Apparently the deep and much-talked-about rift between the Who and former (and future?) drummer Zak Starkey was not quite a hell-freezes-over situation after all. Starkey, who was famously revealed to have been unceremoniously handed his walking orders in April 2025, is now back with Roger Daltrey and Pete Townshend … or at least he has rehearsed with them in advance of expected future dates.
Both Daltrey and Starkey have made public statements announcing and confirming the somewhat surprising musical reconciliation. Representatives for both Starkey and the Who confirmed to Variety that the respective statements are accurate.
In a solo gig at the Encore Theater in Las Vegas on Wednesday night, Daltrey informed the audience had recently done a rehearsal with Starkey and “it sounded great,” according to a review of the show the next day in the Las Vegas Journal-Review.
That this was coming direct from Daltrey was especially unexpected, since the singer had been perceived by much of the public as the surviving member who was most aggrieved by Starkey,’s playing or behavior, although Daltrey went on in interviews to suggest that he was being made into a fall guy for a somewhat unpopular decision that was not his alone.
