When: 1977
Where: Chicago, Illinois
What: This is probably the most extraordinary experience I’ve ever had as a music writer. Read on:
I’m sitting aboard Caesar’s Chariot, Led Zeppelin’s customized Boeing 707 jet. Appropriately named after the conquering emperor who was ultimately doomed by an addiction to his own glory, this flying fortress now carries onboard an invading modern-day musical force. Zeppelin has just annihilated a sellout crowd of pagan revelers in St. Louis. We’re returning to Chicago where the band has set up its base of operations, the city that will represent ground zero for the next several weeks. For the previous two tours, in 1973 and 1975, they have adopted a similar strategy of positioning itself in one location and then flying out to concerts from a central point. It is the refuge for only the high and mightiest of groups. And it is the brainchild of tour manager Richard Cole, Peter Grant’s first lieutenant and longtime fixer.
We’re headed back to the Windy City’s Ambassador East Hotel. I’ve been sequestered there for eleven days, a week-and-a-half of unchecked excess and dark rumblings. The former balances the latter. The plane, for instance, has been refitted to accommodate a bar, two bedrooms, a 30ft. couch, and a Hammond organ. Luxury comes at an uncomfortable price - $2500 per day leasing fees. Still, amidst this opulence, you can’t help but notice how John Bonham lumbers about the cabin, a bottle of something in his hand, greeting everyone he encounters with barely-concealed contempt.
Bonzo walks by me and I don’t dare make eye contact. This is one of the many commandments handed down: Do not look directly at John Bonham. Actually, it is a sub-command but must be obeyed religiously in any event. I’m still seat-buckled in, trying to make myself inconspicuous and ruminating over what I’d been through this past week or so. Only a couple days earlier was I finally granted my first audience with the guitarist. I had begun to think that might not ever happen. But my room phone rang one late morning and a voice informed me that Jimmy would see me now. As I was ushered into his spectacular suite – you never walked anywhere within the hotel compound without an escort – it was impossible not to notice the busted telephone, the hole in the wall, and a half empty bottle of Jack Daniels perched on his nightstand. Telltale signs of an angry young musician. He would upend that bottle at regular intervals during our conversation. His speech would become increasingly slurred and deliberate but this was more than a guitarist getting drunk in the early afternoon. This is 1977, Zeppelin’s eleventh U.S. tour, and Page’s drinking habits are by now, well documented. No, there’s more, an underlying current of anger in every word slowly muttered. As if he’s in a constant posture of self-defense or even, paranoia. In fact, he’s ripped the telephone from the wall because he felt intruded upon and didn’t want spying ears listening in.
And now here we are, cruising altitude, and I’m accompanied to the rear of the plane. Janine Safer, the band’s publicist, is on point, a monster of a security guard follows her, then me, and another security soldier brings up the rear. Military precision, though, for all the world, this feels more than anything else like a dead man walking. And I’m about to understand why. I greet Jimmy (it’s hard to tell whether he recognizes me from a few days ago or not), sit down, and begin talking. As I’m hunched over, trying to hear him above the din of the whirring white noise, from behind, a vise-like grip grabs my right shoulder. I’m thinking that was a fast 15 minutes when I’m physically lifted from the seat and violently spun around. Standing before me is one seriously pissed-off John Paul Jones. And that’s when my world unravels.
“Rosen, you fucking cunt liar, I should fucking kill you.”
In punctuation to his remarks – as if these shouted invectives coming from the mouth of the world’s most important bass player and directed at me aren’t enough to reduce me to some lifeless mass - he demanded the return of all the interview tapes I’d thus far conducted. I handed them over, watching my reputation and any hopes of a music career encased inside these little plastic cassette cases. At this moment, cassette coffins better described them.
