Led Zeppelin: Dazed and Confused ⋆ Patriots Hemp

♪ And you’re just learning to play the guitar? -Yes, from a teacher. -From a teacher? Do you play anything except skiffle? Yes, Spanish and dance. Do you, well, and what are you going to do when you leave school, take up skiffle? No, I want to do, well, biological research.

Well, what you want to do is to, what, research into, into, into germs? Yes, exactly. Do you? ♪ ♪ I’d like to introduce Led Zeppelin to you now. ♪ On bass guitar, John Paul Jones. On drums, John Bonham. Lead guitar, Jimmy Page. ♪ And myself, Robert Plant. ♪ I’m not Peter Pan, and I don’t wanna strut around with a bare chest and hair down to my back.

That whole period, was a period, it was a law unto itself. It was like early pioneer days for excess if you like. And I guess I’ve gone through the whole thing and come out the other side with a smile on my face. Every now and again, something comes on

And it, kind of, rocks the planet. I just believed in what I was doing. I didn’t take prisoners along the way, really. ♪ The whole thing about Led Zeppelin was, it was so beautifully haphazard. It was really real. ♪ Their music blazed a trail across the world,

But few classic rock bands divide popular critical opinion as much as Led Zeppelin. They were just a great band in every department. There’s no one out there like ’em. Even if you didn’t like the songs, even if you didn’t like the entire aura that surrounded them, the hype, and the nonsense,

And the groupie, you couldn’t ignore the fact that these people were phenomenally gifted instrumentalists. They knew about their instrument. We needed an enemy, when punk came along, and bands like Led Zeppelin were the perfect target. This was, actually, a bit Spinal Tap, 25 minute guitar solos. That is exactly what we were against.

Music corresponds to the drugs that they’re doing. It was pot music. They were cool. Heavy metal is a kind of excuse for thinking clearly about what music is. Everyone calls them the godfathers of metal. They might be inspiration for it, but they weren’t metal. They were a rock band.

I never actually asked Jimmy what did he feel about the title “heavy metal.” I suspect he would just think, it’s nonsense. Jimmy, is this something that you’re gonna just do for a long time, sort of folk side of things, because you’re, obviously, normally associated with a rather different type of music?

Which is what? Rather heavier and rather more rocky than the sort of folk they’re hearing today. I think it’s all folk music, actually. Yeah, if you’d listen to some of those Zeppelin– The instruments change. ♪ This wasn’t something which was just long haired, drug rock and roll, but this was serious music,

Which you should take seriously. ♪ Combining the raw power and intensity of hard rock, with the finesse of contemporary blues, and the delicacy of British folk music, Led Zeppelin’s revolutionary sound redefined rock in the 1970s, and all that followed. ♪ The great thing about Zep was that it was like a huge

Sort of incredible one night stand, you know. It was like everything you could wish for on the first fantastic, free date, you know, everything thrown in, every sort of altercation, and every lust, and every swing, and every bit of truth. ♪ And the legend has been dogging me

All the way along the line, but that’s all right, it’s something to talk about, who cares. It all began on January 9th, 1943, in the blacked out, heavily rationed England of the war years, when James Patrick Page was born in Heston, Middlesex. His initial aspirations of becoming a biological researcher were soon swept aside by his obvious talent for the guitar. ♪

The origins of Led Zeppelin can be traced back to the early months of 1968, with the demise of one of the most prominent British blues bands. The Yardbirds! The Yardbirds were a part of the R&B boom. They had a really good reputation. They were made up of Keith Relf and Eric Clapton

And Jim McCarty and Paul Samwell-Smith and Chris Dreja, and, obviously, became very famous here, and in America, because they had three of the biggest guitarists in the world. Jimmy Page joined The Yardbirds in mid-’66. That’s where he cut his teeth after leaving the sessions scene.

Jimmy was one of the finest, and still is one of the finest, guitarists in the world, but he was one of the most used and most sought after session guitarists on the scene. It’s amazing some of the records that he’s been on. He was even on things like Who records

And never credited, probably playing with half the UK. For a brief period, Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page were both in The Yardbirds and that was, as you can imagine, double fire power. Have you been doing this, playing quite a long time. About–God, 40 years. Is it really? We’re all from Surrey.

We’re all a bit long in the tooth. Do you keep enjoying it? We’re all from Surrey Really? We all met in the early 60s. We all moved through the same band. They went on to be bigger than me. I met Jimmy Page through Eric Clapton,

And I’d known Eric Clapton since The Yardbirds’ time, so I was always trying to find out what they were doing. From 1966, under the shrewd management of Peter Grant, The Yardbirds had built a notable following in America. The one thing that counted for them was they were big in the States.

The Yardbirds could tour in America and get big crowds. In those days, everybody thought the artists worked for the manager. You know, in America it was like, “Oh, so and so, he owns them people.” He don’t own ’em. After all, they hire you, they give you like a percentage of their money

To do your very best for them. ♪ Come tomorrow, may be a soldier ♪ We did something, like, nine American tours or some phenomenal, you know, a tour that used to last for six to eight weeks, and it wasn’t until Peter managed us

That I don’t think I ever came back with any money from an American tour. ♪ When time and tide have been ♪ By the late 1960s, Peter Grant had earned a reputation as a no nonsense, heavyweight manager. He was totally untrustworthy. I mean he was, sort of, this size, you know.

