Post by Lynyrd Skynyrd Smokes on Oct 12, 2015 21:42:54 GMT -5
JIMMY PAGE INTERVIEW - DUTCH EDITION OF PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE JANUARY 2001.
PH: Why is it that three boys, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton & Jeff Beck,
growing up in the same area became the most influential guitarists of our time?
JP: Fascinating, isn't it? Three outcasts who only wanted to play the guitar.
PH: You guys knew one another?
JP: Not really, we weren't in the same class or something. I met Jeff through
his sister when I was twelve. We started trading Scotty Moore and James Burton
licks until our fingers were bleeding.
PH: Pretty sophisticated stuff compared to what was to follow.
JP: To us it sounded revolutionary! Of course you can't compare it to the metal
sound of today, but to me it was the most intense thing I'd ever heard.
My mother used to worry about my hearing!
PH: What guitar did you play?
JP: A Strat (Fender Stratocaster). But I needed an amp for that, and they were
hard to come by in England. So I swapped it for a Gretsch, which didn't need
amplification. Then I found that I could plug it into our radio and I was in heaven!
It was great hearing my own sound coming from that old box. I played my first
solo's to stuff that was played on the radio.
PH: As a teenager you played with Neil Christian, right?
JP: We played anything, covers, top 40 stuff...
PH: In 1964 you were one of the hottest studio musicians in the London scene.
JP: Alexis Korner used to organise jam sessions in the Marquee every Thursday night.
It was at one of those nights that I first played with Eric. Then I was asked
to do some studio work. Although I was still in art school, I could use the money.
Most bands had a good rhythm guitarist, but no solo guitarists, so I was busy!
PH: Is it true that you played on Stones, Kinks, and Who albums?
JP: Probably. In those days you walked into the studio, plugged in the guitar,
said hi to the others and did the track. The actual stars were usually not even
there, they came in to record the vocals later.
PH: You also played some sessions with Eric, right?
JP: Four to be precise. Eric had just joined John Mayall's stable.
PH: With his band the Yardbirds.
JP: They were opening for the Beatles at their Christmas concert.
Graham Gouldman was impressed and wrote For Your Love for this blues band.
When it became a hit and the band wanted to continue in this style, Eric left.
PH: Then you were asked to replace him.
JP: But I didn't want to quit my job, so I introduced them to Jeff.
After that I was doing only horrible stuff in the studio, and I realised
I had made the wrong choice.
PH: Is that why you joined the Yardbirds on bass in 1966?
JP: Paul Samwell Smith wanted to concentrate on his producer career.
Since I wanted some stage experience, I picked up the bass. But after a few weeks
Chris Dreja took over and I started playing lead alongside Jeff.
PH: But not for long.
JP: Until October '66, when Jeff quit. He was tired of touring.
And Paul stopped producing, it was the end of the Yardbirds.
PH: Didn't you play an early version of Dazed & Confused in those days?
JP: That was in the transition phase. When Led Zeppelin was formed, I had some
contractual obligations, and we performed as the New Yardbirds.
PH: How did the Yardbirds split make you feel?
JP: A relief in a way. I thought about my future. And I had one! Peter Grant had
the rights to the name, we had a Scandinavian tour coming up and Cream had just
split up. All I had to do was find the right guys to fill that gap.
PH: John Paul Jones?
JP: I knew him from the session days, very talented guy.
PH: Plant?
JP: It was hard to find a good singer in those days, because record companies
would sign them soon as they had one inch of talent. So I had to look outside
of London, and by coincidence I heard about this band from Birmingham,
Hobbstweedle, with this pretty wild lead singer. The minute I saw him I knew he
was the man for the job.
PH: And Robert Plant knew a good drummer.
JP: Bonzo. When I heard the name I was afraid it would be some kind of freak,
but once I'd seen John Henry Bonham play that was it.
PH: John Paul Jones once told me that your first sessions were sheer magic.
JP: There's no other words to describe it. We did Train Kept A Rollin', and the
studio just exploded.
PH: On September 14th 1968 you were off to Scandinavia.
JP: During that tour we realised we had nothing to do with the Yardbirds,
we were a completely new act.
PH: Did Keith Moon come up with that name?
JP: The name was there before the band. I produced a session with Jeff and
Keith Moon, and Keith having had enough of the Who, suggested we form a band.
He kept saying "It's gonna fly...it's gonna fly", but when we couldn't find
a singer he said "It's gonna fly like a lead fu**ing Zeppelin".
PH: You seriously considered calling the band "Mad Dogs"?
JP: I liked Led Zeppelin better. It had some heaviness and some lightness in it,
like Iron Butterfly. So we asked Keith if it was ok to use it.
We left out the "a", so Americans could pronounce it also.
PH: The first album was recorded in Olympic studios.
JP: In 30 hours time. The only overdubs were in Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.
PH: You did these recordings independently?
JP: Yes, I didn't want the band to be controlled by record companies.
We were independent, and Atlantic was our partner. We had a pretty good deal,
$200,000 in advance. The studio only cost us £1,700!
PH: Then you went on tour for 18 months.
JP: We played like madmen. We wanted to show the world what Led Zeppelin was about.
PH: In that period you visited the States three times.
JP: To us that represented heaven. Los Angeles in the late sixties, Boston, New York,
it was the promised land.
PH: Tell us about the GTO's.
JP: Girls Together Outrageously were a bunch of L.A. groupies from Zappa's scene,
led by Miss Pamela. Those girls would do absolutely anything.
PH: They brought along a dog sometimes, didn't they?
JP: I believe it was a Labrador. I'm not sure if it ever came to a full
penetration, but to a drunk guitarist lying on the sofa watching, it looked
frighteningly real! There was stuff going on...you don't wanna know, believe me!
PH: What was the difference between the USA and England?
JP: In the USA we toured, in England we did our job. In the USA we had our
groupies, in England we had our wives and families. The difference was enormous.
PH: Tell us about the shark incident.
JP: We played Seattle and were staying at the Edgewater Inn near the river.
The river was full of little sharks you could easily catch.
PH: Who actually tried to insert this shark into a tied-up groupie?
JP: Either Bonzo or Richard Cole. But they didn't insert the entire shark...