The venom in his voice staggers me. I feel as if I’m having an out-of-body experience. But each time I shut my eyes and open them, I’m still there – and horrifically, so is Jones. I’m on an airplane traveling 600 miles an hour, hurtling towards a destination I know I don’t want to reach. I keep waiting for some miracle, an engine falling off, or a wing icing up. And the only thing that grows colder is the look on his face and the blood running through his veins
What makes this all the more unnerving is that John Paul and I had spent some illuminating time together just two days after I’d arrived. No Jack, no mutilated furniture, only a soft-spoken bass player telling me about his life.
“The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other. It was wall-to-wall amplifiers and terrible, all old. Jimmy said, ‘Do you know a number called ‘The Train Kept A-Rolling?’ I told him, ‘No,’ and he said, ‘It’s easy, just G to A.’ He counted it out and the room just exploded, and we said, ‘Right, we’re on, this is it, this is going to work!’ And we just sort of built it up from there. (And now) I wouldn’t be without Zeppelin for the world.”
And I believed him; you couldn’t help but believe him. Led Zeppelin was his life and his love and he was forever protecting it, as he told me, from those who would try to run it down. He was talking about critics, in the main, journalists who would tell him how much they admired the band and then turn around and write scathing reviews. And here, confronting me now, is all that passion turned poisonous. The bassist hurls curse after curse, and even motions in a gesture carrying with it physical implications. Though I’ve never been in a fight in my life, his veiled threats do not cause me much alarm. John Paul, I felt, was someone against whom I could probably hold my own. No, it is the standing mountains of muscled beef surrounding him – his security team – that give me pause. They shoot me looks that convey a pretty simple message: Make even the slightest motion towards this man before you, and what happens next will surely be one of the less pleasant moments you’ll ever experience.
At that point, it’s hard to determine whether it’s more the fear or embarrassment that has rendered me speechless and immobile. But, no, it’s the fear, definitely the fear. As I fall in and out of moments of lucidity, I’m trying to figure out why I’ve been singled out for Jonesy’s personal attentions. Then I see, there in his right hand, the cause of my dilemma. It is a copy of Rock Guitarists Vol. I (ironically Vol. II would feature my Page story on the cover), a compilation of Guitar Player stories collected over the past several years. That magazine is the reason I’m here; to do a cover piece on Page and a major feature on Jones. My very own cause celebre, the very thing that has brought me here, is going to bury me.
He has rolled it up into a tube shape and smacks it repeatedly into his open left palm. I had written the Jeff Beck story gracing the cover and had brought copies for he and Jimmy. Peace offerings. They both knew Jeff, of course, and I thought the gesture would present me as a writer with a bit of street cred. And in that terrible second, it hits me – no, not magazine as bludgeon – but the realization: I have sent Jonesy off the deep end because I’ve betrayed his trust. I have mutated into one of them, one of the conniving and lying journalists he had been ranting about. Repeatedly during our interview, I told him how honored I was to be on the road with him and how much respect I had for the band. I know he believed what I said because it was the truth and I meant every word of it. And now he’d read these words I’d written four years earlier and what was he to believe?
This is what he read:
“A contemporary of Beck, Jimmy Page has failed to recreate the magic he performed as guitarist for The Yardbirds. Led Zeppelin started off as nothing more than a grandiose reproduction of Beck’s past work..” and so on.
It was stupid and ridiculous and I’m ashamed to this day for writing that. I wrote my way into this - how would I write my way out?
I had been warned. On the very day I arrived, the rules were outlined for me. And now, only eleven days later, I had already broken the 5th commandment.
Chalk it up to inexperience – and maybe no little bit of stupidity. At this point, I’ve only been freelancing for about 3 ½ years, plying my trade in various local and regional papers. I made my bones and cracked the inner sanctum of magazines like Creem and Circus. And then in December 1973, Guitar Player, after rejecting multiple submissions, accepted a Q&A on Jeff Beck and used it for that month’s cover. This is the story – the first one I’d ever written for GP – that would make Jones go for the jugular. It was my breakthrough as a fledgling scribe.
