As a Pete Townshend connoisseur, The Smithereens' Jim Babjak knows a thing or two about The Who's hefty repertoire – and the nuts and bolts of what makes the Townshend guitar sound.
In fact, the New Jersey pop rockers released their own homage to the British band – 2009’s The Smithereens Play Tommy, covering highlights from The Who’s 1969 concept album Tommy – while continuing to build on The Smithereens' knack for releasing cover albums that still sound, well, quintessentially Smithereens.
The covers album had been a long time coming. Townshend is, unequivocally, Babjak’s lifelong guitar hero – and the band had already dipped their toes into covering Who tunes during their first national tour back in the ’80s.
“Dennis [Diken, drummer] and I went to many concerts during our teen years and besides seeing the Kinks about 30 times and tons of other bands, we saw The Who perform a few times while Keith Moon was still alive,” Babjak told Clifford Meth in a 2010 interview.
“After seeing them live, there's no doubt that Townshend made a huge impact on me during my learning years. It's still very much in our blood and will probably be there forever. So by the time we met Pat [DiNizio, guitarist and vocalist] in 1979, I already had this aggressive style of guitar playing, which was also fueled by the punk movement of the late ’70s.”
He continued, “Dennis Diken and I started playing together when we were 14 years old. We would practice playing songs like You Really Got Me by The Kinks, Summertime Blues by The Who, Purple Haze by Jimi Hendrix…
“These songs give you an idea of how we started out. Then, around 1973 we got a little more ambitious and started playing songs off of The Who's Tommy album and whatever little snippets I could play off of Live at Leeds.”
Fast forward to 1986, and the band's version of The Seeker, from The Who's 1971 compilation album Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy, was a key part of their setlist, and even appeared on MTV's Live at the Ritz, and a live EP released in 1987.
So it was only natural that The Smithereens' 10th studio album would be a love letter to one of the bands that helped shape their sound. “On the Tommy album, I used a Les Paul with P-90s that I borrowed from Kurt's [Reil, of New Jersey band the Grip Weeds] wife, Kristen,” Babjak explains in the latest edition of Guitar World.
“I wanted to keep it simple and use only one guitar, make it more Live at Leeds. I played bass on Tommy Can You Hear Me? That's me playing a Hofner with a pick.”
After all these years, did Babjak ever manage to meet his hero? “No, no no…” he confesses.
“I once had an opportunity to meet Pete Townshend. We were rehearsing at SIR in New York, and he was in the next studio with the people from the Tommy play. My guitar tech ran in and said, ‘Hey, you want to meet Pete?’ I was too scared. I heard he could be a real curmudgeon so I didn't want to ruin it!”
Babjak's Who-inspired approach would prove to be influential in itself – Nirvana's Nevermind was based on the Smithereens guitar sound, according to producer Butch Vig.
Speaking of Townshend, the veteran guitarist recently guested on a track by emerging Dutch artist Inge Lamboo.
For more from Jim Babjak, plus new interviews with Kiki Wong and Heart's Nancy Wilson, pick up issue 591 of Guitar World at Magazines Direct.
