Pete Townshend Teases More from The Who as Roger Daltrey Maps Out a New Solo Tour

Pete Townshend has once again left the door open to future music from The Who, even as Roger Daltrey prepares to head out on a new solo run across the US later this year.

The latest speculation around the band comes after Townshend signed a deal with Primary Wave, an arrangement that will see the company work on “the exploitation of his name, image, and likeness and the development and exploitation of future creative projects” via Far Out. Outlets including Variety have suggested the deal may be worth nine figures, while Primary Wave says the possibilities around “branding and content opportunities” are “boundless”. They also said they were working with the guitarist to “establish a footprint across social media channels”.

Townshend, for his part, framed the agreement as something that could feed directly into his broader creative life. It was, he said, “a joy for me” and a way to move “forward with my creative and performative work”. He added: “Their entire team exhibit an energy that is truly stimulating. Challenging too. I need that. I write songs, stories and poetry, and even draw and paint almost every day of my life. I work with musicians and other creatives, and spend a lot of my time building charitable solutions for organisations that help young creative people grow and succeed in this very hard time. Music is my main medium.”

In the same statement, Townshend also suggested that there may still be more to come from The Who, despite the band having played what were billed as their final live shows last year. “Then there is Roger [Daltrey] and all my friends and colleagues in and around The Who. We are always trying to come up with SOMETHING special, and God Willing will continue to do that, hoping one day we can astound you the way we used to,” he wrote.

The exact shape of that “SOMETHING special” remains unclear, but the comments land in the wake of Townshend telling fans at the final show of The Who’s 2025 farewell tour that he was “sure we’ll get up to all kinds of mischief” and that the pair would continue to “do stuff together”. For a band whose end has been discussed almost as often as its catalogue, even that much sounds like movement.

Meanwhile, Daltrey has confirmed a new solo tour of his own. The dates will take him across the US later this year and will draw on material from his back catalogue. The run follows his semi-acoustic solo shows from the year before The Who’s farewell tour and has been billed as A Great Night Out.

He’ll be joined by guitarists Simon Townshend and Doug Boyle, mandolin player Billy Nicholls, percussionist Jody Linscott, bassist John Hogg and others. The tour begins August 23 at Mesa Arts Center in Mesa, AZ, and continues through September, including a rare appearance at New York City’s The Town Hall on September 27.

“Well it’s one more for the road. After finishing The Who’s final tour of the US, it’s time for me as a solo artist to possibly do the same,” Daltrey said, hinting that the dates could be among his last live shows. “After touring solo with different bands of musicians years, a less grueling life becomes more attractive, I’ll see.”

He went on: “With my present line up of nine musicians, I have this opportunity to see your beautiful country and enjoy the hospitality you have shown me over so many years. I’ll be off the backing tracks and always searching for different soundscapes to present the songs. It’s a lot of fun and gives me the chance to have a ‘Great Night Out’.”

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The Who have not announced any new music or live dates at the time of writing, and their last album remains 2019’s WHO. It was their first record in 13 years and only their second full-length since 1982, a long stretch that has shaped much of the conversation around the band in recent years.

That slow, stop-start late period has also been marked by frankness from Townshend. Last year he said that he and Daltrey “don’t communicate very well” and “have different needs as performers”, while also admitting the group now felt more like “a Who tribute band”. Before that, The Who had already said they would still reunite for the occasional charity gig or one-off event, even as Townshend made plain that he was worn down by the demands of the road, saying touring “doesn’t fill my soul.”

Outside of The Who, Townshend has been busy with Quadrophenia: A Rock Ballet on Broadway, and he has also floated the idea of revisiting his own music with the help of AI. Speaking to NME around the time the rock ballet moved toward Broadway, he was candid about the likelihood of a new Who record, saying: “I don’t think there is. If there was a need or a place for a Who album, could I write the songs for it within six weeks? Of course I fucking could, it’s a piece of cake. The problem is, I don’t think Roger wants to do it again.”

Daltrey, asked by NME in 2023 about the prospect of another album, was even blunter. “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago [2019’s ‘WHO’], and it did nothing,” he said. “It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don’t know why, but that’s the fact.”