And here, now, all that hard work had culminated with the opportunity of a lifetime. After nearly a year’s worth of phone calls to the Swan Song offices in New York (Zeppelin’s private record label), I was finally being greenlighted ; I’d be allowed to travel with the band on their private plane and stay with them in the same hotel. After all this, getting this close, I was going to leave empty handed. Or maybe with a broken finger. Tales were rife about Zeppelin’s enforcers doing bodily harm to bootleggers and overzealous fans.
I wasn’t really worried about a fractured phalange, but I had broken one of the Led Zeppelin Laws and I was now suffering the consequences. On the day I arrived, a black limo had been sent to the airport to retrieve me. Janine Safer, band publicist, introduced herself and welcomed me. After a glass of champagne and settled snugly into the plush leather backseat, I listen to her as she personally instructs me on the Five Rules of Engagement:
Rule 1. Never talk to anyone in the band unless they first talk to you.
Rule 1A. Do not make any sort of eye contact with John Bonham. This is for your own safety.
Rule 2. Do not talk to Peter Grant or Richard Cole – for any reason.
Rule 3. Keep your cassette player turned off at all times unless conducting an interview.
Rule 4. Never ask questions about anything other than music.
Rule 5. Most importantly, understand this – the band will read what is written about them. The band does not like the press nor do they trust them.
This is the one that would prove my undoing.
Not much to get lost in translation here. Seemed simple enough. The long stretch Cadillac wends its way through the streets of downtown Chicago. I have a second glass of champagne – a third? – and I hand Janine two copies of a special issue of Guitar Player magazine. I’ve brought them along because I thought they might curry favor with the band. I do hesitate for the briefest of moments but I’m not quite sure why (multiple glasses of Dom had erased the memory of what was written on those pages). She tells me she’ll personally deliver them to John Paul and Jimmy.
Janine was as good as her word. Because here it is, that cursed little magazine, in Jones’ hand. She had also given a copy to Jimmy, who was sitting right there during this fracas, but I didn’t know if he had read it. And even if he did read it, I didn’t know if he cared.
The flight is interminable. After an excruciating 45 minutes, we return to the Ambassador East, I pack my bags, and prepare for an early-morning flight back to West Hollywood. Menacing scowls from bouncers told me I was now an unwanted entity and I made as hasty a retreat as possible. Janine came to my hotel room door and encouraged me to go and talk to John Paul, to try and explain my side of the story. She had witnessed the entire flying episode and realized my predicament.
I went down to his hotel suite, knocked, and as the door swung open, my head went blank, my tongue shriveled and I stood there, once again, like an idiot. As a failsafe, I had written him a letter. I handed it to him; he grabbed it without reading it, and shocked me by returning my tapes. He told me he thought I was a lowlife piece of garbage and the worst writer he’d ever read, but that I did have a responsibility to the magazine.
I did leave Chicago early the next morning and returned to California. I wrote the story and the cover appeared in GP’s July 1977 issue. It was an extraordinarily well-received piece and though I wish it could have been more extensive (damn you, Rule #5), I was quite pleased with it. Page was on the cover and John Paul was the main feature.
One evening, about a month after the Zeppelin blowup, I was at the Starwood club in West Hollywood. I’m sitting there with my brother, Mick, watching Detective, the band Swan Song was signing to its label. Mick tells me John Paul Jones is in the corner and he’s walking this way. I’d told him about the encounter and I know he’s just goofing with me. I turn around and once again, Jonesy confronts me. I don’t know whether to go into a boxer’s crouch or scurry down the stairs. He extends his hand in a sincere gesture of forgiveness. He had read my apology letter and in light of that, understood what I’d said in the Jeff Beck story. That writer was simply trying to make a name for himself by camouflaging opinion as fact. Sensationalism. National Enquirer-styled journalism. John Paul Jones had read the Guitar Player story and loved it. John Paul Jones read my words and he loved them.
I hugged him, he hugged me back, and sat down at our table for a drink. I grinned like an idiot for the rest of the night.
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| "As soon as I got out of school I played at American Air Force bases, which was good training." |
What was the impetus behind becoming a bass player?