PH: As if that makes any difference!!
JP: Well, there's these little sharp teeth on one side, you know. Anyway, we had
a great time, and at that point we weren't really very big, so we could pretty
much do whatever we wanted without getting too much media attention.
PH: Wasn't that also where you threw TV's from your hotel room windows?
JP: We did that in many hotels. At the Edgewater Inn the hotel manager told
Peter Grant as he was paying for the damage "I always wanted to do that,
you know?". Peter gave him $500 extra and said: "Here, have one on us".
PH: What problems did you encounter in Detroit?
JP: Somebody spat Robert in the face because he had long hair. At the coast we
were having a great time, but in the Mid West we were treated very badly.
PH: Who was Ellen Sandler?
JP: A writer who followed us for a while for an article in Life magazine.
All went well, until Bonzo over estimated his charisma and came on to her.
Peter had to interfere, and fortunately she never mentioned the incident
in her article.
PH: There were rumours going round about food and fu**ing.
JP: You're probably referring to a picture showing Bonzo, a very young girl and
an enormous amount of beans? Thank God these were never published. Oh well, in
the end we were just a bunch of wild kids trying to deal with homesickness...
PH: You would never have admitted that at the time.
JP: Probably not, no. We would have blown it with the women, and it wouldn't
have helped record sales. At the time I was quite happy with my wild image.
PH: Tell us about the second album.
JP: The first record was kinda like my solo album after leaving the Yardbirds.
I played guitar, arranged, produced and wrote everything. With the second album
everyone in the band contributed, because I knew the others had a lot to offer.
PH: The result was Whole Lotta Love.
JP: That song went down very well in that specific era. It wasn't about
flower power, Aquarius or world peace, it was about love.
Not expressed with flowers, but in inches.
PH: In those days rumour had it that the band had sold it's soul to the devil
to gain success.
JP: That's not necessary at all, all it takes is hard work.
PH: But you were into Aleister Crowley, weren't you?
JP: I was fascinated by the guy. Crowley was a poet, a mountaineer, adventurer,
womanizer, and the man who insisted that magic wasn't based on rites or
formulas, but on our own will. His motto was, "do whatever you want, that's the
only true law". That doesn't have anything to do with God or Satan.
PH: He was a crackhead, he conquered mainly prostitutes, he never actually
succeeded in climbing a mountain, his books are merely bad pornography and his
ritual confrontations with other witches make you wonder what the hell he was
smoking in those days...
JP: I can tell you're not a fan.
PH: Not exactly no. Although I like his motto, I think his words speak louder
than his actions.
JP: Words that gave me strength I couldn't find anywhere else.
PH: Let's talk about Charlotte Martin.
JP: I met her in 1970 at my birthday party.
PH: Didn't she date Eric Clapton at some point?
JP: No idea. I never cross-examined her before we moved in together and she
became the mother of my daughter Scarlett.
PH: Your fifth American tour was rather tense.
JP: You could say that, it looked like America was on the verge of a civil war.
Long haired people got beat up all over the place.
PH: What about the police?
JP: They were the worst. The "enemy", long haired people, got arrested,
heads were shaved, you name it. The police in those days, gimme a break...
PH: In Memphis the mayor handed you the keys to the city.
JP: What a joke that was. At the ceremonial dinner that followed the waitresses
completely ignored us!
PH: Is that why you're so reclusive these days?
JP: It's easier to just concentrate on the music. That's why managers
and bodyguards can be important.
PH: After the tour you took some time off.
JP: Yes, but it wasn't a holiday. We settled down in Bron Yr Aur with the wives
and some roadies, to work on new material.
PH: Like Stairway To Heaven?
JP: That was an album later. Don't you wanna talk about Led Zeppelin 3 first?
PH: No. I only liked Immigrant Song on that album.
JP: I hear that more often. But I don't understand it. Led Zep 3 gave us a chance
to rediscover our roots. I mean, suppose we would have settled for nothing but
hard rocking tracks like Whole Lotta Love...
PH: I would have bought them all!
JP: But we would never have written Stairway! We had to get back to our Celtic
influences to move forward. Sometimes the future lies in the past. Only when
you're prepared to go through all cycles of life can you make progress.
PH: Amen.
JP: I know I tend to preach sometimes, but I refuse to live my life
by the smallest common denominator.
PH: What was it like playing Stairway To Heaven for the first time?
JP: The song was written around a campfire, and when we went in to play it the
next day the room nearly exploded... Robert wrote the lyrics while we were still
working on the music, and the lyrics came very easily.
PH: Was Robert inspired by the movie "Stairway To Heaven" from 1946?
JP: I think he was inspired by the book "Magic Arts Of Celtic Britain"
by Lewis Spence.
PH: When did you first play it live?
JP: May 1971 in Belfast, we got a standing ovation even though it hadn't
been released yet.
PH: Didn't you play the double neck Gibson SG on that track?
JP: Yeah, I needed two different sounds in one song. Gibson manufactured
that guitar for me. Double neck guitars were hard to find in those days.
PH: You didn't use it very often, did you?
JP: The studio solo in Stairway was played on a Telecaster I got from Jeff.
And the SG was way too heavy to use on stage. One of my doctors actually
thinks that it might very well be the cause of my recent back injury.
PH: Is it true that Led Zep sold more albums than the Stones in those days?
JP: According to Atlantic we sold four times as many albums in the USA than the
"greatest rock & roll band in the world". Worldwide the difference was smaller,
but we did sell more records. Which nobody knew, since the press was always
raving about the Stones.
PH: Yes, but at least they actually spoke to the press.
JP: Peter Grant never beat up journalists.
PH: But didn't he threaten to do so?
JP: To us the press was the enemy. We never trusted them enough to let them in
on what was going on. I guess that's why so little was known about the band.
PH: Have you received a lot of death threats?
JP: Yes, but Richard Cole assures me he never saw any guns around.
PH: And you believed him?
JP: Oh sure. We could trust Richard for the full 100%. He was the best
road manager any band could have.
PH: Don't you think the best road manager would tell his band anything to make
sure the show can go on?
