Robert Plant - Unaired & Unedited Interview 1988 (Now and Zen)

if you can't run the camera into the mirror and see all the faces there it's a youth opportunities program here i see how we do it okay dress that up just put it wrong with just put a clap in here stand back yeah wait wait wrong all right quiet okay go technical thing so this is spinal tap this is just great it is this is to the film industry this is spider yeah sorry we're inventing television here who's idea when did the idea come to you to like take this tour and completely rehabilitate it and rehash it and put new stuff in and just go out again with a completely new show essentially well it's obvious if you it's obvious if you're going to play some of the areas where you've been before that you don't just go back and do the same thing it's a bit like you don't want to end up doing a residency at the philadelphia spectrum but it'd be the same every month or so um and remember that when all of us started individually actually playing and writing songs and stuff all we ever wanted to do was play no so if you go to a town once it doesn't mean to say that you've actually satisfied your urge to play you know you can do 50 dates 100 dates bb king plays 320 dates a year so the idea of changing it is just things go stale did you have some ideas from when you played over here before that there were certain songs maybe the audience wanted to hear or there are certain ways to approach the american audience yeah you know the answer to that i mean uh i don't really want to um compromise myself too much i basically just want to play when i want to play yeah and um there are one or two songs still left in the catalogue of songs that i've co-written that i could play in the future but right now the whole structure this seems to be getting a bit more um you know you have to pace a set you have to balance it from the minute that you start to the minute that you actually get into the car lie back and find that you're sitting on somebody's lap by accident or whatever so you don't actually build it up properly and the first couple of gigs on every tour first three ten fifteen gigs are always trying to get it right now and this new set is going to be one of those sort of trial and error jobs but there are seven or eight new songs in it there's acoustic stuff too i guess yeah well i don't know whether i don't know whether acoustic stuff is appropriate in a way because i don't feel particularly acoustically minded right now however the songs that i've chosen to do is very special for me and i've sung it a few times i'm really enjoying it now can you tell us what it is it's called going to california great and i really like the song you know i remember writing the lyrics in a barn in worcestershire i'm thinking one day i can have a coat like ozzy on board i'm thinking that you know it's nice but the acoustic approach to music really has to be right now because if you if we're making records like heaven nose and tall cool one maybe it's good to bring that element in uh musical color i remember doug was talking about when i was holding a baseball bat over there they could surely got it right but inspired you know to change it around a bit might be nice to even write some 1988 acoustic material yeah how would that differ from like 60s acoustic material would it be well going to california i think um we wrote in about 1972 and my state of mind has obviously changed or the whole course of my thought has feared one way or another things affect you through life i've had a few knocks and i've had a lot of good fun as well i don't know whether i can feel so kind of reflective as i did them no you know um when mountains and the canyons start to tremble and shake as the children of the sun begin to awake now i can really i remember that feeling when i wrote that and i don't know whether it's really relevant to think that way anymore yeah you know how was the how does the band come along i mean since the first date you all played together in the states was that a traumatic experience and has it gotten better come over here come here come here come here i want you come here come and show these people look can you keep one about new ears man this is together outrageous you see yours yeah simon lebon used to wear one of them i think he's simon lavonne have you what have you heard of simon lebron recently yeah and he looted another friend obviously the tension's getting to everyone okay [Applause] but please go ahead and please you can't you can't really lose that can you i mean how many roads do you see like that is straight from the yes tour you can tell sorry trevor um yeah we're a bit more relaxed together i mean a lot of pressure and a lot of the unknown was a terrible thing for everybody and i have a much people like my learning friend and i and everybody else around said it's great fun it was obviously fear and trepidation and within the first week um they were doing that madison square garden bash and all that sort of thing and walking out into this almost uh selective preferred environment where everybody was waiting for godot or not you know but it was it was a pretty uh tough task for them and i think once they realize that it doesn't matter how good or bad it is as long as you actually go about it honestly that's all it counts you know there's a little bit of compromise i mean i never thought i'd have seen phil chunkster walking around with roy rogers's horse on his back but he's done it you know and he doesn't mind he's coming out of the closet wow does that i've been out of it since i know you have yeah but at school you gave me some welly sorry so you see if you always have you ever before been this prolific i mean you can go off these guys and write like 20 saunas a day or whatever it is you're writing and you just took some time off and wrote a bunch of stuff is this a new burst of sort of or whatever it is together um we just do whatever you want to do i mean it's maybe it's one of those periods where everybody's finally feeling that there is an outlet for what they've got to do you know maybe maybe they didn't have the facility before to say i want to do this there and what about playing that there because if you're in a different situation where you're not writing songs you're actually playing covers or something like that or you're trying to aim at a different market and then suddenly you turn a corner and it all becomes the whole thing becomes cohesive and you meet all these guys and you get your wildest dreams out musically i mean that's what happened to me with sep really was to turn a corner and to have a charge and energy coming from places that i never imagined when i was in the band of joy with bonzo there wasn't really the same facility to combine the blues with something that was mildly psychedelic yeah um you know i'm not being funny either but uh like dazed and confused and stuff like that was a kind of blues and um late 60s psychedelic approach and how many more times had its moments and stuff likewise now with this environment and these guys uh i can bring in the rock and roll side of it the you know the kind of ralph nielsen and the chancellor's scream approach while the technology and some of the newfound um musical movements coming from philadelphia charlie or chris you know it's good combination because i've got all this kind of root rock and roll and root blue stuff and um phil's coming in with a more melodic very uh well not very but like a beach boy's side or a melodic side a song song sign and although uh zeppelin wrote a lot of songs and a lot of songs came out with choruses it was a kind of accident nothing was planned now we're actually looking to write songs for ourselves yes when you're doing this up on stuff now do you feel that you're in a position to like open it up and build on it or yeah it's interpretation i mean it's just how it felt when we were rehearsing it would be a good idea to do this or stop it there and do that you know i think the original recorders nothing will ever be