AN ୭ ⋆.

Acceptance hasn’t dulled their creativity or taken the edge off their rock’n’roll hunger. Led Zeppelin are pros down to the muck on their boots, and it shows.

One of the most rewarding facets of this new collection is that though the music is immediate it doesn’t deflate by the third or fourth re-run. Over-familiarity with any of their past recorded glories doesn’t breed contempt or apathy. For there’s always enough good music to keep one off the streets and contented until a follow-up companion has been perfected and shipped.

Aside from some of the more obscure lyrical sojourns into the realms of magic and mysticism, Zep again take on a number of enjoyable disguises on many of the eight cuts.

With a quick burst of six-string machine gun fire supported by bass and percussion artillery, the intro to “The Song Remains The Same” is extended to accommodate Magic Jimmy’s slashed guitar chords prior to the tempo being halved and Robert P. Zeppelin boppin’ up to the mike to moan in his best Lucy In The Skies voice (slightly speeded up ’n’ phased), “I had a dream - crazy dream.”

Thereafter he offers verbal imagery of California sunlight, sweet Calcutta rain, Honolulu starlight, sings Hare Hare and invites one and all to dance the Hoochie Koo.

In every song that ensues, Page’s dexterity extracts just about everything that can be extracted from a guitar, and then for an encore some things that can’t.

For “The Rain Song”, acoustic guitars extend the direction first premiered on “Stairway To Heaven” and “California”, Plantey gets his best ballad chops working on this one, and John Paul Jones creates the Zeppelin Symphony Orchestra on Mellotron. Very pastoral and beefed up towards the end, with some well timed dynamics.

This same mood is virtually retained intact for “Over The Hills And Far Away”. To cushion the undoctored vocal track, Page supplements his acoustic with a secondary electric line, and then when Bonzo and Jones chug along in familiar style he adds a third guitar to growl out a hot’n’nasty solo.

Good Gawd y’all. Are yer feelin’ alright? Well it’s showtime, so get on the good foot, ‘cause Pagey’s got a brand-new bag and do the Funky Zeppelin, or to be more precise “The Crunge” with Mr. James P. Led & his Lemon Squeezin’ Soul Brothers. Right On. Right On. Right On.

With Bonzo Bonham the destructor poundin’ out a grits and greens 9/4 back-beat, Page punctuates the rhythm with clipped guitar licks as brother Bobby shows James Brown where it’s currently at.

Somewhere along the way J.P. ‘Hogfat’ Jones supplies the brass parts via synthesizer to close side one.

“Dancing Days” proved a crowd pleaser when incorporated into the recent Led Zep Road Show. On wax it’s just as good, with some unusual chord progressions and a strong vocal lead from the guv’nor. The lad just gets better with each outing.

With each album Zep break new ground, and as Toots Page and his Ras Rude Boys they produce heavy metal reggae on ‘D’yer Mak’er’. Own up, liked everything they attempt, it’s a bloody great track with a fine workout from Bonzo. See what a diet of bananas and best bitter can do.

Yet another musical departure is revealed in “No Quarter”, with all four gentlemen producing an extremely ethereal mood which pivots around some super-slick piano - grand and synthesized - from J.P. Jones. Another faultless track which I’m sure points a direction for things to come.

For a flag-waving closer, Bonham gets up to his tricks again to lay down a thundering 7/4 beat, split up into one bar of three every three bars of four. I don’t pretend to be Ian Mcfalable (it’s RC not RW), but I won’t spoil your fun. I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.

But please note, proceed with the utmost caution when either clappin’ or dancin’ along. This is the kinda music that helped Zep conquer the world, and it benefits from perhaps the greatest live-in-the-studio sound I’ve heard in yonks.

PLANT COVERDALE PAGE

Who’s Zeppin’ Who?

Ex-Led Zep colleagues JIMMY PAGE and ROBERT PLANT do battle with comeback albums this month, with ex-Whitesnake DAVID COVERDALE filling Plant's boots alongside Page. In our eight-page special we interview the three leading players and analyse the Great Zep Wars.

Back to the Old School

When JIMMY PAGE and DAVID COVERDALE teamed up to cut a new album, we held our breath. Was this the saviour of British rock music or would it be a total embarrassment and end in tears? Rock World meets the new partnership in ebullient mood.

Blame it on the blues. It set them all on the road to fame, fortune and the birth of monsters. That's how James Patrick Page, Robert Plant and David Coverdale found themselves in 1993, shaking the tree of life and hoping to taste fresh fruit.

The blues inspired the young Page and Plant in the carefree, innocent Sixties. It led them to Led Zeppelin, a monstrous creation that brought them great success, joy, and sadness too. The same musical roots inspired David Coverdale, who would achieve his own celebrity in the ranks of Deep Purple and later Whitesnake.

In fact it was David, who made all the running with his own successful bands in the Eighties, while Jimmy and Robert learned to cope with the aftermath of the demise of Zeppelin. Then, as the Nineties dawned, Coverdale suddenly found himself at a dead end, with Whitesnake a spent force. Jimmy Page, after relaunching his career with a succession of singers, from Paul Rodgers to John Miles, would doubtless have preferred a reunion with Robert Plant. But the whimsical, recalcitrant and stubborn Plant could not be wooed back into the fold. For reasons which must be respected, even the offer of millions of dollars could not tempt him into an attempt to recreate the past glories of Led Zeppelin.

If they had done it eight years ago, it might have worked. But with everybody from Dread Zeppelin to Lenny Kravitz reworking the Zeppelin legacy in some form or another, the chances of a successful recreation by remnants of the original team have receded daily.

And so what are the superstars to do? They cannot sit idly by when they're itching to make music. The working partnership of Coverdale and Page might seem like a snub to Robert, but it was a move born of pragmatism and seems to have worked.

When we meet in Germany David wears a casual bright red suit, his blond hair flowing, and heavy silver bracelets jingling as he talks. A bloated looking Jimmy Page wears darker colours and looks like a Sixties’ relic in his raggy old jeans. Coverdale calls the PR work they're obliged to do: “a verbal diarrhoea tour.” But David is a pro. His stories have an amusing twist, especially when they are about David Bowie’s meanness when it comes to loaning a fellow rock star a cigarette. But first he tells us about his unexpected collaboration with Jimmy Page.

“For us it was simply do or die. If it hadn't worked it would not have been the end of the world. But, of course, we noticed that enormous expectations were being built up. It was fate that we met. I was in the depths of a personal and musical crisis at the end of 1990, when the world tour ‘Slip Of The Tongue’ was finished. I didn't know if I should continue at all. I took a break to clarify my next move. In January the following year I got a phone call from an agent who asked me if I was interested in working together with Jimmy Page.

My first reaction was ‘Yes - absolutely.’”

Jimmy Page had different plans originally. He was in the middle of working on a his second solo album. He was auditioning singers to find the ideal vocalist and became increasingly frustrated. “After listening to the 50th demo tape, I wanted to pack it in.” he recalls. But then the industrious agent got them together. Page and Coverdale were only nodding acquaintances. They only knew each other by sight.

“That's why our first meeting was so important. We had to find out if and how we would get on. We met in New York and after half an hour, we left the officials and went for a walk in Manhattan. And suddenly we had caused a little bit of traffic chaos; cars stopped and drivers wound down their car windows and asked if we were working together. At that moment we both realised that this was what we owed our audience. We had to present them with a real killer album. That was our only task. And I think we have done a good job” he says, taking a swig of beer. Coverdale has never lacked confidence.

image text: The way it was! A reminder of the halcyon days of the mid-seventies, when dinosaurs walked the earth and Zeppelin ruled the World.

