Led Zeppelin Charlie Rose Interview 2012 (full version)

Kennedy honorees how does that sound the president and the first lady will be there half of Washington officialdom will be there and when you think about it so many of the great musicians it's a really special honor and you know we're British to say hello McCartney's been yeah I think these years that fly by you know we got together so many years ago that and Ford zest and and adrenaline and energy we we had the years that we had together and then so many years later these people sort of sum it all up and say okay we we remember them which is magnificent really when did the critics take notice well they didn't like us yeah I think I understood what we were doing what didn't they understand I I think they probably were reviewing albums relative to bands that had singles out as well and so they they would make that very identifiable if you like he singles would be identifiable to the sound of a band the character Robert we didn't do that so so and we were pushing and pushing and pushing finally getting right over the horizon music thing so I think they would have trouble because of what they wouldn't have a point of reference that they could take from either the first album or assertively doing the second album and certainly by the time we trying to review the third album in a very short timeline right now as well because they're up against a deadline of public well also there's a reverential thing about white kids playing blues you know and I think you know you had great people here with Mike bloomfield Elvin Bishop can heat people who were actually bringing back skip James and son house out of obscurity and we came along had been mutilated to blues and twisted it upside down and I guess it was considered to be bad taste to you know I think there was a feeling that we were slow precocious are not being sticking to the act trying to emulate what it was in the first place and the worst thing in the world with music is to keep it going identical forever and every what was that a driving thing for you guys warning let's turn it all upside down let's do what we hear and turn it upside down well I do you think we turned it up I'm not really dead but did because the way the acute acoustic music was being presented was it was in a way that hadn't been presented before and so it wasn't just it wasn't even though there's a common denominator in us with the Blues we were presenting people dissenting news if they had influences from all over the place really but it was but it was a way that it was crafted together yeah people go ahead well as a singer you can't actually get anywhere near the initial delivery of those great recordings which weren't part of a plan they weren't somebody looking after their career interest there were people expressing themselves and so for me to come along and try and sing you know like Robert Johnson or BB King or or Buddy Guy first time I met the Blues and then and how could you hope to be a guy from the middle of England and get anywhere near that as a presentation was a pointless exercise just wouldn't be part of the agenda at all so it's just about getting it on and I was 20 Java's 22 Jimi was 23 or whatever it was so he didn't have this kind of need to be purists or whatever was there a leader among you was there first among equal well Jimmy was in charge with the crafting initially and with the Danaus the understanding mm-hmm and all that's and bunzo and I we really just couldn't believe he he got the extra money for driving the van and I got some penicillin and we were feeling pretty good about all that stuff you know and and going back and telling all those people who kept crossing the road to avoid us that you know if somebody was going on as time went on we matured a little bit from the middle of England and we played a different role as as things developed did it keep getting better for a long time yeah creatively yeah the response response we played bigger and bigger yeah venues which I must have been over I wasn't that keen on the really big venues because he was I always felt that he lost a lot of a subtlety in the band everything had to be just broad gestures yeah and whilst it's great that a lot of people can see you you know this to me that wasn't what the band was about I don't think we ever managed to supply the demand with you if we're talking about concerts we always sold out and we were always doing multiples and cities but then we'd have to be moving on we all that's it we always had full attendance everywhere and from the early days as very early humble days they'd say 69 when we were really really touring in establishing from one coast to the other from from the west coast to the east I mean that was it in a matter of months we were we were really established but the people just kept wanting to come and see us you know more and more and more in droves and that never stopped no the event became the event and we are trying to play with the same sort of inter inter interaction in the middle of an event which people come for for different reasons so it was a it was an event it was a far out experience and I understood that because I had my own places to go for events too you know but sometimes it did get in the event and the response within the event got in the way of what we were doing I thought you know what I mean so we couldn't really I mean the great thing about what happened in 2007 when we played together again was that we were back even though we were in a reasonable-sized venue we were close together really listening intensely and intently to the interplay between the four of us with John Sun playing you know and that was exactly kyla how we started off you know London 2007 at that concert yeah you wanted to show you still had the right stuff you could do it tell me more about that moment and when you knew that and why became for everybody they're an extraordinary evening what