JP: I never thought about that. In the mid seventies I received more threats,
and we increased our security staff. At some point a girl came to the hotel
and told Danny Goldberg (our publicist) that she had dreamt somebody was going
to kill me. Danny told her to write me a letter. The letter was burnt and nobody
ever saw it. A few days later Danny saw her picture in the paper. She had tried
to kill President Ford. Her name was Squeaky Fromme, she was a member of the
Manson family.
PH: In Bombay you worked with Indian musicians for the first time.
JP: We wanted to see what would happen if two cultures would meet.
PH: And?
JP: It was a bit difficult finding a common denominator. We once had a plan to go
on tour and play with local musicians everywhere we'd go and do a world music album.
PH: It never materialized.
JP: We had a nice experience in Bombay. In some club we started jamming. I was
playing some Japanese guitar with piano strings on it. When we left the owner
gave me a bottle of whisky and promised me another if I'd come back the next night.
He told me "Boy, you're going places, you've got real talent!".
PH: Let's talk about Lori Maddox.
JP: B.P. Fallon gave me her number and I called her. She didn't believe it was
me at first, but I invited her to the hotel where we sat by the pool. The other
groupies were jealous and were trying to intimidate her. I don't think groupies
are entitled to be jealous, since a relationship with a musician usually only
lasts for one night.
PH: Lori once said that you never participated in excesses.
JP: I was in love and wanted to make a good impression on her.
PH: And she was only fourteen.
JP: In those days the rules were very different. Today she wouldn't be allowed
into the Rainbow. What we did back then would be illegal now.
PH: What about back then? Look at what happened to Roman Polansky.
JP: Yes, but rock musicians went by different rules.
PH: Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Steve Tyler were also dating very young
girls at the time.
JP: Which member of a successful band in the seventies didn't?
Musicians, managers, roadies...
PH: In 1973 you allowed yourselves the luxury of a private jet.
JP: We had to visit 33 cities in two months, and we just wanted to stay in L.A.
Our Starship, a customized Boeing 720B jetliner made that possible.
PH: In May 1973 Peter Grant was quoted in the Financial Times saying the you had
earned 30 million dollar that year. Was he correct?
JP: You'd have to ask our accountants.
PH: As if you wouldn't know! May I bring to your attention that your own roadies
used to call you "lead wallet"?
JP: Really? Nobody ever said that to my face (pauses for 20 seconds) Okay, I DO
know exactly how much money I make these days. But how much it was in 1973...
PH: In New York $200,000 dollars was stolen from a safe. What were you planning
on doing with that amount of money?
JP: It was in case somebody wanted to buy a guitar, a car or drugs. Bonzo once
bought an $18,000 Corvette in Dallas. If money is no issue you better make
sure you carry enough in cash. After the robbery we couldn't notify the police
straight away, we had to get rid of all the illegal substances in our rooms first.
PH: Such as?
JP: No way I'm gonna tell you!
PH: Is it true that your wives weren't too thrilled about you setting up your
own record label in the USA (Swan Song)?
JP: America and especially L.A. represented sex, drugs & rock and roll to them.
So we showed them fake tour schedules. For example the launch party for
Swan Song was supposedly to take place in Denver. But the next day it was all
over the papers with pictures of us amongst groupies in the Rainbow.
PH: The next day you broke up with Lori Maddox.
JP: Yeah, I had just met Bebe Buell and invited her to the party.
PH: Didn't you have an affair with Chrissie, Ron Wood's wife?
JP: Ron and Chrissie once visited me in Sussex. We went for a walk,
and at some point Chrissie and I disappeared into the bushes.
PH: How did Ron take it?
JP: Very relaxed. He even called me shortly after and said
"Hey man, how's our mutual friend"?
PH: In 1975 you were forced to leave England.
JP: For tax reasons, yes. We toured the USA for about a year.
PH: Is it correct that the band started experimenting with crack in that period?
JP: We weren't the cleanest band in the world, obviously. But I don't want to
discuss in too much detail what we did and did not do.
PH: You supposedly had a 'secret room' in every hotel.
JP: Yes, but that wasn't for hiding drugs, that was for me to hide from Bonzo
who was getting wilder and wilder when he was drinking. Sometimes I just needed
some peace and quiet.
PH: You and Robert visited Rhodes that year, and Robert had a severe accident.
JP: His car crashed into a tree. His kids were ok, but he had broken his ankle
and his elbow while Maureen (his wife) was in very bad shape. Richard Cole
picked them up and flew them back to England.
PH: The media blamed it on your involvement in black magic.
JP: They weren't interested in the truth, they wanted a good story.
Long as it sells.
PH: Now you sound like Bonzo on one of his bad days...
JP: Well, I'm fed up with that! I wasn't responsible for Robert's accident
and I wasn't responsible for Bonzo's death. I'll take responsibility for
my own mistakes, and it's a long list! But I refuse to take responsibility
for other people's mistakes.
PH: Is it true that you and Roy Harper had been writing material
for a new Led Zeppelin album?
JP: We did some stuff together. Roy apparently assumed that this was to be
included in our new album, else he wouldn't have done that stupid interview with
this British paper. When Robert read it he was furious. But to me they were
just songs, which I write all the time. And I like to co-operate with lyricists,
but that didn't mean I intended to replace Robert. In November we got together
in our rehearsal studio in London.
PH: Because Robert didn't wanna hear the Roy Harper songs, John Paul Jones
got his chance to bring in his material.
JP: And he did! When we were working on this new material, we soon discovered
that it went really well with the stuff we did in the early seventies.
With the release of In Through The Out Door we did two gigs at Knebworth.
PH: Were you nervous on August 4th?
JP: Pretty much so, yes. But as soon as we hit the stage and heard the crowd
it felt like a homecoming.
PH: Billboard magazine wrote that you saved the record industry that year.
JP: That's slightly exaggerated, but punk and new wave weren't selling
very well in the States, and when Out Door came out people finally found
their way back to the record stores. And bought Bad Company, Heart
and Foreigner in the process.
PH: In April 1980 you began to rehearse for a European tour.
JP: We wanted to do a number of gigs in Europe to pick up the pace
and then head for the USA.
PH: Richard Cole didn't come along.
JP: At that time Swan Song was doing more drugs than albums.
PH: Shortly after that he was fired by Peter Grant.
