Roger Daltrey says social media is “destroying civilisation”.
The 82-year-old The Who frontman blasted Gen Z and influencers for their dependence on social media and insisted “everybody’s screaming” at each other online but no one is listening.
According to DailyMail.com, he told the audience during his gig at Yaamava’ Resort Casino in Los Angeles earlier this week: “When you think about it, we’ve got this new world of social media which seems to be destroying civilization. I think. A platform for everybody to scream at each other, but nobody’s f****** listening.
“So, everybody’s screaming. Oh, yeah. What’s that all about? And how many friends have you really got when you look at ‘Oh, I got all these likes’. That’s just your ego. Let it go. Let it go. It’s not worth it. So, when it comes to the end, and I’m getting close. Closer than you think.
“How many friends have you really got? We did a song once. How many friends have you really got? You can count them on one hand. Never a true word was written.”
Daltrey followed his rant about today’s youth by playing his teen rebel anthem My Generation.
Daltrey founded The Who in London in 1964, with Pete Townshend, John Entwistle and Keith Moon.
Moon died at just 32 in 1978, while Enwistle passed away at the age of 57 in 2002.
And, last year, Daltrey agreed The Who were the “first heavy metal band”.
The frontman of the legendary ’60s and ’70s rock band – whose hits include Pinball Wizard, Baba O’Riley and Won’t Get Fooled Again – chimed in on the topic after Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice insisted it was neither his band or Black Sabbath that should be credited with the title.
He said on the Metal Sticks podcast: “We helped create what I call ‘the second coming’ of it.
“Everything else, the band that did it first – The Who did it before everybody.”
He went on: “They were the first on the big amp; they were the first to push rock ‘n’ roll beyond pretty little pop songs.
“Let’s not forget the importance of The Who. They just changed everything for kids who wanted to do something a little more violently.”
Regardless, Daltrey insists it’s not a title that is at all “important” to the band’s legacy.
He told Rolling Stone: “We were just different than everybody else. Americans don’t really know The Who from the early ’60s, but as the drummer of Deep Purple [Ian Paice] said recently in a magazine, “The Who started it all.” We were the first heavy metal band. Jim Marshall invented the 4×12 [speaker cabinet], 100-watt stack for Pete Townshend. All the guitar smashing that Jimi Hendrix became famous for, in his style, was basically copied from Pete Townshend, first of all. And the first rock opera, of course, we elevated rock to be maybe up its own a** in a way, you could say it. We were doing it before anyone, but it’s not important in the long run.”