You’d need a camera with not only wide angle, but high definition, to even capture him, he was so enormous, and he was kind of totally, physically overbearing, and it’s a bit like– and he affected to being a Cockney, so when you were telephoned, it’s a bit like being telephoned by God, you know.

You, kind of, automatically stood up. Don’t fucking talk to me. It’s my bloody act. I did, but I’ll leave you anytime. You couldn’t even give them a starting line. You’re gonna tell me that you let– I bet it wouldn’t happen in Europe or even England. This isn’t Europe or England.

No, I can see that ’cause it’s so inefficient. You’ve got to front ’em out with that terribly being British and a right verbal, and it’s what I call verbal violence, you know. You don’t actually, “Oh, I’m going to do this to you,” but you intimidate them. That’s what–that’s the game, intimidating them, verbally,

And I realized that if you were British, you could really do it, because you could always out-verbal them anytime you wanted to. Yeah, they have a great thing of calling you “pal-o.” “Listen pal,” I go, “I’m not your pal. How dare you address me like that?

Address me like that, I hardly know you, wretched little man,” you know, and they think, “Fuckin’ ‘ell, what was that all about?” They’ve never heard anything like it before. ♪ The Yardbirds got left behind when the purist R&B boom was giving way to the psychedelic thing coming from America,

But, eventually, they fell apart. What was seemingly an end, turned out to be the beginning. ♪ When The Yardbirds disintegrated, Jimmy took over the idea of doing another band, and he originally called, and what became Led Zeppelin, The New Yardbirds. Jimmy Page was already playing “Dazed and Confused”

In The Yardbirds, with the old line up, so he was obviously hatching something a lot different from the pop direction that The Yardbirds were going into. I remember I was with him, we were driving down Shaftesbury Avenue, or somewhere, one day, and I said, “What are you gonna do, you know?

Are you gonna go back to sessions, or form a new band?” And he said, “Well, I’m gonna get a new band together. Will you help sort it out for us?” And I said, “Fine.” And that’s how we started and, well, eventually, a bunch of musicians became Led Zeppelin.

I had it, in my mind, exactly what I wanted to try and get together, and then it was just a matter of searching round for the right personnel that could pull it off. By that I mean, you know, for the sort of work that I’d managed to expand

’round The Yardbirds material, because there was a lot of areas in there for improvisation, and I’d come up with a lot of riffs of my own, and ideas and, you know, passages and movements and things. Through the sessions, he’d met John Paul Jones, who was a respected multi-instrumentalist, really,

Specializing in bass, but he could play keyboards and everything, so he came in. Jonesy called me up and said, “I hear you’re getting a band together.” He said, “I’d really like to be part of it,” and, obviously, we knew each other from the session days. Great keyboard player, great bass player, great intuition.

Did a lot of things that you wouldn’t, actually, immediately recognize on a Zeppelin record, but a lot of his arrangements and a lot of the sounds and the keyboard things that went on had a lot to do with John. You always have to have the quiet one, but I think

He was very essential, but, apart from the fact he was a brilliant bass player, if you hear his bass playing on “Dazed and Confused,” he just makes the track. It’s that finger-walking kind of style. He, later, would be introducing other sounds, like Mellotrons and synths.

You know, he wasn’t just a guy, in the back, playing bass. He added a lot of color. With a bassist on board, Jimmy now needed a front man. I wanted somebody who could really belt out the blues and, well, rock, rock really, but blues,

But also be able to handle other, well, you know, the subtleties as well, so it needed somebody with a really, really good vocal range and power. First of all, he’d asked a guy called Terry Reid, who turned him down, because, at that time,

He had a solo contract, and a solo album coming out, so he wasn’t gonna throw in his lot with, you know, this new band, which he’s forever known as the bloke who turned down Led Zeppelin. Page found his man in Robert Plant. Well, I was 19, you know.

I mean, I was fed up fixing the roads, and working on a Saturday and a Sunday, you know? I mean it was nice to meet anybody who– and when I heard him play, it was such a celebration. It was great, he’s somebody who could play the blues

With an attitude that wasn’t just black. It was very much London Art School, the kind of attitude, the kind of aggressive angular thing. He is one of the finest vocalists to have come out of this country. He’s probably one of the finest vocalists in the world.

My parents wanted me to go into, you know, a profession, but I was already sold on music, and there was a terrible impasse for quite a long time, between us. But I knew I had to do this, you know. I mean it sounds very romantic now

’cause I could be selling cars in Walsall really, you know, but I just had to do it. When you hear those voices crackling off the jukebox, in some kind of smoky black and white cafe, in 1962, you wanna know where that’s coming from, and what it’s like in that game.

