At 74, rock legend Pete Townshend, the songwriting powerhouse and lead guitarist in The Who, is showing no signs of slowing down.

He has just wrapped a 29-date symphonic tour in the US, is releasing a new Who album next month – the first in 12 years – and is now working on an opera.

And, in between times, he has shoehorned his first novel, The Age Of Anxiety, into his packed schedule.

Once famed for smashing his guitars on stage, and drink and drug excesses, he looks remarkably well. Even a brush with cancer in 2003 hasn’t held him back.

His debut novel has been adapted from the opera he is writing, and he hopes to stage at the end of next year.

Enveloped in mythical fantasy and hallucinations, the story delves inside the mind of a musician and artist and the madness of celebrity.

Although not autobiographical, he says it draws on his life experiences.

Townshend’s many falling-outs with the Who’s vocalist, Roger Daltrey, are well-documented, yet they’re still touring together.

He reveals: “I still perform, partly because of my ongoing, developing and increasingly affectionate relationship with Roger.

“When you look back at where we started, I wouldn’t say we despised each other, but we had very little in common.

“Now, we have very little in common but we care deeply about each other.

“It’s been a surprise and a delight to us both.”

They never see each other socially, but nor did he socialise with the band’s Keith Moon and John Entwistle who, he says, lived the archetypal rock star life –and ultimately paid the price.

Townshend says he hasn’t had a drink for three decades but, after Moon’s death, dabbled with cocaine and heroin, a battle he eventually won.

His home life is calm. He married orchestral arranger Rachel Fuller, 28 years his junior, in 2016.

“I’d been with Rachel for 21 years,” he says. “There’s a huge age gap and I thought, this isn’t going to last…I’ll be croaking before she’s 30. But we have lasted. I’m not easy to live with and nor is she.

“But we have a good time. I think she’s a genius and she likes what I do.”

He has three grown-up children from his first marriage and says he sees a lot of his son and two daughters, who all live nearby. He has two grandchildren, but isn’t relishing the role of grandpa.

“I’m not mad about being a grandparent,” he confesses.

However, age is no barrier to his art. He says: “I don’t feel old, I’m not old! There’s nothing to stop me stripping off my shirt and pretending to be Stormzy.

“I wouldn’t do a very good job, but I could have a go. I’ve never been able to rap, but I’m a good poet.”

Pete Townshend The Age Of Anxiety, Coronet, £20