#1974article

Inside Jimmy Page—The Musician and The Man

The love affair between a man and his guitar

In 1974 over 25,000 people elected Jimmy Page the Best Guitarist of the Year in the annual Circus Magazine Poll. Led Zeppelin's virtuoso riff artist was a runaway winner. Clobbering the venerable hermit, Eric Clapton, who came in a distant second, Page also left a dozen or more of rock's mighty guitarists standing in the dust. Far behind were Jan Akkerman of Focus (who had been voted best guitarist in the world in an English press contest), cool-licking Dickie Betts, eclectic John McLaughlin, star-dusted Mick Ronson, not to mention bloozey Johnny Winter, Jerry Garcia, Alvin Lee, George Harrison, Keith Richard, Mark Farner, and other favorites. None of these, according to the pollsters, could hold a candle to the Zep axeman's prowess.

Obviously Jimmy Page, as a rock guitarist, is a Very Important Person to fans, press and musicians alike. Even if certain critics don't agree that he's the hottest guitarist alive, they admit that in the great Period of the Electric Guitar, which began in the late '60's, musicians like Page, Clapton and Hendrix brought the strumming instrument to a peak which might never have been reached without them.

What does Jimmy himself have to say about all this—his music, his past, his collection of guitars and instruments, his future plans? It's best to let the Page speak for himself.

Schooling himself: Looking mild-mannered, almost boyish, Jimmy Page strode out of the recording cell and into the waiting area of the control room. He was wearing a conservative dark red denim suit, a plain shirt and sneakers. The giant 16-track tape console and a pile of Dolby noise reduction pieces were heaped up in a corner behind him. And against this backdrop, Zep's lead axeman didn't appear barbaric (as reported to be) at all. "The good thing about the guitar," he began, "was that they didn't teach it in school. Teaching myself was the first and most important part of my education. I hope they keep it out of the schools."

It was hard, hard work. Page practiced (and still does) three hours a day. He'd been at Art School and done general education in Sutton and Croydon. Then he broke into the music world, playing session gigs in the mid-Sixties. One of his more memorable experiences was the guitar acrobatics he performed on Joe Cocker's hit single, "With A Little Help From My Friends."

"I only did a few sessions because I didn't want to fall into that trap of playing on every disc out in England," he said as a group of rock musicians played soundlessly behind the heavy glass window in the studio.

But Jimmy really came into his own in the famous nest of guitarists known as The Yardbirds. Playing doublebarrelled leads with Jeff Beck, Jimmy learned to work his guitar in a group. "I knew Jeff Beck and I enjoyed music," Page admitted. "I couldn't read music so I taught myself that too. I can write it down at my own pace, now."

But The Yardbirds eventually folded with just about one big hit, "Over Under Sideways Down," in 1966. There are some critics, though, who thought that Zeppelin was a carefully contrived and thought out plan, masterminded by Jimmy to launch a supergroup on the market he saw growing on the horizon even while he was with the Yardbirds. "It was never that controlled," he had responded adamantly in an interview in New Musical Express. "In fact I never wanted the Yardbirds to break up at all—it was me who was trying hardest of all to keep them together."

Spontaneity of the Zep: But Led Zeppelin was inevitably launched, and as fame avalanched upon them it was impossible to be objective about the group's success and how it happened. Page, even today, tries to understate the Bigger-than-the-Beatles rating of the Zep. He maintains a strictly musical position. Barraged by questioning reporters, he stated simply that, "we tried to inject more light and shade into our spontaneous pieces and some sense of the dramatic. If there was a key to our musical success, that was it."

Jimmy, truly a one band man, seldom sees himself as a musical entity separate from Robert Plant, John Paul Jones and John Bonham. When he talks about his experience with the Zep he usually uses a "we." Once in a while, though, one gets a glimpse of the private feelings Page experiences on the stage in the houses of the massive ecstatic audiences.

"Going out there, I think it's the spontaneity, really. Something comes out of the guitar that never came out before. You don't know where it comes from, but it's there. Every time we get together, something comes out. It's always changing every night," he continued. "We never get two guitar breaks that are the same. All those riffs appear out of nowhere—every night. And because of that, one's mind is constantly working."

What happens when Page plays in so many different halls, in different acoustical climates, to different audiences? The humidity is the worst problem he admitted in the British press. "It's a drag because you're working on something and your ideas start going on a solo and a string breaks. It's really like reaching a climax and not making it. It's just like that, really, it feels horrible. It's so frustrating because you have to rethink it."