And I’m in it, so I got there, you know. I always thought he sounded best on the acoustic stuff ’cause then it was revealed that he wasn’t just a screamer, he had a really good voice. Plant, of course, is the showman, but Jimmy had a way–

I noticed this, frequently, when, in their heyday, of when he thought Plant was going on a bit, he’d suddenly start playing, cutting him short, in the nicest possible way, and done so perfectly that nobody would notice. The same with Bonham. I mean, “When’s he gonna stop?”

We were just very keen, very eager, and very driven, and very, I guess, full of it, you know. We were particularly bombastic, Bonzo and myself, and so, yeah, we were determined, almost to the degree of nausea in our companions, you know, it was great. We were just meant to be going somewhere fast.

♪ Drummer-wise, there were a few tried out, but I think Jimmy had the sound in his head. He wanted to carry on playing blues-based stuff, but he wanted to have this real hard rock edge, essentially a new sound. ♪ Although I had in mind a very powerful drummer,

You know, I wasn’t ready for John Bonham. I must say he was beyond the realms of anything that I could possibly have imagined, you know? He was absolutely phenomenal. He was stunning. I mean, I think each individual member of Led Zeppelin could have shone in any band, they were that good, you know,

And John was an amazing drummer. He had power, I mean, immense power. I mean, the way he hit the kit was phenomenal. I remember Hendrix, one night, coming up to Bonzo, in a club in New York, and, in those days, everybody used to jam, and it was a place called, “Steve Paul’s Scene.”

There was Buddy Miles and Hendrix, Beck. There was loads of us, me, Rod Stewart, people all over the place, and he came over to Bonzo and he said, “You know what?” He said, “You’ve got a foot like a rabbit,” ’cause Bonzo’s bass drum was so “rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrp” and we used to take

The mickey out of people who used double bass drums, because Bonzo just said, “Hmm, what you want two for?” Without Bonzo, the band wouldn’t have meant anything at all. Sure, I mean he was the emulsifying agent, he was everything, we was at the whole core of the thing.

He was the guy who stopped it being just another rock band, really, at least in its performance, the writing, but, I mean, Jimmy’s approach was so unique, and is so unique, but, I mean, Bonzo’s whole delivery was the thing that made it what it is.

Jimmy Page is the man who made that group work, not because he’s just a great guitarist, because he is, but he is the one who really had a sense of musical discipline. I don’t really believe rock bands are democracies. I think rock bands are led by one or two people.

The family atmosphere was very, very important to them, and you always have one member of the family who’s slightly stronger than the other, so it’s, like, “We should do this rather than that.” I think Jimmy would be the person they looked to, but the other two will hate me

For saying that, but that doesn’t matter. That’s my view. I think that Jimmy was the musical intelligence which guided it along. The group’s first rehearsal was in a London basement. We first played together in a small room in Gerrard Street, in a basement room,

In what is now Chinatown, and there was just wall-to-wall amplifiers, you know, just Marshalls, sort of, and there was a space for the door, and that was it, and, literally, we just– everybody was just looking at each other and said, “Well, what should we play?” So, there was an old Yardbirds’ number called,

“The Train Kept A-Rollin’,” which Jimmy said, “Well, it’s just like– it’s in E and you just go– ♪ Dun dugga duhdang adooga dang ding ♪ Right, so, three, four,” ♪ Vrrang dang adooga gaddan ♪ Wah, the whole room had just exploded, you know,

Silly grins and, “Oh yeah, this is it, man, yes,” you know. It was pretty bloody obvious, actually, that it was going to work, from the first number. The first gig that the line-up played was October 18th, 1968 at The Marquee. They were billed as The New Yardbirds,

And there’s one eyewitness account where the guy felt a bit short-changed, ’cause there was only one Yardbird on stage, but then, like, one song in, he didn’t care, you know, it was so good. Everything was going and firing up in all directions. There was lots of tangents, musically, where I started

Developing the use of me voice to match in with what Jimmy was doing with the guitar, you know. ♪ The great thing about early concerts that I went to was that it was perfectly clear that the other three were trying to, individually, play the others straight off the stage.

“Anything you can do, mate, I can do much better,” which, of course, is the kind of tension, musically, in groups which are great at improvising, you need. I mean, basically, I’m a rock and roll singer. My early days I based on the hips of Billy Fury,

You know, and the voice of Elvis, so to get this far down the line by taking these curves is quite exciting. ♪ Peter Grant’s attempts to book the band on a tour of English clubs was met with total indifference. I think it was The Yardbirds’ stigma. People thought it was confusing, the transition.

There was a sort of stigma that The Yardbirds had burnt out, so this band couldn’t be that good. They were rubbished. The record companies couldn’t figure out what the hell all this rubbish was because, I mean, you know, the idea of a white, middle-class lad singing about, you know,

The impoverishment of Delta blues is totally absurd. So, you’re not dealing with something which is pure. The idea of blues and purity, sung by white middle-class kids, however skilful they are, technically, is a nonsense. They’re creating something of themselves and something which is meaningful to them. ♪

What we would call R&B, and that was not what we call R&B now, it’s just– it was genuinely rhythm and blues, and they were one of the forerunners. When you hear Robert Plant perform a song, you believe it. You never doubt that that’s Robert Plant really trying to tell us something about him.

