New P&P Interview!

[rdavies@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Hello World,

(Hope I'm first with this- I've just rushed into work to make the post)

The April edition of UK's 'Uncut' magazine (music and movies, issue 11) has
a 14 page spread on Page and Plant, including new photos (would those be
jowls Robert?), a retrospective of Zeppelin and solo careers, plus an
interview with the guys about the past and present.  Just for good measure
there's a third of a column talking to JPJ, a comment from Bert Janch, half
a page about Peter Grant and "ten tales of Zep-xcess"!  Pretty
comprehensive huh?

There's far too much for me to transcribe now so here's "Page and Plants
track-by-track guide to their new album":

SHINING IN THE LIGHT
RP: It's based on an acoustic guitar, because a lot of the more successful
Zeppelin songs from the past were built on that structure, like Ramble On.
Then the electric comes in to give us the power at the right time and the
dynamism between the electric and the acoustic.  We wanted to open with
something that made a statement that we were looking back but at the same
time taking it forward.

WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG
JP: That came out of a jam originally.  Basically it's a live vocal.
RP: It's a kind of quasi-American West Coast approach, a lot of brooding,
quiet music that suddenly bursts into a real big dynamic sound, returning
again to almost nothing.  The whole idea of an explosion was the intention
behind most of the album really.

UPON A GOLDEN HORSE
JP: Robert had an inspired idea to use an orchestra on this.
RP: I wanted to create a piece of music that harked back to that rolling
cascade of energy like Four Sticks, which I think was one of triumphs of or
earlier days.  It's not a direct reference but it's trying to tap into so
many mood and modes.

BLUE TRAIN
RP: That song changed personality so many times. it started off with a
different time signature and tempo.
JP: It start with a Hammond organ and then went through many incarnations.
RP: Again, it's the whole idea of the music exploding, a restrained mood
then kicking into something more dynamic without being painfully obvious.
JP: You need to find an analogy Robert.  You've used that one two or three
times already.

PLEASE READ THE LETTER
RP: I really wanted to get a Flying Burrito Brothers or Sweetheart of the
Rodeo-type of vocal effect, somewhere between Roy Orbison and early Byrds.
As it developed, I got more excited and came rushing back in to the studio
and said 'I think we should do the whole album like this'.
Everyone looked at me and had another cup of coffee and ignored me.  But
for me it was a really charming sound.

MOST HIGH
JP: People call it an epic, but I think that is word that you have to try
and avoid.
RP: Well it's got everything on it.  We got Trans-Global Underground to
work with us on that.
JP: I was going to play with TGU and Natacha Atlas as WOMAD last year.  I
wanted to but my son, who lives with his mother in the states, was coming
over right at that point.  I had to choose one or the other and obviously
went with the blood.  there's always another time though.

HEART IN YOUR HAND
RP: It was just a jam that we had.  You know those B-movies where there is
something a bit strange going on somewhere on the skyline that is crucial
to the movie and you get some fantastic haunting piece of music which you
can never track down?  We wanted to write something like that and it
probably took the best part of about five minutes to create.  It's a mood
piece. it's sheer bluff because there are no lyrics.  The lyrics aren't
even finished now and it's on the record.  there's a bit of mumbling at
times when I couldn't get a line.

WALKING INTO CLARKSDALE
JP: It's like Dick Dale or something, I don't know.  It's one out of the
melting pot.
RP: It comes more from Howlin' Wolf, I think, that strident riff.
JP: Yes, that's definitely how it started.  Then it moved in this way and
that way and developed.

BURNING UP
RP: Steve Albini said 'You English always sing about fire and despair'.
This is real fire and despair sort of wallowing tune set a Link Wray thing.
JP: Jimmy Page had something to do with it as well.
RP: That's you in 1957 guitar mode, cranked full up.  I mean it's pretty
powerful stuff.

WHEN I WAS A CHILD
PR: A ballad. Just a slow reflective piece of music.

HOUSE OF LOVE
RP: We were keen to sample the drums, make a big noise and have something
that made a reference to contemporary drum looping and stuff like that.  We
had a rhythm before we had a track.  I think we had been listening to Fiona
Apple Pie or someone.  We got a distorted drum loop and in a very short
space of time had House of Love.

SONS OF FREEDOM
JP: I  has a six string bass, like a baritone guitar, and I really wanted
to make a big feature out of it all the way through.  The track was really
roaring along anyway and then Robert came flying in...
RP: About the confusions of moral and religious responsibility.


 Here's some chat about the new album:


Q: The new album is the first collection of new material the two of you
have recorded together since Zeppelin.  How did you approach it?

RP: With the previous excursion on the Unledded album we were only afforded
the minimum amount of time to try and write new stuff.  It was actually the
very beginning of when we were renewing our relationship.
I think we wrote two or three tracks to some tape loops.  But the way the
thing was going we wanted to reinvent some of the old stuff, which didn't
really give us any time to explore new ideas.  We did get together before
the MTV film an d we threw around a few skeleton ideas, but we weren't able
to enlarge upon them until the past six months or so.
Once we finished the last tour and we'd given ourselves a bit of a break,
the obvious thing was to do an album because we had so much stuff flying
around.  There were impromptu bits and pieces that came out of the stage
show on the last tour, although we were a bit restricted because we had an
orchestra with us.  When it came to this album we just got down to it, like
we always did.


Q: Where did the idea to use Steve Albini come from?

JP: I think he sent a begging letter.
RP: We were looking for an engineer.  We didn't want a producer who sat at
the back of the room trying to transmit his ideas to someone he hardly
knew.  We didn't want anybody to get in the way of us and the sound getting
on the tape.  Albini as a a conduit or catalyst seemed the perfect thing.
A lot of producers aren't hand-on any more.  They start as engineers, and
then retreat gradually to the podium and that wasn't really what we were
looking for.
JP: The thing about Albini is that he's one of a rare breed.  He's one of
just a handful of engineers who know how to deal with microphones, because
a lot of the engineers from the eighties onward don't even know.  They just
use samples.  Some of them haven't ever miked up a drum kit, and that's a
fact.   Albini has been into the science of this and so if you've got a
good guitar sound he knows exactly what microphones to put on there so you
can record the music flat without a lot of messy EQ.  He was really nice to
work with.  We were really confident it was going to sound good when we
went in.  He was a really god (sic) guy in every respect and I would love
to work with him again.

Q: So was a lot of the album recorded live?

RP: The sound that we made in the room is what you hear.  There was no
struggle to reproduce the strength of Jimmy's guitar sound, for instance,
Steve had that down.  The insistence was that we played together, all of us
at the same time so jimmy's guitar would drift across the drums and through
the ambient mikes over the drums.  The whole thing was very much a live
deal.  There was a little bit of tweaking here and there but it was
basically played on the spot.
JP: He has a very honest approach, which is what we were going for.
RP: His purism was quite heartening really, the whole idea of capturing it
there and then.


Right that's all I can transcribe for now.  Can you guys in the former
colonies get this magazine?  If not I could type out  a bit more another
day.

If anyone is really keen to get hold of a copy (there's a CD on the front,
sadly lacking any P&P material) I could probably airmail one to you in
exchange for, say, a CD-R- I'll look into it.  There is an Uncut web site
www.uncut.net but there's nothing much on it.

Rob Davies
(D Morgan: Feck in Peace)