New P&P Interview Part II

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Here's some more of the interview from April's Uncut magazine:

Pre-amble:

A CAFE IN LADBROOKE GROVE (LONDON), FEB 6 1998
Three decades after they first met and almost 100 million album sales later
Robert Plant and Jimmy Page are musical partners once more.  After the
reworkings of old repertoire for 1994's No Quarter,  Walking to Clarksdale
represents the first time the two have recorded an album of all new
material together since 1979.  They appear relaxed, happy and fit, trading
one liners and exuding bonhomie, a pretty good advertisement for the
rock'n'roll lifestyle that has proved fatal to so many lesser mortals.
Now a grandfather Plant's leonine mane still hangs in blonde ringlets and
he must be on e of the few 49 year olds who still looks convincing in
leather pants.  True the face is a little lined, but if only a fraction of
the tales of depravity are true he has no right to look as fit as he does.
He's articulate, friendly and down to earth.
Page to is astonishingly well preserved for his 54 years and the well
documented excesses appear to have wreaked little lasting damage.  Dressed
in what style magazines would call 'smart casual' his satin skin and warm
eyes give him almost a baby face look.  There's a slight paunch which comes
as pleasant surprise after years of interviewers who would routinely
describe him as 'gaunt', 'painfully thin' or even 'spectral'.  I had expect
to meet someon ewho could be best described as a survivor.  Instead he's
sharp, humorous and endearing.
They also seem, at last, to have laid the ghosts and learned to live with
their own legends, talking animatedly about the Zeppelin years despite
health warnings from their management not to dwell on the past and their
own initial insistence that they preferred to concentrate on the present.
Oddly it hadn't occurred to either of them that 1998 marks the 30th
anniversary of the bands formation.

THE EARLY YEARS
Q: Does it irritate you when people want to talk in the past tense about LZ
rather than about what you're doing now
RP: No, we just stop talkin g rather quickly. there's no point going on
about the past.  The music is all there to be heard . The albums we made
were done with all the influences of the time and the effects of what was
going on a that time.  So now to look back is not really relevant to
anything or the fact we're sitting in this cafe.  It's 1998 and you know
we're moving along.
JP: Certainly the thing with Zeppelin was that we always wrote about
wherever we were at that point in time.  The albums came out as a statement
of their time and I think that's exactly concurrent here.

SNIP: they then talk about how it was intimidating for Robert switching
from the Band of Joy to being in the studio making the first album.

JP: You can tell by those BBC sessions,  There are two performances on
there.  The first is very close to the time the first album was recorded.
But by the time you get to the second it's totally different.  It's only a
matter of months really, but the whole thing changed in a matter of months
really.  Everybody's approach is different, it's so much tighter and the
intensity is electrifying.  It's a really good live performance.

SNIP

RP: I do find the first one and a half albums a bit of a compromise for me
vocally.  I think by LZ III, I had started relaxing and enjoying it a bit
more.

Q: In 'Led Zepplelin-The Definitive Biography' Jimmy said he was
disappointed by some of the elements of his playing.  surely that can't be
true?
JP: I can't believe I said that either.  that was probably before
journalists had cassette tapes to verify what we really said.  I wouldn't
have said I was disappointed with my playing.  No, not at all, ever.
That's the end of it.  There's no point in even talking about it.

SNIP

Q: There's a lot of acoustic guitar on the new LP.  Do you think that
everybody was so into the Planet Riff thing that the gentle side was
overlooked.
RP; I don't know.  Obviously the huge guitar riffs and screaming vocals are
immediately in your face.  I think you can quite easily pass by the beauty
of Tangerine or That's the Way if your musical appreciation is the fair
weather kind..  We tried to make music people couldn't talk over.  The
whole idea of LZ being in the background as everybody tucks into rocket and
balsamic vinegar salad is out of the question.  You've got to have it full
on or forget about it altogether.  People either liked what we did for that
very reason or cast it aside.


SOME WORDS FROM JOHN PAUL JONES:

Q: Zep have never reformed on a permanent basis
JPJ: Well they have now.  P&P are Led Zeppelin in everything but name.
Apparently their show is almost entirely Led Zep material.  I'm surprised
they've done it because they said they never would.

Q: Are you still in touch with Robert and Jimmy
JPJ Oh yes, but mainly for Zep business.  For instance we got together to
decide the tracklisting and artwork for the BBC sessions.
(solo album released 'this summer')


SOME WORDS FROM BERT JANSCH

"The funny thing is I only met Jimmy for the first time two years ago even
though he said he liked Pentangle.  He did Black Mountain Side which was at
raditional tune he found on my album Jack Orion. I suppose we never met
because we were touring.
He's always liked the folk thing but he leans al ot on other players apart
from me. I don't think there was anything schizophrenic about LZ playing
acoustic music or playing traditional tunes.  In those days everyone was
trying to put different sounds together.  Davey Graham probably started
those fusions.  He was very into Eastern music and then he crossed it with
the blues.  Jimmy was doing a similar thing.

(NOTE FOR KERRI: I saw Bert upstairs in my local pub last year.  An
excellent gig with about 50 people, I was sitting at the front on a few
feet away from him.  He performed solo with just his guitar playing many
traditional folk  songs plus, I guess, some of his own.  Yes he played
Black Water Side which, he explained, he got from Anne Briggs.  He
certainly didn't play Bron y Aur Stomp and wouldn't expect him to.)


UNCUT MAGAZINES ADDRESS

For those who have asked:

IPC Magazines, Oakfield House,  35 Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West
Sussex, UK, RH16 3DH.  Tel: (0) 14 44 44 55 55     Fax: (0) 14 44 44 55 99
www.uncut.net.