Jimmy, however, is a bit more self-critical. “After all this time without a record or live presentation, I wanted to make a musical statement and prove that I am still there at my best.” For a while, only his faithful fans believed that. To call his last album ‘Outrider’ a success, is to be more than kind. And Page did not exactly shine on the guitar at the disastrous Led Zeppelin reunion gig for Atlantic Records a few years ago. It's different now. On this recording Jimmy sounds back on form, as one would expect from the inventor of heavy rock. His guitar work is powerful, sensitive and song-orientated. After their first meeting in New York everything went according to plan for this newly formed team.

They worked on a rota system. They spent some time at Coverdale's Lake Tahoe home, then, at Page's instigation, they went to Barbados.

“At the beginning,” Page reports, “we were both nervous. It wasn't what you could call a maiden voyage. We both had successful past careers. We agreed if it didn't work out after two weeks, we would shake hands and forget about it.”

But that never happened. On their first day in Tahoe ‘Absolution Blues’ was created. The next number was ‘Feeling Hot’. And so it continued. “It was great time to make this record”, says David. “We were both pretty nervous at first. We did not sit down and say ‘Let's write a Led Snake’ album. We have a substantial amount to offer without resting on former glories. It's easy to make comparisons but that's for the narrowminded. If it hadn't worked, it's likely no one would have ever heard of the attempt.”

left photo credit: Chris Walter/Relay. right photo credit: Andy Bradshaw

Eleven songs found their way on to the CD. Another five readily produced are kept somewhere in a studio safe. Nobody knows if there is going to be another one.

“One step at a time” says Coverdale. “If this is our only record, it doesn't matter. We've done it all, seen it all and survived whichever musical hula hoop was the current fad. But hanging on by one's fingernails? I'd find that sad. Ageing isn't a sin, mediocrity is. Fortunately, I think we've risen to each other expectations. It's all rock'n'roll. The two of us together generate a substantial amount of electricity. This music is flesh and blood, meat and potatoes rock!” Jimmy grins into the direction of Coverdale. “This is one show I’d like to see myself.”

Led it be...

Led Zeppelin authority and fanzine editor DAVE LEWIS analyses the career moves of the key ex-Zeppelin players, JIMMY PAGE and ROBERT PLANT.

These are exciting days for fans of the former Led Zeppelin front men. No sooner has Jimmy Page stormed the Top Five on both sides of the Atlantic with the ‘Coverdale Page’ debut album, than we find Robert Plant returning to the fray with a brand new album ‘Fate Of Nations’.

Pure coincidence or open warfare? Well, after all the controversy surrounding their careers in recent years, one could be forgiven for fearing the latter. As it happens, record company scheduling has a habit of throwing up conflicting release dates. Remember the famous occasion when all four ex-Beatles each had singles in the Top Forty, not long after their acrimonious split?

The current situation can be viewed as a direct result of Robert's decision to hold off on Jimmy's request in 1990 to reunite Led Zeppelin as a going concern, with Jason Bonham as their likely drummer. If he had said ‘yes’, it's likely that we'd now be discussing a Led Zeppelin reunion album and six dates at Wembley Stadium. Though a mouth-watering prospect, the reality of it would have done substantial harm to the group's historic image, if it had failed to live up to expectations. Plant's reluctance to turn the clock back, however, left Jimmy with no option but to search for another chest beater to work with.

So in a bizarre turn of events, enter one David Coverdale, the same Coverdale reviled in Zep circles as a second rate Plant clone, himself the subject of a vicious war of words in a vitriolic press battle with the real lemon squeezer not many years ago, when Robert was heard to call the Whitesnake singer a prat! Like countless other Zep devotees, I had grave doubts about this merger. But the end result has proved to be something of a rejuvenation for Jimmy Page. The Coverdale Page album is simply his best performance in years.

Throughout the Eighties, Jimmy seemed to meander around, half heartedly trying to regain the creative spirit that illuminated his former band. As an experiment, the 1982 ‘Death Wish’ sound-track LP proved he had retained that extraordinary edge to his playing. It deserted him, though, when he teamed up with Paul Rodgers to form The Firm. This was a serious mismatch, which did little to enhance either of their reputations, as they lurched through two very average albums ‘The Firm’ and ‘Mean Business’. Jimmy's 1988 solo album ‘Outrider’ was a step in the right direction, but compared to the grandiose production of ‘Coverdale Page’, it now sounds like a bunch of demos.

Those still complaining about the lack of a Zep reunion might like to compare the distinctly lacklustre Page/Plant collaboration ‘The Only One’ recorded for ‘Outrider’, against ‘Shake My Tree’[,] ‘Over Now’ or ‘Easy Does It’ from 'Coverdale Page.’

For sheer dynamic inventiveness the superiority of the latter tracks is quite striking. Whilst Coverdale could never spark off the sort of deep, emotional affinity fans have for Robert's singing, his performance with Jimmy is full of commitment, and there is a chemistry between the two that has certainly inspired Jimmy to turn in the sort of riff-laden grandeur that has been missing since the demise of Led Zeppelin.

Robert, meanwhile, offers up an eclectic collection of songs on his new opus ‘Fate Of Nations’, which emerges as something of an antidote to Zeppelin-ism. His own career has had its share of ups and downs over the past decade. It started comfortably enough with ‘Pictures At Eleven’, which managed to exorcise the Zep legacy without trading on former glories. The ‘Principle Of Moments’ continued the progression and even produced a surprise Top 20 hit single with the radio friendly ‘Big Log’. ‘Shaken 'N'Stirred’ was a difficult third album, finding Plant moving into unmelodic left-field areas that proved very uneasy on the ear. His career was then further confused by the success of ‘The Honeydrippers Vol.One,’ an R&B mini-album that spawned a Top Three U.S. single with ‘Sea Of Love’. Made strictly for fun, with Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page guesting, it could easily have propelled him into becoming - as he put it himself - “an American Shakin' Stevens.” Instead he pulled the plug on any Volume Two, formed an entirely new band and resurfaced in 1988 with ‘Now And Zen.’ Happy at last to reconcile his past with the present, the album featured several Zep samples, plus Jimmy Page on two tracks. 1990's ‘Manic Nirvana’ contained some fine performances, but the mediocre moments suggested it was time for another re-think.

Now three years on comes ‘Fate Of Nations’. It finds Robert Plant in his mid-forties, moving away from the hard rock foundations of earlier years into a more mature style, often far removed from what we have come to expect. Quite what Guns N'Roses fans will make of his cover of ‘If I Were A Carpenter’ is anybody's guess!

It is, perhaps, final confirmation that Robert Plant's own musical expectations are now very different to those of Jimmy Page, and that a Led Zeppelin reunion would have been completely unworkable anyway.

But really...who needs it?

If it's riff inspired Zep melodrama that's required, look no further than ‘Coverdale Page’. If it's something a little more refined and mellow, Mr. Plant can serve up a cocktail of organic styles on ‘Fate Of Nations’. The only losers here will be those who turn away from either album because of prejudice. Or put it another way (and to paraphrase that famous Rolf Harris song)...if you listen very hard, the tune will come to you at last.

(Dave Lewis is editor of ‘Tight But Loose’, the Led Zeppelin fan magazine. If you'd like an issue, the new one is out now, and costs £3.50. Write to TBL, 14 Totnes Close, Bedford МK40 3AX)

The secret life of Robert Plant

The game is up. Robert Plant doesn't want to stride the pop fashion catwalk anymore. On his new album ‘Fate Of Nations’ he harks back to music he loves, from West Coast rock to the blues. The result is a happy Plant, and a great album. But the enigma remains the same, as CHRIS WELCH reports.

Robert Plant's passionate, emotional voice has roared and soared across the decades with sustained majesty. Since his years as a rock idol - a 20-year-old cherub in tight jeans with the voice of a demonic angel through to his present role as mature minstrel - he has kept both his power and dignity. And with a succession of challenging solo albums he has managed to maintain the balance between contemporary relevance and past achievement.

