Led Zep

As Page breezes into the cavernous London photo studio where we will conduct our business over the next couple of hours, there is a bounce in his step and an easy-going loose-limbed quality to his gait. Most striking, though, is his hair, which he has let go from black to its natural white. The effect is striking, as if the former badass Dionysian has transformed into a good-vibey Gandalf.

“Check this out,” Page says as he enthusiastically cracks open one of the guitar cases he’s brought to our meeting. Inside is a brilliantly beat-to-shit cream-colored Fender Stratocaster. “This is the guitar I used to play all the parts on ‘Ten Years Gone.’ I gave it to John Paul Jones ages ago, and he gave it back to me during our rehearsal for the reunion show,” he says with a smile.

Yes, Page is upbeat. And he has every reason to be. His beloved Led Zeppelin, the band he formed in September 1968 with singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham, is regrouping to take one final victory lap, and response to the reunion has been nothing less than seismic. At last estimate, more than 200 million ticket applications had been received for the band’s only scheduled show, at the O2 Arena in London on November 26. Page, Plant and Jones will take the stage with Jason Bonham, son of the late Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, to headline a concert in honor of Atlantic Records founder Ahmet Ertegun, who died December 14, 2006. The show will be the first time Led Zeppelin founding members have performed together since May 1988, when they played at Atlantic Records’ 40th anniversary concert, also with Jason Bonham on drums.

To add to the excitement, on November 20 the band is reissuing its 1976 concert film, The Song Remains the Same, in a two-DVD set. (A two-CD companion set will be released simultaneously.) Featuring performances from the band’s epic three-night stint at Madison Square Garden in July 1973, the film has been remixed and remastered in 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound, and more than 40 minutes of previously unreleased material - including performance footage of “Over the Hills and Far Away” and “Celebration Day” - have been added.

Although Page cautions not to read too much into it, the two events share a subtle link: the reunion show and the revamped concert film offer him an opportunity to address some long-standing unfinished business. First, there is the matter of Led Zeppelin living up to their legacy. During their 11-year reign, Zeppelin went from strength to strength, producing one of rock’s most durable and celebrated bodies of work. Outside of the Beatles, it’s hard to think of any other band with such a consistent track record. Yet, if you wanted to look for chinks in the armor, you would undoubtedly find them in the band’s previous two reunions: a 1985 appearance at Live Aid featuring drummers Tony Thompson and Phil Collins, and the 1988 set at the Atlantic Records’ 40th Anniversary concert. Even Page admits the shows were disappointing.

This time, he insists, will be different.

“The show in November represents an opportunity to really present Led Zeppelin properly, and we’re taking it very seriously,” Page says. “The performances at Live Aid and at the Atlantic event were not good for various reasons. It won’t be the case this time.”

Second, there is the matter of The Song Remains the Same, which has been in great need of an overhaul. As Page notes, when the movie and soundtrack entered into the digital realm back in the Nineties, they “never received the care they’ve deserved.” The new DVD and CD reissues will, at long last, present Zeppelin’s celebrated 1973 concert performances as they deserve to be seen and heard.

Obviously, we had plenty to discuss with Page, and given his frame of mind, he was in a mood to talk. In this latest, and perhaps most surprising, installment of the Led Zeppelin saga, the guitarist weighs in on the future of led Zeppelin and offers some revealing insights on their celebrated past. What’s more, Page serves up what is perhaps his most candid discussion ever of Zeppelin’s legendary 1973 tour, the notorious “fantasy sequences” the individual band members filmed for The Song Remains the Same and the role that magick played in his life at that time. The song may remain the same, but as Page explains, no one ever said it couldn’t change its tune.

GW: Before we talk about the reunion, I would like to go back to 1973, Led Zeppelin’s “Golden Age,” and talk about The Song Remains the Same. What was the genesis of that project?

JP: At the time we were interested in presenting the band on film. We had already shot the Royal Albert Hall shows in 1970, but by 1973 we had moved on so far in such a short time that we felt the Albert Hall footage was passe in every respect. We looked and dressed differently, and the whole communicative quality of the music had been improved. We also had another two albums under our belt, so the 1970 shows were quite clearly behind us.

