The Who’s Pete Townshend has revealed that he “never really got into Led Zeppelin” and felt like they were “trying to pinch our audience”.
The guitarist opened up while featuring on a new episode of the Classic Album Review YouTube channel. During the show, host Barry Robinson asked him about his thoughts on how The Who impacted the music industry, and whether they could be considered pioneers of heavy metal.
The question seems to reference past comments made by the band’s frontman Roger Daltrey, who told Rolling Stone earlier this year that he thinks the group “were the first heavy metal band” and that they paved the way for the genre in the ‘60s.
Asked if he agreed with the statement, Townshend said: “No, I don’t necessarily think so. I think [our 1970 live album] ‘Live At Leeds’ is probably as explosive as it got.” He also added that while they did have “some heavy stuff” in their discography, they didn’t centre purely around that sound.
He went on to speak about other bands of that era, and said that “the only heavy metal I really listened to was AC/DC”.
“I never really got into Led Zeppelin,” he added, “which is strange because today I’ve recently been trying to get [guitarist] Jimmy Page to have lunch with me. I sent him a note recently just saying, ‘I’ve been listening to all of the Zeppelin albums again,’ and I thought I should. And there’s some f****** great stuff there.”
As for why he never got on with the band’s music, Townshend shared: “At the time I didn’t like it that they were, in a sense, trying to pinch our audience. I’d been through it before with Jimi Hendrix coming over with his big amplifiers and his distortion and his wah-wah pedal, and having to admit, ‘Wow, here is a guitar genius.’”
The guitarist also spoke about Black Sabbath, and said that he also never got into their music, despite them widely being considered the pioneers of heavy metal.
“I don’t know about bands like Black Sabbath and so on because I really didn’t listen to them, despite the fact that I think they were great fun and enjoyable,” he explained. “And I really love the parts of the music business where people don’t take themselves too seriously. That was my issue in my early days – I felt I was carrying a big cross, a big manifesto for rock and roll. I felt that this was important for me to deliver.”
The Who played their final-ever live shows in 2025, however, earlier this year Townshend hinted that there could be more to come from the band. “We are always trying to come up with SOMETHING special, and God Willing will continue to do that, hoping one day we can astound you the way we used to,” he said.
It isn’t clear what exactly the band may have planned, although the hopes of more Who news has been circulating since Townshend told fans at the final show of the farewell tour that he was “sure we’ll get up to all kinds of mischief” and continue to “do stuff together”.
The guitarist spoke to NME about the possibility of more new music from The Who in 2024 too, sharing: “I don’t think there is. If there was a need or a place for a Who album, could I write the songs for it within six weeks? Of course I f****** could, it’s a piece of cake. The problem is, I don’t think Roger wants to do it again.”
When NME asked the frontman about the possibility of a new LP in 2023, he laughed: “What’s the point? What’s the point of records? We released an album four years ago [2019’s ‘WHO’], and it did nothing. It’s a great album too, but there isn’t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don’t know why, but that’s the fact.”
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