As the ex-lead singer with Led Zeppelin, a band that has now ‘gone mythical’ with the same rather frightening force that an atomic pile ‘goes critical’, he is still very proud of his past. But he has always kept his distance from the ceaseless pressures to revive the Zeppelin glory days. Hence a Coverdale Page album and not a Plant Page album. And hence a new solo album from Robert ‘Fate of Nations’ (Fontana), which succours Robert's own musical needs. The album marks quite a breakthrough and change of policy. For the first time Robert has worked with a producer, Chris Hughes, and he has been energised, too, by his association with Dave Bates, head of A&R at Phonogram who signed him to Fontana. The music was recorded ‘live’ using top players Charlie Jones (bass), Phil Johnstone (keyboards), and Kevin Scott MacMichael (guitars). Guest appearances by Nigel Kennedy (on ‘Calling You’ [sic]) and Richard Thompson and Maire Brennan on the song ‘Come Into My Life’ bring a few musical surprises in their wake.

Says Robert: “I’ve made a conscious effort to get away from all the ‘isms’[,] all the computer technology, all the self-conscious awareness of what's current and fashionable.”

Certainly his work on past albums like ‘Pictures At Eleven’ verged on the obscure. His last album ‘Manic Nirvana’ marked a readiness to deliver more of what the public wanted.

Robert's voice is well ‘up’ in the mix on ‘Fate Of Nations’ and he is very pleased with the results.

But apart from these obvious facts of music biz life, Robert still retains an aura of mystery, an undeclared feeling that he doesn't want to be tied down and he still seems the rover, who first began singing the blues as a restless teenager. Sometimes he'd like to walk away from the whole business of being Robert Plant, icon, and become another person, Citizen Plant of the Planet Earth. It's just one of the little secrets he let slip during a conversation, when he was both charming, ebullient and pleasantly rambling.

After all the dramas of his life and the pressures he has undergone, he retains his sense of humour and love of music. He's always up to date with the latest bands and hits and says his current favourite is Snow's Number One smash ‘Informer’, while his favourite band of the day is probably Pearl Jam. “They're a lot better than all those glam metal bands who were like Doris Day on speed!” he jokes.

“I’ve always been neurotic about my voice,” he said wryly. “I remember getting all these awards in the early Seventies and being voted Top Male Vocalist. I look at the awards now and think... ‘How did I ever do that!’ At the time I used to say ‘Keep the voice down in the mix - keep it quiet.’ With Zeppelin, part of the atmosphere was to get the voice weaved into the instruments. The music on my new album is probably as near - organically - in construction and thought process as I will ever get to ‘Ramble On’ and stuff like that. Consciously and intentionally, that's been my plan.”

But there's no doubt Plant has pulled out all the vocal stops. -; [sic] Yes I have put the voice up a bit, because it's the first time in however many albums that I've had a producer. I never had to kow tow to anybody before. Whether it's commercially viable or not, I always have to be 100 per cent obsessed with what I'm doing. I never really thought anybody would ever say to me: I think you are wrong! Nobody ever tells me I'm wrong, however wrong I am! But Chris has introduced me to all sorts of techniques in the studio, like being patient. And like not saying: ‘That's great, that'll do okay.’ I left a lot of vocals over the years that probably could have been improved upon, although I've always had a reputation as being a distinctive vocalist, and there have been a lot of people who have used my style as THEIR style. I've always believed that what counts most of all, is that the delivery is natural and impromptu. I couldn't imagine Howlin' Wolf dropping in line three on ‘Smokestack Lightning,’ know what I mean?”

Robert says he has learned a lot from working with producer Hughes and says: “I’m really grateful to him and for having an A&R man like David Bates too. Hellfire! Does he teach you how to suck eggs - Jesus Christ! I had to learn a lot of restraint on my own personality. I'm quite a volatile character y'know, and I've learnt that I'm not the only one who knows what's right, even though it's me singing and me writing the lyrics. It's been very interesting and I've enjoyed it.”

“A lot of the stuff that I do is about developing some sort of intrigue, musically, and maybe even career-wise. One of the tracks on the album is ‘Network News’, which I wrote about ‘Kuwait’, and the ridiculous propaganda machinery which Saddam and George Bush created. It was written just after the Gulf War. I have friends who went out there capping the oil wells, and laying new pipe lines. They tell me the desert is now an absolute mess, and it used to be such an important bastion of peace and nature…”

“A lot of people who were into Zep have grown out of their denim jackets and they're listening to Chris Rea. Makes you weep!”

Using new musicians has given Robert a fillip and in Canadian guitarist Kevin Scott MacMichael from Cutting Crew, he has found a like mind, into West Coast music and Moby Grape and Quicksilver Messenger Service. “That's the kind of melodic, trippy music which I really liked pre-Zeppelin. The other guitarist is Francis Dunnery from It Bites. So they have completely different styles. There are four drummers on the album. Horses for courses, dear boy!

“It sounds like I ought to be doing this, rather than doing something techno orientated, which I did tend to lean towards. But like to try new things and see how they fit me. As a singer there's no point in keeping the same persona forever and ever. You have to do things for yourself, not what everybody expects. I could not have kept the old line, like some Sixties' singers who eke out a living by treading the same old path. I don't know whether they cry at night or roll over in bed scratching their fat bellies and say ‘Hey, that's another farewell tour we pulled off.’ I've been to some of these reconstructions of youth and they don't really stick. I mean, rock'n'roll was always supposed to be something that came from the mind, heart and loins. You can't work with the same people forever and say: ‘Hey this is youth music!’[”]

One of the new songs Robert is most pleased with is ‘Come Into My Life’[.] “It's a major milestone for me to do a song like that. The girl from Clannad, Maire, is singing on it, with Richard Thompson from Fairport Convention playing guitar. The vocal is very reflective, almost like Marvin Gaye at the end. We also invited Nigel Kennedy who plays on the Arabic style track ‘Calling To You’. It's got guitar in the middle and a violin at the end. But on stage we'll probably use a guitar to do it, and play it with a violin bow!

“There is a lot of stuff around, and you have to find a way of being exposed to the music. In the Sixties there was no Radio 1, so it was word of mouth and trend. That's how Led Zeppelin came out of the underground scene. It was all a clannish thing, and that's exactly what is happening now. The other thing is people's vitality for music changes once they reach a certain age. It dulls off, so a lot of people who were into Zep have grown out of their denim jackets and they're listening to Chris Rea. Makes you weep to think about it! But there's a lot of crap out there, and a lot of stuff that's very promising. That's always been the case. There are people trying hard to be different and people who are jumping onto bandwagons. Some people just do it for the money. People say to me, ‘You could really make a killing here’. And I say, ‘Oh yeah, how would I do that? Ha, ha!’”

“There is a certain unreality about being a star and eventually fans lose the plot and move on to something else.”

We knew what he was talking about - a Zep reunion or at least a Zeppelin-esque album, but Robert smiles and explains.

“Before Zep, Jimmy Page was in groups and I was in groups, and after Zep, we went into different groups again. I love what we did together. Some of it was superb. I also remember some of the conditions it was created in - some of it not so good. But none of that matters really because Led Zeppelin is now a timepiece. But you have to move on in every respect. I sometimes think I could quite easily get up and go and leave everything, and end up in another part of the world as somebody else. Do you know what I mean? It is possible to leave this persona of a rock'n'roll singer.

I've done it before. I think I did it when my boy Karac died in 1977. I left Zeppelin completely. I left the mentality that you need to be a singer. My values changed then. It's just entertainment. It's the music that counts, not the burble that comes out of our mouths.”

“It's a bit late for Jim and Dave to go ‘All together now! But if it's getting Jimmy Page working again, then great!’[”]

But you like to entertain?