We also felt we could do a more professional job, using multiple cameras and more sophisticated equipment. Prior to the three Madison Square Garden shows in New York, the film crew came to two dates to prepare camera angles and quickly realized that there were huge gaps in the filming. The crew hadn’t covered basic things, like filming the verses to certain songs! We surmised that they were probably stoned; it was quite as simple as that. Everybody was stoned at the time, but at least we did our job. [laughs]

GW: From what I understand, it was at this time that the band came up with the idea for each member to film a fantasy sequence that would cover these massive gaps in the film.

JP: Yes. It was our solution to that problem. The director, Joe Massot, was asked to work with members of the band to develop their own segment.

GW: Which was your favorite?

JP: I really liked John Bonham’s. It really captured his essence as a family man. It was fun and the flip side of his roaring stage persona. In many ways, it reflected the way we all were at home.

GW: How were the fantasy sequences developed? Did you guys discuss them with each other beforehand?

JP: Not really. I knew what I wanted to do, and Robert did, too - storming the castle and all of that.

GW: When you saw the segments put together, did any of them surprise you? Was the band mutually respectful of one another’s sequence?

JP: In those days, I think being mutually respectful still meant there could be some piss taking. [laughs] I’m sure there were nudges behind people’s backs, and fair enough! I mean it was hard to find the dividing line between doing a fantasy sequence in a rock and roll film and trying to be a star of the silver screen.

GW: John’s segment might’ve been fun, but yours was the most striking.

JP: I had very strong ideas about my segment. I wanted to be filmed climbing this mountain face by my house in Loch Ness on the night of a full moon. Massot was astonished, because the night was perfect and the location was just how I wanted it to be. We shot it in December, so there was snow on the ground and these great clouds going past the full moon. We created this scaffold for filming the shot, and everything was perfect and ready to go, but I’d forgot the most obvious thing: that I was going to have to do multiple takes climbing up and down this rather steep mountain. It was actually easy climbing up, but it was difficult getting down. I kept thinking, What have I done! It was bloody cold up there, too, I know that much!

GW: At one point in your segment, you’re dressed as a hermit and you rapidly age into an old man. How was that done?

JP: The transformation was done with a life mask [a mask produced from a cast of the individual’s face], which I still have. Using that as a foundation, they created several different faces that showed me as I might look at various ages of life. I don’t know how many there were, but there were quite a few. Then they joined all those shots of the different faces together.

When the film came out, I took my daughter, who was then six years old, to see it. That probably wasn’t a great idea, because the film was so long and she was so young. But at the point where my transformation scene came about, the theater was quiet, except for this little voice that cried out, “That’s not my daddy!” [laughs]

GW: Could we talk a little about the meaning behind your sequence?

JP: To me, the significance is very clear, isn’t it?

GW: Well, I find it interesting that you were choosing to represent yourself as a hermit at a time when you were really quite a public figure.

JP: Well, I was hermetic. I was involved in the hermetic arts, but I wasn’t a recluse. Or maybe I was…

The image of the hermit that we used for the [inside cover] artwork on Led Zeppelin IV and in the movie actually has its origins in a painting of Christ called The Light of the World by the pre-Raphaelite artist William Holman Hunt. The imagery was later transferred to the Waite tarot deck [the most popular tarot deck in use in the English-speaking world]. My segment was supposed to be the aspirant going to the beacon of truth, which is represented by the hermit and his journey toward it. What I was trying to say through the transformation was that enlightenment can be achieved at any point in time; it just depends on when you want to access it. In other words, you can always see the truth, but do you recognize it when you see it or do you have to reflect back on it later?

GW: There was always a certain amount of speculation about your occult studies. It may have been subtle, but you weren’t really hiding it.

JP: I was living it. That’s all there is to it. It was my life - that fusion of magick and music.

GW: Your use of symbols was very advanced. The sigil [symbols of occult powers] on Led Zeppelin IV and the embroidery on your stage clothes from that time period are good examples on how you left your mark in popular culture. It’s something that major corporations are aggressively pursuing these days: using symbols as a form of branding.

JP: You mean talismanic magick? Yes, I knew what I was doing. There’s no point in saying more about it, because the more you discuss it, the more eccentric you appear to be. But the fact is - are far as I was concerned - it was working, so I used it. But it’s really no different than people who wear ribbons around their wrists: it’s a talismanic approach to something. Well, let me amend that: it’s not exactly the same thing, but it is in the same realm.

