Pete Townshend

Pete Townshend is the guitarist and main songwriter in The Who, but he's also released several solo albums. His biggest solo hit is "Let My Love Open The Door" from his 1980 album Empty Glass.

Townshend is known for smashing guitars rather violently on stage. The first one was an accident: The Who were playing a venue in London with low ceilings, and his guitar punctured it during one of his stage moves. The guitar was damaged and Pete was upset, so he finished the job by smashing it on the stage. Of course, the crowd went wild, so he incorporated that into his stage show. Townshend also blames his parents for this behavior. They would fight a lot and often destroy household items in frustration, so Pete had that as a model.

His surname is one of the most misspelled in rock, often mistakenly rendered as "Townsend" to the chagrin of editors. It's not a very rock and roll name: Townshend means "dweller at the town's end" in olde English.