“Oh yeah, but you can do that socially. I don't intend not to be a singer for a long time. But I was thinking if I stepped to one side and walked down another street and changed all the ‘phone [sic] numbers and moved, it's quite an interesting phenomena. Cat Stevens did it y'know.”

But once you'd done it, there would be no looking back!

“Who knows? You could become a teacher, a gardener, a roadie for another group! There is a certain amount of unreality about being a star and eventually fans lose the plot and move on to something else. When they reach 40 they say ‘Oh yeah I remember them - the Little Angels. What happened to them?’”

Did Robert feel he reacted to events or did he shape them?

“Both I think. There is a lot going around me at the moment and people ask me for comments, but you can say what you like. You can create landmines for people. The Page Coverdale thing is great for questions!”

We were going to ask you about that...

“Fancy that, I thought you'd never come round to it! But we're only a couple of months behind the whole Rolf Harris explosion. Was I upset about him doing ‘Stairway To Heaven?’ No, not at all. I'll get me own back! Look, who cares? Trouble is, it's a bit late for Jim and Dave to go ‘All together now!’ although I think they are actually saying that.”

There was a pregnant pause while I digested this. What did Robert really think of the Coverdale Page album? Didn't it sound like a lot of Zeppelin riffs knitted together?

“Exactly. But when you write your comments, they won't be construed as sour grapes because you are just reviewing something. From my angle I am really glad to see that Jimmy has got the whole thing focused and that he's doing what he loves to do best. It's great for him and I don't mind what he does. I hope he goes out and has a really great tour and enjoys himself. There's no point in having any other opinion. That's it! There are thousands of other things to say, but the bottom line is, if it's getting Jimmy working, its [sic] great. And who cares if our albums came out at the same time? There's no conflict. My songs are as reminiscent of parts of Zep as his are, but perhaps not as blatant. I actually dislike doing interviews y'know, because the music is the music and everything else is just waffle.”

After intensive rehearsals Robert and his band start their European tour with Lenny Kravitz, and some festivals with Def Leppard and a spot at Glastonbury Fayre.

He's also done some filming in the Welsh mountains and in Southern Morocco for a documentary about Celtic warlords.

“I’ve been longing to sing on stage again, it's been so long since the last tour. I sang on stage with Fairport Convention at Cropredy Festival, which is a great gig. I love that New Age feeling with some really beautiful people - and a few old beer swillers in the tent!”

Robert has another special reason for getting out on the road again.

“We can do a couple of Rolf Harris songs!”

_____________________________________________

bonus:

Every month we despatch a major rock star halfway across the world in return for them telling us all about the tape of favourite tracks they've compiled for the trip. To celebrate our first birthday, we decided to take a look back over a year of In Flight Entertainments...

ROBERT PLANT

TALK TALK: 'Laughing stock' JIMMY SMITH: 'Organ Grinder Swing' HOWLING WOLF: 'Going Down Slow' SNOW: 'Informer' LED ZEPPELIN: 'Houses Of The Holy' BLACK CROWES: 'Remedy' PEARL JAM: 'Ocean' VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: 'Lark Ascending' R.E.M.: 'Life's Rich Pageant' LENNY KRAVITZ: 'Are You Gonna Go My Way?'

_____________________________________________

my thoughts:

“Who’s Zeppin’ Who?” is a wonderful choice of a title

They used the same photo of Robert three times and I completely understand it. The silent BLAME in those eyes.

"We also invited Nigel Kennedy who plays on the Arabic style track ‘Calling To You’. It's got guitar in the middle and a violin at the end. But on stage we'll probably use a guitar to do it, and play it with a violin bow!" — ah, Robert, thanks for casually dropping another reference to Jimmy in the context of this song.

"He's also done some filming in the Welsh mountains and in Southern Morocco for a documentary about Celtic warlords." — wait what??

Robert is bitter about Coverdale/Page as usual and does a half-arsed job at hiding it. Don't tell me he didn't know what he was doing when he spoke about people copying him.

Kudos to Chris Welch admitting his confusion. Aren't we all frequently confused when Robert speaks.

Robert Plant is interviewed by Uncut at 10.30am on Friday, January 18, at the offices of his management company, Trinifold, in Camden. It's cold and blustery and Plant has just driven down from Worcestershire for a day of business in London, which has meant an early start and a long journey. Not that either has had anything remotely like a diminishing effect on Plant's evidently bountiful energy. He's 60 this year, but there's little sense about him of someone thinking of slowing down, taking it easy. The day after we meet, he's off to the States, where in April he starts a major tour with Alison Krauss and T Bone Burnett with whom last year he made Raising Sand, the best album of his solo career. For the next hour and a half, however, sitting on the edge of a huge leather sofa, he talks at candid length and with enormous affection about his 40-year relationship with Jimmy Page — "my brother" — the triumphs and troubles they have enjoyed and endured, his excitement at playing with an "on fire" Jimmy at the O2 reunion on December 10, and what comes next for Zep.

UNCUT: So what was it like stepping out on the O2 stage with Jimmy after all that time?

Robert Plant: The kind of resonance in the air — for people who didn't have to blink an eyelid to get in there, for people who come from Australia or Japan, to Jason [Bonham]'s family, John's family, all the families — anticipation and expectation was huge. The potential for failure was also great because nobody knew what it was going to be like.

Did the success of the show test your previously stated resolve not to reform for a full-blown reunion and tour?

RP: Not at all. I really enjoyed it. And hopefully, one day, we could do it again for another really, really good reason. Our profit is — it's metaphysical. And that's the thing, especially with my connection with Jimmy. I mean, the two of us are almost umbilically attached in some strange way and have been down the years. And that's survived everything. From the time I was 19 to now, when I'm 59.

You first met Jimmy when he came to see [Plant's pre-Zep band] Hobbstweedle play. Can you remember your initial impression of him?

RP: I remember it very clearly. He was very reserved, very polite, slightly withdrawn and definitely it was evident to me that he didn't have the common touch and probably didn't need it. Even though I was hot and pretty self-confident, Jimmy, with all his sort of quietude, he had a great advantage. I felt immediately this was a different kind of guy to anybody I'd met before. So I was welcomed into Jimmy's home and immediately I realised his interests and the whole landscape of his music and his life was very broad and esoteric. And I just couldn't believe it. I just thought, 'God' — quietly to myself — 'this is going to be a real learning curve.' And of course it was, right up until the drugs, right up until it got kind of unworkable in Zep.

Are you saying to some extent that looking at him was like looking into a mirror, that what you saw in him was a reflection of yourself?

RP: Only on a superficial level. I was brash and bullish, and he was very retiring. And as much as I was tactile, he was quite the opposite.

As you became more confident with your own role in the band, and started to get a lot more personal attention, was Jimmy cool with that? Or was it a source of friction, given that it was Jimmy's band?

RP: No, not at all. No. I mean, surely, bearing in mind that he's a very bright man and there's always reserve behind the reserve, and he's always got two or three things going on, plus his charm, and he's got buckets of that now, why would he have a problem with that? He was masterminding the whole thing, so he had to encourage it. And it was there to behold. I mean, I was doing what I was doing and he was doing what he was doing and it was the two guys at the front. If I'd have been static or if I hadn't had the appeal or the front myself, I'd have been out of there. Gone. And during Led Zep I [1969], as far as I was concerned, I thought that I was going to go anyway. I didn't feel that comfortable, because there were a lot of demands on me vocally — which there were all the way through the Zeppelin thing. And I was quite nervous and I didn't really get into enjoying it until II, because I thought, 'Shit!' The equipment was so inferior in those days for vocals, I could never hear myself. There were no monitors, nothing. So I was quite demure, but at the same time when it came to playing live, that was when I was OK. I could perform 'cos I believed in it. I can't do anything I don't believe in. Now, especially.