Does Jimmy miss jamming with other guitarists, which he hasn't done since the Yardbird days? "Sometimes I've felt it would be nice working with another guitarist," he replied thoughtfully to a London reporter. "But it would have to be somebody really capable, not just a rhythm guitarist. It would be nice to get someone that you could work out double leads with. I think Jeff and I in the Yardbirds were the first to use two guitar leads and since then it's been an obvious progression. But then," he said, changing his train of thought, "I don't think it would be right, because it's more of a challenge to try to get it with just what we've got in the band."

Loch Ness lair: Although he's an extremely capable musician in his own right, Page doesn't write anything outside the context of Led Zeppelin, not even a tune for his own satisfaction that might never be used by the band. "If I find a number coming that I know wouldn't be suitable for Zep, I scrap it," he explained, seemingly unaware of his unique brand of loyalty. "I stop working on it from that moment on."

"I write a lot at home," he continued, describing the eerie landscape surrounding his estate on the shores of myth-enshrouded Loch Ness. Page is fortunate in having a studio set up where he can try things out. Lately he's been experimenting with chords a lot more, and has tried out a few unusual vocals.

The Loch Ness home, formerly the sprawling grounds of famed magician, Alistair Crowley, provides a shelter for Page's amazing array of instruments. "I'm getting involved in instruments that I've never tried before and it's really therapy for myself. I've gotten things like a mellotron and a synthesizer. I never played keyboards before and I've been coming to grips with all these things. And well," he said with a light in his eye that made him look to the reporter like a mild version of the barbarian he's supposed to be, "they have such a good sound you can't help but get something good out of them."

Antiques for loving fingers: Like many other top guitarists who are in love with the antique-y luxury and mellow tones of older guitars, Page mainly plays his rare Les Paul. "There's no doubt that these old guitars between 1952-60 were made by the last of the post-war craftsmen," he said to Disc recently. "They're more responsive to the player's touch. Clapton was probably the first to realize and popularize the use of the 'Stratocaster' with two pickups, but my favorite was an old Fender-Telecaster. Unfortunately it fed back on stage and so now I only use it on sessions." The Les Paul Jimmy now uses was probably originally sold for about $400, but today pickers are willing to pay at least $1400 for one.

"You have to be careful you don't pick up a fake," Jimmy cautioned. "Because the Japanese and some of the original manufacturers are re-making the old models, but without the individual craftsmanship that counted."

Jimmy divides his attention between his electric and acoustic guitar picking. He has to treat the two instruments differently he says, because of the different mechanics of the guitars. "I don't think the finger style works on an electric. You just get overtones and harmonics coming out. But then again," and his mind switched gears again, "an electric guitar can work for you. It can start singing on its own through the electronics."

"My affection and fascination with the guitar is just as strong as it's ever been," he once admitted to NME. "There are so many styles of playing and listening to and to get off on. You can't help but be totally involved with it. I'm still coming to terms with the instrument even now."

The Graffiti of the Physical… …and the Exploration of the Metaphysical.

A candid interview with Led Zep. Words: Nick Kent Pics: Pennie Smith

The barley has been harvested. The heifers too have been put out to pasture, the Scalectrix sets have been pieced together and stored away for the time being…

Led Zeppelin are once again fully operative, girding their collective loins for another gargantuan American tour and celebrating a reunion after what has indisputably been their longest period of musical inactivity with a amiably sturdy set of rehearsals which started last week.

The rehearsals themselves will carry them pretty much up to the beginning of January when the group fly to Europe to showcase the new act to Dutch and Belgian audiences before letting themselves be swept away once again in a magic flurry of the Jet Lag-intended brand of “Road Fever” (the formal Zeppelin term) that constitutes the American Tour.

November 26 – a Tuesday as it happens – marked the formal return to arms, so to speak, down at Liveware, a converted theatre in an anonymous hinterland of equally anonymous Ealing. The band arrived at approximately 3.0 p.m., re-acquainted themselves with a cut-down P.A. system and in a subsequent seven-hour period commenced manfully sifting through a hefty volume of songs marked off as the new material to appear on the next Swansong Atlantic release – the first of the New Year. This is to be a double Zeppelin set titled (for no apparent reason except that it sounds good and does tie in with the consequent sleeve design – “a mechanical construction” also described by Jimmy Page with characteristic sly grin as a “peeping tom`s delight”), “Physical Graffiti”.

By 6.0 p.m. one number, “Tramped Underfoot” has been both mustered and mastered to be followed by a sprightly reacquaintance with “In My Time Of Dying”, the old gospel traditional Bob Dylan performed with such youthful fervour on his very first album.

