The Who’s Roger Daltrey accuses Zak Starkey of “character assassination” after drummer’s firing

The Who’s Roger Daltrey has accused Zak Starkey of “character assassination” over comments the drummer made about his firing from the band.

• READ MORE: Zak Starkey on being sacked from The Who, dreams of playing with Oasis, and advice for Barry Keoghan playing Ringo Starr

Starkey’s time with The Who came to an end in May after a confusing period of contradictory reports, with Pete Townshend finally confirming that “the time has come for a change”.

Starkey – who is the son of Ringo Starr – had been the full-time sticksman for The Who since 1996, but after a series of four shows at the Royal Albert Hall for the Teenage Cancer Trust in March, frictions between him and the rest of the band appeared to emerge.

In June, Starkey told NME: “Roger demanded a public apology and me admitting that I dropped two beats. So I did it, but with a duck playing drums – which is my character in the new Mantra Of The Cosmos video. Pete phoned me and he went, ‘Try that again without the duck’. I did it without the duck, got the gig back – 10 days later, sacked again. Roger said he couldn’t work with me no more after I’d done that.”

Townshend said in April that there had been “some communication issues, personal and private on all sides, that needed to be dealt with”, but did say at the time that they had been “aired happily”. He added that he and Daltrey had informed Starkey that they wanted him to “tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line-up”, which he said at the time the drummer had “readily agreed” to do.

After he was let go, however, Starkey disputed Daltrey’s assertion that he had not been fired but had instead been “retired” as “fukin total bollox”.

Now, in an interview with The Times, Daltrey has addressed the situation. “It was kind of a character assassination and it was incredibly upsetting,” he said.

Explaining what happened at the Royal Albert Hall, he added: “It is controlled by a guy on the side, and we had so much sub-bass on the sound of the drums that I couldn’t pitch.”

“I was pointing to the bass drum and screaming at [Starkey] because it was like flying a plane without seeing the horizon. So when Zak thought I was having a go at him, I wasn’t. That’s all that happened. Pete and I retain the right to be The Who. Everyone else is a session player.”

Elsewhere in the NME interview, Starkey said: “Pete [Townshend] said, ‘Are you strong enough to fight for your job back?’ I said, ‘Not if you’ve got to do it for me’. If it wasn’t for The Who, I wouldn’t be playing the drums. I was a guitarist first. And then he went, ‘Alright, let’s get you your job back’.

“I still talk to Roger every week on the phone, I still text with Pete all the time,” he continued. “I spoke to Roger a few weeks ago and he said, ‘Don’t take your drums out of the warehouse just yet in case we need you’. What the fuck’s going on, man? That’s where we’re at now.”

When the news of Starkey’s departure was shared, The Who also confirmed that Scott Devours would be taking on the role of drummer for their farewell tour. He has previously worked with Daltrey as part of the singer’s solo band and he described the weight of being their new sticksman “enormous”, adding that he understood if fans were “gutted” by Starkey’s loss.

The Who’s farewell tour is set to begin in Florida on August 16, and other shows across the month include stops in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts and New York. Visit here for tickets.

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