Led Zeppelin’s greatest merit, according to Jimmy Page

In many ways, the Led Zeppelin was one of the greatest bands of all time. Sales, popularity, size of shows, pioneering spirit, influence… the group formed by Robert Plant (voice), Jimmy Page (guitar), John Paul Jones (low) and John Bonham (drums) made history to the point that we are discussing their achievements, so many decades ago – since the group ended in 1980.

But where is the great secret of Zeppelin? In a 2015 interview with the newspaper TheGuardian, Page was direct and sincere when reflecting on the band’s greatest achievements in its 12 years of activity.

At the time, he was talking about Led Zeppelin Deluxe Edition, a series of lavish re-releases of the band’s albums, with new releases between 2014 and 2015. In previous years, Jimmy needed to revisit the group’s entire catalogue, not only because the songs on these albums went through a remastering process, but also because one of the premises was to include additional unreleased tracks or in alternative versions.

That said, Page shared what his big conclusion was about the Led Zeppelin when putting together reissues of the entire catalogue. The answer was:

“It just reinforced what I already knew: that we were four musicians who were masters at what they did.”

Put this way, it seems simple to summarize the merit of a band as “everyone being a master”, right? Although, Jimmy highlighted another curious point: in his opinion, the group members (himself included) were so good in their areas that they would end up “working” both collectively and individually.

“The alchemy of that was very, very special, it was unique. The scope of what we could do individually or collectively was unparalleled.”

Led Zeppelin, records and avant-garde

Another opinion shared by Jimmy Page has to do with the strength of the Led Zeppelin, in your opinion. For him, the group really stood out on records, in “recorded music”, and not in shows, like most rock bands.

“If you say the name of the Led Zeppelin to someone, then something will come to mind – riffs, or a vocal line, or whatever. Everything I tried to do [em Led Zeppelin Deluxe Edition] it was to present a portal to the time when these things were recorded. It’s the recorded music that kept the Led Zeppelin at the forefront. And it made it vital to listen to young musicians. The set of reissues has become a great textbook.”

The unrealized future

Still during the interview, Jimmy Page was asked what the direction of the Led Zeppelin if the band had not ended its activities in 1980. At the time, the group decided to end after the death of the drummer John Bonham.

As they came from an album (In Through the Out Door, 1979) considered “lighter” due to the strong use of keyboards, Page believed that the next album would be more guitar-oriented.

“John and I would like to discuss what we would like to do on the next album. If you listen to the discography of Led Zeppelin From start to finish, you can hear all the things I like to do – riffs that would be quite complicated, interesting, provocative. And he loved playing that kind of stuff. So we definitely would have done some guitar riffs, because he loved all of that and because we had just made a keyboard-driven album (In Through the Out Door).”

Another curious question presented to Page is whether he intended to participate more in the creative process of Zeppelin. In In Through the Out Door, the predominance of keyboards was precisely because John Paul Jones appeared more as a composer. He replied:

“I have no idea [se voltaria a contribuir mais]. What I know is that John Paul Jones created entire songs [para In Through the Out Door] It is Robert I was writing the lyrics – I wasn’t going to write the lyrics. So that seemed to be the way it was going at that time. It didn’t bother me at all. From what I could see, it was just the natural progression.”