as good as them for what they are but this is a live situation in 1988 and it probably shows even more respect to them not to try and make it exactly the same or not to be that you know make it that holy what is it what is the stage show going to be like are there like bombs going off and fog banks or anything like that um i'm in a set no we're not thrash metal or we haven't quite got around to that it's more like a roy harper show actually it starts really slow and everybody goes to sleep uh matter of fact i saw roy harper about a month ago and he was stunning he was great to stick hats off to heart but he really is carrying that kind of wow flag still is excellent excellent but our show isn't really like roy's because we can't afford the storms but uh it's um no flashes no bangs just a little bit of uh fun i think you know there's a little sense of humor in the stage yeah and the lighting designer um is stunning i think but it's not gonna be like a michael jackson thing or anything right i can't afford all that crap bloody hell and besides i think it detracts from the fact that we're staggering around on cuban heels i think it's quite funny to see the artists slip and fall but kenny mednick has done a remarkable job of the likes yeah you know and uh and the whole thing is kind of in it created some kind of sympathy between the way i feel and the kind of post-summer of love feeling that's around right now in the band can you explain that post summer of love field yeah kind of love peace tranquility smiles really yeah i think so all that low drones it's great what's what's causing this it's a new fan relationship now this has got to be the best time it's like your second date you know second date what is it you've got a new video completed also i understand this is correct we'll have it completed by the time you finish filming tonight all being well okay good that's how do you how do you trace the course of your videos from the beginning do you see yourself following an ascending line of yeah no no i just don't think that i think i'm a terrible actor and i'm terrible at trying to be sincere visually about everything i mean i can sing a song but [Music] you put me in a situation unless i ride a horse or swim i'm already doing that too because i haven't actually got to deliver anything like what we've done is knowing full well that very many musicians are terrible actors or terrible at trying to put the point over with sincerity no there's no point in even trying to do that really so um the videos have just been plays upon wacky themes i guess i mean heather knows was quite a wacky video but at the same time it was a bit far-flung and far removed from everyday rock and roll promotion yeah i mean i love the idea of doing videos uh you know maybe you need a bit more makeup now together what is this one all about is there like a theme to it or funny costumes horses well i think it's time for a kind of uh new age video the post summer of another video we'll make it up as we go along but just piece it together with some sellotape but you're closer to it than that aren't you can you tell us anything about about it oh really i thought oh i thought it was like that i wouldn't tell you well i would but that's not one of them are you getting bigger all talking what's going on what happened in here quiet and okay okay so in your travels around the country you got a chance to like take off after the show and go see anything new and exciting and you come upon any discovered any bands i found northern new mexico and that's the most exciting thing that i've come across even more exciting than the balancing act and everybody else on irs records i just love northern new mexico and all that smiles inside it you know great people there and in the middle of northern new mexico last week i saw one of the greatest things in america and his name is jessie colin young he's out there he's out there so why what was he doing we were both out there he was singing in a club in santa fe had you never been there before or was it different really how did you come up i've been to santa fe three times this year but i've never been to that club and um he was stunning his voice was incredible really yeah is he recording or anything yeah i think so i mean i think he's probably made his choices to whether or not he's going to play this game or any play upon this theme and i think i mean he had a full house and he was he sang so brilliantly wow what appeals to you about that area out there is it just the desertedness of it all or well no i just think it's it's not too um disturbed by the angler isn't it you know and uh you know i mean morocco's got hints of that to uh i don't really know too much about the people there i mean i've read lots of things about him recently about the spanish people and about the pueblos and stuff but i mean i just go there and i just find it very like it was a great empathy yeah within me for it and for that place and uh that's kind of better than going and watching a band play when you finished dancing around yeah we were in baton rouge last night and silas hogan was playing there over the weekend and i wanted to go to see him he recorded for the same label xlr records that uh lazy leicester and london didn't slim harper who more or less created a lot of the early british rhythm and blues catalog are you often in the position of like going to the guys in the van saying and introducing them to stuff like this this is lazy leicester sit down and listen to it yeah and they look at me with an old-fashioned look and all say that yeah but we just gotta go to this place here there's only so much it'd be crazy to just keep on preaching and i'm afraid when i do they start whistling my way [Laughter] and i'll go up sorry well if nobody listens to this stuff it'll die out right well i i don't know i mean the garage all the garage punk the knickerbockers and the 13th floor elevators and stuff i mean there's a lot of people listening to that still yeah you know be nice to do some stuff like that next time around what what do you think the next time around will be like it sounds like the material that you've done so far for the next album is like light years ahead of the stuff that was on now and zen well that's not really the case i mean everything's so different you can't really pick a theme and hang on to it because if we've never done it before if i've never done it before being with anybody who has you can just write anything and it can just go all over the place and maybe that's a bit of a problem because in the end your theme or if you if you want to have some kind of central theme through the thing to hold it all together then with a relationship it's this new it's hard to hold that there because you're going there let's do that yeah why don't we try that and listen to that an acoustic and arabic and yeah bulgarian northern santa claus did you i wanted to ask you about uh tall cool and the coke connection that you wanted to talk about cause new york in regards to like the neil young video that came out the thing about people sort of selling their music for commercial sponsorship do you feel strongly about that or do you not care or do that's a bogus issue i think you have to be realistic about it i mean i've got a career by the grace of god i've got a career that's looking pretty good you know and it's taken a lot of hard work to get to the point that we are strong enough and capable enough of actually going back and playing uh 10 months into the life of an album realistically so if we're going to do that i'd rather i'd like to catch the attention of some people who used to know what i did and have given up now much a ball game you know no that's our plan he went soft big love and a sea of love and stuff like that and if they happen to be watching the lakers or something like that and the video come and the the promo comes on i mean that promo was a an rp promo it there wasn't a word spoken it was like this is tall cool one and there's your code i'm getting across to a lot more