PLANTATIONS: SHOULD RALPH NADER JOIN LED ZEPPELIN?

PLANTATIONS: SHOULD RALPH NADER JOIN LED ZEPPELIN?

MAY 1976

British writerChris Charlesworth found Robert Plant in a talkative mood here; months after his near-fatal car wreck, Plant obviously felt the need to speak his mind about a lot of things. Here he talks about lyric writing, his role in the band and several interesting things heretofore undiscussed. Read on...

Chris Charlesworth

The ever-elusive Led Zeppelin surfaced in New York in January at the Park Lane Hotel on Central Park South. Jimmy Page was accounted for, his mission being to finish mixing the soundtrack of the long-awaited Led Zeppelin movie. The rest of the boys were just in town for “social reasons,” according to Swan Song. Who should know.

Of the four, Robert Plant was by far the most “social,” stopping off at bars uptown and downtown, always in the company of English sound engineer Benjie Le Fevre, and an English bodyguard named David. Plant still walks with a crutch, a wincing reminder of last August’s car crash on the Greek island of Rhodes. Although the plaster has now been removed, his usual hurried shuffle has been replaced by a deliberate, careful plod. He doesn’t think he’ll be able to dance until the beginning of next soccer season, which is tantamount to saying that Led Zeppelin won’t be able to perform live until that time also.

Indestructible? Obviously not. The fractured foot has stymied Plant’s usual arrogance. Temporarily, at any rate, he can’t run with the pack and this compulsory moderation to the pace of his life seems to have brought about a certain sympathy that wasn’t always apparent in his personality. He might look like the proverbial Greek god rock vocalist as he struts magnificently across stages with the studlike hauteur of the rock idiom, but he’s human just like the rest of us, broken bones and all.

Plant has always seemed rather divorced from reality, often giving the impression of being a leftover from the days of flower power, with his golden curls and brightly-colored stage tops. That image has been perpetrated by interviews that are both vague and filled with scattered reference to peace, love and world understanding—topics which have tarnished considerably in the reality of the Seventies.

The

memory la vivid.

I had the Instant reaction of anybody for my family who were In the car with me.

It was something of a relief then, that the Robert Plant of 1976, with his crutch and newly curled hair, seemed to have come to terms with his public image on a more evenly-balanced level. Goddammit—he phoned me to arrange the time of the following interview, and if that isn’t a turn up for the book, then 1 don’t know what is!

He had much to talk about: the accident and its consequent effects on the band, his travels to Northern Africa which preceded the crash, the new Led Zeppelin album, and, lastly, some thoughts on the eight-year career of the group.

Initially Plant seemed reluctant to discuss the accident, but as the interview progressed he warmed to the subject.

“The memory is very vivid, but it’s like spilt milk and there’s no time to cry over it when there’s another bottle around the corner...you know what I mean?

“I had the normal instant reaction of anybody and that was for my family who were in the car with me. I didn’t know what the implications and the final outcome of the wounds or whatever would turn out to be, but they were of minimal importance at the time.

“1 didn’t think about the possible consequences for the band but as I had plenty of time to lie back — not even sit back — I started gaining a new perspective on the situation.

“After I’d been pieced back together I had to think about it all because I didn’t really know whether things were going to be the same as they were before...uh, physically.”

Ihad to share a room with a drunken soldier who’d hanged his head. He kept focusing on me, uttering my name, singing The Ocean.’

There was a chance, then, that you might be crippled forever? “Mmm, yes. I had to, not so much grow up very quickly, as be prepared to face odds that I never thought I would come up against.

“I haven’t come out of it too scarred, either physically and mentally, and, in fact, once I knew Maureen [Plant’s wife] and the kids were OK I really threw myself back into my work. By engrossing myself more and more in the work we had on hand, the time passed by quicker.

“If I stop and brood, which is a very bad thing to do, then time moves with a lead weight around it, but the time between August 4 [the date of the accident] and now has gone by quickly because I applied myself to what I do best. I mean...I can do 99 per cent of what I could do before, so we sat down and had a meeting.

“We obviously couldn’t tour, so we decided to make an album which wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for me.

“It was quite remarkable that I found myself sitting in an arm,-chair facing the band with my leg in the air. We were planning to tour right around the world and back to England, playing possibly in South America, Hawaii, Japan and Asia Minor and ending up doing dates in Europe, especially Scandinavia, before dropping anchor in Albion.”

Far from being frustrated at the necessity for inactivity, the rest of Led Zeppelin were merely relieved when they heard that Plant would not be limping for life. In the weeks before the accident — the time between Zep’s Earl’s Court concerts and August 4 — Plant and Page had covered thousands of miles together, travelling in desolate^Arab countries by Range Rover, visiting Southern Morocco and, incidentally, introducing Bob Marley and the Wailers’ music to those regions.