is it about the music if we were going to do it with the massive reputation that preceded us that we'd have to go out there and get it right and we'd have to work on it and and really come together and be so collective about the willpower to come you know to to make this into if we were going to do it all it had to be the best concert and we also had an opportunity here to be able to sort of have a retrospect on our own career to me to to select the the various numbers that were going to be in the set and it was it was a perfect opportunity to go out there stand up and be counted and show why we were who we were but it needed some work to be done on it obviously we needed to rehearse we couldn't take this nobody flippant why we had to any cancer to it and as it was happening could you feel it and since it did you know it well I got more relaxed and more fun by song number three I think we knew that we weren't gonna we were on it I mean the thing is we set a huge bunch of standards for ourselves with every time we cut records we would try to be inventive and we weren't trying to supersede anybody else's gig we were doing our own stuff but it was still rather like this wind that's blowing through here and was there it was certainly something to live on I closed the door shut where he would said jumper would say breathe yeah a cool breeze yeah yeah okay so after that's living up to that getting it right and not faking it and not being some kind of but you knew you had if this wasn't magic we got it well plus we had Jason in the Ukraine yeah as well Jase I come to ya and weepin weed no name is Jason Jason the kid you know Josh Johnson yeah but you know it was one rehearsal and I we all knew it was Jason the man who was really tearing at the bit you know he had so much enthusiasm - and and there was such a will between all of us to really make this he was a bit she's not saying to make it work it was working but to make it even better than that and everybody in the world knew it so why did you not take that zeppelin on tour what you know about Led Zeppelin is you're interviewing this now you interview lots of people you they're interesting shows but you have to be creative in your manager imaginative and move on and I think the great essence of other Led Zeppelin is the creativity and the imagination that developed with each project and a project is a project it's not just going back and visiting the past it's moving forward and I think that we don't I don't see us being a stadium actor or whatever it is going round and round making everybody feel great playing the hits or whatever they are I hear that is part of a big picture of what we were once capable of and that's reason we came to America we played new songs and we did what we did and we took songs that made the audience go wait a minute I'm not sure about that do I like that and three years later they'd say yeah I like that and that whole creative thing is really what musicians for me before but if you recapture that why couldn't it continue and be creative and engaged and yeah and even more so while you didn't know that it couldn't build from where it was in 2007 even though it had some relationship to the past a lot it could be about the future couldn't Jimmy you look it was done you want to go on wait a minute wait a minute wait a minute it's 2007 that we did it right so you go one year that past is two years that past three years of past four years it passed we're coming into the fifth year so you know that's long while five years is quite a long walk in five years you know in the whole sort of world of Led Zepplin from 1968 with analog that's what that's a long time to be missing time you know but but it is sad that it was you that you had developed this other interest and that you did not want to do it now I want to do great creative things and these guys are my buddies they're my friends with soul partners in a big chunk of that creative lives together and I think that's a wonderful thing to have experienced and if that can be their kind of melding of just hanging out together long enough to find out if we all know what kiwi thinking that's great I mean but it's ever onward and Jones busy Jimi's busy we're all busy and it's not the be-all and end-all of everything it's just what we love and what we may love in the future what would have been going forward that was not a tour that would have been good for you guys good for us good for music that's difficult to say I mean here's a tour necessarily good for music oh good for us in them and that way okay so towards good for me yeah I don't know we all had to be of the same mind to do it yeah and then you work and I don't think we were and that would have that would have been no but everybody got along didn't he you essentially were it was the music in the end for you guys and that kept you together even though you had that car accident in Greece and head to them take some time off that day interrupted yeah yeah it was a wheelchair year yeah hmm even more tragically you lost your son and you just did what any father has to do is grapple with that loss and forget everything else there are priorities in life beyond being an entertainer you know there are a lot of things that are much more important and and we're very lucky that the gods have given us the gift to be to do what we do but we do many other things you know and and time seems to him I don't know what you think Jim but I think time gallops now don't you find that yes you can see that once upon a time if we could make Zeppelin one in 36 hours you know 36 hours now seems to be like the blink of an eye I want to hear you tell me what happened that night and why something didn't go forward from that night because what was a but let's a pond was magical yeah it was honey is it is well yes it is and it should these are great moments this is a great time we're going there we're going to see some very very hard-working