The Who‘s legendary frontman Roger Daltrey has revealed the rigours of decades of touring has left him ‘seriously ill’ and ‘almost hospitalised’ in the past.
“I was having terrible trouble hearing what I was singing and it did get to me,” Daltrey told Rolling Stone. “In fact, I’ve been suffering for quite a few of the previous tours. I never understood that if you sweat as much as I used to every night, you drain your body of salts.”
Daltrey’s fellow surviving original member Pete Townshend is also enduring his own well publicised health problems at the moment, as the hearing issues he has suffered with for years is currently keeping him away from the live scene.
“Pete is having terrible hearing problems at the moment,” Daltrey continued. “There’s nobody I’d rather be on stage with than Pete. But equally, I don’t want to be on stage with him destroying the last bit of his hearing. That would be completely foolish. He’s a composer.”
However, despite the ailments Daltrey insists he is not ready to walk away from music yet, and has vowed to carry on in a bid to continue supporting generations of fans who have fallen in love with The Who’s sky-reaching back catalogue.
“We’re in the last bits of our career,” Daltrey admitted. “I feel that we owe it to the public that supported us all these years to go down with us. I had a real scare with my voice a couple of years ago, but now I’m singing better than ever. And it made me just want to use it till the day I can’t.”
Roger Daltrey will hit the road in the UK next month for a series of dates during which he plans to play The Who’s classic 1969 rock opera ‘Tommy‘ in its entirety.