“I was idly researching the possibility of recording various ethnic groups of different tribes in Morocco, just checking out how hard it would be, not so much the actual recording, but cutting through the ridiculous bureaucracy in Morocco. They were governed by the French for so long that they have a lot of the French traits on efficiency which, of course, are absolutely nil. The Morroccan version of that is even sillier.

“On the Monday morning after the last gig at Earl’s Court I was on my way to Agadir with Maureen, and three weeks later Jimmy flew out to meet me in Marrakesh where we spent several nights at the folk festival .That gave us a little peep into the colour of Moroccan music and the music of the hill tribes. Once you get off the normal tourist path and have the right vehicle, so long as you know a little bit of Arabic, which I do, then you discover they are quite fine people. They’re very warm people and they’re overjoyed when they find you have taken the trouble to learn their language.”

Plant and Page’s journeys took them on pretty dangerous routes, especially in view of the growing tension between Spain and Morocco which was bubbling-up at the time. “One day we had lunch with a local police chief and received his blessing before travelling on, and we showed him on an old map Where we wanted to go.

“He called round one of his friends who was a tourist guide and the guide told me and Jimmy he had been that route once in his life but wouldn’t go again because he was a married man. We still went, driving for hours and hours and the further south we went, the more it seemed like a different country. Gone are the people who can take the back pocket off your Levi’s without you knowing it, and you’re into a land of nice, honest people who find a Range Rover with Bob Marley music very strange.

We tried to get to the Spanish Sahara. We kept reaching these army road blocks where we’d get machine guns pointed at us.

“We tried to get down as far as the Spanish Sahara at the time when the war was just breaking out. There was a distinct possibly that we could have got very, very lost, going round in circles and taking ages to get out. It’s such a vast country with no landmarks and no people apart from the odd tent and a camel.

“We kept reaching these army road blocks where we’d get machine guns pointed at us and we’d have to wave our passports furiously and say we were going to bathe at the next beach. Then we’d go on thirty miles to another road block and claim we were going along to the next beach again.

“We wanted to get down to a place called Tafia which is not very far from the border of the Spanish Sahara. We got as far as we could but eventually the road got so bad we had to turn back.”

From Africa, Page and Plant journeyed to Switzerland for a pre-arranged group meeting, travelling by car up through Casablanca and Tangier. “It was devastating leaving Morocco behind and suddenly finding ourselves in Europe. For two months I’d lived at a Moroccan speed which is no speed at all, and then suddenly I was in Spain being frisked.

“We saw the jazz festival in Montreux, living on top of a mountain in a total extreme of climate from what we’d had for the past two months. After a while I started pining for the sun again, not just the sun but the happy, haphazard way of life that goes-with it, and Rhodes seemed a good idea.

“I knew Phil May was going to be there so down we went. Jimmy came down with me but he left to go to Italy the morning before the accident, and we started rehearsing. Then there was the accident and...well, we were just stopped in our tracks.”

Plant was taken to a Greek hospital where, with the aid of an interpreter, he tried to explain that he was who he was.

“I had to share a room with a drunken soldier who had fallen over and banged his head and as he was coming around he kept focusing on me, uttering my name.

“I was lying there in some pain trying to get cockroaches off the bed and he started singing The Ocean’ from Houses Of The Holy. I can remember a doctor working on us for 36 hours nonstop because there was no one else there. My brother-in-law and Maureen’s sister were there, so he managed to get things together pretty fast. As soon as the news got through I was whisked out of there quick.

“The doctor in London told me I wouldn’t walk for at least six months and he gave me some odds of various possibilities about the future, so we had another group meeting, cancelled all the tour plans and decided to make an album instead. We’ve always taken so much time making albums, but we thoughtthat this time we?d take a totally different attitude and cut one as quickly as possible.”

Plant likens the new album to Zeppelin’s second album in that it was made in a short time and retains an immediacy that has not been so apparent on later efforts. “It’s so adamantly positive, so affirmative for us. Everybody was aware that there was a crisis in the band so we got together and went forward as if nothing had happened, like turning into a storm instead of running from it.”

“In LA we just rehearsed and rehearsed. It was so strange for me the first time because, as I said, I was sitting in an armchair, singing, and I found myself wiggling inside my cast. The whole band really wanted to play and had wanted to do that tour, so the same effort was put into the album. It was a unique situation where we rehearsed for three weeks — on and off in true Zeppelin style because we’re not the greatest band for rehearsing. We’ve always felt that too much rehearsing on a song can spoil it for us...sort of take the edge off the excitement, but this time it worked in the opposite way because the enthusiasm was contained in such a small space of time.

