When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin

by Mick Wall

  He had found the whole Live Aid spectacle ‘a bit distasteful really,’ he said. ‘It was so obviously unrehearsed, so rushed and thrown together, I couldn’t see the point. Either do it properly or not at all.’ He was even less complimentary about the band’s next brief reunion in 1988, performing live in New York at the televised 40th anniversary celebration for Atlantic Records – this time with twenty-two-year-old Jason Bonham on drums. But then everyone agreed that was, as he said, ‘a shambles’ – if for very different reasons to Live Aid, the band apparently responding to the invitation to turn up and play at their former label’s party by putting on an even worse performance than in Philadelphia three years before, with Jimmy in particular, appearing disaffected and playing spectacularly badly. What ‘really upset me though,’ he said, was not actually being invited to the party. Certainly Ahmet Ertegun – who once told Peter he had ‘mourned too long’ for John Bonham – would liked to have seen his old sparring partner there. But the label’s old London chief Phil Carson had told him G was too ill to attend. Which may have been correct, but as Grant observed: ‘I may not have gone but that’s not the point.’

  I first met Jimmy Page early in 1988, seven years after Led Zeppelin put out their official announcement confirming they’d split up. I’d been invited by his new record company, Geffen, to film a series of interviews with him for a promotional package to accompany the release of his first solo album, Outrider. We met at his recently acquired recording studio, Sol, in Cookham, Berkshire. Being acquainted with the legend, I wasn’t sure what to expect of the reality but, as it turned out, the man I met was quietly spoken, friendly, happy to help in any way he could. Over the next few weeks of working together we got to know each other. Surprisingly talkative, always very friendly, if anything he struck me as a somewhat lonely, out of touch figure, asking me nearly as many questions as I asked him, curious about the rock scene, who was who, what was going on. He even volunteered to be a guest on a weekly TV show I used to present for Sky TV. His first TV appearance ever, as far as I could tell, it happened to coincide with my thirtieth birthday and he turned up for the morning taping with a large tray of beers on a bed of ice, even though by then he was mostly sticking to the alcohol-free stuff.

  Inviting me up to the Old Mill House one day – the same house in which John Bonham had died – he showed me around. Here was his mother, a lovely old lady with smiley white hair and jaunty vibe, and his pretty young American wife, Patricia, also very smiley and busy feeding their baby son, Patrick. Here was his jukebox and interesting posters and a sprinkling of gold and platinum records and…‘Do you like this sort of thing?’ he asked, pushing at a button on a control panel placed in the arm of a couch. The wall opposite the couch began sliding back to reveal another wall behind, from which hung three or four large oil paintings. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. I peered at them, not knowing what on earth to think. A best friend had been an art teacher; an old girlfriend had been an art student. I felt I knew not much but a little about the subject. I walked over and had a better look. Thick polychromatic splodges of oil on dark, brooding canvas; what appeared to be a series of bodies twisted in torment, as though in hell. Rather like Hieronymus Bosch, but much less lucid, more fiery and out of control. Like Goya, perhaps, gone mad – or even madder. ‘Weird,’ I said. ‘Heavy…’ I turned to him, waiting for some explanation but he merely stood there smiling, saying nothing. Then he leaned over, pushed another button on the arm of the couch and the paintings disappeared again as the outer wall slid back into place. I felt I had failed some sort of test. ‘Come outside,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the river…’

  Another time, he leaned over and showed me a ring he was wearing. ‘What do you think of this?’ he asked. It appeared to be a serpent swallowing its own tail. Having no idea of the occult significance of such a thing I merely smiled and passed some complimentary inanity. These days, I might have remarked on how the image of the serpent eating itself goes all the way back to the Book of Genesis and is a symbol synonymous with ‘evil’ throughout all conventional religions, the image of the serpent eating its own tail also cropping up in various guises in many cultures, symbolic of the circle of life. And how, in occult lore, the snake was originally an angel called Serpent, with arms, head and legs but who forfeited them for tempting Eve, and though he remains immortal, is doomed to suffer the pain of being born and dying, or, as it were, devouring his own tail…

