ROBERT PLANT MOOD’S AND MOMENTS

On one level, it is a fairly accurate barometer of Robert Plant’s continuing status as one of rock ’n’ roll’s most popular lead singers that in 1984, when he put out The Honeydrippers, a record made up exclusively of cover versions of old blues, pop, and R&B classics, the thing not only zoomed to the top of the charts as the first-ever mini-LP to crack Billboard’s Top 10, but did so with nary a cover credit in sight—this on a disc featuring not only Plant, but former partner-in-stomp Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, Nile Rodgers and a host of other certified heavies.

On another level, though, it now seems rather clear that the Honeydrippers experiment was just the tip of the iceberg for Plant. Now a full five years removed from Led Zeppelin’s breakup following drummer John Bonham’s untimely death in 1980, Robert Plant, in 1985, is a singer feeling his oats. If his two previous solo albums,’82’s Pictures At Eleven and ’83’s Principle Of Moments found him making friendly but tentative steps away from the kind of banshee-like chaos most folks used to associate him with, then his new album, Shaken ’n’ Stirred, finds him going full tilt once more—though in a completely unexpected direction. This is a record filled with hi-tech, hip-hopping funk ’n’ roll, a dizzying foray into body music probably best described by upbeat, nonsensical song titles, like “Kallalou Kallalou,” “Doo Doo A Do Do” and “Hip To Hoo.” If all you’ve heard of it is the video-aided ballad, “Little By Little,” then be forewarned: For once, the song sure ain’t the same.

To be sure, we’ve had our inklings of possibilities here and there, from the James-Brown-on-Pluto ravings of “The Crunge” to a concert in (I guess we do go back a bit, now don’t we?) 1969 when I actually saw Led Zeppelin encore with Johnny Preston’s ’50s hit “Running Bear.” But I guess the moment that clinched for me a desire to actually sit down and talk to Plant was when I saw the video for Principle Of Moments’ “In The Mood.” In the middle of this already slyly goofing video, which sports images of bored housewives interspersed with streetcorner breakdancers, there’s this oddly angled shot of Plant staring into space, deep in thought, holding by his ear a nice, bright, yellow lemon. When a guy who once screamed “Squeeze it till the juice runs down my leg” can subtly rib himself after all these years, odds are good he’ll be a good interview.

Shaken ’n’ Stirred really has much more of an ensemble feel to it than either Pictures At Eleven or Principle of Moments—you sound very connected to the rest of the band.

I think that’s because the whole thing about Shaken ’n’ Stirred is that it’s all rhythms in tandem, and having one drummer, Ritchie Hayward, with us all the time has really made a difference. It was great having Phil [Collins] with us for the first two albums and for some tours, but with his solo career going so well and his other commitments—I mean, him and that old Italian suit are everywhere, aren’t they?—I thought, at the end of our tour of America in ’83 that it was time to get a permanent drummer. So I auditioned Ritchie Hayward from Little Feat and he’s been working with us ever since.

You know, I belonged in a band that had perhaps the greatest chemical combination that one could have wished for, so, even on a bad night, it was good, because it was generally someone else’s responsibility every night to make another member of the band go, “Ay, that’s great.” Now when you’re creating something and you’re asking other people to join up with you and create something to the left or the right of what you were doing before, then they have to be inspired continuously and nurtured continuously. Plus, they have to get used to me, and I’m not particularly a comfortable person to work with because of my demands. And the drummer’s spot is so important that I finally figured we had to get someone to be there all the time so that the band could really become a band rather than me getting my mates in to do bits and pieces because I thought Cozy Powell would be better at this or Phil would be better at that. To have Ritchie, who’s the epitome of a conservative American—I mean, he’s actually crazy, but very conservative—was such a breath of fresh air and a relief for the band because it meant that Paul [Martinez], who’s a truly excellent bass player, could really get into the rhythms and the patterns. And it’s very stimulating to sing in the middle of all that.

It seems to me that there’s a very special relationship between lead singers and their drummers—that, often, the key to a group is that very relationship. Is that possibly why it took you so long to find one drummer to stick with? I mean, besides Collins, you used Cozy Powell and Barrie Barlow on your two previous albums, even though the rest of the personnel has been constant.

It’s even more than that—at rehearsals, I’ve had Pick Withers and Roger Taylor (laughs).] would agree with you, yes, about singers and drummers. You have to understand that I worked with Bonzo from when we were both 15 years old: I knew when he was phrasing or counterphrasing, and part of the characteristics of my music for all those years was through working with him. I’d start to do something and he’d be right there, working with me. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to work with Phil—you get that picking up on what the singer’s doing from him. Some of the takes we did on Principle Of Moments, I’d stop phrasing on the song’s fade and he’d get into it and begin to take it further, and if we did another take, then we’d start doing it much earlier on in the song. So the song lived beyond its secrets.

What do you mean, lived beyond its secrets?

I guess that’s one of the things I learned from Jimmy, and why working with him was always such an illuminating experience. Most songs we did in Led Zeppelin, I would have been a fool if I just stood there waiting for the melody to return during an instrumental part—you know, like (adopts voice of a crooner) “OK it’s time now, here I go’’—so I became more fluent, much more a part of the musical thing. I see singers just standing there clicking their fingers while the band plays—they just look lost.

