Robert Plant - Interview with Charlie Rose 2017 (Carry Fire)

robert plant is here he's best known as the front man of one of the most successful bands in rock history led zeppelin rolling stone magazine ranked plant the number one lead singer of all time his solo career has spanned three and a half decades and 11 albums his newest album is called carry fire the new york times calls it quote a swirling mix of deep blues mountain music north african rhythms and zeptin-like heavyweight did you simply know leonard cohen has talked about this you know he just knew at some point he had a great voice not some perfect voice but a great voice that people want to hear well something was going on and i don't know what it was but i i was infatuated by how different you could with the age of some sonic device it could be uh i don't know a glass room or something like that i could hear something else going on outside of the spoken voice and that side of just singing on my bicycle i heard this other voice coming through and yeah i was uh infatuated by it i guess well goodness knows how i could have put it into any other shape but then people notice too and then the more people notice the more it wants you to figure it out yeah it's cause and effect you begin your plan very naively and uh and for a guy who just sings at the sharp end of everything right there's a lot of instrumentation going on around you with people who are far more musically talented than usually than the front man but the front man gets this great uh i i don't know it's like a a melange i can pick out all sorts of resonances that these guys are creating and then i can just mimic i could yeah i can slide through it mimic it i can join in i can so they they give you with the sound yeah a place to carry this sure and the inference or maybe the spaces even how to use it yeah yeah well in the early days of zeppelin i found this whole thing of mimicry and of following notation from the guitar whatever it was to just try and get in with some phrasing some very rude scat a long way from oscar brown jr and people like that but something which really gave me something to do in some very very long solos you know as well i could just come in and come out long sustained notes and flurries and sometimes gibberish you're celebrating 50th year led zeppelin next year um it is true that in 1968 there was a collision of mind and and the gifts and um and so that was a long 37 years ago that ceased has it been that long 37 years ago but 50 years ago it came together yeah in 1968 yeah i would describe it how you just did a collision of well i mean sound mind intention energy the whole thing boom yeah when we were you know when we were really young everything was boom i know it don't remind me boom too soon yeah but i mean here you come and you take home in 2014. a grammy for best rock album yeah still doing it yeah still doing it uh yeah you know there's a lot of romance about it too because it didn't blow itself out of the water it didn't go on too long you know it just stopped well you mean led zeppelin yeah just stopped yeah that was the deal when we got together in the beginning that would be it if we if we couldn't carry on there's four of us that would be it when you've only got four people it's it's very difficult to start thinking about full-time replacements you know do you ever look listen to that music yeah sometimes you do now how did this come about carry fire well it's it wasn't that picture though yeah but you know some people said that's a good picture and i said but who is it you like it don't you yeah yeah it's it's good it looks a little more stern than i actually do um so how did it come about well we've worked uh the same guys i've been working with on and off since 2001 and and in effect this is our fourth adventure together with a little bit of changing personnel and um we we worked around the world with a previous record um i'd spent some time living in the united states and when i finally went back to britain we we reconvened we got back together to see if we got anything any mutuality anything left and this came out a bit this is the second one this is actually the first time we were talking this morning it's the first time i've made a record with the same people twice since about 1977 i think more or less yeah so um we were we just find this great place to be together you know it's very expressive and what about carrie fire well that's a tough job but we all do it you know it's uh it's the marking time and all the cause and effect that you leave around you and you have to go back and try and um put some of it right and stuff that is right you have to make it even more relevant and powerful yeah who wrote these the combination of a sensational space shifters my chums and myself yeah yeah i mean how do you write this collectively do you yeah yeah so we stand at a table like this and um not so lavish is this yeah we're right we're a tiny little room and uh and lots of ideas each one of these guys has his own studio set up and and works around the globe in other projects too and every time we think we've got enough material that's very interesting enough to put into the cauldron we convene we get together and play it out i read where you said that they're not many front men left and you name three you mick and rod stewart what a front man is what by definition a guy who can't hide you know somebody's stuck right up the sharp end i mean there are courses lots of other people around but from our era in britain those two guys were around a little bit before me but um and there's roger roger daltrey from the who yeah you know there's a lot of us there i don't know why we don't have some kind of annual get-together i think you should have misery well i think you should have a celebration yeah up the corner yeah but you know it's it would take a long time to see like to come to that party yeah i'd like to see you buy the drinks but i mean it's a it's it's a skill that's beyond voice too isn't it yeah i mean it's a presence yes you know because you can't hide to a degree but i mean in in in days of your long time ago there was um there was a quite a bit more onus on individual musicality so bands were it wasn't just about the song you've said somewhere which you said you've got to do it um you know and also i got to do it in the first place yeah you got to do it now you've got to do it yeah do you sing when nobody's listening oh yeah do you really yeah i've got various sort of songs that all through time have come back to me i was a huge fan of benny king and when he was with the drifters and when he left the drifters and did all that don't play that song and all that stuff my mom my mother was not keen on me singing yeah perhaps she knew better than most and um but she she gave way when it came to benny king's song so i i always used to sing there's so many great songs i think atlantic records you know in the zeppelin days we were we were signed to atlantic records which was for us as british musicians was you know beyond but this was a urgent i assume yeah yeah yeah and off we went we um we were in i mean our label stable mates were everybody from ruth brown the coasters the drifters you know modern jazz quartet crosby stills and nash ray charles obviously atlantica decided there was more more revenue probably from getting a few of these english bands over and i think a lot of the the um the holy looked upon armits decisions as and jerry wexles to some degree as being a little bit off beam yeah i mean they signed dusty springfield which was a great coup you know jerry wexley had worked on that but we were really really in in in great company and i got to know benny king really well yeah but there's a direct line of i mean everybody who i've ever talked to from music from the british music scene you know there was a sort of a direct line from wherever they were whether london or liverpool or wherever they were to the blues in america yeah yeah magnificent and still is every morning for me ah straight on it just to get the day going do you really yeah i mean who's on your playlist there's a guy called blind lemon jefferson actually he was from texas and he's got a song called matchbox which carl perkins borrowed and then the beatles took it later on and it's just one of the most amazing displays of singing and playing the guitar i'll hear that before the night's over yeah i tell you what it's just that kind of the ring of life coming through in a recording from 1929 i mean it's just fantastic yeah you want to be inducted into the rock and roll hall of fame as a solo artist is that a good place to be really i don't know i'm asking i don't know i i'm not sure about the validity of it all really um i don't know i i think i've already had enough gongs yes you have yes not enough room for the ribbons on my chest yes that's true when i went to buckingham palace i'm on your back yeah yeah start having them under my arms um i went to buckingham palace and the kids said i said i can't go there and my kids said but how else are we going to see inside buckingham palace you've got to go and get your gong dad yes i did and as i'm standing in the line there i'm looking up into the public gallery and i can see my three kids and i've never seen them looking so smart um robert plant carrie fire thank you for coming that's a great pleasure to see you again pleasure really great to see you and you too thanks

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Views: 16,325

Rating: 4.9187818 out of 5

Keywords: Led Zeppelin, Jimmy Page, Stairway to heaven, talking, john bonham, rare, live, Heaven Knows, big log, In the mood, carry fire

Id: xCfGc3YzunQ

Length: 10min 56sec (656 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020