  But I didn’t and again I felt I was not responding sufficiently knowledgeably. The conversation soon returned to more prosaic matters – namely, my interest in the story of Led Zeppelin: how it had been, what it all meant. I hadn’t really expected him to respond in any depth but to my surprise he seemed eager to chat. He didn’t like to go into what he called ‘the messy details’ but he was still ‘immensely proud of everything we achieved’. And then there was that other question: ‘Would you ever consider getting the band back together, Jimmy?’ I asked as innocently as I could one day. ‘I mean, even for just one album, or some shows?’ He looked at me and shook his head like an indulgent parent with a particularly wearisome child. ‘You think I haven’t thought about that?’ I was perplexed. What was he waiting for then? He tutted, ‘Robert has got a solo career which is working very certainly, so who knows?’ As the years passed, however, the same old question would keep coming up whenever we met, and each time it would come down to the same old answer. As Jimmy said when we did a live interview for Radio 1 backstage at the Monsters of Rock Festival in 1990, just before he went on stage to jam with Aerosmith: ‘You’ll have to ask Robert.’ Listening to a recording of it now, in the background you can hear his entourage yucking it up as he says it. ‘It’s true though, isn’t it?’ Jimmy insists above the guffaws. ‘I mean, I’d love to, I love playing that stuff. It’s a part of me, you know, a great big part of me, and I love playing it. But, you know…’

  I knew all right. Or at least I was starting to get the picture.

  It first became plain to the wider world what a gulf there now existed between Jimmy Page and Robert Plant at the disastrous Atlantic anniversary show, where Plant’s now famous refusal to sing ‘Stairway to Heaven’ – later rescinded, under huge pressure – became a symbol of the psychic tussle that had developed between its authors over the years. On the Outrider tour that year, Jimmy had concluded the show each night with an instrumental ‘Stairway to Heaven’ which, in the absence of Robert (‘The only singer I would ever play it with’) the audience invariably, and rather touchingly, sang for him as tenderly as if they’d written the words themselves. Plant, having spent the Eighties trying to live down his former image as a self-proclaimed ‘golden god’, was increasingly loath to be associated with the song and everything it had come to represent post-punk. When, the night before the Atlantic show, he called Page and told him he didn’t want to sing it the next day it sparked resentment and bitterness on both sides.

  ‘Well, that was awful,’ Page frowned, when I broached the subject with him more than a decade later. ‘[Robert] came together with Jason [Bonham], Jonesy and me in New York, where we were rehearsing, and started singing “Over the Hills and Far Away”. And it sounded really brilliant, actually. Then we rehearsed “Stairway…” and that sounded great, too. Then the day before the show he called me up that evening and said, “I’m not gonna sing it.” I said, “What are you talking about? You’re not gonna sing ‘Stairway…’? But that’s exactly the one thing that everybody expects to hear us do!” He said: “I don’t want to do it.”’

  Had Robert explained why he didn’t want to do it? ‘Oh, you know, he was like: “I wrote it when I was young and it doesn’t feel right to sing it. I can’t relate to the lyrics anymore.” I thought, oh, what’s he doing? What is this all about? To be honest, I didn’t really sleep that night. I was jet-lagged anyway cos my son had just been born in England and I’d left within a few days of that. And I was really on a roll from that, you know, the high that you’re into after the birth
of a child. And all of a sudden, I plunged to the ground! Like, what the hell am I doing here? In the end, he said, “Well, I’ll do it, but I’ll never do it again!” I thought, “God, what is this really all about?” [Where is] the spirit of why we’re supposed to be here? I don’t need this. Unfortunately, by the time we got on – about three hours late – I’d just totally peaked. It was unfortunate because I was due to start my own solo tour soon afterwards and people looked at it [on TV] and went, “Oh, he can’t play anymore.” It was the only time it ever got to me. But it did that time. I just thought, it’s a birthday party, let’s all have a good time. Not start putting up barriers. Robert’s probably got a perfectly adequate and eloquent reason for all of that but…I don’t know.’

