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There's a lot to talk about. In a conversation that runs to 80 minutes, Page will discuss everything from his life during those heady days of the early 70s as the leader, guitarist and primary creative force in one of the most successful rock groups of all time to his plans to release new music in 2015, music that he has been crafting for years. And he will also address the one question that will not go away: will Led Zeppelin ever perform together again?

But there's a more immediate matter at hand, which is the release of the two Led Zeppelin albums that form the second instalment in the high-profile reissue programme of the band's entire catalogue: Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy. Page smiles broadly when he recalls that untouchable period. "It was a wonderful time," he says. "I can't remember it all. But let's see what I can remember…"

With Led Zep IV and Houses Of The Holy, there's a broad consensus that this was the band at its absolute peak.

Well, I can’t say which album is the peak. The first album was a pretty fair introduction to what the band was. That album has so many ideas, and those ideas blossomed as time went on. But the fourth album, yeah, it was really serious, really good.

The received wisdom is that Led Zep IV was a reaction to the negativity that greeted the previous album. Is that how you remember it—that Led Zeppelin III was poorly received?

By the press—yeah. The press didn’t ‘get’ any of the albums. With the third album, they didn’t understand why we were doing acoustic music, except that it was all over the first album anyway. I wondered, where are these people coming from?

But the public got it.

We did great by the public, because once you've listened to Led Zeppelin, it's got you. You get it: what’s going on, why it ticks, and the brilliant musicianship.

So with the fourth album, did you feel that you had to stick that press criticism back down their throats?

It just got to the point where you didn’t bother to pay any attention to them. Even after the third album, there were silly elements of the press in America that were saying, ‘Oh, the band’s a hype.’ And I was thinking, ‘Goodness gracious, this is just ridiculous now!’ But it didn’t matter.

For the making of the fourth album, in December 1970, you took the band to Headley Grange in Hampshire.

It was a manse, an old Victorian house, a wonderful place, and very imposing. I liked the idea of the whole band being in the same house, in residence, working. Fleetwood Mac had rehearsed there, although they didn’t record there. So I knew there wouldn’t be noise problems. It was in the countryside, so you weren't going to have neighbours complaining. It seemed ideal.

What was the appeal of working there and being in residence? Was it the fact that you could make music at any time, day or night, whenever the inspiration came?

That's the whole point. It's a working environment. If it didn’t work, we’d go into a studio. But in fact it was great. While touring, we would mutate songs. From the beginning we were doing it, but now it was really evident from one concert to the next.

Did you take that improvisational approach into the writing and recording of the album?

Yeah. And we used the acoustics of the house. We were playing in this drawing room to begin with, and then John Bonham had another drum kit set up in the hall, with this really high ceiling. When he started playing I said, ‘Right, we’ll have to do something in here now.” The drum sound in that hall was just huge. You've heard it—on When The Levee Breaks. So we were moving from drums in the hall to drums back in another area, and really using the acoustics of the building.

Did you have a way of preparing for a take, for getting in the right headspace?

Collectively—absolutely. This is how we managed to record so quickly and efficiently. At any time there would be a few songs that you're working on. But working on one number to record, we'd get it up to a serious speed, so it’s really firing on all cylinders and the real essence of the song is cooking, and then you'd start recording. It was very easy to get to that point, because you're already rehearsed, but with the red light on there’s even more urgency to it. We'd arrive at those takes in a pretty short time—just a handful of takes, maybe.

What if a song just wasn't working?

If a song started to labour, if the essence wasn't happening, we'd stop and do something else. We didn’t over-rehearse. We just had them so that they were just right, so that there was this tension—you know, ‘Maybe there might be a mistake. But there won’t be, because this is how we're all going to do it and it’s going to work!’ That was a measure of how good everybody was in this band. And because of that, you could get these ‘character’ numbers through the whole of the Zeppelin soundscape. Each song has its own character. Theoretically, there was nothing we couldn’t do, because musically we were all capable of doing anything. Together, I mean. We didn’t need to get in horn sections or whatever. It was all in-house.

Did you feel that you were pushing the envelope with this album?

The whole history of Led Zeppelin is musical expansion. We were really pioneering in every way, I think. And with this album, we were moving the acoustic aspect of what we’d done on the third album into these more intimate areas with Going To California and The Battle Of Evermore.

When I interviewed you in 1993, you said that with Stairway To Heaven you set out to make a "profound" piece of music. Did that make it a difficult song to write?

I had the sections for it. It was a question of piecing them together. But by nature of the fact that it had acceleration through it, it needed some work on it. There was a lot to remember in Stairway, when you were playing it and routining the track.

You also said that Robert wrote the lyrics for Stairway To Heaven very quickly, while you were at Headley Grange, with the band working on the arrangement.

I can say—he’ll probably deny it, ha ha—but during the running through of Stairway, I remember Robert was sitting down in the room and he was writing and writing. At the point where he came to sing it he had a major percentage of the lyrics already done. And he went home and tweaked things. That’s how it was. That’s what the whole magic of the environment was like. Everybody’s creative energies were all joined.

Over the years, Robert has made light of those lyrics, as if he were embarrassed by the naivety in them. But the words in that song are very evocative, very deep.

They are. They come at you on many levels. I thought his lyrics were superb. So… maybe we all criticise our past work. I'm not going to tell you what, but I could say, ‘Well, I could have played better guitar on such and such a number.’ But I ain’t gonna do that, because it is what it is.

Is it true that you would record your solos alone, in complete isolation?

Always. I'd use the same approach as doing the tracks. I'd try to put the solo on at the end, because I wanted it to be totally in character of what’s going on with the lyrics. What I'd do is just limber up, limber up, limber up and then, “Okay, put the red light on.” Those solos weren't done over hours and hours. I'd know if I was there with it. And they were pretty much improvised. They weren’t worked out note for note. Never. The solos were always… take a deep breath and go for it. might have worked out how I might start it off, but that’s it. The solo for Stairway comes right into that equation.

Famously, there is a story that the release of the fourth album was delayed because there was a problem with the mixing at Sunset Sound studios in Los Angeles.

There wasn't really a delay. I was at Sunset Sound for much less than a week. I arrived there with [engineer| Andy Johns, and there was literally an earthquake going on when we walked through the airport. In the hotel you could feel the bed shaking with all the aftershocks. We were due to go into the studio, and I said, “Okay, but we’re not going to do Going To California till the end.”

Why not?

