The guitar legend opens up about absent friends, superstar fans, bad reviews and the next best thing to playing with Zeppelin
In a West London hotel, Jimmy Page is looking back on his 50-year-career. The founder and creative genius of Led Zeppelin is here to speak to Classic Rock about his life and work – from the first recordings he made as a na?ve teenager to the legacy that rock’s greatest band leaves behind. He recalls the magic of when Zeppelin first played together, the battles with bootleggers and the press, the brilliance of the late John Bonham, the joke song that backfired on him. And he explains why playing with The Black Crowes was closest he’s come to replacing the feeling of Led Zeppelin.
When you think back to 1968, when you first put Led Zeppelin together, how soon did you realize that you had something unique?
It happened in the first rehearsal, which was in London, in Gerrard Street. I said we should play Train Kept A-Rollin’, but I think I was the only one who knew it. I don’t really know what else we did. But as soon as we played together, everyone knew instinctively that we’d never played anything like that before, or heard anything like that before. And it was just so right.
Had you already written songs for the band before that first rehearsal?
There was material I already had in mind, like Babe I’m Gonna Leave You and some other things. And by the time I got everyone in my house and we were doing steady rehearsals, we were working on Communication Breakdown and You Shook Me. Laying down that material, it was phenomenal. We knew just how good it was.
What did you have in Led Zeppelin that was different to other rock groups of that era?
In those days, you’d find really great groups built around one instrumentalist. In Led Zeppelin you had four master musicians. I know Cream had three, but to get four guys together, all at this high level, that was something else. To be honest with you, I knew the group was dynamite. From the rehearsals we did at my house, I knew what we had. And after we did the first tour in Scandinavia, I knew it would translate in a live capacity.
The first Zeppelin album was released in January 1969. What do you remember about the making of that record?
It was great how the first album was done – by playing it live in Scandinavia, to really oil it up before going into the studio. That way you were able really work it out before you’d recorded it. If you’ve got the benefit to do that, it’s a really healthy way to go into the studio, especially with guys who haven’t been in a studio too much beforehand. Also you had to record very thoroughly, and it was pretty ruthless – you couldn’t go in there wasting time, certainly with a new band.
What were you aiming for with that album?
You wanted to get in there and make the thing explode. You put all the chemicals together and it explodes out of the speakers. The word is chemistry, or alchemy. And that album was a complete picture, you know? So may ideas and combinations that people had never heard before. John Bonham had so much power and so much character in his playing, and there was some great keyboard playing from John Paul Jones. To get that album the way that it was, that was very cool.
From the very start, the band created a huge buzz in America.
We just went in and just destroyed San Francisco, and that was it. The first album wasn’t even out. And it just spreads like wildfire – that this band was just incredible, and then they hear the album…
By the early 70s, Led Zeppelin were the biggest band in the world, outselling the Stones. How did you deal with that level of fame?
If you’re talking about the time of the private jets and all that sort of stuff – do you mean that sort of lifestyle? Because other people were doing that, basing themselves out of cities and using a plane. It made sense.
Jet set: Zeppelin in 1973 ( Hulton Archive/Getty Images )
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http://teamrock.com/feature/2015-12-16/bonham-grohl-led-zeppelin-s-legacy-an-epic-jimmy-page-interview