  As chance would have it, just a few months after that conversation, I found myself sitting with Robert Plant listening to ‘Stairway to Heaven’. We were in the basement of Momo’s, one of his favourite London restaurants, getting ready to film an interview for yet another promotional package, and he had put the CD on himself. Not of Led Zeppelin though, but of Dolly Parton, who had recorded a perfectly charming country version of the song. ‘What do you think?’ he asked. ‘I really like it,’ I replied. ‘It’s actually very good.’ He nodded. ‘Yes, even though it’s not a song I’m particularly fond of…’

  Why is that, I wondered? Because it signified the wrong perception of who Robert Plant is, at this point, perhaps? ‘Oh, no,’ he smiled. ‘No, no. I got round that one a few years ago. No, it’s a great song. It’s just that it’s not appropriate for me. My headspace just doesn’t allow for it. Ninety-nine per cent of the other stuff I did with Zep is absolutely spot on.’ He pointed out that as a solo performer he still did ‘an amazing version of “Celebration Day” on stage, which is stunning. And there’s a version of “Four Sticks” which is totally removed from what Jimmy and I did. It’s really cool and it breaks down into all these little passages. And we do a version of “In the Light” that’s pretty smoky, because it’s trippy…’

  But not ‘Stairway…’? ‘No! Not that one!’ Not ever? ‘No, no. It’s nothing to do with the construction of the song. The construction of the song is a real triumph, especially if you think about how it [recording] was then.’ Why then? Because of what it became in people’s minds? ‘Partly what it became and the turning point, from what it became to what it has become now. It’s…some good things just go so far round and round and round that in the end you lose perspective of what they really had. Because in the next incarnation, they don’t really work. I mean, I don’t think that Jimmy can ever be distressed with his contribution to the band, or Jonesy, or Bonzo, for that matter – because they’re playing it. But some of the lyrical…I mean, I was a kid, you know?’ He paused. ‘I mean, those were different days. The intentions were really good. Songs as sort of fey as “Going to California” were basically just joining in with Neil Young’s vibe. Like, you know, “Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere”. For me, I was back over there in that sort of environment where harmony was the answer to everything, to create harmony and to promote…the brotherhood of man.’ He smiled shyly.

  Ultimately, he said, he simply wanted to move on. Not to forget about Led Zeppelin and ‘Stairway to Heaven’ but to leave it behind; let it rest in peace. He was a boy when he did that stuff. He was a man now. ‘I think I’m fortunate because lots of parts of my life are in place, and I don’t feel bad about chronology, time passing or anything like that, nor should I. I went to the doctor a while back and he said, “It doesn’t matter what happens to you now, you’ve had the life of three men.” He said, “You shouldn’t even think about being ill – you shouldn’t be alive!” I said, no, that wasn’t me, I always went to bed early…’

  Their most famous song notwithstanding, by then there had been numerous occasions when it seemed the spectre of Led Zeppelin might actually take flight again. In January 1991, their reputation freshly bolstered by the release three months before of the acclaimed, bestselling 4CD Remasters box set, Page, Plant and Jones were back together sitting around a table discussing the possibility of a money-spinning reunion, albeit on a strictly temporary basis. Much to his chagrin, Jason Bonham – who had played on Page’s Outrider as well as the Atlantic show – was excluded from these deliberations, with Plant now pushing for the more fashionable Faith No More drummer Mike Bordin to be offered the job. Once again, however, the plan started to unravel almost as soon as it was decided upon, with Plant getting cold feet when the others began to express reservations about using the young, dread-locked FNM drummer. ‘What you’ve got to remember,’ an insider told me, ‘is that Robert is used to having his own way now. He can’t bear to go back to the days when Jimmy and Jonesy made all the major decisions about the music.’