I used to play piano when I was younger, and there was a rock and roll band forming at school when I was fourteen, but they didn’t want a piano player—all they wanted was drums or bass. I thought, “I can’t get the drums on the bus”, bass looked easy—four strings, no chords, easy—so I took it up. And it was easy; it wasn’t too bad at all. I took it up before guitar, which I suppose is sort of interesting. Before I got a real 4-string, my father had a ukulele banjo, a little one, and I had that strung up like a bass, but it didn’t quite have the bottom that was required. Actually my father didn’t want to have to sign a guarantor to back me in the payments for a bass. He said, “Don’t bother with it; take up the tenor saxophone. In two years the bass guitar will never be heard of again.” I said, “No Dad, I really want one, there’s work for me.” He said, “Ah, there’s work?” And I got a bass right away.
What was your first bass?
Oh, it was a pig; it had a neck like a tree trunk. It was a solidbody Dallas bass guitar with a single cutaway. It sounded all right though, and it was good for me because I developed very strong fingers. I had no idea about setting instruments up then, so I just took it home from the shop. I had an amplifier with a 10” speaker—oh, it was awful. It made all kinds of farting noises. And then I had a converted television; you know one of those big old standup televisions with the amp in the bottom and a speaker where the screen should be. I ended up giving myself double hernias. Bass players always had the hardest time because they always had to cope with the biggest piece of equipment. It never occurred to me when I was deciding between that and drums that I’d had to lug a bass amp.
What kind of music were you playing in that first band?
Shadows, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis stuff. I started doubling on piano. We didn’t have a drummer at first, because we never could find one. That happened to another bass player, Larry Graham, Sly Stone’s bass player. He started off in a band with no drummer, which is how he got that percussive style. You’ve got a lot to make up for once the lead guitar takes a solo because there’s only you left. You’ve got to make a lot of noise. We got a drummer after a while whom I taught, would you believe. I’ve never played drums in my life.
That must have definitely had an influence on your playing.
I suppose it must have. I don’t like bass players that go boppity boppity bop all over the neck; you should stay around the bottom and provide the end of the group. I work very closely with the drummer; it’s very important.
How long did that first band last?
Not very long. I found a band with a drummer. This band also came along with really nice looking guitars, and I thought, “Oh, they must be great!” They had Burns guitars so I got myself one, too—the one with the three pickups and a Tru-Voice amplifier. We all had purple band jackets and white shoes, and I thought, “This is it, this is the big time.” But as soon as I got out of school I played at American Air Force bases, which was good training, plus they always had great records in the jukebox. That was my introduction to the black music scene, when very heavy gentlemen would come up insisting on “Night Train” eight times an hour.
What was the first really professional band you were in?
It was with Jet Harris and Tony Meehan (bassist and drummer with The Shadows). That was when I was seventeen, I suppose. And those were the days when they used to scream all the way through the show. It was just like now, really, where you have to make a dash for the limos at the end of the night—make a sort of terrible gauntlet. In the days before roadies you’d have to drag around your own gear, so we all invested in a roadie. We thought we owed it to ourselves, and this bloke was marvelous. He did everything, he drove the wagon, he lugged the gear, he did the lights—the whole thing.
What kind of bass were you using with Harris and Meehan?
Oh, I got my first Fender then. I lusted after this Jazz bass in Lewisham, and it cost me about $250, I think. It was the new one. They’d just changed the controls, and I used that bass up until last (1975) tour, and then she had to go. She was getting unreliable and rattling a lot, and I just had to leave her home this time.
What followed your working with that band?
I got into sessions. I thought, “I’ve had enough of the road,” bought myself a dog and didn’t work for six months. Then I did start up again. I played in other silly bands. I remember that Jet Harris and Tony Meehan band—John McLaughlin joined on rhythm guitar. It was the first time I’d met him and it was hilarious. Here he was sitting there all night going Dm to G to Am. That was my first introduction to jazz when he came along, because we’d all get to the gig early and have a blow. Oh, that was something, first meeting him. And then I joined a couple of other bands with him for a while, rhythm and blues bands.