people i don't have to wallow about how nice this beer is you know or pull on a cigarette or anything like that what i was doing was broadening the potential of getting across to a wider audience and basically that's what my life and career has been all about you know without putting my arse in the barrel and being the next one on the line you know so it was a compromise and i don't i do accept that neil's absolutely right yeah but i wanted to do it because i wanted to do it because i don't do these things lightly it takes me two years of farting around to get the thing going so when i get it going if i've got an opportunity of reaching a sports audience or somebody who watches dirty movies at two o'clock in the morning on the tv then i want to be there too so you think it's like more offensive if like genesis does it for american beer and then admits that they they hate american beer anyway well i don't i can't really comment on other people because i've never been one to criticize anybody doing anything at all but i might do it for a hotel chain in boulder colorado where the beds are really nice we're in santa fe can we stop and change tapes please sure are we going to do all right okay all right is it let's see here we go there we go is it the same buzz is it the same thrill it can't be exactly the same obviously but it's still enjoyable now getting out there it's still enjoyable well i've become a kind of media hall i'm not really flogging this career of mine and i must be enjoying it i could stay home and just make the records and go oh golly i can't do that so many do well i don't anymore steve winwood i saw him about three years ago he was like no no i don't really want to do that now you can't even stop you know i mean you have your moments when you've got their moments you've got to go yeah and uh i enjoy it i probably i think i enjoy it more than that no uh i probably in those way back i was probably in the same position as doug and chaps because every time i turned a corner i was in the middle this growing this thing and not only does zeppelin grow but the whole capacity for bands to play really big venues grew yeah the who and uh stones to a degree you know and all it was growing at the same time as our popularity the whole thing got bigger and bigger and bigger and the capacities and the venues changed and the whole kind of dick clark roadshow phenomena our performance changed so uh it was enormous and i was a bit intimidated now i really enjoy it and i watch it you know and now is what it's all about to me now but i've really enjoyed it you seem to be providing something that people you're filling some sort of void out there in the national musical consciousness do you have that feeling too that there's something lacking that you're providing i think you'd have to have a terrible ego to think that you're doing anything really that special i mean basically you're a box of choppers i mean it's true you are you know you're an extra 10 gallons in the gas tank now you know somebody wants to go see their girlfriend far away they can do that or they can go to a concert yeah i mean even even though you're still doing zeppelin stuff there's not even the slightest hint if it's like an oldies acted or a revival or a comeback or anything somehow well every morning's a comeback you know i mean really for anybody wherever they've come from it's like oh this is another one but uh i think uh i think this is a very vital time and you've got to do it while you can no do you think there's a good period for music generally i mean it's like 20 years ago there was a lot of stuff that seemed to be new maybe because we were all much younger then well we're all under the yolk kurt all of us we're under that yoke and the acceptance capacity on you know i can't do this really because you know you start going into the politics of what allows music to be what it is and basically now it's corporations you know advertising sponsorship and getting your record on the radio there are bands around who are so good that i have actually sit on the road in new england and places i've seen bands playing in clubs who are great they make a record it comes out on some dicky label and a major won't silence because they won't take the chance because i think they'll be throwing money away because they won't get it on the radio you know the game and it's crap it's always been the same it's this is just another period where people who've been around for more than a year can actually look at it and take some perspective it's seldom that a phenomenon will come along and grab the industry by the balls and say whatever you do this is what it is and this thing is so powerful that everybody audiences and the media and everybody clutch it yeah maybe rem did that with last rich pageant where the usual run of things couldn't hold it back it just went on its own accord and that was great does it do you like so much about arianna's the lyrics or well he tried working them out yeah but no no that's that's a prime example and probably one of the few examples of um getting through without playing all the games i find it's really silly you know that there are two different forms of radio that create a chart is absurd if you don't make chr radio your record doesn't get into chart and if you don't get the record so far at the chart by radio play and so on then you're where are you you know it's true you know i mean you know what it's all about and it's really kind of that sometimes the greatest thing around never even raises its head but that's the way of all flesh is there probably gonna be a showdown between you and david coverdale you're gonna blow him off the stage or something is it is it building up to that has this been orchestrated in there i'd have to have a lot of brussels sprouts but uh i don't i think david and i go back a long long way in separate camps you know and maybe we just listened to the same thing so many times that we just started interpreting it the same way i think he's alright i look forward to the night we can have a good game of squash together all right you and him and 20. brag a bragging kindness no no that's a game of cards and it's he's alright he's a good bloke good singer really okay good we've mended a rift here if people are people have already seen your show and they have an opportunity to come out and see this new version of it what might you tell them to expect suck it and see jimmy always said to me maintain some mystique my boy i don't know i mean it'll change nightly if we feel in the mood i mean that's a very bold thing to say and i might be lying but it would be nice to see that it changed regularly so we keep the enthusiasm going that's why we change the set anyway yeah it'll be well paced will be fun and uh there'll be different zeppelin songs than there were before but again not i don't think i'm encouraging too much on [Music] on what i call maybe jimmy's side of things yeah do you ever get to sit down with jimmy and talk to him and say you know jimmy maybe if you did this or became more 80s or something or you'd not intrude on his i don't think that's a fair question because he's very happy doing what he's doing and he's very competent and he plays great guitar and he does i know he does he does exactly what he wants to do you know and as long as we can keep our relationship uh honest and clean uh and we can lean on each other now and again that's all you can ask for here that's true how do you feel about seeing all the young faces in the crowd now i mean you saw the same young faces and there's the older face of the same old face or so every now and then new faces young faces in the crowd well it's when they get on stage and it becomes a problem and i'm going up you can't get your room here quick enough sometimes you actually actually go out in canvas do you find yourself raining the lads in the band in at all i mean do you have to like have them home by 10 or anything like that god bless i'm not their dad i'm the singer in the band that's basically what i am