Because the lyrics in that song were talking about an earthquake, and we've just arrived during an earthquake! But I wasn’t going to turn around and go back to England. It was just Andy Johns and myself, and Sunset Sound was a superb studio. We mixed a lot of the stuff that was done at Headley. But the only evidence you'd know of the Sunset Sound recordings up to now would be When The Levee Breaks, because that was the version that went on the album.

It has it been reported that the Sunset Sound sessions were a disaster.

How could it be a disaster if you've heard When The Levee Breaks? It’s all myth.

So why did you remix the album in the UK?

When the rest of the band heard the Sunset Sound mixes, they didn’t get it. So I said, “Okay, we’ll remix it again over here.” At Sunset Sound, the playback system was so colourful—really sort of high top-end and low bass-end. But when we came back and played it at Olympic [studio in London|, where the speakers were very middle-y, suddenly the huge headroom had disappeared. That's all it was—the monitor systems in each studio were so vastly different. It just needed a little bit of EQ mastering and it was fantastic.

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The Ages of Page

“No ego at all”

Producer/musician John Carter recalls hiring the young JP for his band.

It must have been 1964. The personnel of my band, Carter-Lewis And The Southerners (pictured), was flexible, and we had a tour coming up but we didn't have a proper band. Me and Ken Lewis knew Jimmy from sessions. We'd played together on [Dave Berry's] The Crying Game, and we'd booked him for a few Carter-Lewis sessions, which he was brilliant on. So we asked him to join: "Yeah, why not?’

“I remember the first session I ever saw Jimmy on. He was eighteen or nineteen, a young lad. He wore normal sixties clothes. I don't even remember his hair being long. We'd all meet round the corner from Decca Studios after sessions and go for a drink. We'd talk about music, the old blues guys, rock'n’roll. He may have been quiet with blokes, but not with girls. I mean, I don't want to give away any secrets.

“Jimmy was different from any other player going around. His invention was the best at that time. But he never took over on a session; no ego at all. He'd say: "'What do you want?' And we'd say: Just make something up. Then he'd make up a solo which was absolutely fantastic. That was when you got the best out of Jimmy Page.

“What happened next? Sessions were getting very busy for him, and I think he wanted to concentrate on that, more than being on the road, because you earned a lot more money. The band broke up soon after. I really did think he'd go on to big things. I was pleased for him with Zeppelin, because he deserved to become famous. He was brilliant then, but with Zeppelin he just went higher and higher.

“For a while we kept in touch. I saw Jimmy again maybe four or five years ago, at an airport. We passed each other and we both just said: ‘Ahal! It's you!' HY

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On the companion disc included with the new reissue of IV, there is a previously unreleased mix of Stairway To Heaven from the Sunset Sound sessions.

What did you think of it? It’s Stairway. You've heard it a million times.

It sounds a little warmer, maybe a little cleaner.

Do you think so? Personally, I think it's more of a hi-fi mix. It's got that expanse, that headroom, a real depth to it. But that’s the whole thing about doing a companion disc. It just gives more information, more colours. I really thought that this is so important to do, to give all this extra information to the whole of the studio life of Led Zeppelin… for the fans. I know what they love. I know why there’s a bootleg industry out there. I've paid a lot of attention to what was out there on the bootleg market as far as studio material, because I wanted to make sure that what was going on these releases wasn't already out there. I know that no one’s even heard the Stairway mix, apart from the band.

You first played Stairway To Heaven, Black Dog, Rock And Roll and Going To California live in Belfast on March 5, 1971, eight months before the album was released. Do you remember the reaction?

In Belfast at that time, there were the Troubles. I don’t know what sort of mix of Catholics and Protestants were in that hall in Belfast, but the response to everything was fantastic. And here’s the key point. You've just said that we went over there before the album was released. You couldn’t do that now. The whole intrigue and mystery of it would be blown because people would be publishing it on YouTube, all the new numbers. But in those days it was really good, because things would just travel by word of mouth.

When that fourth album was released on November 8, 1971, there was no band name and album title on the cover.

It was my idea to have no title. It was a novel idea to put something out which had no title on it, rather than, oh, it’s just selling on the name.

The album is officially untitled yet it goes by various names: Led Zep IV, 'Four Symbols', and also 'Zoso', after your symbol…

I think it's good that everyone calls it different things. With the [Zoso] symbol, people were calling it that, and that was a bit upsetting for the rest of the band [laughs]. It wasn't intended to be like that.

The bosses at Atlantic Records thought that an album with no title and no band name was tantamount to commercial suicide.

They did. I went over to New York with [Zep manager| Peter Grant, and Atlantic were determined to have some words on the cover. I knew they thought: he’s impossible to deal with, this one. But it was so right to do it. That album cover is so iconic.

Is it true that the painting on the album cover was found by Robert in an antique shop?

It is. When I was living in Pangbourne, I used to go around the junk shops, picking up all this Arts and Crafts-era furniture. On this one occasion Robert came with me and there it was, this painting.

The cover was symbolic: the painting of the old man on the wall of a demolished house, with modern high-rise blocks behind it.

The imagery there is the old making way for the new. Those new buildings don’t look new anymore. But that was the idea.

The way you sequenced this album—the juxtaposition of hard rock tracks and acoustic numbers—is expertly judged.

We were crafting albums for the album market, a certain league outside of pop singles. So it was important, I felt, to have the flow and the rise and fall of the music and the contrast, so that each song would have more impact against the other.

You placed Stairway To Heaven at the end of side one of the original LP. Did you think about having it at the end of side two as a grand finale?

No, no, no! Levee Breaks had to end it, because it was just so ominous and dense and it was just going to disturb people. After you've caressed them with Stairway, now you're going to disturb them [laughs]. That’s what it’s all about—conjuring up all these different emotions.

That side one is probably the greatest side of vinyl in all of rock history: Black Dog, Rock And Roll, The Battle Of Evermore, Stairway To Heaven. Really, it's unbeatable.

It is good, isn't it? But with the whole album, you get the feeling of the creativity of this band. It’s just coming in with full force. It's showing the whole picture of what this band is musically. These were really honest performances—performances that you feel. No doubt about it.

If Led Zeppelin's fourth album was the band's masterpiece, what followed was their unsung classic: Houses Of The Holy, released on March 28, 1973. In a sense, it was overshadowed by what came before and after it—IV and 1975's monolithic Physical Graffiti—but it contained some of the most powerful tracks that Zeppelin ever created: No Quarter, The Rain Song, Over The Hills And Far Away, The Song Remains The Same. Adding to the mystique was the artwork created by Hipgnosis: a surreal image of naked children climbing the rocky terrain of the Giant's Causeway in Northern Ireland, beneath a glowing yellow-orange sky. "It's evocative, isn't it?" says Page. "Its innocence, and the idea of us all being vessels of houses of the holy."