Do you remember the first session that you ever did?
No, I don’t think so; it was in Decca Number 2 (studio in London). I was late, and I suddenly realized how bad my reading was. There was another bass player there, a stand-up bass, and I was just there to provide the click. It was nearly my last session.
Who were some of the people you were doing sessions with?
All kinds of silly people: used to do calls with Tom Jones, Cathy Kirby, Dusty Springfield.
The Rolling Stones and Donovan, too, didn’t you?
I only did one Stones session, really. I just did the strings—they already had the track down. It was “She’s A Rainbow.” And then the first Donovan session was a shambles, it was awful. It was Sunshine Superman and the arranger had got it all wrong, so I thought, being the opportunist that I was, “I can do better than that” and actually went up to the producer. He came around and said, “Is there anything we can do to sort of save the session?” And I piped up, “Well, look how about if I play it straight?”—because I had a part which went sort of ooowooooo (imitates a slide up the neck) every now and again, and the other bass player sort of did wooooo (imitates downwards slide) down below, and then there was some funny congas that were in and out of time. And I said, “How about if we just sort of play it straight; get the drummer to do this and that?”
How did the session go?
The session came off, and I was immediately hired as the arranger by Mickie Most whom I loved working with; he was a clever man. I used to do Herman’s Hermits and all that. I mean they were never there; you could do a whole album in a day. And it was great fun and a lot of laughs. I did all of Lulu’s stuff and all his artists. I did one Jeff Beck single, and he’s never spoken to me since. It was “Hi Ho Silver Lining.” I did the arrangement for it and I played bass. Then we had “Mellow Yellow” for Donovan, which we argued about for hours because they didn’t like my arrangement at all, not at all. Mickie stood by me. He said, “I like the arrangement, I think it’s good.” It wasn’t Donovan—he didn’t mind either—but he had so many people around him saying, “Hey, this isn’t you.” But he sold a couple of a million on it, didn’t he?
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| "We started under the name the New Yardbirds because nobody would book us under anything else." |
Was the “Hurdy Gurdy Man” session when you first met Jimmy Page?
No. I’d met Jimmy on sessions before. It was always Big Jim and little Jim—Big Jim Sullivan and little Jim and myself and the drummer. Apart from group sessions where he’d play solos and stuff like that, Page always ended up on rhythm guitar because he couldn’t read too well. He could read chord symbols and stuff, but he’d have to do anything they’d ask when he walked into a session. But I used to see a lot of him just sitting there with an acoustic guitar sort of raking out chords. I always thought the bass player’s life was much more interesting in those days, because nobody knew how to write for bas, so they used to say, “We’ll give you the chord sheet and get on with it.” So even on the worst sessions you could have a little runaround. But that was good; I would have hated to have sat there on acoustic guitar.
How long did you do sessions?
Three or four years, on and off. Then I thought I was going to get into arranging because it seemed that sessions and running about was much too silly. I started running about and arranging about forty or fifty things a month. I ended up just putting a blank piece of score paper in front of me and just sitting there and staring at it. Then I joined Led Zeppelin, I suppose, after my missus said to me, “Will you stop moping around the house; why don’t you join a band or something?” And I said, “There are no bands I want to join, what are you talking about?” And she said, “Well, look, I think it was in Disc, Jimmy Page is forming a group,”—he’d just left the Yardbirds—‘why don’t you give him a ring?” So I rang him up and said, “Jim, how you doing? Have you got a group yet?” He said, “I haven’t got anybody yet.” And I said, “Well, if you want a bass player, give me a ring.” And he said, “All right, I’m going up to see this singer Terry Reid told me about, and he might know a drummer as well. I’ll call you when I’ve seen what they’re like.” He went up there, saw Robert Plant, and said, “This guy is really something.” We started under the name the New Yardbirds because nobody would book us under anything else. We rehearsed an act, an album, and a tour in about three weeks, and it took off. The first time, we all met in this little room just to see if we could even stand each other. It was wall-to-wall amplifiers and terrible, all old. Robert (Plant) had heard I was a session man, and he was wondering what was going to turn up—some old bloke with a pipe? So Jimmy said, “We’re all here, what are we going to play?” And I said, “I don’t know, what do you know?” And Jimmy said, “Do you know a number called, “The Train Kept A Rollin’?” I told him, “No.” And he said, “It’s easy, just G to A.” he counted it out, and the room just exploded, and we said, “Right. We’re on, this is it, this is going to work!” And we just sort of built it up from there. “Dazed And Confused” came in because Jimmy knew that, but I could never get the sequence right for years; it kept changing all the time with different parts, and I was never used to that. I used to having the music there—I could never remember—in fact, I’m still the worst in the band remembering anything. And the group jokes about it, “Jonesy always gets the titles wrong and the sequences wrong." Even now I have a piece of paper I stuck on top of the Mellotron which says: “Kashmir—remember the coda!”
