From Guitar World 12/93


                           Communication Breakdown
                           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
                                By Gary Graff

    -- Led is dead. Or so says ex-Zeppelin lemon squeezer ROBERT PLANT --

 So you're Robert Plant. You made your name with Led Zeppelin. And you've
spend much of your time since 1980 doing your best not to get sucked back into 
that bulbous vehicle--even if it meant refusing to perform "Stairway to Heaven"
during the Zep reunion at Atlantic Records' 40th birthday bash in 1988.

 But you have also got the 14 year old son. That is Zeppelin's core 
demographic--teenage, male, hormonally countershifting. Who better to request
some new Led Zeppelin Music?

 "Oh yeah, he spent about five years saying, 'Dad, why don't you do it again?',"
Plant says with a laugh. "So I kept banging him over the head with Blind Lemon
Jefferson. Made him listen to Howlin' Wolf, tied to a chair so he couldn't 
change the stereo. Now he's got it, he understands it."

 "I think he wanted his father to be famous again. I said, 'Look, that's not 
what it's all about, kid.' "

 At 45, Plant is simply a true believer, an ardent hippie who hasn't lost the 
ideals of peace, love charity and enrichment. In other words, it's not just 
"Tie Dye on The Highway" to him. His new album, _Fate of Nations_, is his 
seventh solo effort since Led Zep disbanded, and it flaunts the influence of 
late-Sixties California rock on his consciousness and his music.

 His music. This far into his solo career, Plant has a new home--much 
to the frustration of Jimmy Page, who has tried hard to lure the singer back to 
the fold and has only succeeded with a handful of one-off reunions and a 
Plant-sung track on Outrider (Geffen, 1988), Page's lone solo album.

 In fact, Plant generally eschews talking about Zeppelin or his former 
bandmates' activities at all. But during a break between his European 
tour--which found him opening for protege-of-sorts Lenny Kravitz--and his 
American concerts, Plant was in a mood to muse about the current status of the 
Zeppelin crew, reflecting thoughts that were kind and charitable but 
nonetheless uncompromising.

GW:  After so many years of headlining, what was it like to ba an 
     opening act?

RP:  It was a great exercise in sanity, really, because it could've been a 
     huge mistake. We were taking into account that a lot of Lenny's audience
     is comprised of 14- and 15-year old girls who don't even know about retro. 
     They're into it as a whole new period of their lives and style and 
     fashion of music--though we did pull in a lot of people on our own accord,
     on the strength and power of what we do.

     What was nice was that everyone who was coming to the show was in there 
     and waiting at eight oclock.  We had never even thought about the 
     disastrous effect of me being a warm-up act and people just walking in 
     with their popcorn. It worked out great.

GW:  Besides Lenny Kravitz, you also played some dates with the Black 
     Crowes--quite a retro twosome.

RP:  I talk with Chris [Robinson] of the Black Crowes. I think he's the most
     eloquent stylistic singer in the mainstream of pop. They really enjoy
     what we do. If we can, we spend time together as we go along, just
     sharing music. They're pretty sincere retro-men, really into their music
     strongly. They don't just look at Otis Redding and say, "That's it."
     They'll tell you about James Carr, Tyrone Davis. They're into the music
     for real.

     I think that's much more eloquent than Lenny. Lenny takes a pop pastiche,
     weaves it together and calls it original. Okay, who cares; I can't
     imagine Howlin' Wolf enjoying a couple of the Led Zeppelin songs.

GW:  Where do you hear Led Zeppelin in Lenny's pastiche?

RP:  Mainly in the guitar work. You can hear some of the phrasing in "Are You
     Gonna Go My Way" coming out of "The Wanton Song." Don't get me wrong; 
     he's a good guy. He's a bit serious... maybe a little too conscientious
     for his own good.

GW:  You seem to have learned to take yourself less seriously in the days
     since Led Zeppelin.

RP:  Oh, yeah, I mean, I believe implicitly in what I'm doing, wholeheartedly
     in the way it should be done. So I am serious. I also know when to laugh
     at myself and when to sort of take a little bit of a football swerve and
     say, "Nuh uh." It's not the most relaxing of careers, if you like, but
     I'm in the middle of it now. No matter what I might have wanted in the
     great sort of picture of totality, I'm blessed with fate. Fate dictates
     I must work really hard and try my best to have a good time. If I could
     pin everyone down and make them listen to "Great Spirit" and say "This
     is how everything should go. My music is the answer to everything," that
     would be fine. There's not a lot of point in that, even though I believe
     it.