they have to bring me back sometimes oh no he's off again quick get it back she's far too old for him do they teach you stuff i mean you learn stuff from them every night or just didn't play in or in music do they turn you onto bands or anything yeah you know i mean they show me things musically most of which i start pulling to pieces because i've got my i'm very opinionated as they all quietly said i was a nice guy mine through the teeth but it never comes to blows or anything does it not yet but when they know me better it will the one the one thing they all said was that it's not like they're a band working for a robert plant this is robert yeah well i mean i've never ever been in a position where i mean i can wield authority but authorities doesn't mean a thing it's the worst currency in the world yeah you've got to actually i mean you've just got to do it there's no ifs and but it's not a case of being politically clever no you just got it when you're working with people you've got to work with them you know there's no there's no real boss because generally a group opinion on something is much more violent than the individual and i can be a bit petulant which means i can be wrong a lot you know yeah if you have nights when you surprise yourself with your your voice anymore these days when you get up there say wow gee i mean you think you're still like progressing and going forward as a vocalist um i don't know i mean i just do whatever i do and i don't i never i don't like to listen to the tastes or the bootlegs or anything and i i really i have a kind of tolerance to the whole thing i like to do it do it and then disappear and i don't really study the whole thing as to whether it was good yeah but your style has definitely evolved over the years or anything i mean you're seeing an amazing control nouns oh that's pretty much ryan is now yeah the perfect position well i you know sometimes i think i'll try to do something that i did way back and towards the end of um july i was surprised myself because i was doing things that i didn't even want to do five years before or two years before but i was doing things in communication breakdown and going cereal but it sounded great you know but i much prefer i'm at home with things like dance on my own and uh but then again white clean and neat says every much every bit as much blues as you shook me worse you know in fact it's much more blues and very personal too isn't that song it's a comic you know i mean the next one will be i don't know it will be a play up on the theme but the next that's sort of not contemporary but the realistic comment you don't have to say i'm going to chicago sorry but i can't take you you know you don't have to sing the traditional blues to sing the blues at all that's true it's another world i have one last question about um the band was talking about they all spoke about how they're playing classic zeppelin tunes but they're all adding their own little bit to it is that a question of being good or bad or how do you feel about the evolution of the zeppelin classics today not slavishly copying the arrangements well uh i don't i mean as i said earlier on there will be nothing ever as good as the initial rendition of good so the best thing to do is not try and keep it too close to the original and the actual musical delivery is different the musicians are different and there's no attempt for anybody to play like anybody else no these are songs which i've contributed towards in the beginning their zap songs you know um i don't know whether it's certainly not contemporizing them because they're timeless they can't be made newer or they can't you can't do anything to them beyond just play them you know there's nothing kind of you could i maybe you could contemporize a couple of acoustic things you know yeah and uh but it's just you get up and play nobody's actually ever going to try and play the way it was but it'll be close because of the structure of the song dude are there any other like songs that you've always wanted to cover in your stage that aren't zeppelin tunes just like some obscure old song yeah but every time i do one my manager bill curvishly who struggles with judas priest and members of the who says don't do that don't do that i like playing door songs you know no no not that one either and then and then the road crew give me votes of confidence like off don't do that wow okay let's finish this thing just off and then you go to your just if you could sum up what the robert plant show is going to be in a few words as possible this thing is kind of what robert plant show is the robert plant show is 90 minutes of pulsating rhythm fun and enjoyment and the cameraman will look at him as if i'm not serious pulsating pulsating around up and down up and down for 90 minutes describe to us the day that you get called in on this project if you can remember it did somebody just call you and say hey come play bass or well what happened well a guy that produced the record called tim palmer gave me a phone call and said that uh robert was looking for a bass player a performance bass player really and uh we're allowed to turn up at the studio they were recording and uh audition so i turned up were you enthusiastic about this yeah i was enthusiastic i'm very surprised and excited about it yeah and um we did a days rehearsals and a day's recording it's very exciting what did they have together at that point where they go well they were just mixing the album nice in and uh i listened to it i was i was really impressed with it you know it's very fresh yeah when did you realize that you were in the group did robert come up one day and just put his arm around you or something not until now it wasn't really like that no it was um in the first tour we did an english tour a warm-up a warm-up tour and um really that was hard work we had to really pull together as a band playing in england and it was that that working process that did it really yeah before we got to the states did you when you guys do zeppelin stuff on stage dude did you did you sit down at the beginning say well let's try and do it note for note or i mean what's your part in this as a basis do you copy well the original line yeah i mean what i i mean i find personally i like to learn exactly as it was played and then i do my interpretation i put bits and bobs in you know bits and bobs that means little things that i like to put in myself so what's the reaction been like in the states for you this is your first trip for this tour right very exciting was it anything like you pictured it to be i had no idea what i was going like no i mean it was great really good and uh american audiences are very exciting are you surprised how big except the whole zeppelin thing was over here and it's done because uh you know i mean as zeppelin were banned when i was younger than i used to sort of it was a cultural thing yeah and when i actually got to analyze zeppelin by playing the material i realized it was they were not a straightforward band now and um in what way well musically it's it's not straight down the line really rock and roll it's very well full time there's a lot of feel in it and a lot of salt yeah as paige showed up at any time and jumped on stage with you yeah in london oh that's where i heard about it there's a bootleg of that out yeah right yeah it was good really good that was exciting can we stop for one second sure can we just turn the light his lights your eyes are twinkling like it's like uh he's happy it's like just choice turn down the twinkle i don't think i think it's better yeah okay i'm rolling again okay what now you want to curtain here okay sound okay all right so you guys had a break for two months and you instead of taking time off you did what well i mean we did a bit of rehearsing ready for this tour yeah there's a third leg as we call it at all but yeah i mean i had about a month off and then uh two weeks rehearsals down in devon did you what did you how did you decide what this this that was gonna be like and