What were some of your early amplifiers?
I’ve used everything from a lousy made-up job, to a great huge top valve (tube) amp. We started off in a deal with Rickenbacker where we had these awful Rickenbacker amps; they were so bad. Our first tour was a shambles. For about a year I never even heard the bass. They said, “We’ve designed this speaker cabinet for you,” and I said, “Let me see it, what’s it got in it?’ It had one 30” speaker! I said, “All right, stand it up there alongside whatever else I’ve got, and I’ll use it.” I plugged it in, and in a matter of five seconds it blew up. I thought the bloke was having me on; I said, “There’s no such thing ads a 30” speaker!” And I had to take the back off because I couldn’t believe it. Then we met the guy from Univox, and he came up with a bass stack, which unfortunately didn’t last the night. But while it was going, it was the most unbelievable sound I’ve ever heard. It was at the Nassau Coliseum in New York, I remember, and the bass filled the hall. It was so big, it couldn’t have lasted. I don’t think I’ll come across anything that sounded like that. But as I said, three numbers and wheel the Acoustics out again. I used two or three 360 standard Acoustics for quite a long time. They served me well.
You used the Jazz bass until just recently?
Yeah. Oh, I got ahold of a very nice Gibson violin bass (pictured in the little cut out wheel on the cover of Led Zeppelin III). That was nice, too, it’s not stage worthy, but it gives a beautiful warm sound. I don’t like Gibson basses generally because they feel all rubbery; I like something you can get your teeth into. But the violin bass was the only Gibson that was as heavy as a Fender to play, but still had that fine Gibson sound. I used it on Led Zeppelin III, and I’ve used it every now and again, usually when I’m tracking a bass after I’ve done keyboards for the main track. The one I have went through Little Richard’s band and then through James Brown’s band, and it arrived in England. In fact, I saw it in an old movie clip of Little Richard. It was probably about a ’48 or ’50 or something like that; it was the original one. Actually, I’ve also got an old ’52 Telecaster bass. I used that onstage for a while, for “Black Dog” and things like that.
Do you ever use a pick when you play?
Yes, when the situation demands it; on the 8-string it’s awful messy with your fingers. On “The Song Remains The Same” I use a pick to get that snap out of the instrument. It’s fun, you play different. If I was just playing straight bass, I’d use fingers. When I first started I always used my fingers.
How has playing with Jimmy Page for the last nine years styled your playing?
That’s hard. I play a lot looser than I used to. For instance somebody like John Entwistle is more of a lead instrument man than I am. I tend to work closer with Bonzo I think. But then again I don’t play that much bass onstage anymore, what with the pianos and the Mellotron. I’ll always say I’m a bass player, though.
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| "I wouldn't be without Zeppelin for the world." |
How do you develop a bass part?
You put in what’s correct and what’s necessary. I always did like a good tune in the bass. For example, listen to “What Is And What Should Never Be” (on Led Zeppelin II). The role of a bassist is hard to define. You can’t play chords so you have a harmonic role; picking and timing notes. You’ll suggest a melodic or harmonic pattern, but I seem to be changing anyway toward more of a lead style. The Alembic bass is doing it; I play differently on it. But I try to never forget my role as a bass player: to play the bass and not mess around too much up at the top all the time. You’ve got to have somebody down there, and that’s the most important thing. The numbers must sound right, they must work right, they must be balanced.
