Pete Townshend Artistfacts

May 19, 1945
Pete Townshend is the guitarist and main songwriter in The Who, but he's also released several solo albums. His biggest solo hit is "Let My Love Open The Door" from his 1980 album Empty Glass.
Townshend is known for smashing guitars rather violently on stage. The first one was an accident: The Who were playing a venue in London with low ceilings, and his guitar punctured it during one of his stage moves. The guitar was damaged and Pete was upset, so he finished the job by smashing it on the stage. Of course, the crowd went wild, so he incorporated that into his stage show.

Townshend also blames his parents for this behavior. They would fight a lot and often destroy household items in frustration, so Pete had that as a model.
His surname is one of the most misspelled in rock, often mistakenly rendered as "Townsend" to the chagrin of editors. It's not a very rock and roll name: Townshend means "dweller at the town's end" in olde English.
A life-changing movie for Townshend was Rock Around The Clock in 1956, which introduced a lot of teenagers to rock and roll. Townshend was 12 years old when it came to his local theater. He saw it three times in a week.
His oversized nose gave him motivation to write songs, play guitar and flail about on stage. He said he was trying to "make people look at my body instead of my face."
Townshend went to Ealing Art College in London from 1961-1964. He had an American roommate there named Tom Wright who introduced him to artists like Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry and various Motown acts. When Wright was expelled for drug possession, he left his record collection behind for Pete.
The highest The Who ever got on the Hot 100 was #9 with "I Can See For Miles," the same chart position as Townshend's solo hit "Let My Love Open The Door." In the UK The Who placed 13 songs in the Top 10 but never hit the top spot. Townshend, though, did produce and play bass on a UK #1 hit: "Something In The Air" by Thunderclap Newman from 1969. The connection was Thunderclap Newman's drummer, John "Speedy" Keen, who was friends with Pete.
In the '60s and '70s he bucked fashion trends by wearing baggy pants ("baggies"). He did this for a practical reason: to hide the kneepads he wore for cushioning when he did kneeling slides across the stage.
Of all the songs he's written, Townshend rates "Love, Reign O'er Me" from The Who's 1973 rock opera Quadrophenia the highest, as he revealed on his 2025 The Late Show with Stephen Colbert appearance. He considers "Let My Love Open The Door" his top song as a solo artist.

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