Page/Plant Rolling Stone 1998

["David Montgomery" <dmontgomery@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Page & Plant
Sylvie Simmons, Rolling Stone, 1998

The very idea of MTV as deus ex machina is enough to send shudders down the
hardiest spine. But MTV it was who approached Robert Plant ? otherwise
busily engaged making records with unknown young-bloods, and insulting Jimmy
Page for working with wellknown old-farts, David Coverdale specifically ?
and managed to whisper the right things in his ear that led him to do what
he swore he never would (except for parties, weddings and bar mitzvahs):
reunite Led Zeppelin.

Minus its rhythm section (one dead, one uninterested), but what the hell,
Unledded was as near to Zeppelin Unplugged as we're likely to get. And the
next thing we know, Page and Plant are chums again (although of course
they're proclaiming they never fell out in the first place, even if Plant
had been saying stuff like "Working with Jimmy again would be like meeting a
former wife and going to bed ? impossible") and packing their cases and off
to Morocco to hang out with the Gnaoua tribe. Then packing bigger cases and
off to Wales to add loops and Celtic embroidery to old Zeppelin classics for
an album, No Quarter. Then packing extremely big cases for 13 months on the
road with an Egyptian orchestra, a hormonal rock rythm section and a
hurdy-gurdy man. It was, they stressed then, a tentative reunion. It's not
any more. Three-and-a-bit years later, there's a new album, Walking Into
Clarksdale ? an excellent record that takes up where Houses Of The Holy left
off, but with some fascinating diversions.

"The reason it was tentative in the beginning is because we didn't know how
we were going to fare under the various pressurised environments or the
workload," says Plant, "and the reason it's not now is because it was fun
and the spark is still there. I realised that I missed Jimmy, missed his
playing, so I was somehow going to have to deal with what was basically my
own insistence on having nothing to do with any kind of Led Zeppelin rerun ?
which was pretty hypocritcal at that stage, because I was doing Zeppelin
songs with my own band."

"With other liasons", says Page, sitting next to Plant on the huge leather
sofa and paying respectful attention, "certainly on my side of things and I
think on Robert's too, it has never really gelled the way it does with us
two. It's something that we had back in those days of Zep, and when we got
back together for Unledded, on the very first day it was so evident that we
still had it. And the tour... there's been a lot of water under the bridge
over those 14 years or whatever, but that did bring us closer together."

It was their jaunt first together since the stadium-rock juggernauts of the
'70s, but this was different ? more like a travelling carnival. Page
chuckles, "It was an incredible extravaganza to take rolling around the
world, with these Egyptians who had no camaraderie amongst themselves
whatsoever and who were all willing to stab each other in the back..."

"And offer marriage to anybody who might make them Americans or Canadians!",
Plant interrupts. "But they were playing their game, we were playing ours.
The Egyptians had their own internal power struggles, but we managed to sort
ours out. Which is why at the end Jimmy and I were able to hug each other
farewell, knowing there would be another time. With that kind of production,
we couldn't do a hit or miss thing like Zeppelin was ? because Zeppelin
played some amazing shows, but we also played some very un-amazing ones. So
as the focal point of this thing, we had to keep the egos under control and
maintain a certain level. Which we did, although we buckled under the
pressure a bit here and there and the rigorous touring routine. This time
we're going to have to sit down a lot."

In the old days it would have been a case of pop some pills and leap around
for another 48 hours without pain. Didn't the excesses of the Zep days
beckon? "No, because we were getting high on the music, believe it or not,
sitting on the drum riser watching the hurdy-gurdy solo..."

"Robert used to throw his tambourine at him if he went on too long", Page
chortles.

"The hurdy-gurdy player had an incredible sex drive that was never really
satisified because he used to drive the women away with his powers of
conversation", says Plant, "and you'd know when he was desperate to do well
with a member of the audience because the solo would go on for so long that
I would throw the tambourine along the floor ? with a bit of back-spin so it
would go past him and roll back towards us ? so he'd know we'd soon be
striding up and unplugging him. All those incidents make drugs completely
obsolete. There was so much laughing and groaning ? and the occasional
fornication.The spirit we had by the end of the tour... I wish we could have
cut the tour short and done another album then."

Instead, after a suitable break befitting their advancing years ? during
which time Robert travelled along the Silk Route to the Great Wall Of China
and Jimmy to Brazil ? they got back together and, within half an hour of
jamming, had come up with the basis of Walking Into Clarksdale (named for a
Blues pilgrimage Plant made). Other than the usual suspects, and ideas
they'd picked up on their travels, the main inspiration for the album seems
to be the Pulp Fiction soundtrack ? "the sort of dark, Dick Dale/ Surf
pastiche sound of that period with big guitars and a hell of a lot of
vocal", says Plant. "Plus Moby Grape and the West Coast sound, Jeff Buckley
and Roy Orbison ? all that emotive stuff."

"It's funny about your concept of the Surf thing", says Page, as if Plant
had just mentioned it for the first time. "Because I've never had a Dick
Dale album and the only Link Wray thing I've got is 'The Rumble'. But you
know, our perceptions of it are different. I never try to purposely shape a
sound. It's just the way things came to be. It was all totally organic."

"And pretty instant", adds Plant. "We'd say, 'Right, let's leave it now', so
that when we came back to playing it in the studio months later it still had
that kind of excitement."

Steve Albini was brought in to produce. Not because of Nirvana, or Bush, or
Rapeman. He'd expressed a wish to work with them, and when Page found out
how good he was at "the microphone-placing technique, which is something
that was developed back in the days when things were just EQ-ed by using
microphones ? it's very rare nowadays that an engineer is so familiar with
it", he got the job. The album was recorded in Abbey Road in 35 days. "One
thing we did know", says Page, "was we weren't going to get into one of
those albums that take forever."

If Plant's lyrics sound wistful and scattered about with emotional debris a
la the new Dylan album, it's got nothing to do with midlife crisis, the
insecurities of the formerly leonine rock god. "I don't believe in any of
that crap!" splutters Plant. "I play tennis ? that's how to deal with that.
I've not opened my ribs up and pulled my heart out for everyone to view,
I've just written from an angle I thought fitted the mood of the song. Some
songs are personal, but not the wistful ones ? more the ironic ones. The
perfect love is not something I crave for. Although, I am very much in love
with a young lady, a friend of the family ? that's all I'll say because I
haven't told her yet." Plant squirms; Page laughs.

"Plus", Plant regains his cool. "I believe Dylan more than I believe me."

© Sylvie Simmons 1996