Before they were smashing guitars, selling out stadiums, and inventing the rock opera, The Who were just four London lads with a different name entirely.
And their journey to one of the most recognisable names in rock history wasn’t just accidental – it involved dodgy club gigs, a name clash, and a night of brainstorming that could have ended very differently. And as fans everywhere are constantly finding out how they came to be known by their iconic monicker, – and what they were originally called – here is a bit about how the band came about.
The story begins in Acton, West London, where a teenage Roger Daltrey was already feeling like an outsider. He didn’t exactly blend in at Acton County Grammar School, and after being expelled at 15, he ended up working on a building site.
In 1959, Daltrey formed The Detours, a working band that gigged at weddings and corporate events, with Daltrey managing both the music and the money.
He then spotted a local lad named John Entwistle walking down the street with a bass slung over his shoulder, and invited him to join the group. Entwistle, in turn, brought along a guitarist he knew from school: Pete Townshend.
The band’s early sound was shaped by instrumental covers from The Shadows and The Ventures, with a bit of trad jazz thrown in, and the line-up shifted over time.
The band was still calling themselves The Detours when they learned, in early 1964, that another group was already operating under that name. More specifically, Johnny Devlin and the Detours.
According to Townshend, that was when he and his housemate Richard Barnes spent a night coming up with new names, trying to stick with a theme of jokey stage announcements, and names like No One and The Group were thrown around.
Townshend apparently liked The Hair, but Barnes was partial to The Who.
They debuted their new name with the release of ‘I Can’t Explain’ in 1965, a single that cracked the UK top ten and kicked off a string of hits that would define the sound of a generation: ‘Substitute’, ‘My Generation’, ‘Pictures of Lily’, and eventually the concept album Tommy in 1969.
In 1965, Paul McCartney called them “the most exciting thing around,” and John Lennon was so impressed by ‘Pinball Wizard’ that he borrowed its acoustic style for ‘Polythene Pam’. Jimi Hendrix requested Pete Townshend’s exact amp setup when he arrived in London in ’66, and Pink Floyd, Queen, and The Ramones would all cite The Who as an early inspiration.