Perennially outspoken guitarist Pete Townshend has made no shortage of controversial claims over the course of his long career. But do his famously derogatory remarks about Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin truly reflect what he thinks of his groundbreaking peers?
This is, after all, a guitarist who once said Jimi Hendrix wasn’t “creative,” dismissed Ritchie Blackmore as overrated among rock’s most famous electric guitar players, and, in a 1989 interview with Guitar Player, harshly criticized the musical substance of heavy metal acts, despite acknowledging the technical proficiency within their ranks.
“I’d trade 150 Def Leppards for one R.E.M.,” he remarked. “It’s as simple as that.”
Not even his bandmates exempt from his inflammatory remarks. As recently as 2019, Townshend said he was glad drummer Keith Moon and bass guitarist John Entwistle were gone, adding that they had been “fucking difficult to play with.”
Given that history, it’s hardly surprising Led Zeppelin were not spared his criticism.
“I don’t like a single thing that they have done. I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them,” he said in 1995. “I just never, ever liked them. It’s a real problem to me because, as people, I think they are really, really great guys. I just never liked the band.”
While he conceded that some of his resentment may have stemmed from the fact that Led Zeppelin “became so much bigger than the Who,” he stood by his assessment.
Page, for his part, was far less severe. Speaking to Trouser Press in 1977 (via Rock and Roll Garage), he offered a measured evaluation: “Really good. He had his limitations, though. He was no Beck, but he was all right.
“Beck, myself, and Clapton were sort of arch-buddies,” he added, referring to Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton. “Townshend was sort of on the periphery. He was like a white elephant, but he was very good.”
In recent years, Townshend has suggested his earlier comments were often more impulsive than deeply held.
“In the years when I drank and shot from the hip, I rarely got into the kind of trouble I could get into today,” he told The Los Angeles Times in 2022. “I once said some stuff about Led Zeppelin, that I’d never heard one of their songs, and about Eric Clapton, that after his experience as an addict, he’d never play as well as when he was a young man, and in every case, I’ve been forgiven. I suppose that’s because people see you as a big-mouth rock star, and this is what they expect from you—to be full of shit.”
In that same conversation, he also acknowledged the musical potential he once saw between the two rival camps.
“I’ve always felt there was a real potential for something explosive and nuts with the Who and Led Zeppelin,” Townshend said. “The principals in Led Zeppelin are much more musicians than they’re perceived to be by the heavy metal fans who just think it’s about heavy shit.”
That hasn’t stopped Townshend from delivering headline-grabbing quotes in recent years, including describing himself as a “dangerous fucker” when discussing the Who’s future and threatening to turn to AI in apparent retaliation against segments of his fanbase.