JP: The plan was for him to sort out his problems while we did Europe.
But instead he got all upset and threatened Peter's kids. Soon as Peter found
out about it that was end of story. It was a lot less interesting without him.
No more groupies. But still lots of alcohol and drugs. During the Nuremberg gig
Bonzo fell off his drum stool, and in Frankfurt he stopped in the middle of a song
to welcome the president of Atlantic records who had just arrived. After our Berlin
gig I cancelled the rest of the tour, there was no point.
PH: Despite all that you re-joined a while later to rehearse at your Windsor house.
JP: That was on September 24th 1980. This tour was to determine the band's future.
The European tour had revealed our weaknesses and we were ready to work on those.
Or that was the plan. Bonzo had just kicked heroin, and like many addicts
switched to alcohol, which he could take much more of.
PH: I once read that he took Motival at the time.
JP: An anti depressive that helped him deal with his nervousness.
PH: It also makes it hard to drink moderately, because you feel fit,
no matter how much you drink.
JP: John stopped by the pub on the way to rehearsal and drank Vodka.
During rehearsals he kept drinking Vodka. Which has no smell, so nobody noticed
exactly how much he'd had.
PH: You didn't notice by his playing?
JP: No, he could always get the job done.
PH: Except the time when he fell from behind his drum kit.
JP: But that didn't happen this time, he was playing well.
PH: After rehearsals you threw a party to celebrate Zep's reunion.
JP: Bonzo kept on drinking. When he fell asleep on the couch my assistant
put him to bed. The next day he went to check on him in the afternoon,
and found him all blue. We called an ambulance, but it was too late.
PH: He had drunk about forty measures of Vodka in twelve hours
and had choked in his own vomit.
JP: Can we talk about something else?
PH: Of course. Peter Grant said that lots of drummers had contacted him,
even though the band split up in December 1980.
JP: Lots of drummers called me too. That kinda did it for us. If the record
company and those opportune people hadn't pushed us so much in those days,
who knows what might have happened.
PH: But there was a lot of money involved.
JP: Everyone wanted a piece of the action. The record company wanted to release
a live album, but I didn't want to benefit from John's death in that way.
PH: You did write the Death Wish 2 soundtrack. Lots of fans didn't appreciate that.
JP: Michael Winner was a good friend of mine. And a good salesman, he could sell
an Eskimo a refrigerator! But it was the right thing for me to do at the time.
It helped me ease the pain.
PH: A year after John died you bought a studio. In 1982 you released Coda.
JP: I didn't, WE did. Eight songs that never made the albums for some reason.
I was surprised that it entered the USA charts at number 4 and sold pretty well
for about a year.
PH: In 1983 you were on stage with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton for the first time.
JP: We did the ARMS benefit for Ronnie Lane, who could afford the therapy
he was undergoing, but wanted to do something for the people who couldn't.
Playing Layla with Eric and Jeff was great! After that Bill Graham put together
some benefits in the USA. At that point I decided to kick heroin.
PH: An addiction that wasn't publicly known.
JP: It's hard to admit. But my talks with Eric, who'd been through the same thing,
helped. It took me four days to kick it.
PH: In 1984 you worked with Robert again.
JP: Besides playing with Steven Stills that year I did the Honeydrippers album
with Robert and Jeff.
PH: Even Bonzo had a new album out in 1984...
JP: You're referring to the drum samples in Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax.
What can you say, nobody could hit as hard as John Bonham.
PH: Later that year you were arrested in a "dazed and confused" state.
The police found some cocaine on you.
JP: I had kicked the heroin, but coke was a different story.
I had to go to court and got a £450 fine.
PH: Within a month you and Paul Rodgers started The Firm.
JP: That was misleading. It had nothing to do with white collars,
it was English slang for guys who were 'firm' enough to party all night.
PH: Then came Live Aid.
JP: Live Aid was not a reunion. We had to put aside our principles regarding
playing without Bonzo, in order to save starving children. Some things are more
important than our principals. Like Live Aid.
PH: But once you hit the stage...
JP: It was fantastic! We started with Rock & Roll, and when I played the opening
riff to Whole Lotta Love it felt as if I was struck by lightning!
Then came Stairway, and a roadie handed me my guitar completely out of tune.
But it was still a great experience.
PH: Robert said you rehearsed with that band for about a week after Live Aid.
JP: Yes, but that didn't work. We had no new material, and the drummer
got in an accident. Then that was that.
PH: In 1988 you did the Atlantic anniversary gig.
JP: Fortunately this time my guitar was in tune. Jason Bonham played drums.
PH: Didn't you play at his wedding in 1990?
JP: Yes, rock historians refer to that as the third Zep reunion.
There was a band playing, and we were all there, so we took the stage.
PH: Were you disappointed by the poor sales of Outrider?
JP: No, because I didn't want to do a big commercial album, I wanted to please
myself. And I really like that album, it's my ultimate guitar album.
PH: The Led Zeppelin CD box set sold a lot better.
JP: Absolutely!
PH: How does it feel to have your best days 25 years behind you?
JP: Better than an athlete, who will never be able to deliver the way he did
when he was young. I'm still hoping to write another Stairway some day.
PH: In 1991 you worked with David Coverdale. Not everybody liked that idea...
JP: That idea came from Geffen, and I figured I might as well give it a try.
We did deliver an album and did a brief tour. But had Robert been available,
I don't think I would've done it.
PH: Finally you and Robert were reunited for the MTV Unledded sessions.
JP: That was a lot of work, the arrangements and stuff.
PH: Why didn't you invite John Paul Jones?
JP: Because it still wasn't a Zep reunion.
PH: In 1999 you were looking for a backing band to do a benefit.
JP: Somebody suggested the Black Crowes, and during rehearsals something happened,
I was really enjoying it! We didn't need to change things, like I did with Robert
during the last tours, we just went for it. It was superb! the Black Crowes
are the best Zep cover band in the world.
PH: Why did you cancel the Black Crowes/Jimmy Page tour?
JP: I'm not getting any younger, and being on stage for three hours with
a painful back didn't appeal to me.
PH: What does your future look like?
JP: I'm at a stage where I can do exactly what I want to do. So I can allow myself
something typically British, become an old eccentric!
