is shaping up, and the state of the economy. Conway dominated the conversation, getting some zingers in and keeping Maher back on his heels throughout.
Maher’s “New Rules” editorial focused on the shortcomings of attorney general Merrick Garland, whose slow reactions Maher likened to “if the 405 was a person,” a reference to the notoriously crowded Los Angeles freeway. Watch the video above for the complete take.
Editor’s note: Roger Daltrey was misquoted in an earlier version of the story. His quote has been amended. We apologize for the error.