Recommendations of the Editorial team
Heavy metal wouldn’t exist without Led Zeppelin. And if it still existed, it wouldn’t be worth anything. Led Zeppelin were more than a band. They were the perfect combination of passion, aura and skill. They always seemed to be searching, not content to stay in one place. And were always trying to do something new.
They could do anything, and I think they would have done it if John Bonham’s death hadn’t put an early end to it. Zeppelins were an escape route from reality. There was such a fantasy element to everything they did. That was one of the main reasons they became so important.
Zeppelins were the strangest
Who knows if we would all be running into “Lord of the Rings” today if it hadn’t been for Led Zeppelin. The critics at the time couldn’t do much with them because they were too experimental and outlandish. There were a lot of strange characters in the music scene in 1968 and 1969. But Zeppelin were the strangest. I think Jimmy Page is stranger than Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix was a burning genius. Jimmy Page an obsessed. Hendrix and Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton blew people’s asses off. But Page took it a step further. And he did it in such a wonderfully human and imperfect way.
He plays guitar like an old bluesman on acid. When I listen to Zeppelin bootlegs, his solos alternately make me laugh and cry. Page doesn’t just use his guitar as an instrument. For him she is a kind of emotional interpreter.
“I spent years in my room—really years!—listening to Bonham.”
John Bonham played drums like someone who didn’t know what was going to happen next. As if he were walking on the edge of an abyss. No one has managed it since, and I don’t think anyone will be able to do it again. For me he is the greatest drummer of all time. You can’t imagine how he influenced me. I spent years in my room – really years! – and listened to Bonham, trying to imitate his swing, that always-just-behind-the-beat swagger, his speed and his power.
Not just memorizing what he did on the albums, but putting myself in a state where I would instinctively go in the same direction as him. My body is covered in John Bonham tattoos. Wrists, arms, shoulders. I had my first one done when I was 15. Three circles, that was his symbol on “Led Zeppelin IV”. He also had it on his bass drum.
Led Zeppelin – “Black Dog”:
“Black Dog” on “Zeppelin IV” embodies everything that Led Zeppelin was about in their rockiest moments. It didn’t have to be particularly distorted or fast, just Zeppelin, that was enough. But they also had a soft side. Something that people often overlook because they only see them as rock monsters.
There’s a lot of that on “Led Zeppelin III.” It was my soundtrack when I dropped out of school. I listened to the album every day in my VW Beetle while I thought about what to do with my life.
Greatest rock band of all time
The first time I heard them was on the radio around the time “Stairway To Heaven” was playing constantly. I was six or seven and just discovering music. As a teenager, I was given the first two Zeppelin albums by a few real stoners. There were a lot of them in the Virginia suburbs. And a lot of muscle cars and Zeppelins and acid and weed.
For me Zeppelin were a spiritual inspiration. I went to a Catholic school and wasn’t sure if you could believe in God. But I definitely believed in Led Zeppelin. They showed me that people can actually have antennas for such music. And that it has to come from somewhere. But not from a songbook, not from a producer. From somewhere else.
I believe Zeppelin will come back and prove once again that they are the greatest rock band of all time. They’ll find someone to play the drums and I’ll be there. Front row at every goddamn concert. Then I could die a happy person.