GW:  So what do you listen to now?

RP:  I listen to the crowds [laughs]... I like Blind Melon very much; I got
     their album in June and took it away to the Mediterranean and played the
     hell out of it. It sounded like the most realistic and honest collection
     of songs I'd heard in a long time. And Neil Young; I saw him play in 
     Spain and he was wonderful.

GW:  Did you catch John Paul Jones playing with Lenny on the MTV awards?

RP:  I didn't, but I hear it was good. Good old Jonesy. John has a very 
     dignified and discreet way of going about his career. He's quietly 
     achieved a lot more than people could imagine -- I mean, he's worked with
     R.E.M., a lot of independent bands and stuff. He's done a lot of work in 
     Spain with contemporary Spanish classical musicians. He does what he 
     wants to do, which is great. I mean, what the hell is the point of going 
     to prison? Why go to jail and go around the world singing "Black Dog?"

GW:  It would be an awfully lucrative prison, though. It's pretty gutsy to 
     turn that kind of opportunity down.

RP:  What else could I have done, really?  I mean, Gary, I could have done 
     the "Sea Of Love" trip a few times, but what does it give me? It gives 
     me dollars in the bank. But it doesn't give me my dignity. When I watch 
     a guy like Neil Young, I am totally in empathy and in sympathy with the 
     way he goes about his work. All you have got to do is do what you did in 
     the beginning. Don't ever compromise.

GW:  And don't ever stop changing?

RP:  Right. I'm always changing. It's quite obvious there is no point in 
     a singer coming out with the same theme and the same idea and the same 
     stance time after time. Otherwise it becomes a hideous job. If you get 
     the right vibe, you can end up being incredibly successful just churning 
     it out.  But I don't think in my career, in Led Zeppelin or outside of 
     it, I have gone to that as a signpost for my music or my career.  Each 
     time out I think it's time to go some new place.

GW:  Is part of what's at work here a lingering sense that Jimmy has 
     generally gotten more credit than you for what Zeppelin accomplished?

RP:  I think Jimmys influence was strong in the beginning of the Led 
     Zeppelin period. I wouldn't say it was eclipsed, but artistic input is 
     artistic input; you've either got some or you haven't. As for mine, I 
     just continued to contribute until my contribution was really, really 
     strong by _Led Zeppelin IV_, even by _III_.  My contribution was really, 
     really strong. But you can't go running around saying, "Listen guys," or 
     call a press conference to say, "I did this." You just get on with it.

GW:  Do you pay attention to the boxed sets and reissues when they come out?

RP:  I get them. I don't play them all the way through. I play the songs. I do
      acknowledge the fact that they had to be improved, but I'm a little 
     skeptical as to whether or not it should be such a commercial adventure. 
     And I do find Jimmy's constant sort of commenting about the lack of Led 
     Zeppelin in the major sort of festival auditoriums in the country a bit 
     boring.

GW:  Well, he certainly tried to fill the niche with Coverdale/Page. That kind 
     of follows a Zeppelin blueprint.

RP:  You mean a quasi-Zeppelin. He's done his best. It is a bit limiting, 
     artistically, to think that's the way it is and that's what is needed.

GW:  Have you ever gotten to talk about this with Jimmy, to share artistic 
     viewpoints?

RP:  I don't know. I don't know the guy anymore. To me, the Crawling King 
     Snakes or the Band of Joy or Led Zep or the Honeydrippers are all just 
     things you do on the way. There are moments of greatness in everything, 
     in every project. You go, "Yeah, this is great," or you kill it quickly. 
     I think a musician must look at his career or his life like that.  You 
     can't say "Hey, this is great. Let's keep doing it." Or, "Let's just call
     it the Count Basie Orchestra and keep going without the Count." Apart 
     from being unnecessary, it's also unhealthy.

     I guess that's the difference between myself and the whole Led Zeppelin 
     myth as it is now and the need for it to be there. It's still there in 
     each of us; we should just continue in the best possible way to bring it 
     out. I do it my way. Jimmy does it in his. And Jonesy in his own way is 
     showing his prowess and getting on with his life.  Rather than being some 
     roller coaster money machine, all gauche and vulgar, I give you _The Fate
     Of Nations_.

GW:  And for the undetermined future?

RP:  In 12 years I'll be running a hotel in the Caribbean, playing ska music 
     on Thursday nights for the punters.