Perfect rock band

Power_13 · Jul 12, 2005

THE PERFECT ROCK BAND

By Gill Swain

They are still the wrinkly rockers you rarely see on the celebrity circuit and who never parade on stage to lap up the glory at nostalgia fests. Yet time and again the most enduringly respected band in rock’n’roll prove to be Led Zeppelin

The band famous for their mind-blowing and ear-shattering live performances has just been voted the nation’s ideal supergroup by thousands of radio listeners.

Topping polls 25 years after they played their last gig is a regular occurrence for the group but this most recent survey by the digital radio station Planet Rock is especially remarkable. When fans were asked to create their perfect fantasy band made up of any singers and musicians from any era, all the favourite names came from Led Zeppelin.

The band’s founder, Jimmy Page, now 61, was chosen as the best guitarist, Robert Plant, 57, was voted No 1 singer, John Paul Jones, 59, was named as the most admired bassist and John Bonham, who suffered the classic rocker’s fate of dying from an excess of booze in 1980 ages 32, was the favourite drummer.

Planet Rock presenter Trevor Dann said he was amazed at the result of the survey. “Listeners could have voted for any classic rock artists but they chose all the members of Led Zeppelin. It just goes to show that they really are the ultimate supergroup,” he said.

It’s an even more astounding result given that rockers of ages who also make the list remain far more visible today, and better known to generations that were not around in the band’s prime.

Led Zeppelin never had a No 1 single yet their best-known song, Stairway To Heaven, recorded in 1971 – when they were dominating the music scene and becoming legendary for their booze and drugs excesses, as well as eye-watering antics with groupies – was recently chosen as the country’s favourite rock song of all time.

It is believed to have had more radio plays than any other song in the world and recently came second (to Queen’s The Show Must Go On) in a Europe-wide poll of tunes people chose to have played at their funerals. Page’s guitar solo in Stairway has also been voted the best ever and the release of the group’s first album in 1969 is acknowledged to be among the seminal events in rock history.

Proof of the group’s vast appeal comes from the fact that only two years ago they were once again No 1 in Britain and America with How The West Was Won, a compilation of previously unreleased live recordings.

A mammoth five-and-a-half-hour long DVD which was released to accompany the album was a masterclass in what set Led Zeppelin apart from all other bands and introduced them to a whole new audience.

While music fans have honoured them by buying more than 200 million albums, giving Page and Plant fortunes of £65million each, they have received few establishment accolades – only on e OBE for Page last month, although he was honoured for his work with children in Brazil. But the group did receive a lifetime achievement at the Grammys – the music industry Oscars – in February.

Though the decibel level was the most obvious thing about Led Zeppelin in their heyday, what made them the prototype hard rock band was a combination of devastating inventiveness, technical brilliance and above all else, uncompromising authenticity.

Compared with the manufactured groups who followed them, Led Zeppelin were raw and real. Plant says: “I may be older than a conker tree but I’m so lucky to have come from a time when everybody, be it the Rolling Stones or The Merseybeats, really meant it. We all started by saying: ‘I love music. Let’s give it a go.’ The journey that we went on from there has been so surprising,” he says.

The members of the group all started playing as teenagers in the Sixties when any boy who could scrape together a few bob from a paper round seemed to buy a acoustic guitar and join a band. Page, who was born in Heston, Middlesex, played and recorded with several bands and tasted success in 1963 playing backing guitar on Diamonds with ex-Shadows Jet Harris and Tony Meehan. He developed into one of the hottest session guitarists on the scene and joined the Yardbirds in 1966. When they split up who years later he joined up with the other three. Led Zeppelin were first billed as the “New Yardbirds”.

Plant, who was born in West Bromwich, started playing in folk clubs in the West Midlands at 15 and was also heavily influenced by blues. He played with various groups including The Band Of Joy with Bonham, from Redditch, Worcestershire, who was a childhood friend. Meanwhile Jones was part of the same scene, playing with the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, Donovan, Jeff Beck and Herman’s Hermits before joining Led Zeppelin.

They took their name from a favourite backstage line among British bands in the Sixties – “How did it go mate? “Like a lead zeppelin.” But, far from bombing, their first album was received ecstatically by Melody Maker with the breathless accolade: “Jimmy Page triumphs! Led Zeppelin is a gas”. For the next 12 years they went wild. Much has been written about their behaviour but, since everyone involved was on mind-altering substances of one kind or another, it’s hard to separate truth from fiction. The flavour of their mayhem was captured vividly in a book by former tour manager Richard Cole.

Describing the destruction of one hotel suite, he wrote: “Chairs crashed against walls. Couches soared out of shattered windows. A television set followed close behind, exploding on an air conditioning unit more than a dozen storeys below.”