The story goes that you rejected the original artwork submitted by Hipgnosis' Storm Thorgerson, and then turned to their other designer, Aubrey 'Po' Powell.

Well, we got on better with Po than with Storm, but that's how they were. If people didn't like one person they'd work with the other one.

Did you know that the children on the cover are Stefan Gates, now a TV presenter, and his sister Samantha?

I heard it was Sam Fox. So it's not true, then?

That old story about Sam Fox? Most people dismissed that as just another urban myth about Zeppelin.

I thought it made sense because she probably was put in an agency as a child model and all that.

Perhaps you could verify another story about Houses Of The Holy—that you wrote The Rain Song after George Harrison complained to you that Zeppelin never do ballads.

No, it wasn't from George Harrison. He didn't say it to me. I just heard it on the grapevine that he had said, "Oh, Led Zeppelin don't do any ballads." I'm paraphrasing, but it was something similar to that. He probably said it lightheartedly. He probably hadn't really listened to very much Led Zeppelin.

There is also a similarity, in the opening notes of The Rain Song, to Harrison's classic Beatles song Something.

Yeah [laughs]. I thought it would be interesting to put the first two notes from Something into the beginning of The Rain Song. But I thought that The Rain Song was really nothing like Something, so nobody was even going to think of it.

There is such beauty in The Rain Song. Do you consider it one of your best?

As a whole piece, yes, it's pretty up there, for sure. As a guitar piece it was really good, but again, it came to life with Bonzo playing really sensitively on the brushes.

On the Houses Of The Holy tour, in the summer of'73, Zeppelin's gig at Tampa Stadium broke the attendance record that had been held by The Beatles.

What was it, 52,000?

More. 56,800, to be precise.

Well, we'd played fifty-something thousand the day before in Atlanta. Then we went into this huge thing in Tampa, where your main worry is, can everybody at the back hear what we're doing?

Going on stage for such huge audiences, were you ever nervous?

I always had an edge, what you might call nerves, going on wherever it was. I wondered whether it was just the adrenaline. But I'd always get that sort of edge. There's no doubt about it—you suddenly go into this sort of change, which you might call stage fright. But I was more realistic about what it probably was. It wasn't being frightened on stage. I love being on stage. There's nothing to be frightened about. But there was this edginess, sure.

With all the heavy touring that Zeppelin did in the 70s, doing three-hour sets, what kept you going? Was it that the music elevated you?

The whole set just kept stretching, because we loved playing. We could have just done an hour and a half, but we didn't. We wanted to give everybody everything that we could every night. We were totally committed in the ethic of doing that.

Let's talk about your life at this time. With all the work and the success and everything that came with it, did you ever feel disoriented?

No, nothing like that. It was all just a natural progression. In retrospect, if you look at the work we did, you think, Wow, how was that done? But, you know, we were all pretty young. I wouldn't be able to take on a workload like that now—all that touring, five nights a week and the rest of it. But I was young. It was perfectly natural. That's all there is to it.

Did Zeppelin's fame at that point ever feel overwhelming, even frightening?

No. The whole climate was different then, wasn't it? When you're talking about that sort of passion from the fans, the way that it would be manifested was simply that the concerts just got bigger and bigger. So you could see, by the record sales as well, that the popularity was immense. And that was the manifestation of it, playing bigger shows and the response to it. And it never went away. The reality of Led Zeppelin, when you look at it all the way through, was that the audiences just kept swelling, right through to the end when we were doing Knebworth in 1980.

Who apart from the band would hear Zeppelin music before it was presented for release? Ahmet Ertegün, the head of your label?

[Flatly] He'd get the finished album. That's how it was. It was wonderful, because it was so insular. You know what the climate was as far as what you had to do in those days. Literally what you had to do was make albums, then present them—with the cover—and then do more concerts. The record company wasn't all over you. They couldn't be all over you, because you're telling them, "This is it—this is the new album." And because of the demand for the Led Zeppelin albums, they couldn't really get in the way. They didn't want to get in the way of it. Because they could see—I guess history was proving itself—that we knew what we were doing.

Your power was your popularity?

Yes. And as you can see with the history, it was the right decision not to do singles along the way. That gave us the benefit to do exactly what we wanted to do, without having to think, Oh, what's the single going to be? Or having some person from the record company saying, "Where's the single?" Or even worse, saying, "I think you should do this!"

So there was never interference from them?

No. I'd lived through it with The Yardbirds, and I knew the climate wasn't right for that.

Were you as much of a perfectionist in terms of business as you were with the music?

God, no! But that perfectionism applied to everything, to be honest.

Being such a perfectionist, were you a difficult person to work with?

No. I don't think I was at all.

Did you ever sense that the band thought you were driving them too hard?

I don't know if anyone thought I was. You're always trying to strive to be better and better and better. That's all there is to it. And sometimes, whatever you've done isn't good enough. Do better, do better. But, you know, that's my own thing. And I haven't changed. That's how I am.

In the 34 years since Led Zeppelin disbanded following the death of John Bonham, Page has continued to make music, albeit on a limited scale. There have been collaborations with Paul Rodgers and David Coverdale, and even with his old foil Robert Plant—the pair played on each other's solo albums before officially reuniting for two albums in the 90s, 1994's Zep-reimagining No Quarter: Jimmy Page And Robert Plant Unledded, and 1999's all-new Walking Into Clarksdale.

But Led Zeppelin remained part of his life throughout. Ever since 1982's archive collection Coda, Page has served as the curator and the guardian of the band's legacy. But now, seven years after their one-off reunion show, this is all that remains of Led Zeppelin: the past. And for Page, it is now time for a new challenge.

What does the future hold for you? In terms of the music you're making now, does that necessitate having a band?

Yes. I'm not going to just go out and do concerts with one guitar or even two guitars—one electric and one acoustic.

If you're going to make a new album…

Maybe…

If so, would it be similar to Outrider, on which you had three singers?

[Smiling] We'll have to wait and see, won't we? The music I've been writing, it's got various moods to it, various textures. That isn't going to change. So there will be real surprises within it, you know? But there would have to be. I wouldn't really be happy about it unless there was. But I have got material. It's sort of there. And in a way I'm really pleased that I haven't recorded it yet.

