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Pete Townshend: 'The Who Almost Became Led Zeppelin'

During difficult Who period...

  • by Jason Gregory
  • Monday, November 05, 2007
  • Photo by: Sharjo
  • filed in: Rock
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The Who’s Pete Townshend has said that his former Who bandmates Keith Moon and John Entwistle were almost the original members of Led Zeppelin.

Speaking on the Johnnie Walker show on BBC Radio Two, Townshend said that both Moon and Entwistle were ready to form a band alongside eventual Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck when The Who were in difficulties.

"When we chucked him out, briefly I thought 'Oh this is great, y'know, it's gonna be my band now,’” explained Townshend.

He contiuned: “And what actually happened was Keith and John went off and left Me behind, they were gonna go and form a band with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page called Led Zeppelin."

Townshend also revealed that is was Moon that came up with the name Led Zeppelin, adding that the only reason the band didn’t materialise was because he found out about the others’ plans.

"I heard about this and that threw me to be honest, cause I thought; 'Well, y'know, what do I do now?' And I was going to form a band with three guys from Liverpool or something,” he said. “It was all very very difficult, and then, y'know, we decided to put the band back together again."

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  • I love the Who, but thank God that Moon and Entwistle went back to the fold so that Peter Grant and Jimmy Page wound up with the raw material for rock’s greatest band.ie Robert Plant/John Bonham/John Paul Jones.

    ~ by Bobby 11/5/2007

    Reply to this comment

  • Hey Bobby, you mean rock’s greatest ”studio” band, don’t you? ;-)

    ~ by Jim 11/6/2007

    Reply to this comment

  • No, he got it right. Rock’s greatest band, Led Zeppelin!

    ~ by Raul 11/6/2007

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  • Jeff Beck also wound up with a pretty reasonable Group with Rod Stewart,Ron Wood and Micky Waller. This first Jeff Beck Group certainly set new standards and gave Led Zeppelin the Truth album to guide Led Zeppelin 1. However unlike others Jeff Beck is still creating new musical guitar standards

    ~ by Bruce from New Zealand 11/7/2007

    Reply to this comment View 1 Reply

  • they were and are still the band to beat, the who sucks!!!!!!!

    ~ by gary 11/16/2007

    Reply to this comment View 3 Replies

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