The Who’s Roger Daltrey 'Regretted' the One Time He Smashed a Guitar: 'That Was Like Killing the Wife'

For Roger Daltrey, guitars are of sentimental value.

During a Tuesday appearance on Shawn Keaveny’s Daily Grind podcast, The Who frontman recalled the one time he smashed his guitar — and how much it hurt him to do it.

“[Fans] never came to hear the music, they came to see the guitar being broken," Daltrey, 80, said of The Who's shows.

“The trouble is the guitar was worth 50 gigs. I’ve only ever smashed one guitar and I’m really sorry I did it," he continued. "I don’t know why, just this thing came over me. I’ve always regretted it."

Daltrey equated the feeling to something vastly personal: "I thought 'I shouldn’t have done that, that was like killing the wife.' "

In his 2018 memoir, Thanks a Lot Mr Kibblewhite: My Story, Daltrey opened up about witnessing The Who's guitarist Pete Townshend smashing guitars at concerts.

“It was heartbreaking. When I remembered how much I’d struggled to get my first guitars, it was like watching an animal being slaughtered. An expensive animal that we’d have to replace with another expensive animal before the next gig,” he wrote in his book, according to NME.

He continued: “And we had to pay for the hole in the ceiling … from then on, the audience expected us to break our instruments. It was our thing.”

Speaking to NME in March of last year, Daltrey said that he and bandmate are likely done in the recording studio after 12 studio albums.

"What's the point?" Daltrey told the outlet. "What's the point of records? We released an album four years ago, and it did nothing. It's a great album, too, but there isn't the interest out there for new music these days."

The pair released the record WHO in 2019, which was their first new material in 13 years. The "Giving It All Away" artist told the outlet that when he and Townshend tour, they try to give the people what they want — and always make sure to bring back their older recordings.

"People want to hear the old music. I don't know why, but that's the fact," he said. "[Our fanbase ranges] from 80 years old, all the way down to 8 years old. We've got quite a lot of young people in our audience these days. It's quite interesting that they're picking up on our music."