Only this time Messrs Page and Plant have turned the harrowing old chestnut into an even more invigorating workout for electric bottle-neck, banshee vocalese and sudden dapper swerves in the 12-bar framework courtesy of a single off-the wall chord occasionally tossed into the affair like a musical handgrenade – or a sudden Bonham thrash that sets the hairs on the back of the neck a-quivering. This after all is Led Zeppelin, the true Princes of the Heavy Metal Zone, back after what appears to have been an extrasomnabulant sojourn; while it seems the likes of such callow pretenders as Queen, teethed on self-same power chords and pulp athletics, have been edging in on the action with such success that it must have put the wind up their spiritual forefathers.

Still, the spirit is strong enough on this first rehearsal to motivate the band into a spontaneous version of “When The Levee Breaks”, the track that blitzed off the fourth album and a number the band have never actually performed outside a studio. Until now that is. Jimmy Page is thinking very seriously of renovating it for the new tour as, after all, with its bottleneck mainvein it fits like a dove-tail joint directly against the grain of “Dying”.

Subsequent valiant stabs are made at two more new numbers – “Sick Again”, which even in its skeletal form shows distinct signs of bristling out as a Zep masterwork, while there is always “Custard Pies”, a prime Zep knock-about which displays a conscious bent towards Pages Eel Pie Island beginning. Finally, at 9.0 p.m., regular as clockwork, Robert dusts out his best Presley grunt and the band obligingly fall into place for “Dont Be Cruel” encoring with “Hound Dog”. Plant, right in the spirit by this time, is pushing for a third time around – “You daw-w-nt- / ahk…uh cray-zz-uh-music. You dont…uh…”

“Persistent isnt he,” mutters Bonham, now more than ever resembling an amiable barrel draped in a donkey-jacket, whos not having any of it.

So Plant makes do behind the drum-kit, banging out rimshots and the cow-bell introduction to “Honky Tonk Women”, moving his arms like a man throwing darts in a pub.

John Paul Jones counters by doing his party-piece Ramsey Lewis impersonation, ear-to-ear grin like one of those mechanical puppet organists you pay 5p to see perform sea-side medleys via a slot-machine in a sea-front amusement arcade.

The rigours of the day now make him resemble a third-year law student holding down a holiday job sorting the Christmas mail.

Only Plant and Page appear to preserve that necessary look of pop-star…”ambiance”, the former unchanged down to the last wisp of the luxurious lions mane of blond hair, while the latters guitar hero veneer is omnipresent as ever.

Page, in fact, always tends to look quite diminutive in size whenever he moves onstage – much smaller in fact than he really is, though this must have something to do with Plants stockier “boyo” physique paralleling his own; and then theres always the low-slung Gibson guitar, hung almost as low as Steve Marriots knee-length drapery back in the Small Faces days. Yes, so anyway there we all were in this Ealing rehearsal studio, like, and well, mind you, it has been quite a time since the name “Zeppelin” has resounded imperiously throughout the Media. The occasional interview, that reception at the Chislehurst Caves, but otherwise its been pretty much relegated to the backwaters of Rolling Stone “Random Notes” and the tattle columns of those other…uh, music periodicals. And even then its been pretty much lean pickings. Of course theres always the odd morsel or so like those two that appeared recently.

I mean, Jimmy, did you see that one about Keith Richard located out in Switzerland adding organ and backing vocals to the track “Scarlet” that you, Ric Grech and Keith himself recorded down at Islands Basing Street studios a couple of months ago, and which was supposed to be the B-side to a cut-down “Aint Too Proud to Beg” and here Keith was muttering something about it being donated to “a Jimmy Page album.”

“Oh dear (laughs). I think that must have been Keith putting someone on actually. Ive certainly no plans whatsoever to record a solo album or anything like that.” Page and Richard are old acquaintances from way back, by the way, starting when Page was brought in to help out on the first Rolling Stones album. And while were back in the past for a moment, theres this piece in the current Rolling Stone that has John Entwhistle beefing about how the name “Led Zeppelin” was his invention and how he even designed the prototype for your first album cover. “Well, I dont know about that at all…Um-m, to start with the thing about the cover is completely wrong. We did that quite separately. The other – well, Keith Moon gave us the name. We`ve always credited him for that.

