Roger Daltrey is doubtful The Who will 'ever come back to tour America'

Toward the end of The Who’s 2019 concert at Wembley Stadium, Roger Daltrey hauls out the depths of his voice for “Love, Reign O’er Me.”

It’s a breathtaking moment not only because of the song’s classic status from 1973’s “Quadrophenia” rock opera, but also because of what it represents: Roger Daltrey can still belt.

“I screw myself into a ball and whatever comes out, comes out,” Daltrey, 79, says of his approach to the song. “It’s the primal feeling more than the notes.”

That show – the first time The Who headlined Wembley in 40 years – is captured on the new “The Who with Orchestra: Live at Wembley.” The 20 songs, from set opener “Who Are You” to a raucous “Baba O'Riley,” are vigorously delivered by Daltrey, co-Who maestro and guitarist Pete Townshend, their longtime cast of touring musicians including Simon Townshend on guitar and Zak Starkey on drums, and on most tracks, a 50-piece orchestra.

A few months after the Wembley concert, Daltrey underwent vocal cord surgery to preserve his muscular singing. He says he's fine now, under the watchful maintenance of his longtime surgeon at Mass General in Boston.

In addition to The Who’s latest live opus, Daltrey just spearheaded the annual Teenage Cancer Trust concert to benefit the namesake U.K. charity he’s championed since 2000, enlisting performances from British musicians Richard Ashcroft, Jake Bugg and Wet Leg (“They just have something fresh,” Daltrey said of the recent Grammy winners).

In conversation, the engaging frontman is alternately jokey and reflective as he talks about The Who at its live peak, the chaos of internet debates and why the band will likely never tour America again.

Question: This album has a different feel to it, even compared to The Who’s other live recordings. Is it just the way the orchestra gelled with the band at this particular show?

Answer: Why it works together is we’re playing better than ever. We can hear what we have to turn down – not that it’s quieter out front (in the audience), but quieter on stage and we’re letting the PA system do the volume. The Who has always been best as a live group, and we’re still flying the flag for that and I think we’re still doing a good job of it.

Why do you think you’re playing better than ever now?

We’re enjoying it. You know, Pete can’t quite jump 10 foot in the air anymore. He can do 3 foot, so he’s not bad! (Laughs) I don’t swing the microphone hardly at all now because it doesn’t matter to the sound anymore. Before, when all of those things used to work, it was a circus act. We’re more than that now. I’m proud that our music has come of age and I think you could say this is the most modern classical music out there. When I did the classical version of “Tommy” (in 2019), I realized “Tommy” is one of the best operas ever written. Underneath those classic rock songs he wrote, Pete always wrote in a classical form.

There are many highlights on this album, especially the horns on “Pinball Wizard” and “Ball and Chain.”

The most important thing about this album is to try to hear it on vinyl on a stereo system – that’s when you get the total benefit of real instruments. There’s something about a real instrument, the way it reacts with a human ear and the human body, it creates a whole different feel to a synthesized instruments. You can have synthesized strings, but it won’t do the same to your emotion as a proper violin or a proper cello would. There’s something about a real orchestra that makes your hair stand on end.

You’re doing The Who Hits Back shows in Europe this summer. Any plans to return to the U.S.?

Nothing at the moment. I don’t know if we’ll ever come back to tour America. There is only one tour we could do, an orchestrated "Quadrophenia” to round out the catalog. But that’s one tall order to sing that piece of music, as I’ll be 80 next year. I never say never, but at the moment it’s very doubtful.

Touring has become very difficult since COVID. We cannot get insured and most of the big bands doing arena shows, by the time they do their first show and rehearsals and get the staging and crew together, all the buses and hotels, you’re upwards $600,000 to a million in the hole. To earn that back, if you’re doing a 12-show run, you don’t start to earn it back until the seventh or eighth show. That’s just how the business works. The trouble now is if you get COVID after the first show, you’ve (lost) that money.

Pete makes some comments on the new album about activism before “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” basically that a musician’s job is to play and leave the activism to the activists. Where do you stand on activism?

It’s all right as long as it keeps its head; there’s a little too much of it now. What worries me more than anything in the world is the shutting down of open debate, mainly through bullying on the internet. It’s aggressive bullying. All of the big issues society has to face, like climate change, they’ve shut down one side of that debate and science is not about shutting things down, it’s about opening them up. I am amazed at the size of our ego, the human race, the tiny whatever we are on this planet, but we’re going to control the temperature? Whose leg are you pulling? But you’re not allowed to talk about it or you’ll be a right-wing fascist or you’re a left-wing fanatic and that’s incredibly dangerous. All the internet has done is make us appreciate things a lot less. As far as social media goes, some of it is like the seeds of the end of civilization.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Roger Daltrey of The Who doubts band will tour the US again