You've described a flourishing personal and creative relationship with Jimmy. When did it start to unravel?

RP: Well, we went to Bron-Yr-Aur [in 1970, to regroup after a gruelling US tour] to write, to begin work on III and we were brothers then. II had been created in a flurry, on the road in various studios. But here we were on the side of a mountain near Machynlleth, going, "Er, OK." But the great thing was that we wanted to change it, we wanted to make it more pastoral. I think Robin Williamson and some of The Incredible String Band were in Machynlleth with some Bulgarian singers in some farmhouse somewhere, so there was a vibe around. It was like, I don't know, just a feeling, you know, "We've got to be able to do something here." So we wandered off to a — guess what? — waterfall and played and sang and took the cassette machine, and it was to me bliss, pastoral bliss. Because I really wanted to bring music out of the ground, if you like, rather than out of the city, rather than out of some "squeeze my lemon" place. We wrote "That's The Way" one morning, and the lyrics were good — I was, I don't know, 23. And the magisterial movement of the chords in the stanzas between the verses, it was all one could ever wish for. And as a couple of guys, we really… we sat by the fire at night and I've still cassettes somewhere of the old grandfather clock ticking. There was no electricity, outside toilets, the smell of woodsmoke and alcohol. I don't think we even smoked dope then. I know Jimmy didn't. He didn't drink or smoke, really. And we were on a roll. We were spectacularly close and we knew we'd got something going which was genuine, not some fabricated bullshit, and being together was something very special. We were really, really good buddies. Later, when Jimmy's health wasnʼt too good [Plant is presumably referring to Page's heroin use] it wasn't the same… it was a different time.

As Jimmy became more insular and withdrawn, how much did you miss those adventures you used to share?

RP: Inevitably, perhaps, the intimacy changed as time went on. Now, health problems are one thing — but also a genuine reason for it to change was the fact we had families. So we became part-time adventurers and part-time dads. And you know that's just a shame. Because you can never really give enough to either side of it, the wanderlust or the commitment to family. So the intensity changed. And that period of adventure moved into Physical Graffiti [1975], which was spectacular, which was recorded similarly to Houses Of The Holy [1973], to the extent that we rented a place with a mobile studio, and everybody was pretty cool and it was all great, great, great. And if there were some dalliances in one direction or another, it certainly wasn't a solo project. We were all up to no good, one way or another. It's just a question of how much you're doing and how the constitution will take it. So I wasn't upset with Jimmy, I didn't become remote. He didn't become remote. We'd both just moved to another place. And if you think about the difference between III and Physical Graffiti, they're both great, but Physical Graffiti really is the band at its most creative and expressive. So, I don't think there was ever really a problem right up until perhaps just before I lost my boy [Plant's son, Karac, died in 1977] and then the actual thing of being on the road touring was quite questionable for me.

In what ways?

RP: Well… I just thought… I think it was so big that there was no infrastructure to contain it. By 1977, I was 29, just prior to Karac's passing, and that sort of wild energy that was there in the beginning had come to the point where we were showboating a bit. Unfortunately, we had no choice. We were on tours where places were going ape-shit. There was no way of containing the energy in those buildings. It was just insane. And we became more and more the victims of our own success. And the whole deal about the goldfish bowl and living in it, that kicked in. And that's what happens. Look at any big group. There's no way around it.

No matter how much you all love each other and no matter how instrumental Peter Grant was and no matter how many security guys we had and all this stuff, it was still insane, because there was no way out. It was like being a crazy Elvis. And so everybody retired to their own corners within the environment, in the hotels. Everybody had their own way of dealing with it. So the group moved and the individual personalities in the group evolved again. We changed, all of us. But all the time, Jimmy was pushing it, which was great. He was always thinking about stuff. I mean, by the time we were doing Presence - which is before'77—I was in a wheelchair. I was pretty banged up. You haven't got enough time and neither have I to go through all these changes, but they were all quite amazing, because something pretty constructive came out of them, even when things were very painful. And that's a great thing, I think. We were men. We weren't teasy-weasy kids. We had to be men because of the things that we had to share — even if we did go home to our own individual soliloquies. But it kind of went off the rails in the end because everybody got a little bit too relaxed and haywire. For me, then, it didn't really work from '77 onwards. However, there were moments at Knebworth that were spectacular. But the price you have to pay to get to those moments, I didn't think was worth it anymore. It wasn't my idea of constructive open-heart surgery.

Did you ever confront Jimmy about his heroin use and the effect it was having on himself and the band?

RP: I think with most users, the denial is part of the condition and because most everybody around was in one way or another denying something, there was no central point of solidarity. If Peter hadn't been so unavailable himself, he might have pulled the whole thing he together, 'cos his influence was huge. But it didn't work like that. But nonetheless, I still think that by that time Jimmy and I had become quite adept politically at keeping it going, even though I felt very compromised. I also felt for him, you know.

How could you not?

RP: Exactly, exactly, yeah, yeah. I mean, he was my buddy. He will always be my buddy. But, you know, everything happened that happened and Jimmy's come through it and he's got himself back. He's now the same guy, almost, whatever the scars and the surgery. He's got it, he's back.

How different was he at the O2 reunion from the guy you worked with on the UnLedded tour in 1994?

RP: If Jimmy was as healthy then and when we came to do Walking Into Clarksdale, if he'd been as open and as healthy and he'd had the resolve then that he has now, we'd probably have gone somewhere else again. Because I'm always exhilarated by hearing him play. I think he's met his demons now and he's made that public now as much as he can without losing face. Without giving too much away, the olive branch came out. And when he brought that branch out — he said, "I offer you an olive branch."

Which you were happy to accept?

RP: Yes. I mean, I wish he could've given it to himself so many years back.

Has it been painful to watch what he's been through?

RP: Not really, no. You've got to make your own way. I mean he's got great kids, I'm his friend, he's got a lot of friends. He's just got to be honest with himself. I think that's where he's at now.

To what do you attribute this new resolve?

RP: He's had a lot of wake-up calls. I suppose in a way he must be intrigued that some people have stuck around when, like in my case, I don't need anything from him at all. I just don't. After all that, after you survey your own projection on others, some people will just walk. Others won't. Because there's unfinished business, definitely.

Do you think it’ll ever be finished?

RP: No. I don’t think so. And I don’t think there’s any need for it to be finished. Because as long as he’s got a bit of creative electricity going through his nut, then there’s going to be something to do sometime. It’s just in what form and how much of a compromise it would be to the real root of what we had as Zeppelin. Because all that razzamatazz, people are addicted to it. Everybody wants to have some fun, but we would probably try to go to a different place to have that fun, musically. With a different sort of canvas. But it’s easy for me to say now, with Raising Sand reinventing itself every two weeks. I mean, it’s got its own life. I've never been involved with anything with its own life like this. Especially since I wasn’t expecting anything more than a position on the Americana charts in Billboard or something. But he’s been incredibly gracious about that. Because it was quite an unusual thing. I mean, we’d been planning the release of Raising Sand for about a year, because Alison had to finish her projects last summer, so the release was set for around Thanksgiving. And then, when we agreed that we [Zeppelin] play together, there was definitely a feeling of ‘What’ s going on here? How come he’s doing that, when we’re rehearsing for Led Zep?’ Well, I couldn’t help that.

Did that cause any friction?

RP: Not really. But it was a kind of incredulous moment when they realised that I was bluegrassing it…

Finally, how did you feel as you finished that set at the 02?