You never doubt that that’s Jimmy playing his heart out. What he did was interpret blues, rock blues, in a more aggressive, tougher way, with more power and more passion. That was Jimmy’s idea, he felt that you could play it louder, with more fight, more balls. They, like Cream, had managed to combine something

Which was instantly appealing, in the way that all great popular music is, instantly connecting back to blues of a very hard, specific variety and, yet, was trundling off, at great rate, in a new direction. ♪ Jimmy Page had found his sound, but he still needed to lose The Yardbirds’ stigma.

They decided to change their name. They were nearly called The Whoopee Cushion, which, obviously, got discounted, and then there was talk about Supergroup, with Keith Moon and Jon Entwistle, and all that bunch. I think it was Entwistle who said, “Yeah, if we did that,

It’d go down like a lead balloon, or a lead zeppelin.” So that’s how they thought, “All right, we’ll call ourselves that.” ♪ The weird thing about them was they didn’t set the place on fire. When they first started, they had a hard time. They didn’t make any effort to endear themselves

To the British musical press. They quite quickly understood that this kind of music, and this kind of improvisatory related to the deep south, in the United States music, would find its feet in the United States, which is exactly what happened. ♪ Baby please don’t go ♪ ♪ Baby please don’t go ♪

In 1968, Peter Grant left England with a mission to secure a world distribution deal. America’s where all the money is. I mean that’s where the huge crowds are. The UK’s great, but if– really, if the UK are gonna be slagging you off every week– Yeah, I mean, he just felt

The general vibe over here wasn’t receptive to them and, in the end, they went to an American record label. That label was Atlantic Records. Rock and roll is a direct outgrowth from the blues, and from rhythm and blues, and all those great English guitar players, like Jeff Beck,

And Eric Clapton, and Jimmy Page, were heavily, heavily influenced by the blues. ♪ You know it’s cold down here ♪ ♪ Baby, it’s cold down here ♪ Ahmet Ertegun was one of the few people that immediately got it. He actually got it. Ahmet and his brother, Nesuhi, were legends

Of the music industry, and they used to go into these black clubs, and they were moved by the music, rhythm and blues, and a lot of these songs of– songs that were sang by the slaves on the plantations, so what they did is they took dad’s money

And they opened up a record label called Atlantic, which was, basically, a black R&B record label, and they start branching out, where they start taking in white artists. They moved into England, and they started bringing the English acts over. And Led Zeppelin became a very natural band for Ahmet to want,

And to insist on having. Ahmet Ertegun gave them $200,000, which was huge for that time. It was, like, the biggest deal anyone had ever got. ♪ We did almost everything on a handshake. We would, eventually, formalize it by contract, but, once we made a deal, verbal deal,

That was a deal signed in blood. ♪ Everything gonna be all right this mornin’ ♪ He had this confidence, he exuded this confidence about he knew he had the best band and, so, all you gotta do is give me the best deal and, if you won’t, somebody else will.

When you are dealing with artists and musicians, you’ve gotta be there 24 hours a day. You can’t do it like you’re selling, you’re selling these glasses and, at the end of the day, you say, “Oh fuck it,” you know, you put it on a shelf and forget it. You know, tomorrow I’ll sell

50 cases of glasses, you can’t do that. You’ve gotta be there for your artists. You’ve gotta believe in your artists, and you’ve gotta be there for them. Led Zeppelin arrives at the end of the 1960s, but they already sounded like the future. A new era had begun.

It wasn’t until we played at, I think it was the Fillmore, that suddenly we went in right at the– must have got it right at the right time. They did their first gig, in America, in December ’68, and it built, and built, and built. ♪ The group’s debut album, Led Zeppelin,

Was recorded in 1968, at London’s Olympic Studios. It turned rock and roll on its head. You know, I had an idea, exactly what I wanted to do with the first album and the band. I wanted to make music which was really– that people would respect, and I knew it was good,

But I hadn’t got the faintest idea that it was ever gonna become as big as what it did, obviously, I mean… But I hadn’t even thought or wished it to. I think the only thing I wanted it to do was to do something which could stand the test of time. ♪

We’d just found something that– We had to be very careful of this thing that we’d found, because we might lose it, but it was remarkable, just the power, and I was very intimidated. I don’t know, I mean maybe I had a complex, or maybe I was just neurotic, or paranoid, or something

Like that, but I thought, “This is all too much. Am I really here, do I belong in this sketch?” And so, really, the record feels like that for me, for my contribution, but, really, as a collection of tunes, and a way to play and expand, it was great. ♪

The sound just, kind of, exploded in every direction. You couldn’t predict, in any given song, what it was going to do, where it was going. That was what was so exciting. I mean, this was a real adventure, musically. ♪ There’s a lot of contrast on the album,

And that’s one of the things that I really wanted to get together, which I didn’t think anyone else was doing, and that was the– but then, again, you know, that’s the way it shaped up. But, fortunately, it shaped up the way that I, you know, hoped it was going to.

