You don't find geniuses in street musicians, but that doesn't mean to say you can't be really good.
I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.
I'm obsessed - not just interested, obsessed - with folk music, street music, the parallels between a country's street music and its so-called classical and intellectual music, the way certain scales have travelled right across the globe. All this ethnological and musical interaction fascinates me. Have you heard any trance music? That's the thing.
I'm trying to photosynthesize like a plant. I'm off eating. Although I am making a lot of banana daiquiries in my room in the blender I've got, with lots of powdered vitamins in them. This tour I'm going to get some Afghani hangings and put them in my room, so that my hotel rooms look like mosques.
Well, Led Zeppelin IV! That's it really. I'll tell you why the album had no title - because we were so fed up with the reactions to the third album, that people couldn't understand why that record wasn't a direct continuation of the second album. And then people said we were a hype and all, which was the furthest thing from what we were. So we just said, `let's put out an album with no title at all!' That way, either people like it or they don't... but we still got bad reviews!
Artists say that paintings are never done. I sort of feel the same way about music. I would never say something is perfect. There are performances that can generate a lot of emotion in me when I hear them, but I can't say if anything is perfect.
I'm just looking for an angel with a broken wing.
You can't just find yourself doing something and not happy doing it.
When I went over to the States to promote Outrider, everyone was telling me I was a blues guitarist. I'm not a bloody blues guitarist. I'm a guitarist.
I spend a lot of time near water.
Let's just say I'm like a ship passing through storms, resting in ports now and then until it's time to continue the journey. I once told a friend, `I'm just looking for an angel with a broken wing - one that couldn't fly away.'
We kept moving forward and didn't try to recreate the past .. the approach to each album was radically different every time. Many bands would have some success and, because they were locked into having a single - something we didn't have to worry about - they had to make sure there was something similar on the next album ... that was never the idea with Led Zeppelin .. the goal was to keep that spark of spontaneity at all times.
The key to Zeppelin's longevity has been change.
My guitar style was developed during that 10-year period. That's me. That's the way I play, and I don't wish to play any other way. Our own individual identities are firmly stamped on this album.
I'm still terrified of flying. I really have to get drunk to fly. I've found that I've developed fears I never had before... fears of heights, claustrophobia... only in cities, though, never in the country.
I'm attracted by the unknown, but I take precautions.
I guess the solo from 'Achilles Last Stand' is in the same tradition as the solo from 'Stairway to Heaven'...it is on that level to me.
I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn't teach it in school.
You can't overthink the music. Mood and intensity can't be manufactured. The blues isn't about structure; it's what you bring to it. The spontaneity of capturing a specific moment is what drives it.
I don't go walking into things blind.
I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened.
There is far more sensitivity in acoustic guitar players than could ever be compared to any synthesizer. That's a personal point of view but that's the way I see it. I think that's what it's all about. The drive, the fire, the passion - it all comes out on the guitar.
The greatest satisfaction is not the decoration. It is knowing that I am able to help someone who needs help.
The gut-strung guitar, the classical guitar, that is a whole different world on its own. When you think what the guitar can do and what every individual player does with a guitar, everyone has their own identity coming through the guitar.
Led Zeppelin didn't get that kind of Beatles screaming. We had a more sort of macho crowd. But I remember once in the early days of The Yardbirds, we were playing on an ice rink, and the stage was mobbed by screaming girls. I had my clothes torn off me. That's a really uncomfortable experience, let me tell you.
Actually, I'm getting one made up with eight necks and I'm going to get a wheelwright to make a big rim around it and then I can do cartwheels off the stage.
I have a voracious appetite for all things, worldly and unworldly.
I love playing. If it was down to just that, it would be utopia.
But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn't do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs - Early Days - which is what it is - and Latter Days.
I really wasn't needed... Just straightening up riffs, that's all. Just two guitarists doing it instead of one.
The beauty of the band was you never knew what was going to come out next.
The element of change has been the thing, really. We put out the first one, then the second... then a third LP totally different from them. It's the reason we were able to keep it together.
My favorite guitar solo of all time was Elliot Randall's on `Reelin' In The Years'.
Music can always be a life-changing experience, for musicians and fans, or at least life-affecting, but it depends on to what degree.
Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid.
Right from the first time we went to America in 1968, Led Zeppelin was a word-of-mouth thing. You can't really compare it to how it is today.
That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. "Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed."
This week, I'm a gypsy. Maybe next week it'll be glitter rock.
(The Song Remains The Same) is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up.
Crowley didn't have a very high opinion of women, and I don't think he was wrong.
But if you want me to knock Kingdom Come, all I will say is that I heard the guitarist said he'd never heard my playing, and I'd defy any guitarist in American not to have heard Led Zeppelin.
Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It hasn’t let me down.