RP: First of all, we did what we set out to do and more, in every respect. We showed people that Led Zeppelin did go on a bit. There was an opportunity to get a drink occasionally during the show. But at the same time, that’s what we were. The personality of the audience has changed from those days when everybody was in the same condition as the band. Now it was more like the 68th wonder of the world, rather than a gig. So I felt a bit embarrassed. I felt a bit like I’d gone into character, in a way, even though I sang my nuts off. And the interplay between us all was excellent. I just wanted to take it somewhere else for a minute. I kept saying during rehearsals, “Maybe we can just drop that bit there and perhaps finish off with ‘Goodnight’ by The Incredible String Band?”

What, from “A Very Cellular Song”?

RP: Yeah, that’s it. [Sings]: “I was walking in Jerusalem, just like John… Lay down my sweet Jesus, won’t you lay and take your rest.” And, “Yeah,” Jimmy said. “We always said we’d do that.” And of course we didn’t, because the occasion was bigger than that. And that’s the trouble with the whole thing about Led Zeppelin. It was always bigger than the beauty of what we had in mind. So I felt like it was a job done, that we were friends, strong, good. Allan Jones

John Paul Jones is interviewed by telephone, on January 28, a few days before he presents an award to, and performs with, John Martyn at the Radio 2 Folk Awards, and less than a fortnight before he makes an appearance with the Foo Fighters at the Grammys, conducting the orchestral arrangement to their song, “The Pretender”. Jones, 62, is one of the most respected musicians in the world, whose recent activities (notably as a mandolin player) have seen him collaborate with artists as diverse as Robyn Hitchcock, Ben Harper and Gillian Welch. Jones, who could be seen playing a banjo backstage during the hours before Zeppelin’s O2 Arena concert (“It calms me down”), is a famously dry-witted soul, who precedes most of his answers with a slightly puzzled-sounding “erm…” Uncut receives a preliminary call from Jones’ office, 20 minutes before the interview, just to check that we’re ready and that we are who we say we are. Jones does not sound like a man who enjoys having his time wasted.

UNCUT: Firstly, what did it feel like to be playing with Jimmy again at the 02?

John Paul Jones: Pretty damn good. We put a lot of work into it — I'd done a lot of playing with him in the months preceding it — and it was fun revisiting the numbers and playing with a really good player again.

Is he as good as the Page of old?

JPJ: Yeah, he is. I know it sounds obvious, but he was always one of my favourite guitarists and as soon as we started rehearsing, I was amazed to hear how he’d actually improved. He seemed to have grown since I saw him last.

It’s difficult for him, isn’t it, to perform these songs live? Some of them have upwards of five or six tracks of guitar on the recordings.

JPJ: Obviously, we always used to do songs that had a lot of overdubs, and we used to have to come to some arrangement about doing them live. So we’re kind of used to it, but yeah, you've got to be pretty nimble to cover all the important parts. He did it without a second thought.

He came on wearing shades. Was he nervous?

JPJ: Ha! No, he seems to like wearing shades… for pictures and things like that.

I know that Ahmet Ertegun was the reason for the reunion, but what do you think it meant to Jimmy?

JPJ: Ahmet meant a lot to us all. We wanted to be on his label in the first place, so, yes, it was a tribute to a very important man. That we did a full Zeppelin show… albeit a short one, at two hours… [Jimmy] was very happy. It’s probably similar to what it meant to all of us, which is: it’s nice to be able to do it, to prove to yourself that you can do it.

Can we read anything into the fact Jimmy oversees all re-releases and DVDs? Does he care more about Zeppelin’s legacy than you and Robert?

JPJ: No. It’s true that he certainly puts more work into it — he was the producer in the band, and so it’s more a continuation of those duties, I suppose. But the band was his original vision, it holds a very special place in his heart. It holds a special place in all of our hearts.

I know you weren’t involved with UnLedded, but was there a part of you that was at least glad to see Jimmy working with Robert again?

JPJ: [Doubtfully] Yeah… I wasn’t particularly glad for anybody at that point. [Laughs] But yeah… it was mitigated by that thought. At least he was playing. It was probably good for him.

Can you and Jimmy joke about that now?

JPJ: We don’t actually joke about it. It was quite a hard time for me. But we’re past it, if you know what I mean.

Would you like to make another Led Zeppelin album?

JPJ: Exrr… I’d have to think about that.

Really?

JPJ: Led Zeppelin’s a… I mean, it was great to do the [02] show. We spoke afterwards, and we both thought the same — it felt like the first night of a tour. You think, ‘Oh, I could do that a bit better, or change something in that song.” And we didn’t get a chance to do any more.

Would it be hard to build that momentum back up again? Because Robert’s off on tour with…

JPJ: [Interrupting] Yeah. Yeah.

Do you think the reunion began and ended at the 02?

JPJ: It’s possible. It is possible.

You don’t sound too certain about the prospect of an album.

JPJ: No. I’m not sure. I'm not too certain about anything, right at the moment. I’ve got no idea what’s going to happen. But I'd certainly like to play with Jimmy again. David Cavanagh

Jimmy Page is the last Zeppelin member to be interviewed, on March 10, at the Gore Hotel, a discreet establishment in London’s Kensington. On the day that the UK is hit by its worst storms in 25 years, a healthy-looking Page — 64 years old, clad entirely in black, with slicked-back white hair — meets Uncut in a basement room of the Gore, which is decorated with tapestries, candelabras, ornate mirrors and log fireplaces. The tapestries have a slight Transylvanian aspect, with spooky castles half-visible through small gaps in dense forests. The room is painted a deep, rich, peppermint green. After friendly introductions, Page, who has recently been filming a documentary with Jack White and The Edge (“three generations of guitar players — yep, you've got it”) sits himself down on a low, purple velvet settee. Teetotal for some six years now (although he still enjoys the occasional cigarette), Page drinks black coffee and sips water throughout our interview. Shall we begin at the O2 Arena? “Why not!”

UNCUT: What memories and emotions from the night of December 10 stand out for you?

Jimmy Page: First of all, I think that what we intended to do, we accomplished. Judging by the feedback, it really moved a lot of people. It was a totally different show to the production rehearsal beforehand, but that was intended; we wanted to be able to move this way and that, musically, within the framework of the songs. So, yeah, on reflection, it was mission accomplished.

Was there a point in rehearsal when you thought, ‘We’re going to be OK, we’re going to pull this off…’

JP: Yes, at the first rehearsal. Look at the psychology of it. If the four members get to get together in a room to play, nobody wants to be the one who causes it not to work. Everyone went into that room with a will, I believe, to make it work. And it was really exciting to be playing the music with such intent.

You walked onstage at the O2 wearing shades. What could you see in the faces of the front rows?

JP: I wasn’t concentrating on the audience. It was heads-down for the first three numbers, which we did as a medley, non-stop, and when I took my glasses off, I didn’t see the audience then, either. I was just getting lost in the music. We’d paced ourselves for this concert, we’d given it our total commitment, and nothing was going to get in the way of it — not even broken fingers — forget it, nothing was going to get in the way of this.

What were the most stunning performances that night?

JP: From the feedback I've had, it all built towards “Kashmir”. Everybody who remarked on it, whether it was the public or other musicians, said that “Kashmir” was totally out of this world.

What was it like backstage afterwards? Was it emotional?

JP: It was. I had my young kids there. I was really keen to see them before the show, and then after it, as I knew it was going to be a very intense spectacle for them. I spent most of the time in a room downstairs with my family, and the families of John Paul Jones, Robert and Jason. It was emotional. It was extremely emotional onstage as well. Intense. But a positive emotion. It was a joyous experience, a celebration.

Almost all the reviews praised your playing, and John Paul Jones has told us there were times when he felt you were playing better than ever…

JP: That’s really kind of him. I must say there were moments. The thing is, when you’re going for the spontaneity of the night, if you like, you really want to know that you can still do it. I knew I could. People think I haven’t been playing lately, but I have. I've been playing all along.