This one was unlike anything you’d heard before. because it was, for a start, rude. It was great, I mean, no one had gone that far, no one had really taken that essence of the blues. The Stones had, obviously, been doing it for years, but they’d somehow blown it up.

This was, like, pin you against the wall stuff. I came to write the very first review about Led Zeppelin. I mean, I just said, you know, “This is absolutely the successor to Cream. These are formidable musicians,” and it definitely helped to get them off the ground,

I know, because, early on, it was very frequently quoted from. ♪ Younger people don’t realize that a lot of that album isn’t their own writing. He chose, very well, the songs to cover. All the things that Jimmy did, on that first album, he made them into Zeppelin songs. They were Zeppelin.

“How Many More Times” was a bit naughty, because it was actually “How Many More Years” by Howlin’ Wolf. ♪ Same melody and everything, except they just changed a few words and it was called, “How Many More Times” and given, like, a super-charged riff.

And “You Shook Me” had already been on Jeff Beck’s album, and that was an old Willy Dixon song, but it would appear on the sleeve, “A traditional arranged by Led Zeppelin,” you know. The Stones had done that, too, with Robert Johnson, and it was a common thing to take

Some old blues guy’s song. He didn’t rip ’em off, but he definitely borrowed from the Muddy Waters on that first album. ♪ Through rigorous touring, and word of mouth, Led Zeppelin were rapidly raised to Olympian heights. You went and saw a Zeppelin concert, you wouldn’t hear the album. You would hear a version

Of the album, and that’s what made it so brilliant. Jimmy’s solos were close but, maybe, they weren’t the same. Robert’s singing was maybe the same, maybe it wasn’t. You would actually be invited to another version of it. It’s great, it’s like seeing a film with three different endings.

Their gigs were very much rituals. ♪ Led Zeppelin reached instantaneous fame despite the almost universal negativity of the press. Well, the critics were lukewarm, but we played a storm. We had queues three times around the block, and stuff like that, playing in small clubs. It was big, it was real hot.

The British musical press loved nothing more than to destroy anybody it thought it had created. Now–and there are a zillion examples of that– what was difficult for them, about Led Zeppelin, was they hadn’t created Led Zeppelin. ♪ They got slagged off as being brainless sometimes.

They would lump ’em in in a kind of Black Sabbath role. The press, at that time, was very odd. When the press don’t derive a trend, or a fashion, or an idea, they feel like they’re having to follow, and the power moves from the media onto the band, and the band decide

Who they’re going to have interviews with and who they’re going to talk to. The media don’t like that. We, I’m talking about the general popular music press, we didn’t make them. We’re not responsible. Who are these guys, you know? Did they pay us to write about them nicely?

What I’ve just said is totally libelous, but it’s absolutely true. You won’t find a rock journalist now that would ever say anything bad about Zeppelin. ♪ Where I give them credit is because they didn’t put out a single. They never became over commercialized. They didn’t release singles, ’cause they felt the albums

Were supposed to be an entity, listened to from beginning to end. Their record company over here made the mistake of actually pressing up and releasing a single, but as soon as Peter Grant got wind of that, he clamped down on it. To us, it was, like, you know, taking away

A very important tool in breaking a group, but we were not allowed to put out singles. He did not want them to appear on television, which made it, also, very tough to promote. They didn’t do anything the right way. During 1969, while on the road, the band recorded their second album,

Led Zeppelin II. It was that second album that did it. That’s the one that really broke them in the UK. “A Whole Lotta Love” and that was the track where it all kicked off, I remember when that came out. I mean it was unlike anything else. There were heavy metal sounding tracks,

But not like that. Then you’ve got, you know, the orgasm bit halfway through. ♪ And that was on the jukebox at my local pub. You know, you’d walk in, and that section had been on, and there would be all these blokes, sitting around, drinking, with that going on. It was startling. ♪

By 1973, under the management of Peter Grant, Led Zeppelin were breaking box office records. One of the problems about all rock and roll groups of that era is finding someone they could trust as their manager. It was chaos. They needed someone to hold their hand.

What Peter Grant did, partly ’cause of his size, which one should never be underestimated, was he gave them a feeling of security. He was someone who would get them through whatever problems came along. And, of course, there are legions of problems. You know, if you’ve got a cash cow group called Led Zeppelin,

You’ve got record companies, mostly run by criminals and halfwits, and certainly gangsters, and probably the Mafia, you’ve gotta be protected against these awful people. Who is going to protect you? Then you’ve got every promoter, in every city that you are going to, who is damn certainly gonna rip you off.

So, again, you need a kind of strongman who’s gonna say, “Give me the money now.” You had people, inside this building, selling posters and you didn’t know anything about it? I didn’t know about it, as soon as we found out about it, we stopped it.

As soon as we found out about it, and told you, you stopped it. If you walk away and let them get away with it, they tell everybody else. Well, how much kickback were you gettin’? None, I knew nothing about it. Then you’re gonna have– right, it’s gonna be a chain–

You’re always gonna have trouble. Once you establish that, people know not to fuck with you then. They know not to fuck with you. So long as we screw you an extra few bob out of the group, you’re missing– You wanna fuckin’ control of the date, you silly– can’t you?