conscientious people who are trying to put this country back on its feet and I love that's brilliant that we should be in the right company we are happening for me I'm absolutely I'm so pleased that everything is where it's supposed to be in the great we love turns here in America long way to go but we're entertainers if we can entertain each other we can entertain somebody else it seems a reverence for the music so and the fact that the four of you had something that you discovered that was so special when something happened you you you just had to stop and you clearly go on you can only don't find another singer hmm you know it didn't work you thought about that good another general yeah until Jason yeah well yeah you know you didn't have another guitarist I mean you had the world's greatest guitars with you man you know it's amazing really when you think about it with bonds home with Jason I mean it was another reason that that that gig was so important was that Jason had always been on on the periphery of everything groaning us about a particular thing the way that it was played in a particular venue on a particular date of a particular bootleg yeah 25 years ago when he was in diapers you know or well actually though he's in diapers now and so it was only right and meat and just and the great thing was that Bonzo's mom was still around to see it you know yeah and Joan was there and she was in her lace and taffeta having a great night and the occasional are not sherry so that was another great fait accompli really so book when John died it had to be over well it was cool wall piece it was a four PT and you know it was a four-piece bound that when it turd each concert had different different elements to it from the night before indeed the night that was going to get in front of it and so it was constantly changing we had this you know we had this whole we'd built up this whole sort of elevation really to how we played and and and synchronicity in connection that to actually once you lost one of those four members and at the time that we did there was no way you could bring somebody in and rehearse rehearse pieces that went from bootlegs or sound tapes or whatever to say well we did it like this like you're saying in 1975 can you do a bit of that along with what we did here in nineteen seventy said you know the whole that the whole thing would would have been so disconnected that it would have been impossible to actually be able to play and not see John one on there whilst it was great what Jason did it was for that performance certainly based on what his father had done before him and he took loads of chances and yeah he was a star that now yeah Jason but it was still built on the foundations of what his father had done hmm what's great about that is you can now buy the DVD and see what it was white great moments have even in all that what I was talking about that moving on being futuristic between ourselves or with other people that we work with or whatever it is there were moments within that set where we were risking it these guys were risking it and trying new bits and pieces and if it had fallen on its face I guess we would have to cut it out of the film or whatever and we didn't even know there was gonna be a film we just you know it was like oh here we go let's do this did you believe in your brain and your heart and your bones that we are the best band alive no I think we did what we were doing we were pretty insular there was a lot of bands from England who were playing stuff there's a lot of banter everywhere he knew where they all great everybody you know what you're just being too simple I mean you've been to something I think everybody's good that's why they do it they celebrate together all these different people who were playing but at the same time all of us would like to have been you see the elements of blood certainly as you can you can hear it no wait a minute but when you listen to it you can hear what each individual person is putting into that and how to will be bonding with two and two here and three and four and it's just as weave and and and and that that is the thing I think which is musically help the longevity of it because it's such a textbook for young musicians but yeah I think that I would I would say you know without being conceited here but yeah it was the best man we all work and now today the best band only and other bands has hit that to us anyway you know piers it also is I mean as an individual musician in that band when I went on stage I didn't think oh I'm going to show everybody how good I am I thought I'm gonna show everybody how good Led Zeppelin was and work towards that me the whole thing was to make do everything you good everything you could to make that performance really special and the band sound fantastic I couldn't get over the fact that I was hanging out with Janis Joplin and people like that and they were encouraging me you know so many times my voice used to pack up and Janice used to bring me eight inches and all legal but like try this orange juice which of course was laced with absolutely everything you could get to wreck your voice and it was great this fraternity of lunacy that was like it kind of that that wasn't the payoff for me but this the fraternity of musicians and the stuff that you couldn't find in Britain no matter what you know those festivals that we played and we were the best band at what we played but round the corner came John Lee Hooker with his band and round the corner came Pacific Gas and Electric and it was just a great time Kennedy Honors you stand where remarkable people have stood and and you will deserve to be there thank you thank you thank you very much

Channel: Mark Zep

Views: 543,446

Rating: 4.8812804 out of 5

Keywords: Rare, speak, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page

Id: BFOKcot1NEA

Length: 20min 13sec (1213 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 06 2017