“Then we went to Munich to record and it took us just 18 days to finish it. That’s ridiculous for us because we usually take an eternity to finish an album.”

I was running to the vocal booth when down I went on the bad foot. There was an almighty crack and I folded up in agony.

The 18 days, in fact, included a black hour when Plant tripped in the studio and narrowly avoided reopening his fractured foot. The cast had been removed in Los Angeles and he was rashly rushing around the studio when...“half way through the, recording I fell.

“Now I can play soccer all day and run and swim and I still love to be very active, but here I was hobbling around in the middle of this great track when suddenly my enthusiasm got the better of me. I was running to the vocal booth with this orthopaedic crutch when down I went, right on the bad foot. There was an almighty crack and a great flash of light and pain and I folded up in agony.

“I’d never known Jimmy to move so quickly. He was out of the mixing booth and holding me up, fragile as he might be, within a second. He became quite Germanic in his organization of things and instantly I was rushed off to hospital again in case I’d re-opened the fracture, and if I had I would never have walked properly again. It was a bit rash of me to bop around but.. .well, the track is brilliant.”

So when would Plant be recovered enough to tour again? He became very serious. “Already I’ve surprised the doctors by recovering as much as I have in such a short time. They’ve called me a model patient and that surprises me because hospitals are really not my cup of tea. I mean, I wai faced with a situation that dented every single thing I had going for me. My usual.. .er.. .sort of leonine arrogance was instantly punctured by having to hobble around, so I’m having to take my time. I don’t want to rush. Every day I walk more and more without the stick and I’m going to need physiotherapy so I should think it’ll be the beginning of the next soccer season before I’m running about again.”

Plant had said his piece, and with the obvious questions about current affairs all answered, I suggested he look back and record the highlight of eight years with Zeppelin. He looked puzzled, “There have been so many amazing things, things that were once beyond my wildest dreams. I mean, basically I wanted to sing, and sing and sing.

“I mean, heavens, how could I ever have envisaged anything like this? Me and Bonzo had just come down from the Midlands to join a band. Jimmy was the experienced man and he’d been over.here on the Dick Clark show or whatever, so he knew we would end up at least on that level. I don’t think Jonesy had been to the States before, but Bonzo and I had no idea. We even got lost in London.

“I remember when we played the Fillmore West in San Francisco, Bonzo and I looked at each other during the set and thought ‘Christ, we’ve got something’. That was the first time we realised that Led Zeppelin might mean something; there was so much intimacy with the audience, and if you could crack San Francisco at the height of the Airplane, Grateful Dead period then it meant something. Mind you, we went on with Country Joe and the Fish so we didn’t have that much of a problem...how could we fail? But we knew the chemistry was there when we recorded the first album.”

It wasn’t until after the first album that Plant began writing the band’s lyrics; he logically surmised that as he had to sing them, he might as well sing words he wrote himself. “You’ve got to . live with them so it’s a very personal thing. I did some of the lyrics on ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and some of the broader things like ‘Ramble On’, but it wasn’t until later that I really worked hard on them.

“I thinkthatsongs, like ‘Kashmir’ and ‘Stairway’ are far more relevant to the band now than songs like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ which we don’t really do now anyway. Ever since it came out, ‘Stairway’ has been the most requested track on FM radio here in America which is amazing because it’s so old now. That song was astoundingly well accepted and personally I’m very proud of it, but I think ‘Kashmir’ is just as good, and so is the one that I fell over on when we recorded this new album.”

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The long-awaited Led Zeppelin film is now ready, according to Plant. “Yes, we’re as happy with it as we could possibly be. It’s been mixed in quad, and I’m not sure whether the Futurist Cinema in Birmingham is going to be able to handle that,.but I would say it will be released about the same time as the opening of next soccer season, probably in August.

“The film features more than just us on stage. It has a few tastes of spice from everybody’s imagination, sort of humorous in parts. It ain’t all music, anyway, it touches on some of the things that make up the personalities in the group, Peter and Richard Cole [the band’s ever-present tour manager] too.”

Finally, I mentioned that of all the bands of their stature (and many, also, beneath them) Zeppelin seemed to be the only group whose members had not, at some time, veered off the rails to produce a solo album. Plant seemed horrified at the thought. “I think to want to do that, you’ve obviously got to be dissatisfied with the set-up as it stands.

“If you can’t bring out everything that comes to mind musically with the group you are working with, then to go away and do a solo album and then come back, is an admission that what you really want to do is not playing with your band.

“If you have to depart from the unit to satisfy your soul, then why go back afterwards? I know I couldn’t find anybody as musically imaginative as Jimmy, anybody who could play the drums as hard as Bonzo and anybody who could play as steadily as Jonesy. It’sassimpleasthat.”