Led Zeppelin’s music was written while you were in your twenties and thirties. Is there anything intrinsic in those songs that makes them fiendishly difficult to play in your sixties?

JP: No, I wouldn’t say so, providing you’re mentally and physically sound. The original players, that is; I wouldn’t say that any guys of 60 could play that music. It’s a more complicated music than what you seem to be saying. There’s a subtlety in how it all synchronises together…

Sure. I wasn’t suggesting that Uriah Heep, in their sixties, would suddenly be able to play Zep stuff.

JP: No, and I wouldn’t be able to play Uriah Heep stuff. But with Led Zeppelin, that music is probably going to go through to the DNA imprint of my children and my grandchildren. It’s so much a part of me. I just go into a sort of… For example, a number that we did in the rehearsals was “The Rover”. Now, we hadn’t played “The Rover” before, not in a complete version…

I always think of “The Rover” as a perfect illustration of Zep at their most confident.

JP: That sort of swagger? It’s got a real swagger about it. An intentional swagger.

Well, I was thinking more about the fact that you write this great song, which most bands would kill for, and then you casually leave it off the album [Houses Of The Holy] that it’s supposed to go on.

JP: Well, yes, but it had its time and its place. The place for “The Rover” is quite clearly where it comes, in Physical Graffiti, as that’s where it really works.

Will there be a CD and DVD from the 02?

JP: It was recorded, but we didn’t go in with the express purpose of making a DVD to come out at Christmas, or whatever. We haven’t seen the images or investigated the multitracks. It’s feasible that it might come out at some distant point, but it’ll be a massive job to embark upon.

We learn in our Sunday newspapers that Robert has turned down an offer to tour the world with Zeppelin. What’s the situation? Could a tour happen?

JP: The focus was towards the O2 show. That’s what I had my focus on. As for Robert, he had a parallel project [with Alison Krauss] and it’s been successful, which I suppose means he doesn’t have time for Led Zeppelin at this point. What I do know — what I do know — is that the rehearsals, and the O2 gig, were really inspiring. OK? That’s all I'll say.

Right, but are Led Zeppelin…

JP: That’s as fair an answer as I can give you.

Can’t you go any further than that?

JP: I don’t know what John Paul Jones has said, and I don’t know what Robert has said. But I know how I felt about the thing, and…

But it sounds like you, yourself, are open to the idea of a Zeppelin tour, and possibly an album? I don’t want to put words in your mouth…

JP: Well, don’t put words in my mouth. I know how… Look, I started this by saying that there was a will to succeed, if you like, in those original rehearsals. And everybody had such a commitment to it. Now, if you're talking about a tour — other dates, maybe recording together — there’s only one thing that’s going to be the common denominator with that. And that’s commitment. That’s how we did the O2.

Somewhere in a Zeppelin office, though, is the phone ringing off the hook? Offers from American promoters, inquiries from record companies…

JP: Oh, I'm sure there is. I'm sure there is.

Do you get bothered with that on a daily basis?

JP: In what respect would I get bothered with it? No, I don’t get bothered with it.

In the respect that…

JP:I do get bothered with it, I suppose, because there’s so many people, who may recognise me, who come up and say, either (a) they went to the O2 that night or (b) they didn’t and are you touring? And I have to say, “Well, at the moment, we’re not. At the moment, there are no plans.”

At the very least, has this given you a new boost of energy and purpose? For instance, you were interviewed in 2004 and said you were working on “new, radical, unexpected” material. What stage of development has that material reached?

JP: I'll tell you exactly the sort of music I've been writing. They’re the sort of vehicles and frameworks that could be applied — because I remember saying one thing in that interview, that “a good riff is a good riff” — but these are vehicles that could be used in various situations. I might have one thing that could be just as easily recorded with an ethnic drum orchestra as with a rock’n’roll band. Do you see what I mean? Or you could play it acoustic. It’s the application of it. But I'm ready. I'm ready, now, to present the stuff that I've got.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but it’s been 10 years since you last released an album of new songs, which was Page & Plant’s Walking Into Clarksdale in 1998.

JP: That doesn’t matter! No! What does that matter?

There was a time when…

JP: No! I've done other things since then… There was a time when what?

When you’d have been desperate to let the public hear the latest music you’d created. To let it be heard, enjoyed and admired.

JP: What, you mean, within the working vehicle of a band? Oh, yes, yes, that’s right. But I haven’t had a band to tour with. No, but I’ve done a number of projects, though.

But not new albums. Not since 1998. You did a live album with The Black Crowes, but that wasn’t really a new album.

JP: Yes, but I've just done a documentary, and I did some of my new music in that. I've got enough new music to make it sort of… sort of tantalising and… yes, to reapply a commitment to that, shall we say.

When you look back at the way you put Led Zeppelin together in 1968, does it sometimes seem ridiculously easy? I mean, you ask Terry Reid to be the singer, who says no, but he knows this bloke, who’s absolutely perfect, and he just happens to know the best drummer in Britain…

JP: Have you heard River by Terry Reid? No? Because if you haven’t, I'm just trying to show you the reason why Terry Reid was considered. Also there’s something that’s relative to the whole timing of this. You just said that John Bonham was the greatest drummer in England. I thoroughly agree with you. But his reputation had not reached London. He hadn’t come out of the Midlands yet. He'd just started to play with Tim Rose — he certainly wasn’t playing with Robert — but when I heard John play, it was, well, there was just no doubt about it. Il tell you what, you just felt it. Everyone felt John Bonham.

If Terry Reid had said yes, Led Zeppelin would have got a great singer — but you wouldn’t have had that ethereal, haunting quality that Plant brings to the first album. It’s quite a disturbing sound in places; he’s almost on the cusp of male/female sexuality. Was anyone else singing like that at the time?

JP: Not to that degree, no. He stretched his vocal range way beyond what anyone else had done. The likes of Terry Reid and Steve Marriott had the attitude, and the mid-range, but Robert was doing sort of vocal gymnastics. He wasn’t singing like that when I heard him up in the Midlands. I don’t think he’d ever sung like that before the first Zeppelin album. I don’t think John Paul Jones had ever played like that before. Nobody had played like that before. I certainly hadn’t.

Is it true “Whole Lotta Love” was written onstage during a gig in America, when you were all jamming on a Garnet Mimms song?

JP: No. No. Absolutely incorrect. No, it was put together when we were rehearsing some music for the second album. I had a riff, everyone was at my house, and we kicked it in from there. Never was it written during a gig — where did you hear that?

I read it in a book.

JP: [Sarcastically] Oh good. I hope it was that Rough Guide. That’s the latest one, the most inaccurate. They’re all inaccurate, you know.

You were one of the first producers, around 1968, to realise people weren’t just listening to music on mono record-players anymore, but had moved onto stereo, and headphones.

JP: Yeah! Well, I'd been touring America with The Yardbirds, and something that was apparent was that there were two streams of radio. One was the Top 40 AM stations, which were playing the singles, and the other was the FM stations which put on whole albums. I thought this was magnificent, because you'd hear what a band was really up to. That registered with me. Those FM listeners were the sort of people I wanted to reach.

But the stereo aspect? There are a lot of very impressive sound effects on early Zeppelin LPs.

JP: I knew for sure that people were listening on headphones. It was something that was really important within the production. You get lots of movement going on [he waves his hands in the air]. Apart from the fact that it was fun to do, it presented an incredible picture in your head as you were listening.

How was the swirly effect at the end of “When The Levee Breaks” achieved? I always imagine you sitting there with a joystick…

JP: It’s sort of like that, isn’t it? It’s interesting on “…Levee Breaks”, you’ve got backwards harmonica, backwards echo, phasing, and there’s also flanging, and at the end you get this super-dense sound, in layers, that’s all built around the drum track. And you’ve got Robert, constant in the middle, and everything starts to spiral around him. It’s all done with panning.

