When The Who smashed their guitars and drums on stage, it felt like an extension of their loud, abrasive, and defiant rock ‘n’ roll. Years later, Pete Townshend would suggest that his “smashing guitars” bit came from a far sadder, subconscious place of childhood rejection.
Of course, as a 20-something rising to the top of rock stardom, the emotional release likely felt the same either way, regardless of whether he was fully aware of why he was turning his guitar into scrap wood.
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Pete Townshend Grew up Around Music
Pete Townshend was no stranger to the music industry when he created what would become one of the greatest rock bands of all time in the mid-1960s. The guitarist’s father was a musician in the Royal Air Force’s dance band, The Squadronaires, and his mother was a singer in multiple orchestras. “I used to travel with [The Squadronaires] a lot before I went to school,” Townshend recalled in a 1980 interview. “In fact, I traveled with the band until I was about seven, so I got an early taste of the road.”
Despite growing up with professional musicians as parents, Townshend said his childhood home wasn’t very musical. His parents would rehearse, but they didn’t prioritize consuming music as much. “We didn’t have a very good record player, and we had a s***** radio, and there was no piano in the house,” the guitarist said. His grandmother gave him a cheap guitar when he was 12 years old. Townshend played the guitar so often that he broke almost all the strings besides the D, G, and B strings, which he used to learn most of the chords he used throughout his career with The Who.
While the future rock ‘n’ roller made do with what he had, he always longed for a guitar of better quality. Townshend felt as though his father, a professional musician, should have pushed for him to have a better piece of equipment to learn on. The fact that he didn’t felt like a rejection to Townshend, and his feelings about that experience were something he would later incorporate into his live performances.
The Who Became Known for Smashing Guitars in 1964
The Who invariably tied their musical legacy to smashing instruments during a 1964 performance at the Railway Tavern in London. Pete Townshend accidentally broke the neck of his Rickenbacker during the set and, rather than stowing it away to take to a luthier for repair, he decided to smash the rest of it on stage. “Every guitar I smashed was costing me the equivalent of £3,500, and I was still an art student!” Townshend later recalled, per Guinness World Records. “The smashing guitar thing was epic in a sense. Huge. Then, it became ritualistic. Sometimes, I felt it very deeply.”
Speaking to the New York Times in 2025, Townshend linked his habit of smashing guitars to his childhood. “My father, a brilliant musician, didn’t believe in me and allowed my grandmother to buy me a [expletive] old guitar that I couldn’t play. Some of my guitar-smashing antics probably started because it had become a symbol for me of the way my father had not considered me worthy of a decent instrument.”
Ultimately, Townshend was able to take his feelings of rejection that were wrapped up in that cheap little three-string guitar and turn it into a monumental rock ‘n’ roll tradition—one that extends far beyond the reach of The Who alone. Countless musicians have followed in his footsteps, from Jimi Hendrix to Kurt Cobain to Phoebe Bridgers, each with their own source of hurt, frustration, and anger that they channeled into each strike of their guitar.
Photo by Chris Moprhet/Redferns