Interview by Robert Macher.
PH: Why is it that three boys, Jimmy Page, Eric Clapton & Jeff Beck,
growing up in the same area became the most influential guitarists of our time?
JP: Fascinating, isn't it? Three outcasts who only wanted to play the guitar.
PH: You guys knew one another?
JP: Not really, we weren't in the same class or something. I met Jeff through
his sister when I was twelve. We started trading Scotty Moore and James Burton
licks until our fingers were bleeding.
PH: Pretty sophisticated stuff compared to what was to follow.
JP: To us it sounded revolutionary! Of course you can't compare it to the metal
sound of today, but to me it was the most intense thing I'd ever heard.
My mother used to worry about my hearing!
PH: What guitar did you play?
JP: A Strat (Fender Stratocaster). But I needed an amp for that, and they were
hard to come by in England. So I swapped it for a Gretsch, which didn't need
amplification. Then I found that I could plug it into our radio and I was in heaven!
It was great hearing my own sound coming from that old box. I played my first
solo's to stuff that was played on the radio.
PH: As a teenager you played with Neil Christian, right?
JP: We played anything, covers, top 40 stuff...
PH: In 1964 you were one of the hottest studio musicians in the London scene.
JP: Alexis Korner used to organise jam sessions in the Marquee every Thursday night.
It was at one of those nights that I first played with Eric. Then I was asked
to do some studio work. Although I was still in art school, I could use the money.
Most bands had a good rhythm guitarist, but no solo guitarists, so I was busy!
PH: Is it true that you played on Stones, Kinks, and Who albums?
JP: Probably. In those days you walked into the studio, plugged in the guitar,
said hi to the others and did the track. The actual stars were usually not even
there, they came in to record the vocals later.
PH: You also played some sessions with Eric, right?
JP: Four to be precise. Eric had just joined John Mayall's stable.
PH: With his band the Yardbirds.
JP: They were opening for the Beatles at their Christmas concert.
Graham Gouldman was impressed and wrote For Your Love for this blues band.
When it became a hit and the band wanted to continue in this style, Eric left.
PH: Then you were asked to replace him.
JP: But I didn't want to quit my job, so I introduced them to Jeff.
After that I was doing only horrible stuff in the studio, and I realised
I had made the wrong choice.
PH: Is that why you joined the Yardbirds on bass in 1966?
JP: Paul Samwell Smith wanted to concentrate on his producer career.
Since I wanted some stage experience, I picked up the bass. But after a few weeks
Chris Dreja took over and I started playing lead alongside Jeff.
PH: But not for long.
JP: Until October '66, when Jeff quit. He was tired of touring.
And Paul stopped producing, it was the end of the Yardbirds.
PH: Didn't you play an early version of Dazed & Confused in those days?
JP: That was in the transition phase. When Led Zeppelin was formed, I had some
contractual obligations, and we performed as the New Yardbirds.
PH: How did the Yardbirds split make you feel?
JP: A relief in a way. I thought about my future. And I had one! Peter Grant had
the rights to the name, we had a Scandinavian tour coming up and Cream had just
split up. All I had to do was find the right guys to fill that gap.
PH: John Paul Jones?
JP: I knew him from the session days, very talented guy.
PH: Plant?
JP: It was hard to find a good singer in those days, because record companies
would sign them soon as they had one inch of talent. So I had to look outside
of London, and by coincidence I heard about this band from Birmingham,
Hobbstweedle, with this pretty wild lead singer. The minute I saw him I knew he
was the man for the job.
PH: And Robert Plant knew a good drummer.
JP: Bonzo. When I heard the name I was afraid it would be some kind of freak,
but once I'd seen John Henry Bonham play that was it.
PH: John Paul Jones once told me that your first sessions were sheer magic.
JP: There's no other words to describe it. We did Train Kept A Rollin', and the
studio just exploded.
PH: On September 14th 1968 you were off to Scandinavia.
JP: During that tour we realised we had nothing to do with the Yardbirds,
we were a completely new act.
PH: Did Keith Moon come up with that name?
JP: The name was there before the band. I produced a session with Jeff and
Keith Moon, and Keith having had enough of the Who, suggested we form a band.
He kept saying "It's gonna fly...it's gonna fly", but when we couldn't find
a singer he said "It's gonna fly like a lead fu**ing Zeppelin".
PH: You seriously considered calling the band "Mad Dogs"?
JP: I liked Led Zeppelin better. It had some heaviness and some lightness in it,
like Iron Butterfly. So we asked Keith if it was ok to use it.
We left out the "a", so Americans could pronounce it also.
PH: The first album was recorded in Olympic studios.
JP: In 30 hours time. The only overdubs were in Babe I'm Gonna Leave You.
PH: You did these recordings independently?
JP: Yes, I didn't want the band to be controlled by record companies.
We were independent, and Atlantic was our partner. We had a pretty good deal,
$200,000 in advance. The studio only cost us £1,700!
PH: Then you went on tour for 18 months.
JP: We played like madmen. We wanted to show the world what Led Zeppelin was about.
PH: In that period you visited the States three times.
JP: To us that represented heaven. Los Angeles in the late sixties, Boston, New York,
it was the promised land.
PH: Tell us about the GTO's.
JP: Girls Together Outrageously were a bunch of L.A. groupies from Zappa's scene,
led by Miss Pamela. Those girls would do absolutely anything.
PH: They brought along a dog sometimes, didn't they?
JP: I believe it was a Labrador. I'm not sure if it ever came to a full
penetration, but to a drunk guitarist lying on the sofa watching, it looked
frighteningly real! There was stuff going on...you don't wanna know, believe me!
PH: What was the difference between the USA and England?
JP: In the USA we toured, in England we did our job. In the USA we had our
groupies, in England we had our wives and families. The difference was enormous.
PH: Tell us about the shark incident.
JP: We played Seattle and were staying at the Edgewater Inn near the river.
The river was full of little sharks you could easily catch.
PH: Who actually tried to insert this shark into a tied-up groupie?
JP: Either Bonzo or Richard Cole. But they didn't insert the entire shark...
PH: As if that makes any difference!!
