{"id":816771,"date":"2026-10-28T18:56:17","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:56:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816771\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T18:56:17","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T18:56:17","slug":"the-whos-pete-townshend-never-really-got-into-led-zeppelin-says-he-felt-they-were-trying-to-pinch-our-audience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/816771\/","title":{"rendered":"The Who\u2019s Pete Townshend \u201cnever really got into Led Zeppelin,” says he felt they were “trying to pinch our audience\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Who<\/a>\u2019s Pete Townshend<\/a> has revealed that he \u201cnever really got into Led Zeppelin<\/a>\u201d and felt like they were \u201ctrying to pinch our audience\u201d.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The question seems to reference past comments made by the band\u2019s frontman Roger Daltrey<\/a>, who told Rolling Stone<\/a> earlier this year that he thinks the group \u201cwere the first heavy metal band\u201d and that they paved the way for the genre in the \u201860s<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Asked if he agreed with the statement, Townshend said: \u201cNo, I don\u2019t necessarily think so. I think [our 1970 live album] \u2018Live At Leeds\u2019 is probably as explosive as it got.\u201d He also added that while they did have \u201csome heavy stuff\u201d in their discography, they didn\u2019t centre purely around that sound.<\/p>\n

He went on to speak about other bands of that era, and said that \u201cthe only heavy metal I really listened to was AC\/DC<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI never really got into Led Zeppelin,\u201d he added, \u201cwhich is strange because today I\u2019ve recently been trying to get [guitarist] Jimmy Page<\/a> to have lunch with me. I sent him a note recently just saying, \u2018I\u2019ve been listening to all of the Zeppelin albums again,\u2019 and I thought I should. And there\u2019s some fucking great stuff there.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for why he never got on with the band\u2019s music, Townshend shared: \u201cAt the time I didn\u2019t like it that they were, in a sense, trying to pinch our audience. I\u2019d been through it before with Jimi Hendrix<\/a> coming over with his big amplifiers and his distortion and his wah-wah pedal, and having to admit, \u2018Wow, here is a guitar genius.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The guitarist also spoke about Black Sabbath<\/a>, and said that he also never got into their music, despite them widely being considered the pioneers of heavy metal.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t know about bands like Black Sabbath and so on because I really didn\u2019t listen to them, despite the fact that I think they were great fun and enjoyable,\u201d he explained. \u201cAnd I really love the parts of the music business where people don\u2019t take themselves too seriously. That was my issue in my early days \u2013 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Who played their final-ever live shows in 2025<\/a>, however, earlier this year Townshend hinted that there could be more to come from the band<\/a>. \u201cWe 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,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t 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 \u201csure we\u2019ll get up to all kinds of mischief\u201d and continue to \u201cdo stuff together\u201d.<\/p>\n

The guitarist spoke to NME about the possibility of more new music<\/a> from The Who in 2024 too, sharing: \u201cI don\u2019t 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 fucking could, it\u2019s a piece of cake. The problem is, I don\u2019t think Roger wants to do it again.\u201d<\/p>\n

When NME asked the frontman about the possibility of a new LP in 2023<\/a>, he laughed: \u201cWhat\u2019s the point? What\u2019s the point of records? We released an album four years ago [2019\u2019s \u2018WHO\u2019<\/a>], and it did nothing. It\u2019s a great album too, but there isn\u2019t the interest out there for new music these days. People want to hear the old music. I don\u2019t know why, but that\u2019s the fact.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Who\u2019s Pete Townshend has revealed that he \u201cnever really got into Led Zeppelin\u201d and felt like they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":816772,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[6491,96,5204,3584,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-816771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-metal","tag-rock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=816771"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/816771\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/816772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=816771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=816771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=816771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}