Why?

Because it will still be good. If something's good, it is good, isn't it? Riffs and things—they're either good or they're not good.

Robert Plant was recently asked about the possibility of making a modern Zeppelin album. He said: "The weight of expectation is too great." Do you understand where he's coming from?

No. No, no. Because I'm not doing a modern Led Zeppelin album. I'm doing the music that will be a summing up of where I am at this point in time.

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The Ages of Page

"We'd drink JD together"

John Miles on collaborating on Page's 1987 [1988] solo album Outrider.

“I'd never met Jimmy before we started working together in '87 on Outrider. His manager called to ask if I'd be interested in doing some writing. So I went down to his studio and we wrote Wasting My Time, Wanna Make Love and a few other things. We'd both jam and come up with riffs. It took a while to get to know him, but we hit it off. And I discovered he had a wicked sense of humour. Then he decided he was going to take the album on the road and he said to me one day: 'Can you do it?'

"Most of the shows were in America. And I felt a lot of pressure having to sing Robert Plant's songs—I think Jimmy felt pressured too. I remember Robert turned up at a gig in Boston. Jimmy didn't want him anywhere near the building, so Robert turned up in a baseball cap and disguise.

"There wasn't really much time off, but when there was, Jimmy and I used to drink Jack Daniel's together. I remember flying to a gig in New Orleans on a private plane. As I was sitting with Jimmy, talking, I looked out of the window and there were fucking flames coming out of the engine. So we just had a couple more drinks! It was surreal.

"There were ideas left over from Outrider, but we never got round to doing anything with them. There was talk of making another album, but I felt the whole Zeppelin thing was pulling Jimmy back into that. The demand for a reunion was just ridiculous. So any plans we had just went by the wayside.

"My favourite memory of Jimmy? Just being on stage with him. He'd be standing there with sweat and snot everywhere—and a cigarette hanging out of his mouth. It was just incredible to turn around and see him playing with all his might." RH

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But do you get what Robert was saying? Do you feel that what you created with Led Zeppelin in the past is in some way a burden on you as you're making new music?

Well, there is pressure. But then you have to put it in context with actually thinking of all that pressure that's built up over all those decades and putting your arse on the line for one night at the O2. What sort of pressure is that? You can imagine what it was like for that show. You know, one shot. At least when you're recording an album you've got more than one shot at the solo. So you just have to look at it like that. New music is new music. But it still has to be good. It has to be vital. It has to connect with people. It doesn't want to be limp and half-hearted. It really needs to connect on one level or another, whether it's got that intensity to it, or it's something that is more rhythmic or voodoo-like, or something that is more sensitive or caressing. And that is what you're doing—you're a musician. You're not thinking about whether it's paling in the shade of Led Zeppelin. What sort of nonsense is that? [laughs] But you know what I'm saying.

Yes. But when we think back to Walking Into Clarksdale, your last original album…

Yeah, that's like a minimalist album.

That was sixteen years ago.

Was that my last album?

Your last original album, yes.

Good. I've only ever had one solo album out in the past anyway, and that was in 1988. So I didn't really try to cash in on the market, did I? I've done other projects along the way. I've worked with David Coverdale and this and that.

But do you feel that you've done enough?

Well, you can never do enough. But I don't care. It doesn't matter. It is what it is. And hopefully, next year I will be seen to be playing—because you need to be seen to be playing. That's why I've put so much effort into stockpiling all of this new material. I know the importance of the Led Zeppelin legacy, if you like. So that's why I've been stockpiling over a couple of years. I think it's important. That's the way to look at it and that's the way to do it.

So do you need a singer to make this new music work?

Why, are you volunteering?

Come on, Jimmy. Don't be silly.

Well, let's put it this way: I don't sing. I've said that on numerous occasions. I'm not a singer.

What is your singing voice like?

I don't know. I haven't really given it a shot, although I sort of sang many years ago, on the first Zeppelin album and a little bit on the second album.

But to answer the question about a singer…

You're asking about what I'm going to do? Okay, let's put it this way. What I would concentrate on would be the music that is going to be there. I wouldn't approach whatever was going to be recorded in a flippant way at all. But I haven't got any musicians ready at the moment to do anything, because it won't be until next year that I'd even be able to do that. I've got so much promo to do relative to all of this [the Zeppelin reissues].

There's one last thing I have to ask, and I know that it's a pain in the arse…

Go on.

After the O2 show, you wanted to continue with Led Zeppelin, to do more shows. Robert did not. Seven years down the line, nothing has changed. Are you resigned to the fact that Led Zeppelin is finished and should fans just accept that too?

Yes, it's time for me to move on to do other things. I've got a pretty fair old musical heritage. It goes way, way back to being a teenager. It goes all the way through from there to almost yesterday. I enjoy that. Ever since I was a kid, it was my passion to play music, to make music, and, you know, it makes people happy. If you do something as a living that makes people happy, you're a very fortunate man. That's bloody great. And I don't mean this lightly when I say that is a wonderful lifetime achievement. That's a great feeling.

For Jimmy Page, seven years of frustration have come to an end. After that O2 show, when Plant refused a Led Zeppelin tour—no matter how much money was on the table—Page, Jones and Jason Bonham rehearsed with Steven Tyler and Myles Kennedy. Whether they would have used the Led Zeppelin name, Page would not say. But in the end, nothing came of it. The subtext was quite simple: without Robert Plant, there is no Led Zeppelin.

In August 2014, Plant said of Page: "He should get on and do something. He's a superb talent. Come on and give it to us." Making new music, and playing it all over the world, is what Plant has done since that last Zeppelin performance. And now, belatedly, Page is gearing up do the same.

There are certain members of rock royalty whose prospects for an autobiography seem a little optimistic. That Keith Richards managed to recollect anything for his book, Life, was nothing short of a miracle, however it’s likely that we’ll be waiting forever to read his more reticent counterpart Mick Jagger’s journals. And so it was with Led Zeppelin, who have always closely guarded their own backstage secrets despite – or, perhaps, because of – mounting speculation and improbable myths that surround their legacy. Until now, that is.

An intensely private person, it’s taken over four decades for guitarist Jimmy Page to enlighten his fans with an insight into the inner sanctum of his colourful past. A new book, simply titled Jimmy Page, attempts to lift the lid on the memories from throughout his career, but in a unique and authoritative manner that’s fitting of the musician’s exacting standards. The book’s narrative is told by a succession of photographs, painstakingly researched and collected over two years by Page, which definitively charts his progress, his rise to fame, and his stature now as a living legend.