you've completely overhauled the show all right yeah well i think this is a lot more mature then um i mean we do it as a band i mean you know uh we'll sit down and we'll try some ideas i mean we personally i mean i tried out some numbers at home that was suggested but by the time we got together as a band situation we changed that and went to some completely different numbers what might be the big surprises would you imagine numbers yeah um well we're doing some acoustic numbers in the set wow that will be surprising but also how you say that complete contrast we got some material like dance on my own we're going off the new album which is really electron so it goes from one extreme to the other wow yeah it's gonna be any stuff that we've never heard before aside from what you do at soundcheck no not as such i mean in sanchez we have been trying some new ideas for the next album yeah but uh i don't have to wait for that what's that going to be like the next element you're starting to put stuff together are you just a lot more confident now after all this playing together yeah i mean it's a band now we've been on the road together and uh i think the next record is going to be more of a banned vibe tonight yeah yeah definitely are phil and robert doing most of the the material are you all pitching in we're all pitching yeah i mean everyone's given equal opportunity it's a banned situation are you featured in the new video uh well the new video being shipper fools is robert because it's a very personal number to him talk or whatever knows how was it for you i mean you obviously you know grew up listening to that one yeah i mean working with someone like robert plant you grew up listening to him and all of a sudden now you're playing with him on stage you can describe what that feeling is like to you well yeah that feeling well really when we first did trample underfoot and that was in a gig at a gig in starbridge in england a warm-up day it's very very exciting and very strange in what way well you know i mean it is one of the first bass lines i learned to play and i heard it on our gross test in england which is in english yeah i was sitting in my bedroom where is it bed sit in bristol and it came on television and i just played along with it and very straightforward but actually playing on stage after that was extremely exciting and also the situation i was in before i was working with robert it's so different you know suddenly if i was playing separate material was very exciting is robert like you don't he doesn't act like a living legend just in normal life does he mean he's a pretty down-to-earth guy yeah he's you know he's a player he's another bad member yeah another member yeah very much yeah he's the singer in the band and writing him do you guys all hang out together somewhere are you drinking at night or is he sending out guys in the band out to go drinking together we do yeah yeah very much and uh in the breaks i mean at the moment there hasn't been much of a break the only break we had we got together for rehearsals anyway you know it's like mummy i'm home in this band that's good okay good for you thank you very much thank you that's great all right i am really going to get a little rustle from my shirt yeah i think it'd be all right if he's if you're reasonably still yeah i think that'll grab your chest turning rolling okay all right so you come into this this project through the rest is history right you have worked with phil your association do you remember what your feelings were when they called you up and said come on in and be the drummer for this group yeah yeah well robert phoned me and left a message on the answer phone really yeah and uh it just said hi this is royal client give me a call and i thought yeah yeah really so i found it back and it was and uh he said come down to a rehearsal which i did and that was it and you just had sat down and started playing there were no yeah we just played does everybody pretty much much knows zeppelin stuff and playing stuff and there's like studio musicians know all that stuff yeah i think so i mean led zeppelin is so much a part of musical you know whatever heritage yeah a lot of the stuff that we're doing now live we didn't even really have to rehearse because we just you know we knew it anyway what new zeppelin stuff are you doing in this new show uh new songs we're doing an immigrant song this is one of my all-time favorites um i think a couple of others i don't want to give too much away yeah well we're not going to give it away we're just we won't tell anybody when you finally get to hang around with robert was he pretty much the way you would expected him to be or was he like friendlier or meaner um i don't know what i expected because as i say initially when i got the phone call i thought it was something messing about i didn't think it was really him so no i just turned up with the studio and the first thing he said to me was do you want a cup of tea i thought well yeah this guy is all right you know tea yeah so we had some tea and then we messed about and yeah he's just a really nice guy yeah i think people always thought yeah we're good going rolling rolling speed okay all right i think people always thought that zeppelin was essentially a big band in the states and wasn't very big in england is that like not true yes or two yeah so i mean they always held a lot of albums and they were almost a cult band now really but but not really because everyone knew about them you know i mean a lot of cold bands not everyone knows about them but zeppelin weren't yeah they were they were big yeah what do you what do you do when you're going to run through the zeppelin salons i mean do you try to exactly exactly replicate bottoms no no strong parts at all like i said i mean a lot of the songs you know anyway you know they're just they're in here and it's just a matter of the best way the way i approach it anyway is i don't actually sit and listen to the record i'll i'll play it the way i remember it and that way you're putting in your bit as well you know and a lot of the songs now when we listen to the record they are different they are quite a bit different to the way ziplining them which is good that's the way it should be maybe the way zeppelin would have done them in the 80s or something maybe you know we're not trying to copy what zeppelin did we're just we're just using the songs you know we're not trying to be so playing around do you want to do and robert work together a lot on stage and a lot of singers are really very tied to the drummer and is he watching for queues and everything no i wish him for case yeah the songs i mean a lot of them are very choreographed if that's the right word musically they're very set but there are points in the show when it's almost like you're in a plane and someone switches the autopilot off and we here we go you know and you just watch him see what he's going to do and that's when he gets fun because everyone's watching everybody else and it's all it's great as they were going totally out of control or do you oh yeah that's even better though when that happens that's even better i mean yeah it does get silly it's great what is that what is the new stuff you like that you've been working on for the the next album is like totally another level above what the first one was yeah it's it's taking what that album was and just going on from there um it's still very embryonic at the moment but i think from what for the stuff we've been missing about it it's going to be it's going to be really good dude what do you think of robert is a singer having worked with him now is he's you know he's like an older guy and something is he has he still got it oh he's yeah he's still gonna definitely yeah i mean like i say the times when when the show when we are sort of flying without autopilot that's when that's when he really comes out and it's great yeah what was it like playing with paige when he came up on stage with you guys at the hammersmith um uh it was fine i mean in the