Pete Townshend on the band that proved America is easy to crack: “A piece of piss!”

Posted On February 1, 2025February 1, 2025

For the longest time, the general rule of thumb in the music industry has been that if you can make it in America, you can make it anywhere. The Beatles proved this when they conquered the continent immediately upon their arrival in 1964, and so did the invading wave of British acts that followed them across the pond.

Each new generation of British music has been defined by the acts that broke it big stateside, starting with The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Yardbirds, Dusty Springfield, Tom Jones, and plenty more besides in the 1960s, then later on through Led Zeppelin in the 1970s, Queen in the 1980s, Radiohead or The Spice Girls in the 1990s, and Adele more recently.

One man who knows all about breaking into the American market is The Who guitarist Pete Townshend. The Who played their first shows in the United States on March 25th, 1967, as part of the Fifth Dimension package tour. First performing at the RKO 58th Street Theater in New York, the group supposedly played a staggering five shows a day throughout the nine-day tour. That they only had two songs in their set makes the whole thing seem a lot more manageable.

Following a whirlwind trip to play in Germany and Scandinavia, The Who were back in the USA in June to undertake their first proper tour there. Following their first show, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco, the group headed to Monterey for the now legendary Pop Festival, where they famously trashed their equipment on set and on camera, with DA Pennebaker capturing the footage for use in his music movie Monterey Pop. 

From there, they went on to tour coast to coast with fellow Brits Herman’s Hermits and were later joined on the road by The Kinks, who were finally allowed back into the country in 1969 after four years away.

Following their first visits to and tours of the States, the sales of their next albums went through the roof. Each of their subsequent albums, from Tommy to Who, have debuted inside the top ten of the Billboard 200, though they’ve never quite managed to take the top spot. They’ve continued to tour America regularly over the years and sold out stadiums and arenas wherever they’ve been.

Perhaps, with so much success, they might wonder what all the fuss is about. Breaking America has been easy for The Who. But it’s not their own success that led Townshend to wonder about how much of a challenge it is to sell a lot of albums and tickets in America after all, but the success of the 1980s arena-rock band Asia.

Speaking to Paul Du Noyer for the NME in 1982, Townshend said that tapping into the American market was “a piece of piss!” Adding, “I mean, look at Asia. They’ve just walked over there with all that pre-fabricated stuff, produced a load of records to the usual format, and they’re gonna be number one.”

And he was right. Thanks to songs like ‘Heat of the Moment’, ‘Only Time Will Tell’ and ‘Sole Survivor’, Asia’s eponymous debut album went straight to the top of the charts when it came out in 1982, something that Townshend can’t say about any of the albums he’s released with The Who.

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