Well, unless they stand, and anybody who jumps on the stage I’m responsible for, too. Oh, don’t be silly, of course it’s not. It’s your responsibility to see that the concessionaire of the building–you rent it, you rented it, and you control it isn’t selling fuckin’ pirate posters.

You do the music, and I’ll take care of everything else. I’ll take on the record company, promoters, I mean, that’s what a manager does, but it really was that sort of division. Don’t even think about anything else. I won’t bother you with anything else, you know. I’ll tell you what, you know,

What’s possible, what you can do, this sort of thing, but you just take care of the music, take care of the band, and, you know, you won’t have to worry about anything. I saw Peter Grant with one particular promoter. He was gonna kill him, and he said,

“I want the money now,” and he made the promoter go and get the cash, and he counted it in front of him, I watched Peter doing it. That was really awesome to see. Awesome is the right word, for once. And I said to him, “I’ve come for the $1,000

You owe me,” and he said, “You’re not getting it.” I said, “Well, you ain’t leaving this caravan, pal, without giving me the $1,000,” and he pulled this thing out and he puts a revolver on there, you know. I said, “I don’t care what you got, you gotta pay us that $1,000.”

He said, “I’m gonna shoot you.” I said, “I very much doubt you’re gonna shoot me for $1,000,” I said, “Don’t be so fuckin’ cheap.” Whether they liked him or not, I don’t know. Whether they trusted him or not, I don’t know. They knew then that he did very silly things with their money.

But all managers did very silly things with their money. A lot of managers, in those days, didn’t discuss money with their artists, not necessarily because they were ripping them off, or whatever, but they, themselves, were very naive. They didn’t understand the business themselves. I mean, they didn’t understand the way the Americans worked,

Or the transportation costs, or the taxes, the withholding taxes. He’d do anything for that band. He was one of the first artist driven managers, you know. I mean, how he would stand up today, who knows, but as far as I was concerned, his benchmark was he fought for the artist.

He was brilliant in how to present the band, and he’d say, “Don’t do this,” you know, or “Don’t do that,” or “We ought to go here but then we, you know, won’t go there, and now we’ll go here, and I think it’s a good time for this.”

That was how he operated with us. ♪ Throughout their musical career, Led Zeppelin were dogged by a roguish reputation. It was the ultimate rock and roll excess. They used to hire this Boeing 720 jet. It cost them, like, $30,000, and it was all decked out. It had a bed in the back.

There was like–they had a woman on the tour for the sole purpose of dishing out coke. This was someone on the payroll. We did have parties. Who can play like a musician? Like, they get up at midday, or whatever time they get, and the whole day is built up

To, like, the eight o’clock, when somebody says, “The house lights go out, boom, it’s Led Zeppelin,” and then the concert goes like that, so their whole day is a build from getting up. You just can’t go off, at the end of the night, can you, and get, you know,

Agatha Christie out, or something, and read it. You can’t do that. It was pretty commonplace amongst the bands on the road. I’m surprised we got quite– I mean, The Who. The Who used to use explosives, you know. How did we get the rep? It was pretty universal.

We were in some pretty awful hotels, to be honest, but you never wreck a nice hotel. And, after a while, it used to get so that the manager would actually put you in rooms that needed redecorating, so that he would get them paid for. ♪

John Bonham was just, like, he was on a permanent, kind of, Club 18/21 holiday. It was that kind of excess, with a great deal of wreckage. Bonham was on the rampage one day and he smashed everything. He even got the security in to help him

Smash the pool table ’cause he couldn’t do it on his own, and, you know, before they were checking out, they came up, and the guy happened to be English, and he’s looking at all the damage, and he said, to Bonzo, kind of looking down

His nose at him very smugly, “Oh, you left the mirror,” and Bonzo said, “Oh, did I, I’m sorry about that.” Took it off the wall, smashed it straight in front of him. You know, I mean, they would absolutely demolished if they were done, but, I mean, it wasn’t every night.

When we went to pay the bill, and the manager asked about all the damage, we said, “Well, just give us the bill for the damage,” so we paid him for the damage, and he was, like, seething, and Peter said, “Look, you’re being paid for the damage.”

He said, “You know, what’s the big deal?” And he said, “It’s not that,” he said, “It’s just that you guys can do what you want.” He said, “You think that I like working in this hotel?” He said, “I hate this. I’d love to do what you do.”

He said, “Pick a room and give me the bill.” And the guy went down, threw everything out the window, smashed the windows, and gave us the bill. Peter got the cash out and that was it. But there are differing opinions on the legendary tales of rock and roll excess.

I was telephoned by Peter Grant. He said, “Well, you know, the lads are going on tour, and we want you to come on tour, in the plane, and we want you for at least three months.” Then, very slowly, the truth emerged. Jimmy was not wanting to go on tour,

And he was dreading it, because life on the road is not a great deal of fun. I mean, it’s an unforgettable experience for me, for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which was, it’s almost impossible to imagine four people, who’ve just performed before 50/60/70,000 people, coming offstage. What do you see?

