In a new interview with New York Times, Townshend was asked if he still wants to release new music with The Who. Answering in the affirmative, he said: "I do and I think I will. It feels to me like there’s one thing The Who can do, and that’s a final tour where we play every territory in the world and then crawl off to die."
Taking a cheeky swipe at AC/DC he continued: "AC/DC made 50 albums, but all their albums were the same. It wasn’t the way The Who worked. We were an ideas band."
"We invented heavy metal with "Live at Leeds". We were copied by so many bands. You know, heavy drums, heavy bass, heavy guitar and AC/DC were among those."
I think one of the things that all guitarists of today are intimidated by is these young guys on Instagram that shred to hell and back, or to heaven and back, I should say, who started when they were six. But we are just our fingers."
As AC/DC were cutting their teeth, Pete Townshend already had a clear vision of what rock and roll could be with The Who, creating a spectacle whenever they hit the stage through sheer noise and breaking his guitar at the end of every single set. But Angus Young has another view: I think Pete Townshend is rotten without Roger Daltrey and the Who. It's actually quite boring. Or the same with Zeppelin without John Bonham.
But even Who bassist John Entwistle didn't think highly of the heavy metal band.
As a bassist, Entwistle’s main point of intrigue whenever he listened to music is an obvious one, and heavy metal didn’t capture his interests like other genres. He felt as if metal didn’t allow bassists to show off the full spectrum of their technicality and claimed he would have felt held back if he played the four-string in a metal outfit.
“It’s like being in two different bands. Onstage, we’re almost heavy metal. On record it’s so toned down.”
He added: “That’s a real failing. The only Who album I listen to a lot anymore is ‘Live at Leeds’. That’s the heaviest album we’ve ever made.
Later Entwistle spoke about metal again, this time with the Institut National de L’audiovisuel of France, and he offered a frank critique of the genre. “Heavy metal I find very limited because most of the bass players just pull all away and make thumping noises.”
He continued: “So, I mean, most bass players concentrate their attention on funk, all this hitchhike bass playing (Imitates a hitchhiker using the thumb), which I found really restricting. It’s too percusive sound that doesn’t travel in an audience.”
