THE WHO's PETE TOWNSHEND Is 'Interested' In Using A.I. To Complete His Unfinished Song Ideas: There 'Might Be Some Hits' There

THE WHO guitarist Pete Townshend has expressed an interest in utilizing artificial intelligence technology to complete some of the previously unreleased songs that he has written over the years.

Townshend made the comment during an appearance on the November 12 episode of "The Late Show With Stephen Colbert". Asked if it is true that he has "unheard music in the vault ready to go", Pete responded: "Yeah, I've got about three hundred and fifty, four hundred and fifty pieces of music. Now, a lot of it is probably terrible. I've managed to wade through about half of it."

As for whether the fans may eventual hear any of the material, Pete said: "I don't know what to do with it. I'm also quite interested in A.I. I'm quite interested in getting some of my old songs that didn't quite work because I didn't get them right first time round and put them up on to Suno [a generative A.I. platform that creates songs from user-submitted text prompts] or something, some A.I. music machine and seeing what it can make of it. It might be some hits."

Townshend previously brought up his interest in A.I. during a March 2025 interview with The Times. He said at the time: "If I told A.I., 'Write a load of Pete Townshend songs like he used to in 1973,' a lot of WHO fans would be really pleased."

In November 2023, Pete told the "Broken Record" podcast that he was optimistic about the role of artificial intelligence in music. "Oh, yeah, absolutely," he said. "I think it will help in all kinds of ways that that will surprise us when they happen, just like the Internet has. And of course, the Internet has a very, very dark side… But with respect to A.I., I'm hopeful, but I'm not going to say is inevitably going to be a good thing, because I think it's when it becomes what drives the machine, then we have to be careful."

Townshend is the co-founder, guitarist, second lead vocalist and principal songwriter of THE WHO.

Townshend wrote over one hundred songs for 12 of THE WHO's studio albums, including the rock operas "Tommy" (1969) and "Quadrophenia" (1973). He has also written more than a hundred songs for his solo albums, and his creative output also includes television theme songs and radio jingles. He is renowned for his combination of aggressive playing style and poetic lyrics.

In addition to being a famous guitarist, Pete plays bass guitar, ukulele, mandolin, banjo, violine, accordion, harmonica, drums, and keyboards.