dressing room i met him and everything initial cairns it was great and we did the sound check and it was great and then we got off on stage and we did the show and then we came back for the encore and it's when jimmy got up now and that's when i suddenly thought wow this is this is robert plant and jimmy page and this is me [Laughter] and the crowd were getting completely barmy it was that was really good fun what are the best places you've played in the states so far um my favorite places have been red rocks definitely red rocks was fantastic and um i think uh middle lands new jersey you had never played in the stage before had you before this tour was it everything you imagined it to be or less it was much more than i imagined actually it's a lot bigger than i thought i mean coming from england you know a lot of the distances we're traveling from geek to gig are longer than it is from one end of england to the other and it's just yeah getting a scale of the place i'm beginning to understand now how big it is um but as far as the audiences go no they're fantastic i mean english audiences tend to be they tend to sit down and want to be entertained you know and you have to really work american audiences are out for a good time so it makes our job easier and therefore everyone has much more fun it's just yeah would there be a live album out of this do you think who knows very nice that's good what makes this tour getting ready for this this tour coming out different than the other tours you've done what makes it different just leg of the torah um for me i've been to america now and i know what to expect i know what the audiences are like i know a lot of the towns um it's a bit like we didn't really go home you know we just come back and we're doing another leg of the tour that we finished before um also for me it's quite nice because i mean i love christmas and this is the build up to christmas as well and it's great whose idea what deal was it to just change the whole set around i mean is that something planned at the beginning of the tour yeah we decided to come back and do something different yeah really i mean the show was going really well the last show but we thought yeah but what if we did this and if we did that and that's what we've tried to do it's great good for you thank you very much he looks really good i think whenever you're ready so who's idea who's the idea was it to like in the middle of the tour like this to just change the whole set around was that a band decision or gee what was that um yeah well we just wanted to do something something different we were changing the set always through the first leg and we'll probably change it again and again anyway it's just this time the whole design has changed the whole bar is i don't know robert must have come into some money [Laughter] was the the was the idea to change like the impact of the set i mean there are more highs and lows or i understand there's acoustic stuff in it yeah and cookies um we know we just wanted to try some new things as we know each side is looked upon differently and so we do acoustic songs it doesn't it's not really changing the set it dramatically i mean it's just using a different song what was it what was your state of mind when you first embarked on this tour coming to the states i mean did you have any idea what it was going to be like or how the record would be greeted or anything not a clue i've made records before but uh not that uh i've done quite as well as this listener in that one have you become wealthy and bought a house in somerset or something no not exactly i understand you've taken time off and you've gone back and been writing songs and stuff are you like halfway through the new record or anything like that or is it yeah we're just about ready we could record a whole record now we've got the oh yeah the songs are there they're ready but you know we'll work on different things we haven't actually gotten to the stage where we deliberately use our routine a certain amount of songs it's a bit like with nouns then we had about 30 or 40 songs we could have chosen and as we started working on little bits started moving around and you take that little bit from there and put it in there and then you sort of hone the whole thing down 30 or 40 songs you guys are really prolific well there's five of us this is really a situation where the five of you can sit around and write material or do two or three of you get together in one corner of different ways and sometimes you put on the computer and it writes it for you you're lucky the best kind are you when you're when you're when you set out to do zeppelin songs are you trying to be faithful note to note for the record no for no to the record or are you trying to give them your own arrangement or are you intimidated by them at all um at first yeah but they are just songs you know that's it and and there's songs that robert has written and songs should grow i wouldn't say we're deliberately um choosing to do them exactly like led zeppelin because that's impossible because dougie is a great guitar player jimmy page is a great guitar player but the two of them are different so therefore doug will play his way i will play a certain way chris the drummer will play a certain way and that all comes that all comes across um i think play those songs yeah pretty good i think people love to try and forget in a way that led zeppelin songs yeah is there is there a point do you see down the road somewhere where you wouldn't even have to do them anymore or not i don't think we have to do that no well no of course not really the reason i didn't mean to put it like that but because is there a point you think where it would just all be like new material or would you just enjoy still doing the zeppelin stuff well it's a bit difficult i mean we could have done all we could have you see this talk we could have just done now and zen and a whole bunch of songs the other some of the other 30 or 40 songs but i don't think people come in that would confuse people in a way i remember seeing genesis doing the whole of landlines down broadway before he came out and it did confuse people and i think part of doing a gig is that people enjoy themselves and the band enjoy themselves so we do songs that we enjoy playing um and those songs can be chosen from anywhere i mean the last tour we did uh dimples by john lee hooker we did it back in the ussr a couple of times did break on through the doors track you know we can you can choose almost any song as long as you put it across but i think people are coming to see robert plant the reason why they're going to see him sing and the band perform is for certain things for all his history beforehand hmm and this hot new band he's got obviously sorry i know this hot new band he's got that's pretty cool when you when you guys are sitting around trying to write stuff is do you do you listen to anything in particular for like inspiration or are you just all pretty we listen to everything in particular through inspiration yeah you can that's part of the songwriting process is you sit down and we play each other we're always swapping cassettes so saying there's this little bit of this that we like so therefore that's the type of feel you know it's been done from you know from that's from time immemorial i mean my favorite quote is from t.s eliot so it says uh immature artists plagiarize mature artists steal and uh i've just grown up the first guy who's ever quoted this is the first place now you've been on the road with robert all this time what are the most interesting things you've learned about him about him um it's pretty boring i think i'll quote shakespeare now thank you that's a terrible question i don't think i'll ask that well what's he like to be out on the road with i mean he's a good boss and he buy dinner for the guys and stuff no i wouldn't say has he if i bought dinner yeah i'd say all right um it's very easy going it's like it's a real band band and that's why that's where it has to be i wouldn't