4 bands The Who’s Pete Townshend never was a big fan of

One of the most influential and successful songwriters of all time, Pete Townshend was the mastermind behind The Who, being their main songwriter. But besides being a really successful musician, he is also known for being quite sincere about other bands and artists.

Rock and Roll Garage selected four bands that he was never a big fan of and criticized over the decades.

4 bands The Who’s Pete Townshend never was a big fan of

Led Zeppelin

The first band is Led Zeppelin, a group that Townshend said he never liked one single thing they have done. He likes all the members of the band but never was really a fan of their music. (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage) “I haven’t liked a single thing that they’ve done. I hate the fact that we’re ever even slightly compared to them. I just never, ever liked them. It’s a real problem for me because as people I think they’re all really, really great guys. Just never liked the band, you know. I’ve just got a problem block to them. Because they became so much bigger than The Who in so many ways in their chosen field. But I never like it,” Pete Townshend said in a TV interview in 1995.

Townshend also believes that Zeppelin actually copied The Who, since he once told Toronto Sun they sort of invented Heavy Metal. According to him, Led Zeppelin was influenced by their live album “Live At Leeds”. “We sort of invented heavy metal with (our first live album) Live at Leeds (1970). We were copied by so many bands, principally by Led Zeppelin, you know heavy drums, heavy bass, heavy lead guitar and some of those bands, like Jimi Hendrix for example, did it far better than we did.”

Pete Townshend continued:

“Cream, with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, they came along in ‘67, same year as Jimi Hendrix, and they kind of stole our mantle in a sense. So people who want to hear that old heavy metal sound there are plenty of bands that can provide it. So it’s not really what we can actually do today. Even if we wanted to, it was never high on my list of wishes.”

The band was formed by Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham in 1968 and was active until 1980, when the drummer, Bonham, tragically died at the age of 32. Curiously, The Who’s drummer Keith Moon, who was a good friend of Bonham, had also tragically died at the age of 32, two years before in 1978. But unlike Led Zeppelin who decided to end their career, The Who continued, recruiting The Faces/Small Faces drummer Kenney Jones at the time. Another interesting fact is that Jimmy Page once revealed that it was Keith Moon who came up with the name and he asked him for permission to use it.

Deep Purple and Ten Years After

Two other bands he said he didn’t like were Deep Purple and Ten Years After. He said that in an interview back in 1980 with Sound International magazine.

“Just after Woodstock, The Who had a big revival of interest in Tommy. A lot of people used to come and see us. In Britain it was, ‘You are our favorite group with Deep Purple.’ I used to go, ‘Huh?’ And over here it used to be, ‘You are our favorite group with Ten Years After.’ And both groups I hate!”

“I admit that all the people in the bands are very good friends of mine. But I hated their music. It was very hard to live with in a way that we were being lumped in with these very heavy metal bands. I think it was because Ritchie Blackmore used to sort of bash his guitar on his head. (Also) smoke a cigarette through his teeth and play a mouth organ back to front. And of course with The Who it was smashing up, pyrotechnics”.

“(Ten Years After) that backwards-tape Chinese guitar playing. I used to listen to people like Kenny Burrell and Wes Montgomery. And Chet Atkins, clear thinkers. I hated Les Paul. I’ve never liked flash playing really. I don’t mind flash performers, I don’t mind showmanship, or guitar circus,” Pete Townshend said.

At the time, Deep Purple was not active and would only reunite in 1984, recording the praised album “Perfect Strangers”. Ten Years After was also inactive and would reunite for one show in 1983 and then again from 1988 onwards.

Cream

Although he is a good friend of Eric Clapton and loves him as a musician, he is not a big fan of Cream. He once said that he felt like their music was “empty” a few times, so he didn’t enjoy it that much.

“I think that – partly because of his (Keith Moon) drumming style,I had to play a really, really solid, tightly syncopated. But nonetheless tightly metronomic style of guitar playing. I was driving him rather than him driving me. There was no space, really, for fancy leads. As soon as I started playing single notes, everything seemed to fall apart.”

“I have to say, that was my experience listening to Cream. It felt to me that sometimes it sounded so empty. I thought they would’ve been so much better if they had a Hammond player. I always loved Eric’s playing, but not always his sound. It always felt to me like it was a bit muffled, in the Marshall days. That’s why I prefer Traffic and Blind Faith. I like the sound of that,” he told Guitar.com.

Formed by Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce (Vocals and bass) and Ginger Baker (Drums), Cream was active from 1966 to 1968 and released four albums. They are “Fresh Cream” (1966), “Disraeli Gears” (1967), “Wheels of Fire” (1968) and “Goodbye” (1969).