I’ll leave this subject by saying the four musical elements of Led Zeppelin making a fifth is magick unto itself. That’s the alchemical process.

GW: After you finished the fantasy sequences, you changed directors.

JP: Yes. After inspecting the footage, we discovered that we were still lacking. So the decision was made to hire a new director, Peter Clifton, and go into a British facility called Shepperton Studios. We recreated the Madison Square Garden stage and shot the remaining bits that we didn’t have. It was a good idea, but the only problem for me was figuring out how to mime my own lengthy improvisations. It was pretty impossible to do with any degree of accuracy. But after we finished at Shepperton, it was time to stitch it all together. We knew that a lot of things would be completely out of sync, but we weren’t that concerned because we thought it was just something fun for the cinema.

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JP: To make the visuals sync better to the music, we had Kevin Shirley [sound engineer on Led Zeppelin DVD and the band's 2003 release How the West Was Won] move the music around with Pro Tools. He really did a fantastic job. It's much better now.

But as I mentioned earlier, in the original film I'm out of sync a lot because I was trying to mime to my own improvisation at Shepperton, but it didn't look so obvious because everyone else was out of sync, too. Since Kevin was able to really tighten the vocals and the drums, now I really look out of sync! [laughs]

GW: The album soundtrack to The Song Remains the Same has also changed substantially.

JP: Yes. Our first major change was to include the entire set in its original running order, something we've never done on a live album before. So of course the new soundtrack album features songs that weren't on the original. The pacing of the movie is different from the pacing of our actual 1973 set, but for those that are interested, the CD gives you that original experience.

GW: I appreciate the new mix on the CD. I always felt that the original was a little dry and lacking in concert hall ambience.

JP: That may be. I always thought it was a little flat dynamically. But I've got to tell you, when Warner Bros. put out the movie on VHS and DVD, they just threw it out there without involving us. The same with the soundtrack. So, to be fair, this material has never been remastered or received the care it's deserved until now.

GW: When the movie finally came out, it was a pretty big box office hit.

JP: It was really gratifying. This was in the day before VHS tapes or DVDs, so the only place you could see it was at the movie theaters. It had a big cult following, and people would see it multiple times at midnight movie festivals. It was like the Rocky Horror Picture Show.

GW: And it was probably hard to get Led Zeppelin concert tickets. The movie was the only way many people could see the band.

JP: That's why we did it. It made sense to do it. But, as usual, whenever we worked with people outside of our core group, it was a shambles. We did our best to pull it together, and it required a lot of imagination to salvage what could've been a disaster.

GW: It's always harder than it should be to get people to put the same care into a project as you would.

JP: You'll see a great example of that sort of carelessness in the film. Before I went onstage, I warned all the cameramen to stay away from me within reason, because I didn't want to be distracted while I was trying to perform. Of course none of them listened, and at one point you see this guy with a camera coming up to me and he's stepping all over my wah-wah pedal! You can hear it going up and down, so I just carried on using that wah-wah sound. What else are you going to do? It's "warts and all," the whole damned thing!

GW: Watching the film, I was impressed by the amount of precision, finesse and control you applied to working the volume and tone knobs on your guitar. It's almost a lost art.

JP: First, you have to be lucky enough to have an amp that operates on the threshold of clean and dirty, so that it can interact with the controls of the guitar. Once you have that then you can start really playing with the volume and the control.

It's different these days because there are so many way to create guitar sounds, but back in the Seventies you had to use what little you had to the greatest effect. All I had to really work with was an overdrive pedal, a wah-wah, an Echoplex [tape delay] and what was on my guitar. It wasn't a lot, and I had to create the entire range of sounds found on the first five Zeppelin albums. With that in mind, the volume and tone controls, and how and where you picked, were quite important.

GW: How did the rather lengthy live improvisations on songs like “Dazed and Confused” and “No Quarter” develop?

JP: Well, when you’re playing with a band that was as good as we were, you didn’t really want to stop after a one-minute solo! And look, if you’re playing the same songs night after night on a long tour, improvising was a way to keep the music alive and interesting for yourself. I never wanted the songs to settle in. I’ve always enjoyed living by my wits with regard to my guitar playing. That goes back to even my session musician days, where I had to come up with parts on the spot.

