After The Beatles, Led Zeppelin are the best-selling band of all time. As the Fab Four ruled the sixties, the band of Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and John Bonham were incredibly influential on rock music during the seventies. Over 50 years since they formed, Plant and Page have now shared the secrets to their success.
Speaking with The Sun, Plant said: “Jimmy was the boss in the beginning. He and Jonesy bankrolled the whole thing.
“When we started playing, they were the luminaries but Bonzo and I carried a lot of excitement and raw crap from the Midlands.
“We were very fortunate because we had this thing called chemistry, although I hate to use that term.
“It was a fantastic and fortuitous accident.”
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The Led Zeppelin singer continued: “There was something evocative and slightly addictive about us because, in the middle of all our madness, you could feel and hear that it was Zeppelin.
“For the four of us, it was almost like role play.
“Self-expression was never marred and there was always a free pass to take an idea to the extreme.”
While Page said: “I have to say we were four amazing musicians playing as a band as opposed to one superstar surrounded by other musicians.”
Led Zeppelin’s first jam took place in a room below a record store on London’s Gerrard Street.
Speaking with the Ultimate Classic Rock Nights radio show, Page admitted: “What I knew was I’d never felt something like that before.
“And what I also knew was everybody else was in the same boat.
“No matter what they’d done in the past, they’d never been in a situation where everything was so sort of intense and so heavily connected – profoundly connected, musically – on just our first meeting and getting together to play.”
Page added: “I’d worked with Robert at my house, going through the various things I wanted to do like Dazed and Confused, Babe I’m Gonna Leave You.”
Led Zeppelin played Train Kept A-Rollin during their first rehearsal, a track The Yardbirds had covered.
The guitarist said: “But that initial rehearsal was enough for everybody to say, ‘Yeah.’
“We were recording in October of ’68; the Yardbirds were still going in July of ’68. You can imagine how quickly this whole thing came together.”
