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The Who is back on the road with guitarist Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey on a 17-show North American tour this summer. But with The Who getting to the tail end of its touring career, Townshend has found that life on the road can be a lonely existence as he gets older.

Townshend, 80, has been on the road with The Who for nearly 60 years now. In a recent interview, the veteran rock star was asked about the ups and downs of touring. He said he had asked himself: “Well, this is my job. I’m happy to have the work, but do I want to do this?”

“It can be lonely,” he told ABC News in Australia.

Townshend has often said he can’t imagine not working, but with The Who, he is also balancing the appreciation he has for the job with the wear and tear from 60 years of rock and roll. After all, this is a band with a legacy that’s decades deep.

Townshend has also pondered his mortality after all these years: “I thought about that. And I thought, well, hang on. I’m 80 years old. Why shouldn’t I be celebrating it? Why shouldn’t I be rolling around in it?”

Townshend’s reflections on the balance between gratitude and exhaustion as a touring musician who has worked for over six decades come after both he and Daltrey acknowledged the possibility of an end to the band. “It’s a brand rather than a band,” he said. “Roger and I have a duty to the music and the history. The Who still sells records; the Moon and Entwistle families have become millionaires. But, you know, there’s something more. The art, the creative work, is when we do it. We’re celebrating. We’re a Who tribute band.”

Townshend is referencing Keith Moon, the late drummer for the band, and John Entwistle, the group’s former bassist. Moon died in 1978 and Entwistle in 2002. Both have left behind surviving family members and careers in music.

But the more Townshend thought about how stage work can take center stage as a band ages, he also found himself examining some deeper questions about life and what he should be doing in his own life.

“It does whet an appetite to think that we should bow out in our personal lives,” Townshend said. “What should we do with our families and our friends and everything else at this age? We’re lucky to be alive. I’m looking forward to playing. Roger likes to throw wild cards out sometimes in the set, and we have learned and rehearsed a few songs that we don’t always play.”

After all this time, the newness of the live experience has not worn off entirely.

Daltrey on Retirement and Health

The other half of the tour has been equally as rewarding and tiring. For Daltrey, this has been true for a long time. In June, while performing at the Teenage Cancer Trust concert with Townshend in London, the singer and his bandmates were performing when he addressed the audience with a frank assessment of his health.

“So fortunately, I still have my voice, because then I’ll have a full Tommy,” he said, referring to the title character in The Who’s famous 1969 rock opera. And to drive the point home, he sang a few lines of the well-known song in the concert.

“If that’s not the case, well, I won’t have the full Tommy,” he said, and again, sang: “Deaf, dumb and blind kid.”

Daltrey went on the record earlier this month to speak further about his health and what could come after the current tour. In an interview with The Times earlier this month, the words were telling for longtime Who fans who may have been used to waiting years between tours.

“This is certainly the last time you will see us on tour,” he said. “It’s grueling.”

Daltrey has been especially candid about his physical challenges as he reaches his eighth decade in life. While performing The Who’s hits is a challenge, he’s also spoken about how singing night after night, especially in the group’s busiest years, could take its toll.

“I was singing Who songs for three hours a night, six nights a week,” he told the newspaper. “I was working harder than most footballers. Now that I’m 80, it’s just too hard.”

The older a person gets, the more the body can begin to slow down.

Is it a One-Off Concert in the Future?

As for one-off concerts in the future, Daltrey was vague. “As to whether we’ll play [one-off] concerts again, I don’t know. The Who to me is very perplexing,” he said. It was a way to sum up what a Who concert was and could be, past, present, and future. It’s both an institution, a reminder of long-gone times, and an ongoing celebration. And, yes, there is still more to make.

“I have a great set of vocal chords,” he said. “It’s just keeping myself fit for it.”

Roger Daltrey, the Who, and tour as retirement looms

After this tour, the music will continue, though what that will look like is uncertain. Both Daltrey and Townshend have hinted that this is the end for the Who as a touring band. That doesn’t mean there will not be music in the future.

The Who was built with multiple pieces that have come and gone. After this tour, there will still be some time in life left for Townshend and Daltrey. And, of course, there is the music that has been made.