“I like to pit my wits against something that is pretty epic,” he tells Clash. “I’ve done that all the way through, I realise, in my life, now. To have something that nobody else has done.”

The first ever authorised Led Zep publication assembles 500 pages of stunning imagery from the likes of Linda McCartney, Gered Mankowitz, Pennie Smith, Jim Marshall and more, alongside unseen photographs from Page’s own archives, rare Led Zep memorabilia, tour dates, passport scans and accompanying captions. It begins in the late-’50s with Page as a choirboy, before his obsession with the guitar sees him first become an in-demand session player, then a Yardbird, then form his own group, Led Zeppelin, and conquering the world. His post-Zep years are brought right up to date with the band’s 2007 reunion, his work with The Black Crowes, and his appearance at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

Originally designed as a 2,500-copy limited edition collectible, this new and expanded affordable version is an essential and illuminating document for any Led Zep fan.

Clash met Jimmy to talk through a selection of our favourite photos, and discovered the enigmatic icon wasn’t as restrained as we’d been led to believe…

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FIRST GUITAR

“This is a picture of my first purchased guitar. My first [actual] guitar was a campfire-type guitar, which curiously enough was left behind at a house that my parents moved into. We moved from Middlesex to Surrey, to Epsom, where this is. There was this guitar there – nobody could play it in the family – and it was all strung up with six strings. You know when you see a guitar that’s been left behind and there’s strings missing? This was just there. Bit by bit, there was like an intervention into my life. I took to it like a duck to water.”

THE SESSION MAN

“When I was at art college, I was playing in the interval band at the Marquee club, which was on Oxford Street at the time; it was just really happening then at that time. I was at art college and I was playing in the interval band and I got headhunted to start doing sessions, and then they just came fast and furious. I had a break after one of the terms and I was doing like three sessions a day, five days a week. I had to go back to art college, and I had to make a serious decision. It was clear that I was a much better guitarist than what I was an artist. In those days, you weren’t just a specialist musician; you were just a guitarist and you were expected to be able to play in all these different genres.

“I played right across the board; from all the really, really good things like the group things, where I was brought in as a hired hand (for the likes of The Who, The Kinks and Them), to the point where I was doing muzak sessions. I worked with Brian Jones from The Rolling Stones for the film A Degree Of Murder. He said, ‘I’m doing a soundtrack for this thing. Have you got any ideas?’ I said, ‘I’ve got something straight away. I’ve got the bow (to play guitar with)!’ And he goes, ‘Oh! Listen to that!’ It was lovely working with a like-minded musician that was into the more avant-garde.”

THE YARDBIRDS

“The bass player Paul Samwell-Smith left the band. Their guitarist Jeff [Beck] and I were really good friends, had been friends since we were 12 – he thinks maybe even 11 – so I go in playing the bass, and then it gets to the point where there are two lead guitars, and Chris Dreja takes over on the bass. Jeff was really keen to have a dual lead guitar thing… Like, all those old blues records where they’ve got two guitarists going on, like the Howlin’ Wolf stuff and Muddy Waters; you hear some wonderful guitar parts blending. The Stones were doing that, but we wanted to have stuff that was more like a big band, with all the saxes – that sort of aspect, of all the riffs coming right out at you, and playing off each other. I was playing with the bow the minute I go in there, so we had a lot of interesting textures going on.”

LED ZEPPELIN

“I’d found Robert and routined stuff with him at home to see – because if he wasn’t going to get the ideas of what I had, then I’d have to look for someone else. I knew exactly what I was going to do. But it was like hand-in-glove, the two of us working. John Bonham hadn’t been playing with him for a while, I don’t think, but he said, ‘You’ve got to see John Bonham.’ I’d worked with John Paul Jones on sessions… Everybody just really suddenly took on their own persona, which moulded as the four and bonded. John Bonham had never had the chance to play the drums as John Bonham before Led Zeppelin. He’d just never had the chance to really flex his muscles musically, but that’s the same with all of us; everyone suddenly went into overdrive on this thing. It wasn’t over-playing, it was just playing in such a way with such attitude that it was just undeniable – this is some serious force going on here.”

LIVE

“It was supply and demand: we couldn’t supply the demand of people who wanted to come and see us, so you just see that these venues get bigger and bigger and bigger. Did I get nervous before big shows? Was it nerves or was it just the excitement and the adrenaline tap going on and champing at the bit like a horse before the shutters go up and it starts racing? It’s a bit like that, I think. Because the other thing about it is, by the time you’re looking at that picture there, we’re doing three-hour sets, and there was always going to be so much music that was going to come out on that night. Because every night was different, so it was quite exciting, you know? You knew what the set was, but the set’s gonna mutate. It was wonderful.”

THE FASHION

“I knew how I wanted to look, which was different to other people, and then it got to the point where I could actually afford to buy outfits – because they weren’t going to be cheap. On the dragon suit, it’s really raised up like a kimono, and it’s all gold threads. But I could afford to buy that. I think I had the trousers first (laughs), then I had to pay for the jacket so the jacket and trousers match up. Then I had the poppy suit made as well.”

FAMOUS FRIENDS

“I met Andy Warhol in November 1966 when The Yardbirds were in New York. Robert Plant and I met Elvis Presley in 1974 after his show in LA. I sort of got a chance to meet everyone. If I’m really honest, I would have liked to have worked with Bob Dylan. There’s still time, but there’s a whole period when I would really have liked to have worked with him. At the time, he’d had a conversion to Christianity, and everyone thought I was like the Devil incarnate, and maybe he thought it might not be the best [idea]. He might have thought it was like mixing oil and water, but actually in musical terms I would have been really sympathetic to him.”

Led Zeppelin guitarist and producer JIMMY PAGE remasters his band's brilliant catalogue and takes the opportunity to open their personal archives and share its vast riches.

As my taxi pulls up to Olympic Studios, located in the quiet West London suburb of Barnes, I'm a bit surprised and amused. With its red brick exterior and modest white archway entrance, the building looks more like a quaint American high school than a rock and roll landmark.

But a landmark it is. From the mid Sixties through the Nineties, Olympic was one of England's finest recording facilities and birthplace to some of the greatest music of the 20th century, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience's Are You Experienced, the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed, Queen's A Night at the Opera, and large portions of Led Zeppelin I, II and III. Olympic is now an ultra-hip movie theater/ café, decorated with candid in-studio photos of rock's finest musicians and tasteful bric-a-brac that celebrates the building's past glories. The recording consoles and microphones are long gone, but, fortunately, some of the old spirit still remains.