“I mean, originally there was going to be a band formed from the session for Becks Bolero– Jeff, myself, Nicky Hopkins, Aynsley Dunbar and…yes, John Paul Jones was in by that time. Maybe John Entwhistle did think of the name and told it to Keith Moon in which case I suppose he might have cause to be a bit angry. The rest of that – I dont know about.” Pages native paranoia at critical harassment seeps through the tone of this voice, as the legendary Zep/Rolling Stone feud, and his words momentarily take on a kind of bruised quality. This after all, has been something of an Achilles Heel for Zeppelin and particularly Page – more probably so than ever because here they are about to release an album, a double set at that, laden with the fruits of two previous years-worth of labour, even if the album itself took some six weeks to record. And Page himself more omnipresent than ever. From the daring double 12-string over-dubs that graced “The Song Remains The Same” its come to no less than six guitars – “five in harmonies” – intertwining themselves for “Ten Years Gone”, not to mention “In The Light”, Page`s self -proclaimed piece de resistance of the album. And all for the first month of 1975.

“1974”, in Pages own self-effacingly jocular terms “didnt really happen, did it?”

A grin and then serious: “1975 will be better.”

From the look of things, Zeppelin are certainly committed to endowing the on-coming year with their own particular zeal. I mean, isnt there this film of the band on tour in the States nearing the final editing stages? The oft-touted Led Zeppelin movie forever being greeted with the archetypal knowing grin when its existence is broached to one of the band or their entourage, followed by a few visibly mysterious verbal ruminations. Stuff about “weird fantasy scenes” and such-like. Jimmy Page is more specific. Well not that specific…well, you tell them, Jimmy! “Well to start with, the film is nearing completion, though we dont have a title or distributor yet. Ive yet to mix the sound-track and the final editing hasnt been completed. I mean, but now its starting to get there. Weve finally got a distinct framework.”

Direction of the movie has been handled by two different factions – the first Joe Massow whose most notable previous achievement appears to be “Wonderwall” and, more recently, Peter Clifton, who was responsible for the Jimi Hendrix “Live At Olympia” film. As to the actual form of the film, well, most of the live footage comes from the Madison Square Gardens concerts of 73 and, yes, there are “fantasy sequences” concerning which Page is very cagey about letting anything slip. “I mean, it would give the whole thing away, wouldnt it. Like, I went to see The Exorcist and the audience was laughing at it because they knew what to expect, whereas if theyd been separated and placed in a room where an unknown film calledThe Exorcistwas being screened, the last thing theyd have been doing would be laughing.

“Its just…well for a start, the fantasy scenes do relate to individual numbers the band play. Like Roberts bit comes in Song Remains The Same and Rain Song, Bonzos is in his drum soloMoby Dick,Johns is No Quarter and mine comes in Dazed And Confused. Mines a bit weird, actually…well so is everyones, really. They just happened that way.

Might there be a touch of the Kenneth Angers about your bit, then, Mr. Page? Certain oblique references to Aleister Crowley and the like making themselves manifest?

“Oh no (pause). I know what you mean of course, but…”

And the backstage footage? Might we expect candid Zeppelin equivalents to the supposed high-jinx omnipresent throughout Robert Franks “Cocksucker Blues”, the…um…vivid account of the Stones 72 tour? “Not really. I mean there are a few things…uh…like some chicks offering to give a policeman a…uhseeing-to”. And so the richly-endorsed Zeppelinroad feverlegend-weaving stays firmly anonymous, even in the face of such occurrences as…well theres that song that Frank Zappa wrote called “Mudshack” about that group who eh…and there was everyone thinking it was the Vanilla Fudge and it turned out to be…say no more.

And even since then, events even more incongruously shaped have occured, centring inevitably around Page himself. For example, 16 magazine, America`s equivalent to the likes of Popswop only-more-legendary have printed, in a style so garish only a magazine coming from L.A. could be responsible, a list of “Who the stars do-it-with” and…uh, “How they do it.”

Page, to say the least, appears to possess a particularly interesting case-history to wit – “Girls, hes into anything and everything. Those whove tried say its an experience theyll never forget.”

I see. Uh well, Mr. Page…

The subject to say the least is not welcomed.

“Its something you cant really dwell on because people think if youre doing it, then the rest of the band are into it too and that would cause all kinds of trouble. No its…well all I can say is that it comes down to the term road fever.

“I mean I personally cant play a gig in some godforsaken part of America to god-knows-how-many people and then return to a box. Its just a total change of life-style, thats all one can say really.” But still, without dwelling perhaps on specifics, surely Page had some thoughts on the whole groupie syndrome, with particular reference, say to L.A.? “I just view it all with amusement. Like the whole Rodneys scene thing, which is just ridiculous. I mean, you walk in and the next thing you know there are cameras everywhere and youre ducking under the bar to get away. I mean, Roy Harper has this photograph of me on the point of sticking a pork-pie in a girls face.

“Actually the last time I was in L.A., there was this incredible groupie feud which was getting down to razor-blade sandwiches. The competition thing out there is incredible and youve got to keep out of the middle of it or else, yknow it…it gets to you too. Theres a new song weve done for the album…called Sick Again. That about sums it up.

