Roger Daltrey has claimed that The Whow was “the first heavy metal band,” having laid the groundwork for the genre more than six decades ago.
The 82-year-old rock legend made the comments during a new interview with Rolling Stone. Asked how he sees The Who‘s legacy and what he and his bandmates did better than everybody else, Daltrey replied: “We were just different than everybody else. Americans don’t really know The Who from the early ’60s, but as the drummer of Deep Purple [Ian Paice] said recently in a magazine, ‘The Who started it all.’ We were the first heavy metal band.”
He continued, “Jim Marshall invented the 4×12 [speaker cabinet], 100-watt stack for [The Who guitarist] Pete Townshend. All the guitar smashing that Jimi Hendrix became famous for, in his style, was basically copied from Pete Townshend, first of all. And the first rock opera, of course, we elevated rock to be maybe up its own ass in a way, you could say it. We were doing it before anyone, but it’s not important in the long run.”
Back in 2019, Townshend told the Toronto Sun that The Who “sort of invented heavy metal” with the band’s first live album, 1970’s “Live At Leeds”. “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,” he said. “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.”
32 Responses
Kinda, maybe not sure. And if anyone did it might have been the Beatles with Helter Skelter. Then there’s Blue Cheer.
I would call them more like hard rock, I would say more like Black Sabbath
Not at all….
Hard Rock maybe….I also don’t believe that Mr Townshend was tuning down to C-Sharp to make things heavier (We all know who did though, right?)
In my opinion, and it’s just mine and I’m sure many will think differently, but the house of Heavy Metal was built by three bands.
Foundation and framework: The one and only Black Sabbath
Brickwork: Judas Priest
The Roof: Metallica.
Fabulous end to your comment.
@DJH, Brilliant observation and well stated.
Thank you Dana, as always :()
Thank you Taskerofpuppets, much appreciated.
DJH, excellent way to describe how heavy metal was built! Just brilliant! \m/
Thank you Rattlehead!
The Who, who started punk rock in my opinion with My Generation. Metal? Nah. Black Sabbath were the first commercially known act to musically exhibit a consistent sound that would be later regarded as Heavy Metal. Blue Cheer comes to mind as well. But Sabbath drove it home. The title track of their debut, it reeks 80s Metal influence. The Devil’s Triad. That’s Metal!
this was a brand new sound built out of whole cloth with uncharted waters ahead when new sounds begat new sounds…so this explosion in rock and roll that became heavy metal was The Who’s…Dana makes a great point about the Beatles starting riff rock, which is a cornerstone of metal…but that “big bang” was The Who. Punk rock and heavy metal share the ancestor…just like we do with the apes..lol…