The Who hasn't been heard from as a band since its well-hyped 1989 reunion tour, but Roger Daltrey says the venerable British rock band hasn't yet settled into retirement.
"We're talking," the 48-year-old singer says. "I think we'll be working again together." Daltrey calls the group's 1982 "farewell" tour the beginning of a sabbatical that he says "is nearly over. The 10 years we've had off have been very important to this band, and I think we're ready to be a band again. I've always said that when the Who is finished, I will know, and I'm telling you now, we're not finished at all. I think the Who has got some of its best work left to do."Any future plans will have to wait a bit, however. Group leader Pete Townshend is overseeing a theatrical adaptation of the Who's rock opera "Tommy" in La Jolla, Calif. And Daltrey is planning a late summer tour to promote "Rocks in the Head," his first solo album in five years - following 1989 declarations that he had given up his extra-Who musical ambitions.
"I meant it then, as well," Daltrey says. "But during that '89 tour . . . I became like a singing junkie. When the Who didn't carry on immediately, I thought `Let's try to do an album and really mean it this time.'
"It was always a hobby with me before, something to do in-between when the Who would work. This one isn't like that; I'm ready to bear the responsibility of being a solo artist now."