“But then again referring back to the road fever thing, and I mean, at the moment Ive got to start building up my stamina because everytime Ive toured the States Ive returned a physical…and mental wreck. I mean, after the last tour they tried to get me put in a mental hospital. It was going to be either that or a monastery! Ultimately I just went to sleep for a month” (Laughs). “Sleep” – plenty of it – appears to be the basic Page stamina tonic. That and food. “This time Im definitely going to take a juicer along with me. I mean, I used to be a vegetarian and that was like committing suicide in America. The last time I ended up just eating hamburgers and at the end I was just a complete mess. This time though – precautions are going to be taken.”

To change the subject then, Aleister Crowley. The great Page obsession or so weve been led to believe. Roy Harper told me less than a couple of months ago that Jimmy was currently writing a book on Crowley which is in fact, untrue though Page is about to open a book-store dealing solely in books on the Occult called “The Equinox” and situated in Kensingtons Holland Street. Page again seems somewhat reluctant to talk about his studies of Crowley at any length. “Its simply that….I dont want to do a huge job on Crowley or anything – that doesnt interest me in the least. I mean if people are into reading Crowley, then they will and itll have nothing to do with me. Its just….well for me, it goes without saying that Crowley was grossly misunderstood. “I began being interested in him in school after having read this ridiculous book calledThe Beastwhere the author hadnt the faintest idea of what Crowley was all about and was totally condesanding (condescending? – Blog Editor) so I took it from there. But I mean, how can anyone call Crowley the world`s most evil man – and that even carried over to the thirties when Hitler was about?

“For a start, he was the only Edwardian to really embrace…not even the New Age so much as simply the 20th Century. Who else would state anything as revolutionary as something like his theory that there would eventually be an equality of the sexes, which is where were at right now. Its like…theres this incredible body of literature – I mean dont even bother with the sex thing because thats all such a bore anyway – and its like… theres a diamond there to be found at the end and it involves a lifes study.”

Page however has made a sizeable inroad into Crowleys work through even to the notorious forbidden books hes studied. Not to mention the famous Loch Ness mansion that he bought some time ago.

“All I can say about that place is that theres this incredible sense of peace and…energy moreover. Its amazingly stimulating staying up there.”

And the case-history.

“Oh Christ dont mention that. I mean, post-Crowley…dont even bother with that…its history is literally littered with suicides and bankruptcies. Its a whole local thing there. Old wives tales abound.”

Any acquaintances of your experienced anything perhaps unforseen?

“One couple flipped out up there (pause). It depends what you bring to the place – expectation-wise.”

The obvious connection from Crawley is to Kenneth Anger, right? Anger, the famous devotee of Crowleys, the film director of such classic starts as “Invocation of My Demon Brother”, which Page claims extended from its 10-minute length “to seem like a lifetime” when he saw it, “Fireworks” and “Scorpio Rising.” And now there is “Lucifer Rising”, lasting 93 minutes constantly dogged by such unforseeable circumstances as film mysteriously vanishing (or being stolen). “Lucifer Rising”, which Jimmy Page has done the sound-track for.

“Ive always got on very well with Anger. Hes a good friend, really. Hes never been as awe-inspiring and unapproachable to me as some would probably tell you. It`s just…one day he asked me to toss some ideas around for a sound-track and I went away feeling something but never being able to really express it, until one day when it all sort of poured out and I got down immediately to recording it. Actually I saw him recently and he was playing my soundtrack against some of the rushes and it came together really nicely.”

Still its an even more intriguing series of connections were getting here. Kenneth Anger, one-time cohort of Bobby Beausaliel, who reputedly knew one Charles Manson, who again may just have known the guy in L.A. who set out to kill Page when he was passing through with the band over two years ago.

Almost scarey, that.

“I dont want to think about that at all. I just dont want to get into that. Its…people thought there might have been some connection but…theres a lunatic fringe whether theyre Christian or Satanists or whatever. Its too risky because they are out there. Its not a Kharmic backlash or anything like that. Definitely not. There have been lots of little magic happenings but nothing that has really perturbed me. “But that awareness – obviously you get these magic flashbacks everywhere. On stage, in America – everywhere. What you put out you get back again all the time. The band is a good example of that simply because theres an amazing chemistry at work there, if only astrologically.

“Astrologically its very powerful indeed. Robert the perfect front man, Leo…Jaggers a Leo, John Paul Jones and I are uh…stoic Leos (laughs), Bonzo the Gemini. Its when youre pushing each other to the limits that the strength of the chemistry comes out and makes itself manifest in this binding of consciousness.”