On a month-long tour of America in 1978, Cole was asked to hire a motorbike and a 10ft python. The bike, it transpired, was for riding up and down the corridor on the ninth floor of the group’s hotel in Hollywood’s Sunset Strip but, fortunately for Cole, Yellow Pages listed nowhere that hired out pythons.

Instead one of the group held a birthday party which began with the throwing of fruit and the showing of the pornographic film Deep Throat. At the cake-cutting, the late George Harrison, who was with his then wife, Patti, picked up the top tier of the cake and hurled it at Bonham, who retaliated by throwing them into the pool.

“Bonzo” Bonham once handcuffed two groupies to a bed to make sure they would still be there after a gig but the group’s most notorious incident involving girls was once voted No 1 in a 100 sleaziest moments in rock survey. It followed a fishing expedition in America in which they caught mud sharks and hung them in the hotel room wardrobes. According to legend, one of the dead sharks would later figure in a sex show with a naked blonde groupie.

On stage the group was highly disciplined. Live performances showcased their individual abilities – Bonham’s epic drum solos sometimes went on for half an hour. They were noted for making huge strides forward with every album and produced numbers fizzing with original ideas.

It bought them the millionaire rocker’s lifestyle of country mansions, flash cars nad even their own aeroplane, named Starship. But it all finished on September 25, 1980, at Page’s home in Windsor, Berks, with a binge to end all binges. Bonham drank 40 measures of vodka in four hours, ate three pizzas and a curry, and dies of alcohol poisoning. Plant refused to carry on the band without him.

For Plant, the loss of his friend came on top of an earlier tragedy when he lost his six-year-old son, Karac, who died of a stomach infection in 1977. “It was a really tough time,” he says. “If you ever want a reminder of what’s going on in the real world, try that.”

Plant now performs away from the bright lights and adoring stadium crowds. He even turned down an invitation to play at the Queen’s Jubilee, preferring to go to the Isle of Wight and sing with The Charlatans. He travels widely, especially in Africa, and still produces highly successful music – he has recently released a new album, Mighty Rearranger – but he lives quietly between London and his hone in the Welsh borders, while remaining close to the two children he had with ex-wife Maureen.

Page has a 17-year-old son by his first marriage and three children by his second wife, Jimena, and spends a lot of time in Brazil where he helps run the charity Action for Brazil’s Children, while Jones has recently written a short work for Brighton orchestra and choir.

None of them have any regrets about turning their backs on the success and excess that was Led Zeppelin. Plant says that when the group split: “I had no idea of what life was supposed to be about. I didn’t even know how to book an airline ticket and I was 32. It was time to start all over again and I loved it. My mind was pretty icy cold and blasted clean. I’d left the wild lifestyle behind and could only pity people who still played with it.”

Daily Express Monday July 11 2005
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Since I need filler here, has anyone ever noticed how the line "and as we wind on down the road" sounds like "and there's a wino down the road"?

TARABELLE · Jul 12, 2005

Power_13 said:

Since I need filler here, has anyone ever noticed how the line "and as we wind on down the road" sounds like "and there's a wino down the road"?
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No, but probably will now, thanks to you. I know someone that thought Hendrix's lyric "excuse me while I kiss the sky" was "while I kiss this guy". Hahaha

joe lemon · Jul 26, 2005

yay !!!!!!!!! , another zep-head. the only other people who like zepplein that i know are all fair-weather fans and continuosly play stairway on thier guitars and maintain that zeps best song is whole lotta love .................... tangerine forever!

HappyHippySoldierBoy · Jul 26, 2005

Yep. That's me. Apart from Whole Lotta Love. I'm more partial to The Battle of Evermore. Beautiful stuff.

Ellie-Rose · Jul 26, 2005

Ahhh to be a groupie

Jaz Delorean · Jul 26, 2005

define "perfect" though...

Ellie-Rose · Jul 26, 2005

Jaz Delorean said:

define "perfect" though...
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Stop being a pain Just coz Tankus wasn't voted

Jaz Delorean · Jul 26, 2005

hahaha... thanks but that wasn't the point i was making!

Power_13 · Jul 26, 2005

Doesn't matter to me, since it's only used twice - and once is in the title. "Majority of peoples' fantasy rock band" really doesn't have the same edge to it. I'm guessing it was probably the writer picking a "good description word" (positive verb?) from a pool of many, just looking for a snappy title.

water_baby · Jul 31, 2005

There already is a perfect rock band, they call themselves Pink Floyd.

Jaz Delorean · Jul 31, 2005

right on

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Perfect rock band

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Perfect rock band

Power_13 insult ninja

TARABELLE on the road less traveled

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