Pete Townshend has given fresh insight into the reasons for his decades-long indifference towards Led Zeppelin, but appears to be warming to the band after trying to reach out to Jimmy Page.
Back in May, the Who vocalist Roger Daltrey told Rolling Stone that the Who were the world’s first heavy metal band. It is an honor which, for many, goes to Black Sabbath – though Led Zeppelin is included in that conversation, too.
Those comments were brought up as Townshend spoke recently with Classic Album Review as he was quizzed on the Who’s cultural and musical impact, including their potential foundation-laying for metal guitar playing.
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“No, I don’t necessarily think so,” he says. “I think [our 1970 live album] Live At Leeds is probably as explosive as it got [for us]. The only heavy metal I really listened to was AC/DC.”
Historically, Townshend hasn’t spoken too kindly about Led Zeppelin. Back in 1995, Townshend unloaded on the group, saying, “I don’t like a single thing that they have done,” and that he “hates the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them” (via Guitar Player).
But it seems his perspective on the band has been shifting, while giving an insight into where his original disliking of the group may have stemmed from.
“I never really got into Led Zeppelin,” he continues, “which is strange because today I’ve recently been trying 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,’ and I thought I should. And there’s some fucking great stuff there.
“At the time I didn’t like it that they were, in a sense, trying to pinch our audience,” he develops. “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.’”
It will be interesting to see what the pair discuss if they do link up for lunch. A collaboration feels a little far fetched at this moment, though. Baby steps.
Elsewhere, Peter Frampton has recalled the time Townshend offered him a spot in the Who before ghosting him, and Royal Blood’s Mike Kerr has looked back on the time he played a gig in front of Jimmy Page, and was justifiably terrified.