JP: Well, there's these little sharp teeth on one side, you know. Anyway, we had
a great time, and at that point we weren't really very big, so we could pretty
much do whatever we wanted without getting too much media attention.
PH: Wasn't that also where you threw TV's from your hotel room windows?
JP: We did that in many hotels. At the Edgewater Inn the hotel manager told
Peter Grant as he was paying for the damage "I always wanted to do that,
you know?". Peter gave him $500 extra and said: "Here, have one on us".
PH: What problems did you encounter in Detroit?
JP: Somebody spat Robert in the face because he had long hair. At the coast we
were having a great time, but in the Mid West we were treated very badly.
PH: Who was Ellen Sandler?
JP: A writer who followed us for a while for an article in Life magazine.
All went well, until Bonzo over estimated his charisma and came on to her.
Peter had to interfere, and fortunately she never mentioned the incident
in her article.
PH: There were rumours going round about food and fu**ing.
JP: You're probably referring to a picture showing Bonzo, a very young girl and
an enormous amount of beans? Thank God these were never published. Oh well, in
the end we were just a bunch of wild kids trying to deal with homesickness...
PH: You would never have admitted that at the time.
JP: Probably not, no. We would have blown it with the women, and it wouldn't
have helped record sales. At the time I was quite happy with my wild image.
PH: Tell us about the second album.
JP: The first record was kinda like my solo album after leaving the Yardbirds.
I played guitar, arranged, produced and wrote everything. With the second album
everyone in the band contributed, because I knew the others had a lot to offer.
PH: The result was Whole Lotta Love.
JP: That song went down very well in that specific era. It wasn't about
flower power, Aquarius or world peace, it was about love.
Not expressed with flowers, but in inches.
PH: In those days rumour had it that the band had sold it's soul to the devil
to gain success.
JP: That's not necessary at all, all it takes is hard work.
PH: But you were into Aleister Crowley, weren't you?
JP: I was fascinated by the guy. Crowley was a poet, a mountaineer, adventurer,
womanizer, and the man who insisted that magic wasn't based on rites or
formulas, but on our own will. His motto was, "do whatever you want, that's the
only true law". That doesn't have anything to do with God or Satan.
PH: He was a crackhead, he conquered mainly prostitutes, he never actually
succeeded in climbing a mountain, his books are merely bad pornography and his
ritual confrontations with other witches make you wonder what the hell he was
smoking in those days...
JP: I can tell you're not a fan.
PH: Not exactly no. Although I like his motto, I think his words speak louder
than his actions.
JP: Words that gave me strength I couldn't find anywhere else.
PH: Let's talk about Charlotte Martin.
JP: I met her in 1970 at my birthday party.
PH: Didn't she date Eric Clapton at some point?
JP: No idea. I never cross-examined her before we moved in together and she
became the mother of my daughter Scarlett.
PH: Your fifth American tour was rather tense.
JP: You could say that, it looked like America was on the verge of a civil war.
Long haired people got beat up all over the place.
PH: What about the police?
JP: They were the worst. The "enemy", long haired people, got arrested,
heads were shaved, you name it. The police in those days, gimme a break...
PH: In Memphis the mayor handed you the keys to the city.
JP: What a joke that was. At the ceremonial dinner that followed the waitresses
completely ignored us!
PH: Is that why you're so reclusive these days?
JP: It's easier to just concentrate on the music. That's why managers
and bodyguards can be important.
PH: After the tour you took some time off.
JP: Yes, but it wasn't a holiday. We settled down in Bron Yr Aur with the wives
and some roadies, to work on new material.
PH: Like Stairway To Heaven?
JP: That was an album later. Don't you wanna talk about Led Zeppelin 3 first?
PH: No. I only liked Immigrant Song on that album.
JP: I hear that more often. But I don't understand it. Led Zep 3 gave us a chance
to rediscover our roots. I mean, suppose we would have settled for nothing but
hard rocking tracks like Whole Lotta Love...
PH: I would have bought them all!
JP: But we would never have written Stairway! We had to get back to our Celtic
influences to move forward. Sometimes the future lies in the past. Only when
you're prepared to go through all cycles of life can you make progress.
PH: Amen.
JP: I know I tend to preach sometimes, but I refuse to live my life
by the smallest common denominator.
PH: What was it like playing Stairway To Heaven for the first time?
JP: The song was written around a campfire, and when we went in to play it the
next day the room nearly exploded... Robert wrote the lyrics while we were still
working on the music, and the lyrics came very easily.
PH: Was Robert inspired by the movie "Stairway To Heaven" from 1946?
JP: I think he was inspired by the book "Magic Arts Of Celtic Britain"
by Lewis Spence.
PH: When did you first play it live?
JP: May 1971 in Belfast, we got a standing ovation even though it hadn't
been released yet.
PH: Didn't you play the double neck Gibson SG on that track?
JP: Yeah, I needed two different sounds in one song. Gibson manufactured
that guitar for me. Double neck guitars were hard to find in those days.
PH: You didn't use it very often, did you?
JP: The studio solo in Stairway was played on a Telecaster I got from Jeff.
And the SG was way too heavy to use on stage. One of my doctors actually
thinks that it might very well be the cause of my recent back injury.
PH: Is it true that Led Zep sold more albums than the Stones in those days?
JP: According to Atlantic we sold four times as many albums in the USA than the
"greatest rock & roll band in the world". Worldwide the difference was smaller,
but we did sell more records. Which nobody knew, since the press was always
raving about the Stones.
PH: Yes, but at least they actually spoke to the press.
JP: Peter Grant never beat up journalists.
PH: But didn't he threaten to do so?
JP: To us the press was the enemy. We never trusted them enough to let them in
on what was going on. I guess that's why so little was known about the band.
PH: Have you received a lot of death threats?
JP: Yes, but Richard Cole assures me he never saw any guns around.
PH: And you believed him?
JP: Oh sure. We could trust Richard for the full 100%. He was the best
road manager any band could have.
PH: Don't you think the best road manager would tell his band anything to make
sure the show can go on?
JP: I never thought about that. In the mid seventies I received more threats,
and we increased our security staff. At some point a girl came to the hotel
and told Danny Goldberg (our publicist) that she had dreamt somebody was going
to kill me. Danny told her to write me a letter. The letter was burnt and nobody
ever saw it. A few days later Danny saw her picture in the paper. She had tried
to kill President Ford. Her name was Squeaky Fromme, she was a member of the
Manson family.
