United Kingdom, May 12 -- Pete Townshend thinks he would have been "happier" without The Who.

The 79-year-old musician - who co-founded the band in 1964 - has always felt the group were "beneath" him and he believes he'd have preferred to have followed his love of art instead.

He told The Daily Mail newspaper's Weekend magazine: "I always feel I wish I'd left before the band got famous and been an artist. I think I would have been happier...

"I was deeply into a college course about how art was going to have a revolutionary function. So I felt The Who were a bit silly, maybe a bit beneath me, I'm afraid."

Asked how he sees things now, he said: "I feel the same. I think they feel beneath me."

And Pete admitted bandmate Roger Daltrey i...