Years before he scored international hits in the 1970s with Canada’s Bachman-Turner Overdrive, Randy Bachman made his mark in the 1960s with the Guess Who. Unfortunately, the group’s name caused some confusion with another hit-making quartet: the English group the Who.
The similarity in their names stemmed from a publicity stunt created by the Canadian label of Bachman’s previous group, Chad Allan and the Expressions. The band scored a hit in 1965 with its cover of Johnny Kidd & the Pirates’ “Shakin’ All Over,” which went to number 22 in the U.S. and topped the charts in Canada.
However, the group’s Canadian label, Quality Records, decided to credit the single to “Guess Who?” In an attempt to create publicity for the band. When the record became a success, the band had to add Guess Who? to its name. By the following year, they shortened it to the Guess Who.
As Bachman tells Classic Rock, it was around this same time that the Who began to gain popularity in North America with songs like “My Generation” (a number three hit in Canada) and “Happy Jack” (a chart topper in that country). The Guess Who were afraid the British act’s success would create problems for them and decided to take the matter into their own hands.
“We found out about this English band called the Who and were determined to force them to change their name,” he says. “So we were in London and the Who were playing at the Marquee club. Down we went to confront them.
“They were being filmed for German TV at that show, so we had to wait around for about four hours.
“Eventually, we get to meet them and say, ‘Look, we were here before you. So change your name. It’s confusing people.’
“Pete Townshend looked at us and replied, ‘There’s the Yardbirds and the Byrds. Nobody’s confused by that. So bugger off!’”
Townshend’s declaration charmed Bachman and his bandmates, and the two groups “became great friends,” he says. “And that phrase ‘bugger off’ was our in-joke. We’d check into a hotel and find out the Who were there, so we’d call up one of the guys at 3 a.m. and when they answered we would say, ‘Bugger off!’ then hang up. They’d do the same to us.”
Bachman said the similarity caused confusion from time to time. In a 2023 Facebook posted, in which he shared a photo of himself with Townshend, Bachman said both bands were occasionally mistaken for the other back in the day.
“Neither band minded and sometimes even played a song or two of each other's during shows,” he wrote. “We crossed paths all the time over the years, most recently was when I saw Pete Townshend at the premiere of Tommy at the Stratford Festival in Ontario. He's a great guy.”
We were refused because we could not convince them we were quiet Canadians, a different band altogether from the Who.”
— Randy Bachman
However, he went to explain that the confusion has been a curse at times. Who drummer Keith Moon was known for destroying rooms, blowing up toilets and tossing TV sets into the pools of the hotels the group stayed in. As Bachman explains, his antics caused the Guess Who trouble when they tried to book rooms at the Continental Hyatt House in Los Angeles, also known as the Riot House for the many bands who trashed its rooms.
“We were refused because we could not convince them we were quiet Canadians, a different band altogether from the Who,” Bachman wrote.
“Finally, we were shown to the suite. Keith Moon had made a terrible mess there previously but everything had been redone. While I was sitting at the little desk making a phone call from my room, I tried to slide out the chair but it caught on the shag rug. I'm a big guy. I stumbled backwards and fell over, breaking the chair in two.
“You can imagine the look on the staff's faces when I brought broken furniture down half an hour after checking in!”
Posted by RandyBachmanOfficial on
After scoring hits with the Guess Who, including “Undun” and “American Woman,” Bachman launched Bachman-Turner Overdrive in the 1970s and went on to craft more chart toppers with “Takin’ Care of Business” and “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet,” each written and performed with his 1957 Gretsch 6120 Chet Atkins electric guitar.
In recent years, Bachman has made a virtual side career from discussing his experiences with a variety of musicians, including Bo Diddley, Steven Tyler, Frank Sinatra and Neil Young, whom he befriended while the two guitarists were growing up in Winnipeg. It was through Young that he met his guitar idol Stephen Stills, resulting in a humorous exchange when Bachman told Stills “You have no idea how many ideas I’ve stolen from you.”
Following years of acrimony, Bachman and his Guess Who bandmate Burton Cummings have settled their differences recently and plan to embark on a Guess Who tour in 2026.
“We can’t wait,” Bachman says. “The response from fans has been overwhelming, like ‘Go, go, go!’ We’ve got so many great songs to play — talk about overwhelming.”
