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October 31st, 2026 · 11:01am GMT
Pete Townshend has confirmed in a recent interview with Classic Album Review who he believes took The Who’s place when the band originally split.
The Who launched a massive farewell tour and split in 1982 and 1983, and Pete Townshend said that he saw three different acts pick up the mantle and continue with what he and his band had been doing decades prior.
The guitarist said: “When I broke up The Who in 1982, post Live Aid, the band that came and filled the space, there were three bands – Bruce Springsteen, Queen and U2.”
Townshend also claimed that he was responsible for writing the kind of songs that fill stadiums, and said that the aforementioned bands continued to write such music in a bid to take the audiences he had previously established.
He said: “They took the stadium audience that I had prepared. I prepared the stadium audience with songs like ‘Baba O’Reily’, ‘Won’t Get Fooled Again’, big, huge, anthemic songs, huge versions of ‘My Generation’.
Townshend continued, “This was music that would work in a stadium. These bands picked that up, and meanwhile, I was working as an editor at Faber & Faber, with a day job.”
Despite thinking that Springsteen, U2 and Queen took his audience, Townshend also confirmed that he didn’t feel any ill will towards the groups, as they always cited him as an influence, and he has become friends with each of them as a result.
He said: “It did sting a bit, but in a sense I was really proud because all of those musicians, they didn’t always name check me but wow they were incredibly respectful to me, and I became friends with all of them.”
Meanwhile, in the same interview, Townshend conceded that he got it wrong about Led Zeppelin and admitted that his prior harsh opinion was due to being in competition with them.
Townshend then admitted, “The only heavy metal I really listened to was ACDC, and I never really got into Led Zeppelin, which is strange because today, I’ve recently been trying to to get 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. I thought I should, and there’s some fucking great stuff there.”
The guitar icon admitted, “It’s just that at the time, I didn’t like it that they were, in a sense, trying to pinch our audience. You know, I’ve been through it before, with Jimi Hendrix coming over and with his big amplifiers and his distortion and his wah wah pedal and everything else, and you know, having to admit, wow, he is a guitar genius.”
Notably, speaking on the History of Rock ‘N’ Roll in 1995, Townshend said of his peers, “I haven’t liked a single thing that they’ve done. I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them. I just never, ever liked them.”
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