regard robert as the boss no you know i mean more the accountant gee well he's trained to be an accountant and there's some things that just will not leave the blood right and somebody has to do it yeah exactly is he is he would you would you envision when you first got like the call from the virgin that this guy wants to meet you i didn't get the call from virgin that's what was so weird i got the call from robert directly yeah as virgin were trying to ring me i was on the phone to robert because it took robert quarter of an hour for him to convince me that he was robert because i had led zeppelin to playing very loudly in my bed and i was trying to convert the pay phone so the 10 ps would go in one end and still come out the other one and you know the other end and that way i won you know just keep using 110p and that's about all i had and there's this guy comes on the phone with this brummie accent trying to convince me he's robert plan so i thought now i don't believe this is a wine you gave him a hard time is that what you're saying um i didn't give a i was trying to fight i'm trying to guess who it was but i couldn't quite play it it was a terrible brummy accent as well i was trying to work out exactly where who it could have been but eventually convinced me so and then because we organized to meet and uh then we got drunk for a few months and after we've managed to do that well we started writing some songs and it went off swimmingly from there and uh it's been up and down you know i love it it started swimmingly it's been gradually going down here ever since i mean the first time we wrote was till cool one which is not a bad start and um you wrote a couple other songs that day right yeah tall cool one and white clean and neat were the first songs we wrote and that was as exciting that was a bad start when could when could the next album be done is there a schedule so far do you know when the next lp will be out yeah there's a schedule um i'm sorry english my father an american um the there is there is a vague schedule but it's got to be i mean this the next record because the band was during this tour suddenly realized just how good this band is which i don't think anybody realized none of us had realized what it was and it's now it's really has become the sum of the parts are bigger sort of greater than the some of the individual parts you know the whole is much greater um which gives you puts a lot more pressure on you to make the definitive album i mean what we're aiming for is pet sounds or um or sergeant pepper you know uh i mean i love nan's and i think we did really well under the circumstances but looking back at it now i mean if anybody bought the there was a cd single of um of shipper fullness and there were a couple of live tracks on that and they sound better than the than the than the album version to me and it's that what we've got to capture that excitement you know rather than clinically going into the studio and go right muscle now listen to bell noises for the next 12 hours i know i've done it i've been there and uh so this time we just would go we're going to go away do the old style go away get our heads together man right go hand to our country idle and write some songs and then back rehearse them might do even a few real small gigs and just play all the new material and then go and record it is this going to be the same production team working on this i don't know um it's very likely very likely tim palmer is in switzerland as we speak working with somebody very very important indeed but he won't tell me who because that's a big secret now everybody knows do you uh have you have you found like favorite cities in the states when you come over here that you think are like really hot for this particular band is like chicago or robert plant town oh chicago is yeah well there's certain places i enjoy myself an awful lot um and certain places where i didn't maybe because i had a cold or something you can't blame the city i mean i certainly enjoyed chicago a lot and new orleans is a fabulous place did you get to get out and around see bands and stuff while you're down there musicians um yeah we saw we uh saw a number of old police guys down in new orleans snook circling people are now very superb you can see where jimmy got it all from actually cut okay so you're sort of in the state is okay and is it what you pictured it to be it's um it's much much better than i thought it's a as a place it's a wonderful place there's some places you just ne i never never would have thought could be like that you noticed it boulder colorado now i met some people from boulder who were really really pleased they came from boulder i met them in england and i look up in this map and i go bloody hell it's right next to bun whatever it is and i look i looked down there i think why is he so pleased he comes from boulder and i went to boulder and i know why they're so happy now i mean if you go at the right time of year you could sunbathe down the bottom of the mountain then go skiing later on wonderful you didn't look these people up while you were there at all right no there are some that's what put me on board easy that's good for me you spoke briefly earlier about you know trying to milk that 10 people on for on the phone on your phone and now you're touring the robert plant is that like how does that make you feel that's better yeah it made me feel i mean actually i haven't had time to sort of really to sit back and wait for you know and to sit back and understand what has happened in the last two or three years i mean it's been in a way i feel a bit cheated from missing the the rise you know as you because like if you were in some band i'm trying to get a good example working your way to the top that's right so as you're working everything's getting better you do each gig and it's going to get a little bit larger if you start right up there somewhere then the pressure and maybe and the excitement factor is a little bit harder to regain you know or to or to come across everything is suddenly already so important yeah and in many ways life is easier with the 10p but less interesting perhaps yes it's less interesting and you've got the baby now right yeah we've got the baby what could possibly happen next i wonder emily emily margaret francis johnston what makes this league of the tour different than any other any other parts of it [Music] this one's the fun one there was you know there are no there's no particular commercial or um what's the other maybe accountant's vote reason no accountant is a reason for doing this later the tour apart from the fact that we're all having so much fun and the last month the last month the last the first leg of the tour of the us was so much fun that we just could not turn in the opportunity of being able to do it this one more time and also the show's so good let's do it let's let's give everybody a chance to go and see it and then we'll do the next album and then we'll come back with another thing but i think it's you know it's it's it bears repetition are you gonna go when you go back to england are you gonna be like playing over there after christmas or something you're going to keep touring or you're just going to go right back in the studio we're going back well as i said we might after we've retained the songs for the album we might then do some unannounced club dates so we can get to the stage we've played the songs in front of an audience several times because like every most nights we'll take a type away of the gig listen to it and um for about five minutes then throw it out the window and get drunk when you go back and listen to it you can sort of take certain little things um you know like charlie will play a base pool somewhere which then we can work in now those are sort of things you only build up over a sort of three or four month tour it's a shame you have to go and record the album before you can go and tour with the material you see because it's invariably going to be if you can catch it at the right moment