PH: In Bombay you worked with Indian musicians for the first time.
JP: We wanted to see what would happen if two cultures would meet.
PH: And?
JP: It was a bit difficult finding a common denominator. We once had a plan to go
on tour and play with local musicians everywhere we'd go and do a world music album.
PH: It never materialized.
JP: We had a nice experience in Bombay. In some club we started jamming. I was
playing some Japanese guitar with piano strings on it. When we left the owner
gave me a bottle of whisky and promised me another if I'd come back the next night.
He told me "Boy, you're going places, you've got real talent!".
PH: Let's talk about Lori Maddox.
JP: B.P. Fallon gave me her number and I called her. She didn't believe it was
me at first, but I invited her to the hotel where we sat by the pool. The other
groupies were jealous and were trying to intimidate her. I don't think groupies
are entitled to be jealous, since a relationship with a musician usually only
lasts for one night.
PH: Lori once said that you never participated in excesses.
JP: I was in love and wanted to make a good impression on her.
PH: And she was only fourteen.
JP: In those days the rules were very different. Today she wouldn't be allowed
into the Rainbow. What we did back then would be illegal now.
PH: What about back then? Look at what happened to Roman Polansky.
JP: Yes, but rock musicians went by different rules.
PH: Eric Clapton, Keith Richards and Steve Tyler were also dating very young
girls at the time.
JP: Which member of a successful band in the seventies didn't?
Musicians, managers, roadies...
PH: In 1973 you allowed yourselves the luxury of a private jet.
JP: We had to visit 33 cities in two months, and we just wanted to stay in L.A.
Our Starship, a customized Boeing 720B jetliner made that possible.
PH: In May 1973 Peter Grant was quoted in the Financial Times saying the you had
earned 30 million dollar that year. Was he correct?
JP: You'd have to ask our accountants.
PH: As if you wouldn't know! May I bring to your attention that your own roadies
used to call you "lead wallet"?
JP: Really? Nobody ever said that to my face (pauses for 20 seconds) Okay, I DO
know exactly how much money I make these days. But how much it was in 1973...
PH: In New York $200,000 dollars was stolen from a safe. What were you planning
on doing with that amount of money?
JP: It was in case somebody wanted to buy a guitar, a car or drugs. Bonzo once
bought an $18,000 Corvette in Dallas. If money is no issue you better make
sure you carry enough in cash. After the robbery we couldn't notify the police
straight away, we had to get rid of all the illegal substances in our rooms first.
PH: Such as?
JP: No way I'm gonna tell you!
PH: Is it true that your wives weren't too thrilled about you setting up your
own record label in the USA (Swan Song)?
JP: America and especially L.A. represented sex, drugs & rock and roll to them.
So we showed them fake tour schedules. For example the launch party for
Swan Song was supposedly to take place in Denver. But the next day it was all
over the papers with pictures of us amongst groupies in the Rainbow.
PH: The next day you broke up with Lori Maddox.
JP: Yeah, I had just met Bebe Buell and invited her to the party.
PH: Didn't you have an affair with Chrissie, Ron Wood's wife?
JP: Ron and Chrissie once visited me in Sussex. We went for a walk,
and at some point Chrissie and I disappeared into the bushes.
PH: How did Ron take it?
JP: Very relaxed. He even called me shortly after and said
"Hey man, how's our mutual friend"?
PH: In 1975 you were forced to leave England.
JP: For tax reasons, yes. We toured the USA for about a year.
PH: Is it correct that the band started experimenting with crack in that period?
JP: We weren't the cleanest band in the world, obviously. But I don't want to
discuss in too much detail what we did and did not do.
PH: You supposedly had a 'secret room' in every hotel.
JP: Yes, but that wasn't for hiding drugs, that was for me to hide from Bonzo
who was getting wilder and wilder when he was drinking. Sometimes I just needed
some peace and quiet.
PH: You and Robert visited Rhodes that year, and Robert had a severe accident.
JP: His car crashed into a tree. His kids were ok, but he had broken his ankle
and his elbow while Maureen (his wife) was in very bad shape. Richard Cole
picked them up and flew them back to England.
PH: The media blamed it on your involvement in black magic.
JP: They weren't interested in the truth, they wanted a good story.
Long as it sells.
PH: Now you sound like Bonzo on one of his bad days...
JP: Well, I'm fed up with that! I wasn't responsible for Robert's accident
and I wasn't responsible for Bonzo's death. I'll take responsibility for
my own mistakes, and it's a long list! But I refuse to take responsibility
for other people's mistakes.
PH: Is it true that you and Roy Harper had been writing material
for a new Led Zeppelin album?
JP: We did some stuff together. Roy apparently assumed that this was to be
included in our new album, else he wouldn't have done that stupid interview with
this British paper. When Robert read it he was furious. But to me they were
just songs, which I write all the time. And I like to co-operate with lyricists,
but that didn't mean I intended to replace Robert. In November we got together
in our rehearsal studio in London.
PH: Because Robert didn't wanna hear the Roy Harper songs, John Paul Jones
got his chance to bring in his material.
JP: And he did! When we were working on this new material, we soon discovered
that it went really well with the stuff we did in the early seventies.
With the release of In Through The Out Door we did two gigs at Knebworth.
PH: Were you nervous on August 4th?
JP: Pretty much so, yes. But as soon as we hit the stage and heard the crowd
it felt like a homecoming.
PH: Billboard magazine wrote that you saved the record industry that year.
JP: That's slightly exaggerated, but punk and new wave weren't selling
very well in the States, and when Out Door came out people finally found
their way back to the record stores. And bought Bad Company, Heart
and Foreigner in the process.
PH: In April 1980 you began to rehearse for a European tour.
JP: We wanted to do a number of gigs in Europe to pick up the pace
and then head for the USA.
PH: Richard Cole didn't come along.
JP: At that time Swan Song was doing more drugs than albums.
PH: Shortly after that he was fired by Peter Grant.
JP: The plan was for him to sort out his problems while we did Europe.
