“After many years of great work on drums from Zak the time has come for a change. A poignant time,” Townshend posted on the official Who Instagram page, text covering a selfie of his own face. “Zak has lots of new projects in hand and I wish him the best. Scott Devours who has worked with Roger’s solo band will join The Who for our Final shows. Please welcome him.”
Starkey responded with his own post, confusingly pasting his text right over the top of Townshend’s. “I was fired two weeks after reinstatement and asked to make a statement saying I had quit The Who to pursue my other musical endeavors this would be a lie,” he wrote. “I love The Who and would never had quit. So I didn’t make the statement ….quitting The Who would also have let down the countless amazing people who stood up for me (thank you all a million times over and more) thru the weeks of mayhem of me going in an out an in an out an in an out like a bleedin squeezebox.” Starkey went on to outline all of other projects during his entire tenure with The Who to demonstrate that “None of this has ever interfered with The Who and was never a problem for them.” As he puts it, “The lie is or would have been that I quit The Who- I didn’t. I love The Who and everyone in it.”
Unfortunately, it seems that not everybody in The Who loves Zak Starkey. The beef specifically appears to be with lead singer Roger Daltrey, who complained of Starkey’s drumming on stage during a March charity gig. (“Sorry Rog, I dropped a few beats … I’ll pick em up next time if I can. Apologies…,” Starkey wrote on his Instagram around the time of the first firing.) Townshend, playing the role of spokesperson and peacemaker, said alongside the re-instatement that he and Daltrey “would like Zak to tighten up his latest evolved drumming style to accommodate our non-orchestral line up and he has readily agreed.” At the time, he called the group a “family”; indeed, Starkey considered original Who drummer Keith Moon his “mentor, babysitter, and kind of uncle” (as he described the music legend in a different post). But now, after decades playing together, Starkey is getting the shaft for the “final” Who tour in favor of Roger Daltrey’s preferred pick Scott Devours. Clearly it’s never too late to stir up some rock and roll drama!
