By James Leavey
John Entwistle
James Leavey was one of the last journalists to interview The Who's late, lamented bass and French horn player.
JL: When did you have your first cigarette?
JE: When I was about five years old. I was sitting in a working man's club and everyone was smoking, except me of course, and every bit of smoke went right up my nose. I put up with that until I was 21 years old, and then I thought, 'Sod this. I'm going to smoke right back at them.' So I started smoking cigarettes.
JL: Did you ever smoke cigars or a pipe?
JE: No. But I've smoked a lot of cigarettes that made me cough. I've finally found a brand of cigarettes - in America – and I now go to the extent of buying ten cartons at a time. It costs me about £30 a carton in Customs and Excise Duty just to bring them into this country (England). But they don't make a cough, and I feel fine now. I have my lungs tested every so often and there's no problem.
JL: Did you smoke on stage when The Who first started? Or did you smoke in the wings?
JE: I started smoking on stage when they told me I couldn't. I always thought, 'Fuck you! I'll going do what I want.' I've played in lots of non-smoking coliseums – but nobody has ever told me I couldn't light up.
JL: Is this still the case?
JE: Yeah. They take me into a non-smoking auditorium and I go into the dressing room, and there's usually cigarette ash all over the place after I've been there.
JL: Is there a musician, alive or dead, you'd really like to share an ashtray with?
JE: Oh God, let me think. I really respect Joe Wash, and I'd like to share an ashtray with him, but he doesn't smoke or anything. Hardly anyone I know still smokes.
JL: Really? Do you find that the current generation of musicians are not smoking?
JE: Yeah. They're all getting paranoiac about smoking. These people are also walking about in cities like Los Angeles and could get run over by a fucking motor car. When an atomic bomb goes off they'll think, 'Shit! I wish I'd carried on smoking.' A lot of members of my family have smoked, but none of my family has had cancer or anything like that.
JL: If the powers that be said that the area where you live is now a non-smoking zone, what would you do?
JE: Build a dome and live in it. Nobody's going to stop me fucking smoking. When I'm in Los Angeles I walk up and down the street smoking, rather than sit in a restaurant and get hassled.
JL: So what you do when you go to a fancy restaurant in America and have an expensive meal, and they tell you that you can't light up?
JE: Leave. Fortunately, I've got some timeshares in a place in Mexico and nobody there tells you not to smoke.
JL: Do you think smoking has made a positive contribution to your work as a musician?
JE: No. But lots of singers stop smoking because it makes them cough. Fortunately, as I said, I've found a brand of cigarettes that don't make me cough.
JL: Do you worry about the potentially harmful effects of smoking?
JE: No.
JL: Has there ever been a time in your life when you've lit up a cigarette and it's just been that perfect moment?
JE: Yeah. Three o'clock in the morning just after the girl walks out of my room into the rain.
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