Townshend Delays Who CD

Who fans anxiously awaiting a new album may have to wait indefinitely, according to Pete Townshend. Though the guitarist had hoped he and Roger Daltrey would begin recording a disc tentatively called Who2 in 2006, Townshend now says that the process of writing songs worthy of the Who could take another five years or more. In a recent post on his Web site, he compares his songwriting to reproduction, saying that for every ten songs he writes, just one is "right for fertilization by Roger"; and for every ten they record, "four sadly die at birth."

According to Townshend's calculus, he is required to demo more than fifty songs just to get one finished Who track, and each demo costs him close to $900 to produce. "If I keep at it," he writes, "with luck we should see a great new Who record before I drop dead."

Though Townshend's remarks might sound as if he's prepping fans for the worst, he tells Rolling Stone that the situation isn't so dire: "Read it again," he says. "It doesn't say there will never be any new Who songs at all. It says I've been writing for ten years, and it may take fifteen."

SOURCE: RollingStone