The Who may be returning, again.
In a posting on his Web site, Pete Townshend says that he and singer Roger Daltrey are planning to get together for the first Who studio album in over two decades.
“Roger and I (will) meet in mid December to play what we have written,” Townshend, the guitarist and primary songwriter of the group, writes. “If we move ahead from there, we may have a CD ready to release in the spring. My working-title for the project — ‘Who2’ — is only partly tongue-in-cheek.”
Despite famously proclaiming “hope I die before I get old” in the song “My Generation,” The Who have frequently reunited to perform since disbanding in 1983. But the new album would be the British band’s first studio recording since 1982’s “It’s Hard.”
The possible new album, Townshend says, would not be a rock opera like the band’s “Tommy” or “Quadrophenia.” A concept-less album, he says “is, in itself, a concept for me.”
Townshend, 59, is also working on an autobiography, which he says, “offers me a chance to lay down my life story and place recent events in proper context.”
In 2003, Townshend was arrested as part of a crackdown on Internet child pornography — but was eventually cleared of possessing pornographic images of children. The rock guitarist was placed on a national register of sex offenders as part of the formal police caution that he received for accessing a Web site containing images of child abuse. Townshend has said he only visited the site for research purposes.
The other two members of the original Who, drummer Keith Moon and bassist John Entwistle, died in 1978 and 2002, respectively.