You just picked a track from the second album, but there was something so gloriously unique about the first Zep record.
I know what people mean when they say the first Zeppelin album was the best. It was the first. I don’t know what it was; we could never recreate those conditions it was recorded in. It was done in about thirty hours, recorded and mastered. There was a lot of energy in those days. But I liked (Physical Graffiti). I liked most of them actually. The funny thing was about the first album, when we got to about the third album (Led Zeppelin III) and started using acoustics everyone was saying, ‘Ahhh, Led Zeppelin has gone acoustic. They’ve changed their style.’ What everybody forgets is there were two acoustic numbers on the first album. Right? ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ and ‘Black Mountain Side.’The funny thing is people try to pigeonhole you with all that heavy metal stuff. And if they ever listened to the fucking albums they’d realize it was never riff after riff after riff. It never was like that, you know? Peculiar... oh, wel
Do you practice?
In a word, no. I fool around on piano but bass I never practice. Although again, with the Alembic, I’m beginning to feel, “Wouldn’t it be nice to have it in the room?” It really makes you want to play more, which is fantastic.
The band has always had a strange relationship with the press.
There is an amount of professionalism which must be retained. You can’t go around canceling gigs and things like that. After Robert’s accident there were rumors of, ‘Oh, they’re afraid to come out’ and this and that which was really hard on us because we’ve always tried to be as professional as possible. And we take a pride in this. We’ve tried to turn up on time but it gets hard moving this amount of people. And that sort of thing hurts. Robert was m a wheelchair and we had to wait until he was healed. And then we were all ready to go and he got tonsillitis on this ‘77 tour. And he must have felt so bad. I tell you if this band ever drops from favor with the public, a load of people are going to come down on our asses so fucking hard. They’re just waiting for us to drop. I don’t know why, I honestly don’t know.
I always remember the first review of our first album in Rolling Stone and the bloke dismissed it out of hand. I don’t even think he would listen to it and said as much. Then they dismissed us as hype.
Who do you listen to?
I don’t. I used to listen to a lot of jazz bass players once, but jazz has changed so much now, it’s hardly recognizable. I listened to a lot of tenor sax players: Sonny Rollins, John Coltrane and all those people. Bass players? Scott La Faro, who died. He used to be with (jazz pianist) Paul Chambers. Ray Brown and Charlie Mingus, of course. I’m not too keen on the lead bass style of some players. Paul McCartney, I’ve always respected; he puts the notes in the right place at the right time. He knows what he’s about.
Who don’t you listen to?
Ian [Anderson] is a pain in the ass. We toured with Jethro Dull [sic] once and I think he probably spoke three words to Jimmy or I at any one time. The band was nice but he was such a funny fucker. His music bores the pants off me—it’s awful. Page came up with the greatest line about them. He had a title for a live album when Jethro was playing in Los Angeles: Bore ‘Em at The Forum. (Ritchie) Blackmore is another guy I don’t like. He was supposed to have been a big session man but he must have done demos because he was never a regular session man. I’m getting out all my pet hates.
There’s nothing you’d like to do outside of Zeppelin in an instrumental context?
I always get the feeling I’d like to write a symphony. I like all music. I like classical music a lot—Ravel, Bach, of course, Mozart I could never stand, though to play it on the piano is great fun. If Bach had ever come across the bass guitar, he would have loved it. Rock and roll is the only music left where you can improvise. I don’t really know what’s happened to jazz; it has really disappointed me. I guess they started playing rock and roll
So you’re able to continually experiment in Zeppelin and expand your playing?
Yes, absolutely. I wouldn’t be without Zeppelin for the world. What’s it like being in Led Zeppelin? I don’t know. It ‘tis a peculiar feeling; it intrigues me.
2007 © Steven Rosen
/ my profile 
w00t