Totally exhausted, they don’t want to see anybody particularly, they don’t want to talk to anybody, they’re not interested in the groupies, they’re not interested in all this mountain of food that the good promoter has laid out. They just want to sit, very quietly, they don’t want to get drunk, or get drugged,

Sit very quietly and, maybe, read a book, read a newspaper, and have a cup of tea, I remember Jimmy was ordering cups of tea, and go home to bed. And it wasn’t that I was, kind of, expecting late night parties, as it were. It never crossed their mind that there would be

A late night party. They were monk-like. Peter Grant stories, that was all part of the great, big Zeppelin myth, and that was brilliant, because it was the forefront of what McLaren did with The Pistols, you know. It was good copyright, and you know something?

When we read The NME or The Melody Maker in those days, or The Rolling Stone, and you hear the stories about the band, “Great, I’d love to be doing that myself, that’s fantastic.” The neatest was Robert Plant. I mean, everything beautifully, neatly laid out. John Paul Jones, little photographs

Of his wife and children, and, suddenly, you saw four wonderful musicians, didn’t really want to have anything to do with this, kind of, mad circus which surrounded them, although they knew that paid their wages, and they were committed to it. For the composition of the 1970 album,

Led Zeppelin III, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant retired to a remote cottage in Wales. The result was a more acoustic sound. Zep III was, you know, all band written, one way or another, you know, so that’s the difference, immediately, but I know we really did attempt

To break the mold of the previous Zeppelin albums to create something as diverse as possible to really, I suppose, to try and achieve, you know, to try and broaden what we could do. It’s a long time ago, I mean, I was only about 20, 21, 22 then,

But I just see the, kind of, combination of electric and acoustic and, you know, this sort of pastoral mixed with the spook as being a great, you know, it’s a great dynamic for a collection of songs. The third album got slagged off a bit for having this predominantly acoustic mood,

But I thought that was a good move, because it didn’t typecast them as a hard rock band. And then, when they came out with the fourth album, which was the monster, that made it all the more of a peak. Led Zeppelin IV was the band’s most musically diverse release.

It was to become one of the best-selling albums in rock history. “Black Dog” and “Rock and Roll,” I mean they still sound incredible for their locomotive, unstoppable power. They’re the quintessential hard rocking Led Zeppelin songs. That would have been enough to establish them back on that level,

But the album also had “Stairway To Heaven.” ♪ The idea of what I had there was to start it with this acoustic piece, and then for it to build, almost like an adrenalin rush by the end and, so, in fact, it actually gets faster, from beginning to end, it increases in tempo.

By 1975, Led Zeppelin had become the most commercially successful rock band in the world. For millions of fans, they would come to epitomize the 1970s like no one else. ♪ Led Zeppelin, now, were so huge, they were, kind of, like, part of the furniture. If you were cool, and you were happening,

You loved Led Zeppelin. As the audiences got bigger, and the albums sold more, you knew what to expect, and then it was real fervent worship. ♪ The biggest gig ever was ’73 in Tampa, Florida, when they played to 56,000. That hit the record books. They really were beyond huge in America.

In those days, there wasn’t the massive pyrotechnics, there wasn’t the massive light shows. It was just purely the band with some good lights, and it just goes to show how powerful that band were. They’ve reached a pinnacle whereby they didn’t need to prove anything to anybody. They didn’t need to prove commercial success,

They didn’t need to prove themselves musically. Those accolades had come progressively over the years. They didn’t need to prove anything. So, when you get to that point, then, actually, you become somebody totally different. ♪ The 1975 double album, Physical Graffiti, gave full reign to the quartet’s diverse interests.

Sell out appearances in the UK followed its release, but rehearsals for a world tour were abandoned when Robert Plant sustained multiple injuries in a car accident. Around ’76, the cracks were starting to show. Jimmy was starting to get into hard drugs, and Bonzo was, like, a total alky by now.

For your drummer to be permanently pissed is not good, and it’s, like, your engine room’s gonna pack up and, you know, at one gig, he collapsed halfway through the set and had to be carted off. So Led Zeppelin were seen as this huge band, but they were treading water,

And things weren’t going very well. They’d lost their, kind of, untouchable god status. By 1977, Led Zeppelin began their rescheduled US tour. Then, Robert Plant had suffered a terrible tragedy when his son died from an infection. By that time, his family meant a lot more to him

Than all that rock star stuff, anyway. He was a family man, really, and that was an awful tragedy. The remaining dates were immediately cancelled, amidst speculation the band would break up. As Led Zeppelin took a back seat, the UK was shaken by the arrival of punk. ♪ We’re so pretty ♪

♪ Oh so pretty ♪ Punk totally altered the perception of what a band could be. Led Zeppelin did look like old dinosaurs, and they were then relegated to being a band, with a huge following, but in the manner of, you know, the people who go and see Iron Maiden. ♪ September 1980.