There's music that can affect people in their lives, and they will always relate to the point that they heard it and experienced it, either if you're playing it or you're receptive, as an audience.
I really don't like showing people how I play things; it's a little embarrassing because it always looks so simple to me.
From the classical guitar right through to the furthest electrical experiments and everything in-between, it's amazing what the guitar can actually do. I mean, when one thinks about sounds.
Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was - there's no doubt about it. There's never been anybody since. He's one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.
I don't like to tell people what format they can get things in, or say, "I'm only going to release this on vinyl and nothing else. You have to come to my world." I don't like to say that to people either. But, I do think there's a loss of romance.
I do really believe that all guitarists have a different character that comes through, that's a strong character, the stronger the person is.
Every musician wants to do something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with 'Stairway to Heaven.'
So far I've been very, very fortunate because it appears that people like to hear the music I like to play. What more fortunate position can a musician be in?
Sometimes, I must admit, I'd like to have a second guitarist onstage with me, but it wouldn't look right. I'd like to play for another 20 years, but I don't know... I just can't see it happening. I don't know why. It's a certain foreboding... a funny feeling... vultures.
If you wanted to chart new territories and head off over the horizon, you had to make sure you weren't overly influenced by what others were doing ... so it didn't matter what other bands were doing ... we did what we were doing.
I can only listen to what I'm working on, at the time. I can't listen to anything else because I don't want to copy it.
I'm over 30 now, but I didn't expect to be here.
I don't deal in technique. I deal in emotions.
I deal in emotions. It's the harmonic side that's important. That's the side I expected to be much further along on than I am now. That just means to say that I've got to keep at it.
A lot of people can't be on their own. They get frightened. Isolation doesn't bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security.
Domesticity and all that isn't really for me.
My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army.
You never knew what was going to happen in concert. It was a really exciting prospect to go onstage, and you can hear that in the live recordings ... wherever we were and whatever year it was, we always went onstage determined to do our best.
I'm still searching for an angel with a broken wing. It's not very easy to find them these days.
I'm pretty optimistic about the future of rock... it will be back to composition as in classical music or jazz.
There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin. John Bonham, phenomenal drummer, young man with his technique, but do you think he would ever have the opportunity to play like that in another band? Of course he hadn't.
I'm at my best when I'm exhausted and under pressure.
If I ever really felt depressed, I would just start putting on all my old records that I played as a kid, because the whole thing that really lifted me then still lifted me during those other times. It was good medicine for me, and it still does that for me when I put something on. Isn't it wonderful that we've got all that good medicine? I think it's got to be all part of our DNA, this mass communication through music. That's what it is. It's got to be, hasn't it? Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It hasn't let me down.
I don't care what critics and other people think.
Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms. As a musician I think my greatest achievement has been to create unexpected melodies and harmonies within a rock and roll framework. And as a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape - the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin.
If you're working at the factory and you're cursing every day that you get up, at all costs get out of it. You'll just make yourself ill.
The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really.
I remember one particular occasion when I hadn't played a solo for, quite literally, a couple of months. And I was asked to play a solo on a rock & roll thing. I played it and felt that what I'd done was absolute crap. I was so disgusted with myself that I made my mind up that I had to get out of it. It was messing me right up.
I've never regretted anything I've ever done.
I'm not a guitarist as far as a technician goes, I just pick it up and play it. Technique doesn't come into it.
You can't expect to be the same person you were three years ago. Some people expect you to be and can't come to terms with the fact that if a year has elapsed between LPs, that means one year's worth of changes. The material consequently is affected by that, the lyrics are affected by that... the music too.
If you are on to something creative, school can also inhibit you. The wrong teacher, man, can really mess you up.
I can communicate far better on a guitar than I can through my mouth.
I like change and I like contrast.
The blues appealed to me, but so did rock. The early rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore were just as important to me as the blues guitarists.
Everything that came later... the roots are all there in the first album.
You can't buy time. Everything, for me, seems to be a race against time. Especially musically.
You absorb so much from whatever your environment is, as an artist, and you learn to take from it what can help you create.
I can tell how far I ought to be going, I know how to get there, all I've got to do is keep playing.
My vocation is more in composition really than anything else-building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army. ... I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened. ... I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising. ... I don't think the critics could understand what we were doing.
There's so much that can be done on the guitar. And that's what is so good about the guitar - everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it's all about.
I know where I'm going musically. I can see my pattern and I'm going much slower than I thought I'd be going.
I don't like being stuck in one situation, day to day.
We went in and recorded exactly where we were at that point in time. I think because of the quality of musicianship of the band has given it the longevity. I thought the music would endure, I didn't think I would ... I always thought I'd be dead by 30, then dead by 40 and on and on. Now I'm 55 so I didn't even die at 50.