But instead he got all upset and threatened Peter's kids. Soon as Peter found
out about it that was end of story. It was a lot less interesting without him.
No more groupies. But still lots of alcohol and drugs. During the Nuremberg gig
Bonzo fell off his drum stool, and in Frankfurt he stopped in the middle of a song
to welcome the president of Atlantic records who had just arrived. After our Berlin
gig I cancelled the rest of the tour, there was no point.
PH: Despite all that you re-joined a while later to rehearse at your Windsor house.
JP: That was on September 24th 1980. This tour was to determine the band's future.
The European tour had revealed our weaknesses and we were ready to work on those.
Or that was the plan. Bonzo had just kicked heroin, and like many addicts
switched to alcohol, which he could take much more of.
PH: I once read that he took Motival at the time.
JP: An anti depressive that helped him deal with his nervousness.
PH: It also makes it hard to drink moderately, because you feel fit,
no matter how much you drink.
JP: John stopped by the pub on the way to rehearsal and drank Vodka.
During rehearsals he kept drinking Vodka. Which has no smell, so nobody noticed
exactly how much he'd had.
PH: You didn't notice by his playing?
JP: No, he could always get the job done.
PH: Except the time when he fell from behind his drum kit.
JP: But that didn't happen this time, he was playing well.
PH: After rehearsals you threw a party to celebrate Zep's reunion.
JP: Bonzo kept on drinking. When he fell asleep on the couch my assistant
put him to bed. The next day he went to check on him in the afternoon,
and found him all blue. We called an ambulance, but it was too late.
PH: He had drunk about forty measures of Vodka in twelve hours
and had choked in his own vomit.
JP: Can we talk about something else?
PH: Of course. Peter Grant said that lots of drummers had contacted him,
even though the band split up in December 1980.
JP: Lots of drummers called me too. That kinda did it for us. If the record
company and those opportune people hadn't pushed us so much in those days,
who knows what might have happened.
PH: But there was a lot of money involved.
JP: Everyone wanted a piece of the action. The record company wanted to release
a live album, but I didn't want to benefit from John's death in that way.
PH: You did write the Death Wish 2 soundtrack. Lots of fans didn't appreciate that.
JP: Michael Winner was a good friend of mine. And a good salesman, he could sell
an Eskimo a refrigerator! But it was the right thing for me to do at the time.
It helped me ease the pain.
PH: A year after John died you bought a studio. In 1982 you released Coda.
JP: I didn't, WE did. Eight songs that never made the albums for some reason.
I was surprised that it entered the USA charts at number 4 and sold pretty well
for about a year.
PH: In 1983 you were on stage with Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton for the first time.
JP: We did the ARMS benefit for Ronnie Lane, who could afford the therapy
he was undergoing, but wanted to do something for the people who couldn't.
Playing Layla with Eric and Jeff was great! After that Bill Graham put together
some benefits in the USA. At that point I decided to kick heroin.
PH: An addiction that wasn't publicly known.
JP: It's hard to admit. But my talks with Eric, who'd been through the same thing,
helped. It took me four days to kick it.
PH: In 1984 you worked with Robert again.
JP: Besides playing with Steven Stills that year I did the Honeydrippers album
with Robert and Jeff.
PH: Even Bonzo had a new album out in 1984...
JP: You're referring to the drum samples in Frankie Goes To Hollywood's Relax.
What can you say, nobody could hit as hard as John Bonham.
PH: Later that year you were arrested in a "dazed and confused" state.
The police found some cocaine on you.
JP: I had kicked the heroin, but coke was a different story.
I had to go to court and got a £450 fine.
PH: Within a month you and Paul Rodgers started The Firm.
JP: That was misleading. It had nothing to do with white collars,
it was English slang for guys who were 'firm' enough to party all night.
PH: Then came Live Aid.
JP: Live Aid was not a reunion. We had to put aside our principles regarding
playing without Bonzo, in order to save starving children. Some things are more
important than our principals. Like Live Aid.
PH: But once you hit the stage...
JP: It was fantastic! We started with Rock & Roll, and when I played the opening
riff to Whole Lotta Love it felt as if I was struck by lightning!
Then came Stairway, and a roadie handed me my guitar completely out of tune.
But it was still a great experience.
PH: Robert said you rehearsed with that band for about a week after Live Aid.
JP: Yes, but that didn't work. We had no new material, and the drummer
got in an accident. Then that was that.
PH: In 1988 you did the Atlantic anniversary gig.
JP: Fortunately this time my guitar was in tune. Jason Bonham played drums.
PH: Didn't you play at his wedding in 1990?
JP: Yes, rock historians refer to that as the third Zep reunion.
There was a band playing, and we were all there, so we took the stage.
PH: Were you disappointed by the poor sales of Outrider?
JP: No, because I didn't want to do a big commercial album, I wanted to please
myself. And I really like that album, it's my ultimate guitar album.
PH: The Led Zeppelin CD box set sold a lot better.
JP: Absolutely!
PH: How does it feel to have your best days 25 years behind you?
JP: Better than an athlete, who will never be able to deliver the way he did
when he was young. I'm still hoping to write another Stairway some day.
PH: In 1991 you worked with David Coverdale. Not everybody liked that idea...
JP: That idea came from Geffen, and I figured I might as well give it a try.
We did deliver an album and did a brief tour. But had Robert been available,
I don't think I would've done it.
PH: Finally you and Robert were reunited for the MTV Unledded sessions.
JP: That was a lot of work, the arrangements and stuff.
PH: Why didn't you invite John Paul Jones?
JP: Because it still wasn't a Zep reunion.
PH: In 1999 you were looking for a backing band to do a benefit.
JP: Somebody suggested the Black Crowes, and during rehearsals something happened,
I was really enjoying it! We didn't need to change things, like I did with Robert
during the last tours, we just went for it. It was superb! the Black Crowes
are the best Zep cover band in the world.
PH: Why did you cancel the Black Crowes/Jimmy Page tour?
JP: I'm not getting any younger, and being on stage for three hours with
a painful back didn't appeal to me.
PH: What does your future look like?
JP: I'm at a stage where I can do exactly what I want to do. So I can allow myself
something typically British, become an old eccentric!
Interview by Robert Macher.