Was it important that Zeppelin should become a huge band, an internationally renowned band, as well as a bloody good one?

JP: Initially, coming from The Yardbirds and putting it all together, I had a long-term plan that it wasn’t just going to be a band that would make singles and trite music. It was going to have longevity, and it was going to make profound music. That sort of ethic — well, you want to have success, don’t you, as that means your music is going to be heard. And also your contemporaries would say: “That’s a really good band you've got there.” And we didn’t — this is the key — we didn’t have to worry about singles, and ‘Is there a follow-up to “Whole Lotta Love” on the third album?’ No! We don’t want one! Because that’s going to restrict you. The whole thing was to burst out, burst open, and go over the horizon and beyond, and beyond, and beyond.

“In My Time Of Dying”, on Physical Graffiti, ends with a joke and a burst of laughter. It seems a bit inappropriate, I feel, after such a devastating 11-minute performance. Was that humorous reaction typical of Zeppelin in the studio?

JP: We were just having such a wonderful time. Look, we had a framework for “In My Time Of Dying”, OK, but then it just takes off and we're just doing what Led Zeppelin do. We’re jamming. We’re having a ball. We. Are. Playing.

When you worked on the DVD of The Song Remains The Same, what went through your mind as you watched footage of the young Jimmy Page in ’73?

JP: Well, it was sticky tape and glue, really. The live footage was shot by the film crew over three nights. They shot more than that, but they might have had problems with their communications because you’d find, when all the film was viewed, that they had whole areas that were missing in the songs. There were so many holes in it. So I'm sort of miming at Shepperton to what I'd played at Madison Square Garden, but of course, although I've got a rough approximation of what I was playing from night to night, it’s not exact. So the film that came out in the ’70s is a bit warts-and-all.

You haven’t quite answered my question. When you look at the guitar player in those scenes at Madison Square Garden — he’s the leader of the greatest rock band in the world, he’s dressed in a fabulous outfit, he’s playing guitar with a violin bow, he’s got the best haircut he’s had in his life…

JP: Hahahahaha!

…do you look at him and think, ‘Wow, my God, he’s pretty impressive?’

JP: [Pause] I look at him and think, ‘He’s really living it. He’s really, you know, in his music. And that’s wonderful. I can relate to that, and I can see him taking chances, and I can see him making mistakes.

You’re often described as the curator of Led Zeppelin’s heritage. Are you?

JP: No, I'm not, but I've certainly tried to make sure that there wasn’t a rape and pillage of it. I'm very conscious that less is more.

Was playing with Robert at the 02 a very different experience to the Page & Plant tours of the ’90s?

JP: Of course it was different, because it was better. With no disrespect to the musicians who played in Page & Plant, it’s got to be better to play the music with the key members who’ve written it. So that’s Robert, that’s me and that’s John Paul Jones.

Why did Page & Plant end when it did?

JP: The LP was all right, but it was scaled right down. There could have been a follow-up, but it’s a leading question, isn’t it? I had some material written for another album. I had about a dozen numbers, and some of them were really good, but Robert heard them and he wanted to go in another direction. He wanted to do a solo album. Fair enough.

Robert’s now touring with Alison Krauss. Does it infuriate you? Do you feel like saying: “But Robert, this is LED ZEPPELIN we’re talking about!”

JP: No, because he’s made many departures and that’s what he feels he needs to do. No, he can do what he wants. We’re all grown men, for heaven’s sake. But I know what is inspirational, and what is really challenging, and that is the sort of direction that I personally — personally — intend to go.

If there were to be a new Zep album, would you expect to be the producer as before?

JP: No, I'm not getting into that.

I know you built those Zeppelin albums to last, but could you really have imagined that people would be listening to them 40 years later?

“I don’t know where this path will lead,” Plant stated. “Certainly the relationship I have with Jimmy is stronger now than it has been in years. There was a period of transition for both of us when we first started working together again. But the magic that was there for so long quickly became apparent. The communion was perhaps a little more fluent now than it was way-back-when. We found that now we arrived at decisions very quickly, without much pussyfooting around. This time we’ve been forced to use our imaginations, and that’s been wonderful. I hope it does bode well for the future.”

“The time was just right for Robert and I to work together again,” Page added. “I’d been wanting to work with him again for a long time, and it was a long time coming - 15 years. But all we’ve really done so far is take some of our old pictures and make them ready for new frames. Perhaps we will try and create some new pictures in the years ahead. I think we both would like that.”

Whether or not the future will find the pair painting exciting new rock landscapes together, it seems certain that their recent accomplishments have served as a dream-come-true for millions of music fans around the world. An entire generation of hard rock fans have grown up under the guiding light of Led Zeppelin’s sonic barrage over the last 15 years, yet those fans were never able to see the two most important cogs in that band’s metal machine perform together.

Except for two brief appearances at special events such as Live Aid, since that fateful day in 1980, when following the death of drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham Led Zeppelin called an end to their historic career, Page and Plant have followed radically different career agendas. Since then their career paths have remained apart…though forever intertwined.

So when they stood on stage in Pensacola, Florida, last February 26, launching their U.S. tour, it was a special sight, a sight that many long-time fans believed they would never again witness. There were Jimmy Page and Robert Plant - two of the most influential and respected figures in rock history - working side-by-side, laying down the blistering chords and burning lyrics that belonged to the songs of Led Zeppelin.

“The music of Zeppelin has always held such a special place in our hearts,” Plant said. “For so long it just never seemed right for any of us to perform those songs. Led Zeppelin was a unit comprised of four very special people. When Bonzo died, it brought an end to Led Zeppelin. But over the years, we came to realize that while the band may be no more, the music does live on. And with so many other bands vainly trying to capture some mystical element of what once was Zeppelin, we realized that perhaps we should be the ones to reintroduce the music in a new and somewhat updated manner.”

Just listening to the words of Page and Plant might lead one to believe that neither wants to tackle the daunting Zeppelin legacy head-on in the future. While they’ve already shown a willingness to rearrange some of their most famous compositions such as Gallows Pole, Thank You and Kashmir, that is still a long way from creating new material that will inevitably be compared to Zeppelin’s classic late-60s and mid-70s albums. The three new compositions presented on No Quarter, City Don’t Cry, Yallah, and Wah Wah were included mainly to serve as counterpoints to the pulsating rhythms of their older material - they were not intended to show the new direction any future Page/Plant compositions might take.

While a strong middle eastern influence has long been a trademark of the Zeppelin sound, the pair know that any future recordings would need to harken back in both style and spirit to Zeppelin’s halcyon days.

“The music of Morocco, where we recorded the three new songs, is very exciting,” Plant said. “The music reflects the living, pulsating entity which is changing rapidly all the time. It’s amazing, it’s exciting, it’s furious, it’s anxious, it’s happy and it’s far more real than anything you’ll ever experience in a western city. But that doesn’t mean that all my future music will reflect that influence alone. It is, however, a part of what I am and who I am.”

So what are the odds that Page and Plant will continue working together once their world tour is completed? And if they do, in what direction might their future music travel? The general consensus among rock “experts” is that the pair will at least try to create a new album that lives up to their past accomplishments. It’s no secret that they’ve tried before… and failed. Prior to the recording of No Quarter, Plant had often stated that before going back on the road with Page, the two would need to see if they could still write songs together that captured the power and majesty of their earlier era.

Previous attempts, in studios throughout Europe, were unable to match expectations, and at that time the proposed reunion went nowhere. But now, they’ve spent months together on the road, and worked as a team again on the creation of new material. Can there be any further doubt that the legendary duo will once again journey into the recording studio in an attempt to capture the musical magic that is uniquely theirs? The answer, from all parties, seems to be that they will indeed do just that -  when and if the time is right.