It is here that Led Zeppelin's producer and guitarist, Jimmy Page, has decided to unveil the band's latest archival project to a handful of curious journalists. As long rumored, during the course of the next year, deluxe editions of all nine Led Zeppelin studio albums will be released, three at a time, in chronological order, each remastered by Page. But the real news is that the band will also open its vaults to share dozens of unheard studio and live recordings.

Each remastered studio album will have a second disc of companion material comprised entirely of unreleased music related to that album.

I'M USHERED INTO the movie theater, which is a treat in itself. It is clean in a way that American theaters rarely are. The pristine drapes, seats and walls are matching shades of bright crimson, and for extra drama the Led Zeppelin logo has been expertly etched in black on the sides of the hall-an expensive touch for a record company event in these cash- strapped times.

After the 20 or 30 writers are settled, Page walks onstage, dressed completely in black, with his white hair providing a stark contrast to the red surroundings. He offers a brief explanation of the forthcoming reissues and describes the companion discs as "a portal to the time of the recording of Led Zeppelin… a selection of work-in-progress, with rough mixes, backing tracks, alternate versions and new material recorded at the time." He also notes that we are sitting in what was once Olympic's famed Studio A, where Zeppelin recorded their entire first album.

After the chills have subsided, the presentation segues into a world premiere playback of bonus disc selections culled from the band's first three albums, Led Zeppelin (1969), Led Zeppelin II (1969) and Led Zeppelin III (1970), all which will be released in June. As the music explodes out of the theater's sound system, it's both entertaining and somewhat surreal to hear some of rock's most familiar tracks so shockingly deconstructed.

"Whole Lotta Love," from the Led Zeppelin II companion disc, allows the listener to eavesdrop on a hard rock masterpiece in progress. In this early "working version," many of the song's signature elements are yet to be recorded-the iconic solo break is missing, and so are the slide guitar punctuations and the vocal refrains that give the song its title. Instead, we are rewarded with a powerful alternative vocal take by singer Robert Plant, an illuminating glimpse at the foundations of the middle "freak out" section, and a clearer image of the rhythm guitars and John Bonham's powerful drumming.

In the same vein, a stripped-down early take of "Gallows Pole," sans banjos, mandolins and electric guitar overdubs, illustrates just how driving and focused the Zeppelin rhythm section was. If you're looking for a stairway to heaven, just listen to Page and bassist John Paul Jones get busy as Bonham kicks the whole band into high gear and the song races to its urgent conclusion.

However, not all the bonus tracks are alternate mixes. For example, the first album is paired with a pulse-pounding live show from 1969, featuring a version of "Dazed and Confused" that rivals the studio original. The bonus disc that accompanies the third album contains a different take of "Since I've Been Loving You," and the Led Zeppelin II companion disc offers "Heartbreaker" with an alternate guitar solo. There's even an unreleased rarity from the Zep III sessions a one-take improvised blues medley of "Keys to the Highway" and "Trouble in Mind," featuring Page on acoustic guitar in a way you've never heard him play before. Jimmy has always taken pride in adding his own twist to the blues, but on this rendition he demonstrates his expert ability to play in a completely traditional vein.

According to Page, the first three bonus albums only scratch the surface of what lies ahead. As he explains in the following interview, the treasures get richer as the band goes deeper into its discography. No doubt, there will be plenty for dedicated Zep-ologists to discuss and debate for years to come.

IMMEDIATELY AFTER THE playback, I meet with the guitarist for an exclusive one-on-one chat for Guitar World. Jimmy recently Turned 70, and you can't help but be in awe of his youthful enthusiasm and the hardcore dedication that he has brought to this rather gigantic undertaking.

"I knew the only way to do this project properly was to leave no stone unturned and to listen to every Led Zeppelin tape and performance," he says emphatically. "Additionally, I really researched what had been bootlegged and what stolen material had surfaced, and I was determined to offer things people had never heard. People will be genuinely surprised by what we have and what we have in store for these albums. We wanted to give these bootleggers a real fright! I've actually read reviews of the new albums by people who think they know what the extra material will be, based on bits and pieces they've heard online. I thought, Oh yeah, you think that's what I'm gonna do. I'll scare the pants off you!"

He pauses for a moment and adds with a laugh, "They'll probably do bootlegs of what we've just done!"

How did the general concept of adding companion discs to the remastered albums come about?

It happened in reverse order. We had been discussing the unreleased material, and decided to take the opportunity to update everything. It's been over 10 years since the studio albums were last remastered, and the technology has gotten better since then. It didn't make sense to have the companion albums come out with "old stock."

It turned out to be a good decision. The new remasters definitely sound better. I hear an appreciable difference. There's more space to them. John Davis, who remastered both Mothership and Celebration Day, did a great job.

Creating alternate versions of each album is a completely original way to release music from the vaults. In retrospect, it seems quite obvious.

Yes. As we began to collate all the material, it became more apparent to me that it was the right way to organize and choose the outtakes. I see it as creating a mirror image—or maybe, I should say a tinted image—of each album. But even though we retained the same running order, we still wanted to surprise the listener with our choice of working mixes or, in some cases, completely different takes. "Since I've Been Loving You" is an example of a completely different take from the one you hear on Led Zeppelin III, but one that is completely undeniable and shows just how well we were playing at the time.

Was there an overall yardstick for which versions would make the cut?

Most of the selections were chosen from working mixes that chronicled the progress of a particular evening. Many of them have guide vocals, but some are purely instrumental. There were occasions when Robert would take instrumental tracks home to work on words. But the overriding criteria was that it had to reflect all the positive qualities of how we played collectively, our various contributions and just how damn good everybody was.

It's really a terrific time capsule, because you're hearing the creative process in action, unaltered. For example, I really like the alternate "Gallows Pole," because you can hear the basic track very clearly without all the layers, and it's just amazing! Don't get me wrong, I love the final "Gallows Pole," but the alternate version has a different sort of excitement and urgency.

I'm sure some people will think it's a different take, but that's what is really going on underneath everything. That's also part of the beauty of this project. It allows people to hear things they never would on the original tracks.

Was it difficult to decide which track to use?

Yes. Each song was a gallery unto itself, and there were often 30 paintings in the room to consider. I had many options to pick from during the evolution of any given track, but the most important thing to me was to show the energy and performance.

