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. (Faroutmagazine)
Speaking with Rolling Stone, the bassist explained: “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.
Nine years 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.”
Entwistle went on to explain how he believed there was no new ground to conquer for bassists, and metal was a repercussion of the exhaustion of the instrument. “I feel like everything has been done by now. I mean, I can learn how to play faster. I can learn how to play differently. But there is only a certain amount of combinations of notes and chords.”
Pete Townshend: 'The death of John Entwistle forced me to become a better guitarist'
Speaking to Rolling Stone, the electric guitar heavyweight noted that, upon Entwistle’s passing, a broad sonic space was left in the band – a space that he ultimately had to fill by experimenting and developing new approaches to playing, owing to the bassist’s nontraditional sound, Guitar World reports.
Townshend – who also reflected on the sonic space left in the wake of drummer Keith Moon’s death in 1978 – commented, “When John Entwistle died, there was another space left. That was because he was filling up so much of the musical spectrum with his bass sound, which was not a traditional bass sound.
“And so when he was gone, there was suddenly space for me – not so much to try and fill up the void he had left, but a space where I could have a different approach.”
“I started to solo,” he continued. “I had to learn to practice the guitar, which I hadn’t done much of before. I’ll never be a famous shredder, but I can play better than I could when we were in the Live at Leeds years, for example.”