The Who's Pete Townshend Shares Update on Memoir, Says He's Working on New Music

Photo: Ross HalfinIn a new blog post, The Who's Pete Townshend reveals that he recently completed his long-in-the-works autobiography, Who I Am, and that the book has been accepted by his publisher. In addition, the guitar great reports that he just finished recording the audiobook version of the memoir over the weekend.

Townshend says the tome, which is due out in October, was heavily whittled down from the manuscript he submitted. "One thousand pages cut to five-hundred," he notes. "There are a lot of dodgy stories left over."

Townshend also reveals that he's been continuing to work on new music. "While in France for a few weeks during June and July I squeezed in seven new demos," he writes, adding, "So much music is work-in-progress that I really need to stop composing and start pulling the various elements together."

The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer also reports that some of the material he's come up with is for the Floss stage production he's been planning for several years.

As for The Who's upcoming Quadrophenia tour, Pete says Roger Daltrey "is now completely in charge of the new video presentation" for the trek, which kicks off in November. He adds that the singer "has some really exciting ideas and we have a good team."

Pete also shares some news about the symphonic version of The Who's Quadrophenia album, for which his longtime girlfriend, Rachel Fuller, has been preparing a full orchestra and choir. Townshend says German film composer and producer Hans Zimmer best known recently for scoring director Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy of films, "has graciously commissioned one of his inside team to work with Rachel at his London studio." He adds that the plan is to record demos of the piece before it gets an official premiere, which probably will be "charity event in the future."