The differences on "Immigrant Song" are subtler than on some of the other tracks, but they're still interesting. The guitars are super dry, and the reverbs on the vocals are different, but it demonstrates just how many different paths the song could have taken.

I agree that some of the changes you hear are subtle, but some are really major. I thought it was important to show some of the bigger ideas that we decided not to pursue. Toward the end of "Immigrant Song," for example, you hear an interesting experiment with vocal harmonies that we ultimately decided against. Or on "Whole Lotta Love," you can hear some attempts at using repeat echo that were eventually rejected.

You produced all the albums. What did that mean within the context of Led Zeppelin?

Being the producer meant that I was in charge of the overall vision of each track and the way they were shaped via the musical colors of the overdubs. I was also involved in the mixing and mastering, picking the studio, picking the engineer and, of course, writing a lot of the music. After I left the Yardbirds in 1968, I always intended to be the producer of whatever band I was going to play with. That was my thing. The advantage was I didn't have anybody getting in the way of what I was doing or suggesting.

I assume you even decided the length of the spaces between songs. When I revisited the first album, I was struck by how the standard two-second space between songs is altered on several tracks.

Yes, I worked out the crossfades on "Your Time Is Gonna Come" and "Black Mountain Side" and counted out how quickly I wanted each song to follow each other in order to create flow or excitement.

Robert Plant was extremely young and relatively new to the recording process when the band started. As producer, did you have to work with him much?

Robert was absolutely extraordinary in those days. He was so bombastic and fearless that neither the songs nor the studio intimidated him. He very quickly got to a point where no other singer could touch him.

You mentioned that you were aware of the numerous Zeppelin bootlegs floating around the internet and that you were determined to not duplicate them in this package. It begs the question: how did they get out in the first place?

I don't know how they got out there, and it's actually pretty aggravating to me. I know some of the tapes were actually stolen from here [Olympic], and it would be interesting to have them. Believe me, these things were not given away in some goodwill gesture. They were stolen, and they should all belong to the holding company of Led Zeppelin.

There was a reference tape of a song called "Jenning's Farm Blues" that we recorded for the third album sessions that got nicked from my house. Then there were tapes recorded at studios that were supposed to be returned and never were. But when you're touring, writing new music and recording, the mechanics of the office sometimes aren't as thorough as you'd like.

The version of "Whole Lotta Love" on the bonus disc is exciting but missing some key elements: the guitar solo, the chorus tag, the backward slide and some of the guitar and Theremin parts in the middle. Why did you choose this particular take?

At this point in the song's evolution, I knew in my head how the whole arrangement was going to go, but I wanted people to hear how focused we were on creating a foundation that was intense. And it is intense! We weren't the Beatles, so you're not going to hear us sing "whole lotta love" together on the chorus while we were playing. [laughs] But I think Robert's performance on this track is also a revelation. He's just singing a guide vocal, but it's pretty damn good, isn't it? And even though you only hear some of the drums, little bits of the final Theremin part and some of Robert's vocal in the middle section, it's really atmospheric and stands on its own merits.

While we're on the subject, how did you create the otherworldly sounds in the middle section that we hear on the final studio version of "Whole Lotta Love"?

I always envisioned the middle to be quite avant-garde. If ultimately I wasn't able to pull it off, I might've had to edit the song down, but I knew what I wanted and I knew how to go about it. It was just a matter of doing it. I created most of the sounds with a Theremin and my guitar. The Theremin generates most of higher pitches and my Les Paul makes the lower sounds. I detuned it radically and just basically pulled on the strings to make an assortment of growling noises-evil sounds that you're not suppose to hear on commercial radio. [laughs] I might've detuned it to a chord, but really, I'm just pulling on strings and making them howl! And then, during the mix, with the aid of engineer Eddie Kramer, we did all the panning and added the effects, including using low-frequency oscillators on the tape machine to really pull the whole thing down and lift it back up, so the sound is moving in rhythm. It was something no one had ever done before in that context, let alone in the middle of a song. That's how forward thinking we were, that's how avant-garde it was, and that's how much fun we were having.

That was the advantage of having artistic control. None of that might've happened if we had an outside producer. They might've questioned, or at understood, what I was doing, or thought I was just making a bunch of noise. I was able to make sure our ideas were carried out without interference.

"Whole Lotta Love" has so many cool touches. How did you go about constructing it?

I was always good at hearing complete arrangements in my head. When we rehearsed the first album at my home in Pangbourne, I was able to envision the finished arrangement of "How Many More Times" before we got into the studio. I knew what was going to be overdubbed and how I was going to use the bow as melodic counterpoint. The same with "Whole Lotta Love."

On the first album, the band plays two blues covers. what attracted you to Can't Quit You" and "You Shook Me"?

When we first started rehearsing at my house, in 1968, we were working on a live set and the material that would become our first album. At that time, there were a lot of bands playing the blues. We also enjoyed playing blues, but we felt that our collective group character was so strong and original that, instead of blending in, it would have the opposite effect. Playing our version of the blues would show just how bold and different we were.

We picked two songs that had dramatic elements we could explore. The original Otis Rush version of "I Can't Quit You," has this section in the song where the chord moves up a half step, and we saw that we could turn it into a real moment. A big moment. Essentially, we put Rush's song under a microscope and figured out how to give it a bit more dynamic suspense.

I felt the band brought a certain psychological angst and darkness to "You Shook Me" that isn't present in Muddy Waters' original version.

Hmm… I don't know if I agree. You can never underestimate Muddy Waters.

What I mean is, it's a very dark song. The singer has just had sex with a woman that was so good, it destroys his "happy home."

Well, that's how life goes!

The way Muddy sings the lyrics, it doesn't sound like he's in despair. He's almost smirking. Robert, on the other hand, makes it into something heavier, more angst-ridden and emotional.

It was important for us to put our own spin on things and present a new attitude. I think our powerhouse rhythm section of John Paul Jones and John Bonham naturally brought a difference to everything we played. But the blues were very important to us. It was our pathway on the first album. "Dazed and Confused," for example has a progressive arrangement, but it still has strong blues elements.

The first three albums fuse elements of blues, progressive acoustic folk, hard rock and world music. What was the end game?

You have all these colors on your pallet and now you can blend them to introduce new colors and textures people have not heard before. For example, playing something like "Black Mountain Side" with a tabla drummer had never been done. "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" from the first album is another example. I had heard Joan Baez's version, but if you compare ours to hers, most people would say, "How the hell did you come up with that?" They don't really sound anything alike. The reason they are different is because we were able to fuse her acoustic approach with heavy guitars, which was something that hadn't been done. Additionally, I was able to incorporate a flamenco-style guitar solo, as well.

