Roger Daltrey reveals 'tiny' The Who music wage despite £67m fortune – Daily Express

The Who’s Roger Daltrey now has an estimated net worth of $90 million (£67 million) – but things were very different in the rock super-group’s early days, when their humble beginnings saw them performing to initially disinterested students in high school gyms. Talking exclusively at an event to announce their USA farewell tour yesterday (May 8), Roger confirmed the exact sum he thinks the band was receiving at the time.
He revealed: „[The management] used to pay us in wages, but not very much. I mean, in today’s money it would probably be $800 (£603) a week – certainly no more.“ He added that the group had „no control over any financial things in the United States“ when they first started out, despite now being set to perform in huge venues across the nation this summer. Looking back to their memories of their „tiny“ 1967 show in a gym, co-star Pete Townshend shared how they won over the audience.
READ MORE: The Who’s tour future in jeopardy as Roger Daltrey issued stern health warning [LATEST] „We arrived in a little town just outside Detroit and were taken to a casino where we sat with the record company watching Frank Sinatra Junior – I won’t forget that,“ he reminisced.
„Then the next day we turned up at this little time at school gymnasium, set our equipment up, went about playing our songs, and the audience just kind of stood open mouthed.“
It wasn’t until the ceremonial smashing of a guitar at the end of the show that the audience „went absolutely nuts“.
Desperate to break the US, the group played four shows a day, with Pete smashing his guitar at each one and having to repair the damage to it in between shows.
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Roger, on the other hand, has only ever smashed one guitar in his life, seeing it as akin to „murdering his wife“ – and he perceives his bandmate’s onstage antics as „heartbreaking“.
Meanwhile, Pete continued: „It took a lot of touring before we actually made it – an awful lot of work going into doing it – and it wasn’t until [iconic US festival] Woodstock that [we were] really cemented into American pop culture.“
Now, nearly sixty years after their fateful first USA show, the pair believe that their most loyal audiences of all are across the pond – and they’ve announced a „farewell“ tour there this summer.
Kicking off on August 16 in Florida and ending on September 28 in Las Vegas, fans who want to make the journey for the iconic last goodbye can check out the presale on the band’s website from May 13.
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