The “fired” vs. “retired” issue is not the only disagreement Starkey had with The Who. Their issues seemed to stem from a bad gig at Royal Albert Hall earlier this year, where singer Roger Daltrey took issue with Starkey’s playing. “What happened was I got it right and Roger got it wrong,” Starkey tells the outlet. He claims he suggested playing “The Song Is Over” as a “treat” for fans, but The Who “hate rehearsing” and Daltrey “took a bit out” of the song, which they don’t typically perform live. On the second night of performances, Starkey says “Roger [came] in a bar early.”
This caused a bit of friction onstage, but Starkey wasn’t aware of any serious issues until he got a call from the band’s manager firing him because “‘Roger says you dropped some beats.'” Starkey disagreed, but felt Pete Townshend went along with Daltrey’s story “because Pete’s had 60 years of arguing with Roger.” Starkey wanted his job back, so he agreed to admit (falsely, in his opinion) to dropping some beats, and was re-hired. But then, “Two weeks later it was like, ‘Roger says he can’t work with you no more, and we’d like you to issue another statement saying you’re leaving to do your other projects’ and I just didn’t do it because I wasn’t leaving [of my own volition],” Starkey says. He adds that “They didn’t specify” what Daltrey’s problem with him was.
Now Starkey is just kind of out of a job, not touring with The Who or Oasis and not able to tour with Mantra Of The Cosmos because all the members are touring with their other bands (like Oasis). He’s got some odd jobs on the horizon, like remixing all his dad’s early singles (at Ringo’s request). He also tried to ask Bob Dylan for a drumming job “because he’s the only person that’s anywhere near Pete lyrically.” (The Telegraph asked if Starkey had heard back about this inquiry, to which the musician responded, “Course not, it’s Bob Dylan innit?”)
Apparently there are no hard feelings between Zak Starkey and The Who: “I don’t blame anyone. I blame The Who because they’re unpredictable, aggressive and [fucking] insane,” he says, framing those as positive characteristics. In fact, he teases, “I spoke to Roger last week and he said, ‘Don’t take your drums out of [The Who’s] warehouse yet in case we need you.'” And so the firing, hiring, re-firing saga may not quite be over yet: “I said, ‘Best let me know.'”
