The Untold Truth Of Doug Sandom

Sandom remembered that fateful fight with Townshend in an interview with Express in 2014. Doug was quite a bit older than the other guys in the band, and the long hours and riotous gigging the job required had been causing problems with his wife. He wasn't in a good mood on the day of the Fontana audition, and this didn't sit well with Pete. "He had a terrible go at me, snarling, 'What's wrong with you? If you can't get it right then you're out.'" And that was the last straw for Sandom. He quit the band right then and there. "It was the biggest mistake of my life. It really came home to me when I watched them on TV giving that fantastic performance at the Olympic Games and I knew it could have been me up there, too." It seems as though Sandom is ever doomed to catch on way too late. According to The Who's official website, that performance was in 2012. If it hadn't dawned on him before that, what was he doing in the last three decades of the 20th century?

For Townshend, the split was necessary for The Who to make it big. "Seeing our chance at a record deal fading, I cold-bloodedly announced to the band that I felt sure Doug would want to stand down," he recalled in his 2012 memoir titled Who I Am.

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