The Who’s Roger Daltrey on the one time he smashed a guitar: “That was like killing the wife”

nme.com:

The Who‘s Roger Daltrey has opened up about the one time he smashed a guitar and compared it to “killing his wife”.The rock icon has shared that he has only broken one of his instruments in his life which he regrets and likened the moment to the idea of murdering his wife.

While appearing as a guest on Shawn Keaveny’s Daily Grind podcast, the 80-year-old musician said: “[Fans] never came to hear the music, they came to see the guitar being broken.”He continued: “The trouble is the guitar was worth 50 gigs.

I’ve only ever smashed one guitar and I’m really sorry I did it. I don’t know why, just this thing came over me. I’ve always regretted it – I thought ‘I shouldn’t have done that, that was like killing the wife.’ ”A post shared by Shaun Keaveny (@shaunkeavenysdailygrind)In his 2018 memoir, Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story, Daltrey spoke about his bandmate and The Who frontman Pete Townshend‘s passion for destroying guitars and admitted that he hates seeing Towshend smash such expensive instruments.“It was heartbreaking.

When I remembered how much I’d struggled to get my first guitars, it was like watching an animal being slaughtered. An expensive animal that we’d have to replace with another expensive animal before the next gig,” he wrote in his book.He continued: “And we had to pay for the hole in the ceiling … from then on, the audience expected us to break our instruments.