Pete Townshend apparently asked Peter Frampton to take his place in The Who

8 June 2026, 11:22

What if Peter Frampton replaced Pete Townshend in The Who? Picture: Alamy

By Mayer Nissim

Pete Townshend considered handing over live duties to a very unlikely choice.

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The Who may or may not have played their last ever live show, with the band finally winding down after 60 odd years on the road and a few thousand concerts.

The sad deaths of Keith Moon and then John Entwistle have meant a revolving cast on the rhythm section, but it's hard to imagine a Who live show without both Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend both doing their thing.

But Townshend ambiguous feelings about live performance meant that he once considered not just hanging up his touring boots but passing on his role to another star.

In new documentary Frampton, Peter Frampton claims that Townshend actually sounded him out about taking his place in The Who, but then went silent on him when he apparently had a change of heart.

"He said, 'I've got this idea. I want to not tour anymore, but I still want to write and be in The Who and I'll write the songs and I wonder what you thought if you took my place in The Who on the road'," Frampton says in the doc, according to People.

"I said, 'Really? Have you spoken to Roger and John about this?’ He said, 'Eh, no, but I’m gonna talk to them tomorrow about this'."

The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again (Shepperton Studios / 1978)

Frampton waited on tenterhooks for a few weeks without hearing anything back, but then got on the phone to speak to Townshend.

"It took me about five or six calls… and I found him at the studio," Frampton said..

"All he got out was, 'Hello, Pete'. I said, 'You never called me back, I got nothing going on in my career and I blah blah blah'.

"I berated him because 'You left me in the lurch there'. I was feeling so perturbed at the fact that it was there, right in the palm of my hand, and it’s gone."

Peter Frampton attends the Frampton premiere at BMCC Tribeca Performing Arts Center. Picture: Alamy

The pair later reconciled at a chance meeting during a Bruce Springsteen show in Madison Square Garden a few years later.

If you think the idea of The Who with Peter Frampton in place of Pete Townshend was a strange one, Frampton actually agrees with you.

“I didn't think it was a great idea," Frampton told Guitar World. "I was laughing as he was talking about it, to be honest.

Frampton - Official Documentary Film Trailer

"I wanted to say, 'You must be kidding! First of all, I can’t jump that high. Secondly, I'm not you, and you've got an awfully large pair of shoes to fill, live'.

"I really didn't think it would happen.

"But when the leader of The Who says, 'I think I want you to play with The Who now,' you go, 'Well, that's crazy... But I don't have anything going on, so maybe it is a good idea'."