“Hate”: The scathing war of words between Pete Townshend and Robert Plant
Rock and roll is rarely a harmonious business to be a part of. Far from being a joyous land of artistic expression and brotherhood, rock music is most often characterised by conflicts, arguments, and ego battles. As you can imagine, therefore, the richly saturated rock scene of the 1960s and 1970s featured near-constant competition between a variety of artists. Even rock and roll titans like Led Zeppelin and The Who were no exception, with their respective members, namely Pete Townshend and Robert Plant, regularly firing shots at each other.
The Who predated Led Zeppelin by a number of years, and the bands came together in very different circumstances. Pete Townshend first formed the group in 1964, with each of its respective members heavily entrenched in the modernist subculture and keen to establish an angry adolescent voice within popular music. During their early years, the band came to define the groundbreaking sounds of the swinging ’60s before moving into more complex and profound rock operas later on in their discography.
Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin formed from the ashes of The Yardbirds, with Jimmy Page recruiting a crack team of musicians to realise his pioneering hard rock dreams. Ironically, it was The Who’s legendary drummer, Keith Moon, who initially gave the band their name while sitting in on a rehearsal. In the years following Zeppelin’s foundations, the band would become a cornerstone of the hard rock genre, as well as one of the biggest rock bands the British Isles has ever produced.
Despite this shared history, there is no love lost between the two groups, on the side of The Who, it appears to be songwriter Pete Townshend who harbours a particular dislike for Zeppelin. In fact, he has often alleged in interviews that The Who were responsible for that distinctive Led Zeppelin sound. “We sort of invented heavy metal with Live at Leeds,” he once told Toronto Sun, “We were copied by so many bands, principally by Led Zeppelin, you know, heavy drums, heavy bass, heavy lead guitar,”
Rather than viewing this similarity in sound as a faithful homage, Townshend sounds pretty bitter about the entire affair. “I don’t like a single thing that they have done,” he once said, resenting the mere notion that The Who could be mentioned in the same sentence as Led Zeppelin. “I hate the fact that I’m ever even slightly compared to them,” he bitterly revealed.
On the other side of the argument, Led Zeppelin’s flamboyant frontman, Robert Plant, does not seem overly keen on The Who, either. Although, to be fair to the singer, his beef with The Who appears to be largely resigned to the band’s constant reunion tours and old-age live shows, which Led Zeppelin have repeatedly refused to embark upon.
“I saw the Who trundled around the stadiums of America, and I found it so dull, obvious and sad,” Plant once told Rolling Stone. The singer also highlighted his disappointment at the replacement of drummer Keith Moon. “The fact that they carried on without Moon was always a mystery to me, but the fact that they did it again and again, augmenting it with more and more musicians…I don’t want to be a part of that aspect of entertainment. I’ve played Vegas already.”
Even after their respective heydays have passed, it is clear that there is still a lot of conflict between the camps of The Who and Led Zeppelin, which is particularly bizarre given that they are both beloved institutions of British rock and roll, co-exiting together. Thankfully, their arguments seem to largely be consigned to each other’s musical careers, rather than personalities. With both stars rapidly approaching their 80s, it remains to be seen whether they will ever bury the hatchet.
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