Roger Daltrey Considers New Solo Album

How do you put together a solo album when people are used to hearing your voice used as a conduit for one of rock's greatest songwriters? It's a nice problem to have, but it's also keeping Roger Daltrey from rushing into recording new solo music.

Rolling Stone caught up with the Who singer after a recent solo show, and talk turned to his career outside of the sporadically active band. "A singer has to sing," he maintained. "The Who don't do enough gigs for me. If I stop singing at the age I am now, my voice will be gone within two years. So I've got to keep it going. It's like a car engine you've got to keep running."

As for whether that engine will find him running into the studio, Daltrey is less certain. "I'm looking at doing a solo album, mainly because I want to keep singing, and I don't want to keep going out and doing Who songs, though that's what people want at the shows I do," he admitted. "I go out and do corporate gigs. I keep a band together, and they pay the wages, so I would like to do an album."

But the problem is putting together a collection of songs strong enough to stand up against the classics he's already been a part of. "Whatever I do, the songs will be criticized unless they've got the Who's meat and potatoes, because I've sung [Pete] Townshend all those years," Daltrey mused. "If I can get the songs, I'll do something. I've got an idea that I'm working with."

And as for another new record from the Who? "You never know," Daltrey shrugged. "Pete's the kind of guy who could suddenly write a load of songs and he'll say, 'Let's go in and record them.' And then there'll be another album." Laughing about the long gap between the most recent Who record, 2005's 'Endless Wire,' and its predecessor, he concluded, "The last one's, what, '82 to 2005? 23 years. I haven't got 23 years now, but you never know."