  Instead, Page resumed work on a second solo album, but Geffen Records had other ideas, suggesting he team up with label-mate and former Deep Purple singer David Coverdale in the short-lived but surprisingly invigorating Coverdale/Page. Ironically, Coverdale’s post-Purple band Whitesnake had found fame in America with poor-man’s Zeppelin numbers like the 1987 hit single ‘Still of the Night’. But in the absence of the full-on Zeppelin reunion which Page no longer made any secret of craving, working with Coverdale was the next best thing. Certainly the eponymously titled album they released together in 1993 was the closest to Zeppelin Jimmy had got since the break-up, a fact reflected in its Top 10 status in the US. With Coverdale also clearly inspired, on titanic blues-rock workouts like ‘Shake My Tree’ and ‘Absolution Blues’, it was not long before a publicly smug but privately piqued Plant – whose solo album, Fate of Nations, released the same year had sold considerably fewer copies, barely scraping into the US Top 40 – was on the phone to Jimmy suggesting something similar…but different.

  Officially, the spark had been an invitation to the singer from MTV in 1994 to participate in their then popular ‘Unplugged’ series. In truth, with Plant’s solo career flagging – he had cringed to find himself opening for Lenny Kravitz on tour the year before – and Page clearly still hankering after Zeppelin, the chance to combine forces again was simply too good to miss. Page would have been happy to go for the full-on Zeppelin reformation. Plant, however, was still against the idea, arguing shrewdly that the pair could enjoy all the kudos of being back together without any of the nagging problems of using the Zeppelin name – unwieldy comparisons with the past; the odious spectre of being regarded as heavy metal – by deliberately not inviting John Paul Jones to the party, as proved to be the case. Yet despite the fact that the resulting October 1994 televised concert, and subsequent No Quarter album, was built almost entirely on the Zeppelin back catalogue, the judicious addition of an eleven-piece Egyptian ensemble, plus four brand new numbers, partly recorded in Marrakech – along with the shameful exclusion of Jones – successfully obscured the fact that this was a virtual Zeppelin reformation in all but name.

  Jones, however, noted with disdain the posters for the subsequent Page & Plant tour which boasted the slogan: ‘The Evolution of Led Zeppelin’. ‘I felt that was a bit too close for comfort,’ he said. He was also miffed that the title given to the accompanying album, No Quarter, was taken from one of his own Zeppelin songs. Touring with Diamanda Galaés at the time, he found himself being asked for his reaction ‘constantly, and it did hurt to have to deal with it. It was a great shame, particularly after all we’d been through together.’

  Out on tour, however, where audiences had clearly come to hear the classics, the illusion of this not being a quasi-Zeppelin reunion was harder to maintain, and a new enmity between the two was slowly but surely brewing when Page found himself on the wrong end of Plant’s wriggling insistence on not reigniting the Zeppelin flame when again he simply refused to sing ‘Stairway to Heaven’. ‘All I do know is that when we were in Japan,’ Jimmy told me, ‘we were on a TV talk show and we did a bit of it then, which was unusual. We just did a little bit of it, the opening part of it…’

  There were warme
r moments. Headlining London’s Wembley Arena on 25 and 26 July, in a show of public reconciliation, Peter Grant was also invited to Wembley, where Plant paid tribute from the stage and the cheers of recognition from the audience were fulsome. The slimmed-down giant, now sporting a cane, held court at the mixing desk after the show, signing autographs and joking with fans. It was an almost-happy ending to a less than perfect story. One of the most lucrative tours of the year, word was they had earned more money even than in the days of Zeppelin. But arguments between the two now punctuated the tour. By the time they were back headlining two nights together at Madison Square Garden in October, scene of so many classic Zeppelin nights, personal relations were at a new low.

  Back in London, Peter Grant was an honoured guest at the first International Manager’s Forum dinner at the Hilton Hotel, where he was inducted into the Roll of Honour. Seated at a table with his former Swan Song colleague Alan Callan, friend Ed Bicknell, Simply Red manager Elliot Rashman and Queen guitarist Brian May, as he went up to pick up his award, people climbed onto their tables and cheered. Elliot Rashman shouted, ‘Congratulations Peter, none of us could have done it without you!’ Grant replied by telling the audience: ‘I’ve been very lucky in my life, probably never luckier than at this moment when all of you people are honouring me. But the truth is that luck comes from the great fortune of being able to work with great talent. It is the great talent that allowed me to be successful.’ Afterwards it was announced that future IMF Management Awards would be given in his name as the ‘Peter Grant Award’ to recognise ‘Excellence in Management’.