In an interview with Clash Music, Pete Townshend spoke about the ‘Lifehouse’ concept, which began in the early 70s and eventually turned into a graphic novel in December 2023. The Who guitarist recalled how The Grateful Dead played a part in the success of this long-standing project. He said:
“The Who were running out of ideas pre-‘Tommy,’ the rock opera. And that album started off as a mythic tale. It’s loosely inspired by Hermann Hesse’s ‘Siddharta.’ But I was also reading lots of Sufi tales and mystical writings by Hazrat Inayat Khan. He wrote a book called ‘The Mysticism Of Sound.’ A musician but also a spiritual teacher. All of that was flooding through my head.”
Discussing the influence of the ’60s psychedelic culture, he added:
“I had this experience, post-Monterey, where I took some acid – supplied by a chemist involved with The Grateful Dead – and I had this terrifying trip where I left my body. I spoke about it with this guy, Mike MacKinnon, who recommended the writings of Meher Baba. I went and got a biography of him and instantly got all the answers I needed to all these questions buzzing around my head.”
How Did The Idea Come About?
The Who set the ‘Lifehouse’ project, initially planned as a rock opera, aside to create ‘Who’s Next.’ They revisited the concept in 1978’s ‘Who Are You’ while Townshend made two albums based on it.
In 2023, ‘Lifehouse’ came back as a graphic novel in the ‘Who’s Next’ re-release box set. The guitarist talked about the original version of his comic book concept with Peter Hogan by saying:
“The Who had run out of hit singles, and we needed something bigger, and I had always wanted to write an opera. My manager, Kit Lambert, was a terrific mentor and encouraged me to write this song cycle.”
He continued:
“Nick Cohn – who wrote for the Observer – said, isn’t it corny? Rock star into a guru? So we changed it to a pinball player, wrote a few extra songs… and it was in the can! Piece of nonsense and also the biggest f**king thing that ever happened to anybody in their entire life. I mean, just beyond beyond beyond huge.”
Read Pete Townshend’s interview about his new ‘Lifehouse’ comic book here.