The idea of a hypnotic riff as the prime mover of a piece of music has been around for a long time, whether you're talking about the Delta blues or music from Middle Eastern and African cultures.
The term "genius" gets used far too loosely in rock & roll.
I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.
Seeing people's faces, really getting off on them, makes me incredibly happy. Genuinely.
I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be.
We were never a band that did 96 takes of the same thing. I had heard of groups that were into that kind of excess around that time. They'd work on the same track for three or four days and then work on it some more, but that's clearly not the way to record an album. If the track isn't happening and it creates some sort of psychological barrier, even after an hour or two, then you should stop and do something else. Go out: go to the pub, or a restaurant or something. Or play another song.
I can listen to all different sorts of music. I don't really care about The Next Big Thing.
Once I get onstage the tension explodes and I'm fine. I'm in another world - in a trance almost, doing what I love best, expressing myself through guitar.
When you hear the melodic structures of what classical musicians put together and you compare it to that of a rock & roll record, there's a hell of a long way rock & roll has to go.
There was no working title for the album. The record-jacket designer said `When I think of the group, I always think of power and force. There's a definite presence there.' That was it. He wanted to call it `Obelisk'. To me, it was more important what was behind the obelisk. The cover is very tongue-in-cheek, to be quite honest. Sort of a joke on 2001. I think it's quite amusing.
I'm very fortunate because I love what I'm doing.
I do not worship the devil. But magic does intrigue me. Magic of all kinds. I bought Crowley's house to go up and write in. The thing is, I just never get up that way. Friends live there now.
I may not believe in myself, but I believe in what I'm doing.
I don't feel I have to top myself at all.
I'm not afraid of death. That is the greatest mystery of all. That'll be it, that one. But it is all a race against time.
I don't want to get too dippy about all this. If you take the view of the scientist and everything is in a state of vibration, then every note is a vibration, which has a certain frequency, and you know that if you put 40 beats into a frequency it's going to be the same note every time. You take that into infrasound and people can be made to be sick, actually killed. Taking it the other way, not to be too depressing, what about euphoria, etc., and what about consciousness being totally... no, I won't go into that one. Time warps.
Every record is a portrait of the band at that time.
All my houses are isolated. Many is the time I just stay home alone.
I suggested back in 1980 to do a chronological live album, but there wasn't that much enthusiasm for it.
I don't know whether I'll reach 40. I don't know whether I'll reach 35. I can't be sure about that. I am bloody serious. I am very, very serious. I didn't think I'd make 30.
There's too many good musicians around for the music around for the business to be sagging.
There's a certain standard in classical music that allows the application of the term "genius," but you're treading on thin ice if you start applying it to rock & rollers.
There's such a wealth of arts and styles within the guitar... flamenco, jazz, rock, blues... you name it, it's there. In the early days my dream was to fuse all those styles. Now composing has become just as important.
I think it's time to travel, start gathering some real right-in-there experiences with street musicians around the world.
There's a very old recording maxim that goes, 'Distance makes depth.' I've used that a hell of a lot-whether it's tracking guitars or the whole band. People are used to close-miking amps, but I'd have a mic out around the back, as well, and then balance the two. Also, you shouldn't have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound right. You should be able to get the right tones simply with the science of microphone placement.
There's always music that moves me. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It's usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres.
Once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It was a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you're playing an instrument that is really hard.
The way I see it, rock & roll is folk music. Street music. It isn't taught in school. It has to be picked up.
No. I usually rest in my satin-lined coffin, actually. I'm not allowed out in daylight hours.
I had another idea of getting a traveling medicine wagon with a dropdown side and traveling around England. That might sound crazy to you, but over there it's so rural you can do it. Just drop down the side and play through big battery amps and mixers and it can all be as temporary or as permanent as I want it to be.
Live Aid did feel like one hour's rehearsal after several years, but to be part of Live Aid was wonderful. It reall was.
My finger picking is sort of a cross between Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs, and total incompetence.
I bet you can't play slide piano.
So many people are frightened to take a chance in life and there's so many chances you have to take.
There will be a Led Zeppelin as long as there's a Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. This isn't a nostalgia band playing the hits forever. If anything ever happened and somebody left - which I really can't see happening - I don't think we'd bother to carry on. The magic for me is as it is now.
I'm not interested in turning anybody on to anybody that I'm turned on to... if people want to find things, they find them themselves.
There are very few people I can call real, close friends. They're very, very precious to me.
Just because you play bass, doesn't mean you have no presence.
I feel Aleister Crowley is a misunderstood genius of the 20th century. Because his whole thing was liberation of the person, of the entity, and that restrictions would foul you up, lead to frustration which leads to violence, crime, mental breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further this age we're in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points he's made seem to manifest themselves all down the line.