Led Zeppelin were rehearsing, at Jimmy Page’s UK home, in preparation for an American tour, when the tragic death of John Bonham brought the 12 year reign of Led Zeppelin to an end. Apparently, he’d got up and had four quadruple vodkas, ’cause he demanded they stop off for breakfast,

On the way to the rehearsal, and breakfast was ham roll and four quadruple vodkas and he carried on drinking all day and that evening was, sort of, put to sleep, and… …he choked on his own vomit. ♪ We were just rehearsing for a tour, to go to America.

I think tickets had been sold even. So, whatever had gone on, had been put aside and, you know, all ready to go again. When Bonham died, then something went, well, they really, effectively, stopped playing, but that was one reason why they couldn’t really play

Anymore, because they were all, you know, they were all part of the same family. The demise of Led Zeppelin was pure and simply the death of John Bonham. They would never really get over it. That was it, the end of Zeppelin. Nobody really knew what to do,

And I didn’t want to join another band. I mean after Zeppelin, it was a pretty hard act to follow. ♪ During the following decades, Jimmy Page and Robert Plant renewed their long time partnership for several projects, some of which, by their own admission, were shambolic.

When Led Zeppelin ceased, it didn’t mean to say that I couldn’t sing anymore, it just meant to say that I couldn’t sing in that set of circumstances. In 1994, Robert Plant received an invitation from MTV to play on the network’s Unplugged series. He invited Page to share the stage with him.

John Paul Jones, however, was excluded. I read about it in the papers, to be brutally frank. I don’t really know. I mean, you know, what I’d have done had they have asked, I don’t know, but they didn’t, so, you know, good luck to them. But I don’t really know much about–

I don’t know anything about the project except what I’ve read. Whether people like it or not, it’s happening. It’s pretty sharp, it’s pretty virile, it’s quite reflective, and it’s cheap. ♪ Our main concern was if we could sing songs from the past, we should create songs

For the future and, as a singer and a guitarist, we had a lot of affinity in the past, and that we should make it our own mutual dual project. In 2007, 39 years after their first rehearsal, Led Zeppelin reunited for a one off performance at London’s O2 Arena.

A reported half a billion fans attempted to purchase tickets. They’re doing this one off concert, in memory of Ahmet Ertegun I believe, and have all sworn, I’m not sure I 100% believe it, that they’re not going to go on tour. I’m hoping to get tickets, I’ll go.

I’m not a huge fan of some of the nostalgia tours. I mean, they’re very talented people, you know. They all know how to play their instruments. You know, whether Robert can sing the same as he used to sing, back then, I mean, he’s about 60,

So, I would think it would be hard going for him. Absolutely over the moon! It’s scary, good scary. It’s nice to be out so late without having a nap. The surviving members of Led Zeppelin were joined by John Bonham’s son, Jason, on drums. I’d spoken to Robert about it just recently

’cause we hadn’t spoken since the announcement, and I said, “How do you feel?” He said, “I’m a little overwhelmed, and I just can’t comprehend the size of the people, the interest, with something that I did such a long time ago, is still held so highly by so many.

It’s very, very humbling,” he said. So, it is, it shocked– I think Jimmy always thought they were the size they were, but this has really documented it, so, thanks to everybody. My mom was in tears when she, you know, heard the announcement, so thanks for the support, you know, it’s wonderful.

It was just so spell binding, and it was partly fearsome, terrible is a good word, you know. It was great ’cause it did work, and it was real, and it was true. I thought that we’d be castigated, no matter how good we were, but we weren’t. Awesome! Fantastic. Best gig ever. Oh, wow!

Zeppelin, I think, in the end, couldn’t resist the question, which was frequently put to them, “Were we really as good as that?” The problem with musicians is they’re forever chasing their ghosts. They can never be what they once were. All of a sudden, they’re worried about their banker.

They’re worried about how they’re gonna pay this mortgage. They’re worried about this and that, and it’s all related to being boxed in, and an artist has no boxes. An artist just sees, and it opens up to them, and what money does, and bankers do, is they pull you in,

They put shutters on your dreams. I will be very surprised if they take up the offer for 100 million, or whatever it is, to do a tour. I don’t think that will happen. Robert Plant has been very dignified and gracious about all this.

He can’t go on there and be the Viking sex god every night. He said he’d feel silly doing that. Well, I am retired, this is retiring compared to what–I used to have a sock down me jeans, and I was all over the place. Now, I take this as being early retirement.

What a nice way to see yourself at. -Cheers! -Okay, thank you. Your voice broke for a second then. They were an amazing band, with great players and great songs, and that is their legacy. Those songs are a cut above pretty well anything that was done at that time.

There’s no one out there like ’em. Everyone’s been trying, you know, for years to do it. I can hear Led Zeppelin in a million bands, from the most extreme American hardcore outfits, to people like what Jack White gets up to. ♪ They are a great example of longevity.

Those albums they’ve made are like a Picasso. They are there forever. Led Zeppelin were indisputably the greatest rock band in the world, and probably still are. Thank you. ♪ ♪