You recorded "Black Mountain Side" with an Indian tabla player. What was that session like?

I had never worked with the musician before, and I didn't have much time to waste in the studio to get it done, but I wanted to try. If it didn't work, I would've tried something else. I imagine it would've been difficult for him to play over what was essentially Western music, but he did a fine job. I found out years later that he was also a sitar player, so perhaps that made it easier for him to understand what I was doing.

On the photo shoot for this issue, you specifically brought two acoustic guitars with you. Could you explain the significance of each?

The Harmony guitar is quite special to me. It is what I used to write all the acoustic songs and many of the electric songs on the first three albums. I also used it to record all the acoustic tracks on the third album, and it's the guitar I played on "Stairway to Heaven." I pretty much used it until I started playing a Martin on Houses of the Holy.

The second guitar is a mid-Sixties Gib- son J-200, similar to the one I used to record all the acoustic parts on the first album. The J-200 used on Led Zeppelin I belonged to Mickey Most, the producer of the Yardbirds, and it was an amazing-sounding instrument. He graciously let me use it for the first album but didn't let me use it for the second album, because, I think, by then he knew he wasn't going to be the producer. [laughs]

Mickey owned the acoustic and a great Fifties Strat with a maple neck, and he kept them in his studio. Unfortunately, many years later, someone stole them. He told me, and I said, "Mickey, I'm so desperately sorry to hear that." They were his instruments! That's terrible.

So, anyway, I thought it was fair to bring the Harmony and a J-200 to the shoot. The Gibson is, of course, not the original-I wasn't the one who stole it! But I was talking with guitar collector Perry Margouleff about Mickey's guitar and we were able to determine the model, because the one I played had a Tune-o-matic bridge, and there weren't many of those made. Now that I've said that, they'll probably triple in price! Perry recently found one and gave it to me for my 70th birthday, and I really thank him for that.

The Harmony is a rather ordinary guitar. What did you like about it?

What did I like about it? It helped me come up with all these amazing songs! [laughs] It encouraged me. It didn't fight back, and it didn't go out of tune. It would say to me, "Go on, man, give me more! C'mon!"

What electric songs did you write on it?

I know I wrote "Ramble On" and "What Is and What Should Never Be" on it. But stuff like "The Lemon Song" and "Moby Dick" were composed on an electric guitar.

Did you use an unwound G string on your acoustic guitar? Your tone, especially on the first album, is pretty bright.

I did sometimes. Let me think. I'm not infallible on this stuff, but that's a good question and I should know the answer. I can tell you with certainty that I used a wound G on the first album, because I was using Mickey's guitar and I didn't restring it. I'd have to research the rest.

On "Ramble On," I was wondering how you achieved that smooth, sustaining violin-like tone on the solo?

I used the neck pickup on my Les Paul and backed off on the treble knob on the guitar, and ran it through the sustainer Roger Mayer made for me years before. When I was recording it, I was thinking in terms of making a sound sort of like a string arrangement.

A debate has raged for many years on what electric guitars were used on the first album.

It's hard for people to believe, but I just used my Fender Telecaster for the entire album, except for one track. Somebody was trying to sell me a Gibson Flying V at the time. I don't know what made them think I could afford it, because I clearly couldn't, but I asked them if I could just try it out. I brought it into Olympic and used it on "You Shook Me." With those big humbuckers, it was so powerful you can hear it breaking up the amp in the middle of the song. I could've tidied it up, but I really liked hearing the amp really struggle to get the sound out. It's really fighting through the electronics to get out of that speaker. I'm not sure what happened to the guitar. It might've found its way to Keith Richards, but I really don't know.

The first album was recorded in only 36 hours over a period of a few weeks. Was it because of lack of funds or did you want that urgency.

Probably more of the former. We weren't signed to a record label yet, so everything was done with ruthless efficiency. We weren't recording in a hurry and we were still being creative, but we were mindful of the clock. Truth is, we didn't really need a lot of time. We had rehearsed the material and played it on the road. After that, anyone should be ready to go in and record an album, and it shouldn't take forever to do it. When you hear "Good Times, Bad Times," it took exactly the amount of time it should've taken. There's not too much wrong with it, apart from a couple of dodgy guitar phrases at the end. Recording the first album was almost like when we recorded our BBC Sessions. We didn't need countless takes of messing about. We knew how to play the songs.

Where did the live show from Paris that accompanies the first album come from? You guys are really on fire.

Ironically, I actually became aware of it from a bootleg I discovered in Japan. I listened to it and thought, We're doing all right there. We're doing all right at that show. So we did some detective work and discovered it was recorded in 1969 for French radio, and we were able to locate a clean digital file of the concert.

As you have pointed out, Zeppelin's live shows were always evolving, and no two concerts were completely the same. What is the possibility of releasing more live shows in the future? It would make a great series or box set.

Well, doing this has been a bloody long haul! I've put a lot of my time into two major projects over the last few years. The first was the Celebration Day reunion [the 2012 concert film documenting Led Zeppelin's 2007 reunion for the Ahmet Ertegun Tribute Concert in London] and the other one is this series, and both are equally invaluable to the whole history of Led Zeppelin. There are still six more albums coming out in this series, so that's the focus for now.

The Paris show has some of the flashiest and fastest playing of your entire recorded career. But as your career went on, it seemed you became more concerned with note choice than raw speed. Was that conscious?

I think I just got better. My playing and writing grew in leaps and bounds around that period. If you compare the initial attempt at the solo in "Heartbreaker" on the companion disc to how I'm playing it on the live Paris show, you'll see why I had to go back and re-record it.

I thought the bow solo on the live version of "Dazed" was beautiful—really quite different than the studio version.

I was all right. Every night, I was trying to seek out something I never did before. I'd find new things and discard others until I arrived at something like the bow solo you hear on the live version on Song Remains the Same, which really holds up.

Do you see these first three albums as representing a certain chapter in the story of Led Zeppelin?

I think each album is a chapter. The first album represents the coming together of this undeniably talented band, with its extraordinary energy and an attitude that is second to none. We begin this process of fusing ideas that have never been done before, a process that would continue throughout our career. The second album has the fire and the energy of us on the road. I really believe you can hear that. And then the third is where, after working for two solid years, we were able to sit back and take a short breather on our home soil. And I think you can hear that as well.