you can capture just the right moment to record it then it should be you know it should be very easy and you've got all the excitement and the freshness and it will come across on record i think people get so bogged down in studios they spend two or three years recording an album and it still comes out saying dollars ditch and you're sort of a studio guy saying that too right oh yeah yeah exactly i spent a long long time in studios but um and some of those times were fun some of those times yeah you know horses courses whatever it takes what is this what is that robert is always going around saying well i've still got a couple of good notes left and on a good night i can still hit him but i mean he sounds pretty good would you say that what's the exciting thing about working with him as a singer i mean it separates him from other singers singer i think he's singing better than he ever has done in his life because having sort of made a little study of the accountant um he said it when he i mean i love the sound of his voice when he first started singing with led zeppelin you know on the sound of the voice on leisure i mean one and two now robert reckons that was too forced anyway and maybe a singer singer would would say that you know i mean maybe you always ask frank sinatra if you can get hold of me and what he thought of led zeppelin one and two and see what he see whether he says oh i'm afraid the voice is a bit strange so then he starts really singing and that came out through um now let's have him for house of holy and constantly developing style but he was shying away from the real high stuff because he thought that's what's forced but now he's actually got much more of a vocal technique and he's singing higher again and he's so he's got complete the full range and control of it and it's a real pleasure to work with i mean it's because he sometimes notices and shivers up your spine yeah absolutely and when dougie and uh and robert is are on form the two of them together it really is there was there have been some moments but then i forget to play the how many piano [Laughter] great is that good for you yes it is that was terminology what a pro roll speed connection all right so is it hardest for you of all the guys in the band when it comes time to play lid zeppelin stuff do you feel like you're like really on the spot or is everybody very supportive um one of it's hardest for me i mean it's i'd say it's helpful chris as well you know playing drum as great as bonzo was you know but um i don't know i tried to think about it at all because i don't approach it in terms of competition or comparison you know for me it's just i mean i like the songs and the great guitar parts to play obviously so i just enjoy myself trying to worry about it too much at all yeah is this stuff that you like knew in your blood i mean you could just walk on stage and play it automatically was it stuff you grew up on it wasn't stuff i grew up on i mean i didn't really i wasn't that aware of led zeppelin when i was younger probably until i was in my early teens and someone let me a couple of albums and lots of good stuff i ran a kind of but i was never a great fan and i kind of forgot about it for a while and then when i met robert we started getting over some zeppelin and stuff and it's like oh let's have a go this song said what's that thing you know what did he say to that um ladies and gentlemen he was all surprised i don't know why could you tell us the story of like meeting him how did you come to be summoned into his presence well i've known chris blackwell the drama for a long long time we've been in bands together for about nine years or so and uh phil had met robert and they've been working together and phil knew chris and so i got involved by that oh just continue as if nothing were happening [Laughter] so you were saying about robert the kind of guy he is oh no yeah well you can scribble that wasn't that the question i won't ask you about him what's what's the news can you describe what the new set's going to be like without giving it all away and it's like a total revamp well it's going to be more dynamic yeah in what way in terms of i don't know i mean how do you describe dynamics no it's a matter of i don't know the small colors to it is like further across the spectrum i mean that's the way i feel about it this has got a bit more color to it and because we're more mature as a band it's um it just it just feels a lot punchier yeah things are feeling really good at the moment there's a stage that like much more elaborate or things going up and down and moving through the air or anything like that so many friends of the group [Laughter] [Music] well what can i say about the station it's going to be great it looks amazing there's going to be one hell of a show this one who designed it was like a group thing to design the stage set or did one person decide designing we started taking notes on how the way we thought it should go towards the end of the last tour so everyone's had a little bit of input into it yeah has this was in your experience you said that like you didn't really hear a lot of zeppelin when you were growing up do you think they were and it's always been said they're really really big in the states not so big in england would you say that's more or less true or no well certainly you've got a profile in england as well but it's nothing like the sort of feeling you get when you come over here i mean when i come over to the states for the first time now this year and you get a feeling for what it was all about you know in terms of the perspective that the americans have unzipped and you know it is a very different thing within the english are very different people from the americans yeah and that way i mean the english are very very cool anyway so you don't kind of they don't come straight out with things now they seem to over here which is great it's very refreshing for me yeah where's the guitar player what do you think it is about zeppelin's music that has kept it i mean in demand so long songs i mean it's basically songs and the fact it was just the chemistry of those particular four people they're all very talented yeah and i guess there was just a certain chemistry there and it was a great songwriting team do you think in the show the way it is now revamped does it give you guys a chance to really step out more or take off from songs or is it a range like that um yeah it's a it's very very dynamic the way we're approaching the material and the way we're presenting it and it's just is this a very very very good feeling which gets better all the time now you guys are having a good time on this tour well i mean we've been out here a week and we've had such a laugh already we had a great time on the last two you know but this time right the feeling i mean this is going to be the one you know or maybe the one after this will be the one this is going to be the one great yourself um the question about playing with robert yeah okay the truth do you probably not never we frequently use lies if we can get them yeah is it this is very hard to ask while you're standing there but is it compared to all the singers you played with let's put it that way is there anything special about playing with robert is there a special thrill i'm just being on stage with him would you say of course i mean he's a musician i mean just the way he's saying his voice fits into the band is he like unlike any other singer that you're aware of absolutely he's unique you know there's there's nothing no one else anybody like it you know a lot of people try yeah you know but you know i'm playing with the real guy it's amazing there's no one i like it good well put that was good

Channel: Mark Zep

Views: 4,758

Rating: 4.9756098 out of 5

Keywords: Led Zeppelin, Rare, Ship of Fools, Tall Cool One, Heaven Knows, In The Mood, Big Log, Sea of Love, Jimmy Page, John Bonham, Whole Lotta Love

Id: IAF_YVjoi70

Length: 67min 58sec (4078 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 29 2020