People have complained to me through the years that I never played the solos from the albums live, particularly on something like “Stairway to Heaven.” But maybe I should do that at the reunion show, just to prove I can actually play them. [laughs]

What I liked about improvising is that great music is about tension and release, and sometimes you pull something out and sometimes you don’t. It’s not exactly a failure when you don’t play something great; it’s more like a heroic glitch! [laughs] Your chance of success is greater, though, when you’re surrounded by other great musicians, like I was.

GW: Did you prepare for the film? Were you concerned about playing your best for posterity?

JP: No, it wasn’t like that at all. I think the only way I prepared for the filming was by staying up for five days straight! [laughs] That’s the truth. I mean, we were in New York, we were making a movie and playing great shows, and it was difficult to shut down that kind of electricity. You’d try to go to bed, but most of the time you gave up, because it was more fun just to go out and enjoy yourself. It was seriously conductive to that.

During a typical Zeppelin show there was such an intense exchange of electricity between the band and audience. The band set off the charge and the audience gave it back, and it just built through the night. That was the phenomena: that transmission.

GW: Weren’t you having some problems with your hands at that time?

JP: No, I did have some tendonitis around that time, but I was over it. There was no injury there. Not to the fingers, anyway. [laughs]

GW: When you went back and revisited the soundtrack and the movie, did something stand out for you?

JP: Yeah, I thought “Rain Song” was really good. I bet you didn’t expect me to say that, but it has a real drama to it. It’s not as good as the studio version, but I think it has its own character. I also liked the bowed section on “Dazed and Confused,” which really went well with the fantasy sequence.

GW: One last dumb question regarding the ’73 performances: Who re-haired the violin bow that you destroyed night after night while playing “Dazed and Confused”? Fixing a bow is not something just any roadie can do.

JP: As you know, new violin bows are expensive, so what we would do is buy a bunch of warped ones and take them on the road. They were much cheaper!

GW: Let’s talk about the reunion show in London. Why the reunion now?

JP: I know why I’m keen on doing it. I really enjoy playing with the other musicians, and it’s a chance to do it properly. We’re taking it very, very seriously, and I know it will be good. It could’ve happened anytime, anywhere, but we respected Ahmet Ertegun, and paying tribute to him was a good motivation.

GW: How long have you been rehearsing?

JP: Actually, the bulk of the rehearsals are going to be in November, but we’ve gotten together a few times and started working on some things.

GW: How is the band different?

JP: Well, Jason Bonham is not John, but I’ve played with him quite a bit, so it’s going fine. I brought him out with me as my drummer on my solo Outrider tour [1988], so he’s aware that I might not play the same thing every night. [laughs] So that’s good!

GW: How long are you going to play? Any surprises?

JP: Initially, they asked us to play a certain amount of time, but we’ve extended it to get more songs in. We quickly realized that we couldn’t play “Dazed and Confused” for 30 minutes, have a drum solo and then play “Stairway to Heaven” for 20 minutes and leave. [laughs] You know, do “Rock and Roll” as an encore and be off! We just couldn’t do that. So in order to show people how we used to perform, and play with flair and passion, we’re going to do a pretty long set.

One surprise is that we’re going to play “For Your Life,” which we’ve never played in concert. I don’t think we’ve played it any other time than when we recorded it. It’s quite a tricky piece of music, so I’m pleased we’re doing it.

GW: What was the first song you guys played together at the reunion rehearsals?

JP: It slips my mind, but I think it was “Houses of the Holy.”

GW: Did the music come back to you easily?

JP: It’s not like I haven’t played over the last several years; I just haven’t made a profile of it. I played a lot of Zeppelin when I toured with the Black Crowes [in late 1999] and with Robert.

GW: Are you using your original gear?

JP: I’m using some of the original guitars like my number-one Les Paul and the [Gibson EDS-1275] Doubleneck. I’ve got a Les Paul Custom that I’m pleased with. I haven’t settled on what amps I’m using yet, but I’ll be using the pedal board that I used on all the Plant/Page projects.

GW: What’s the prevailing mood? Do you think the reunion will extend to other shows?

JP: I don’t know. I’ve read that Robert Plant doesn’t think it will, but it’s a bit silly because there is such a massive demand. It’s a bit selfish to do just one show. If that’s it, we probably shouldn’t have taken the genie out of the bottle.