Getting back to that vocal/drum thing, though—it does seem to be the essence of AOR mixing. When I came back here to the U.S. to promote Pictures At Eleven in 1982, I didn’t even know what AOR was, because when I left, it was just FM radio: I had no idea that terms like AOR or CHR even existed. And one of the characteristics of AOR is just drums and vocals pumping through in your Camaro, and I think that a lot of the music that’s around on that level doesn’t explore or invigorate or do a service to itself or the listener.

I suppose it’s the tribal thing, the macho thing. I mean, I guess I was part of it in the days when my shirt was open to the waist and my jeans were a size too small, although I didn’t realize it then—I mean, I did realize it, but I didn’t think that suddenly everybody’s jeans were going to get too tight and that a whole thing was going to be made out of the vocalist being so prominent. Of course, I was always being mixed into oblivion onstage; people thought that I must be good, but they could never hear me (laughs). It is a shame, though, that these circumstances still prevail so that you don’t hear a good blend of instruments. It does really ruin a lot of good songs. And you see these videos where the whole macho thing still holds. It all starts with the records being done that certain way, and the whole sham is given more life as the cycle goes on and gets promoted like that. It’s sad in a way, because it’s very hollow. Having been there at the beginning of this kind of music, though, how do you feel about being a kind of role model for hard rock singers?

It’s funny, but when I was in Zeppelin, I never paid all that much attention to the kind of image that got projected. I just got up and did it. But now I observe it all and you can see the worst band in the world on MTV with girls coming on the screen with the most beautiful bodies and they’re pitching it to a certain kind of audience— an audience that is never going to go away—and I think that that audience is entitled to clean up its act occasionally and still not feel out of its own depth. At this point, I don’t know if I fit in there at all; maybe their moms and dads can tell them that I had that kind of affection you see in those videos showered upon me years before—free of charge, I might add. Do you see yourself as a kind of elder statesman, then?

It would be flattering if some of them did the stuff really well. I mean, we stole from Eddie Cochran and Howlin’ Wolf and plenty of others. It’s like something that’s inside of yourself and, as it comes out, there’s a touch of what’s gone before. I mean, there’s a little Ray Charles in my singing still, and it’s really subconscious anyway. I just wish, or hope, that all these sort of heavy bands listen up a bit because—I mean, I’m not puttin’ it down—but I do see such cliche-ridden stuff.

I guess, really, now that I’ve got the kind of freedom of expression, I hope— besides for commercial success, for my own ego—to prove the point that I can do something good, although it might not be completely what people might expect of me. Because I don’t think there’d be any point to doing that—of doing what was expected and that’s it—after all the records I’ve been a part of over the years. I d like to think that all these guys would be the same way down the line, broadening what they do, so that, in the end, we’re not all toeing that sort of nice, acceptable line which makes record corporations fat and successful.

Shaken ’n’ Stirred seems to reflect a real breakthrough for you, I think. It’s so filled with funk riffs—almost like “Revenge Of The Crunge, ” or that great rhythmic burst on “Royal Orleans.’’

“This record is sort of my ultimate pass to freedom musically.”

You mean? (sings instrumental passage between verses of “Royal Orleans” and laughs) I’ve spent so much time with the media since I’ve been on my own—as opposed to no time with Zeppelin—and I’m quite comfortable talking now. I can be criticized, psychoanalyzed, anything with an -ized at the end of it, and that’s fine, ’cause I can handle it. Because what’s finally happened to me is that I no longer have to make little masks or charades in bringing in little Zeppelin things into it. This record really does make the point that whatever anybody else thinks, Robert Plant does indeed exist entirely on his own with these new guys, and you can relate it to Zeppelin or whatever you like but it’s Just as powerful in its own way. Why is this record so different than the last two?

I think that up until now I was just trying to create a gap, a space between the characteristics of Zeppelin, which I possess, and what people wanted. I had to create moods in between which diverted peoples’ attention. And “Big Log,’’ fortunately, was a success—it wasn’t what people anticipated. So even in the heart of the Midwest or in Kentucky now, people will start to understand Robert Plant, that I’m a complex being— that that wasn’t all I did.

It almost sounds on this album as if you’ve gone back through all the music of your past and come out the other side.

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It’s funny that you say that. We were getting a little logo together for the tour—right now, we’re calling it the Good Rockin’ tour—but I thought maybe we should call it the There And Back Again tour, because it really does feel that way to me. We’re free now. I mean, I make mistakes about once every 10 minutes but I don’t feel so bad now about making them. I’m not chasing that pot of gold anymore; I’m chasing a sort of ideal or moral instead. This record is sort of my ultimate pass to freedom, musically. It’s strong enough to make people stop thinking about anything else; it’s got so many hooks and licks running around in it. And, still, you can’t relate it to its success potential. You know, like, it’s 1985, and the guitar has returned. For me now, the songs have to be

something—I want people singing “Dance, dance, m-m-m-m-mambo” rather than imitating a guitar riff and leaning back with their hair touching the floor.

I felt I was starting to get there on “Two Step” on the last album. It was OK, but I wanted to make this album really bounce around, and I think I’ve achieved that, at least. Like, Robbie decided that every time he was going to get involved in a solo, he’d create an imaginary TV theme, so at the end of “Pink And Black,” you get this sort of 1960s detective music as a coda.

The guitar part on “Big Log” has that theme music quality to it as well, I think.

Oh, yes—very spaghetti western. It’s haunting, but at the same time you kind of smile at it. And I wanted that on this album also. I mean, if I can’t smile now, I’m in real trouble. You mentioned “Pink And Black” just now, and it seems the perfect song to illustrate what this album seems to be about: there’s a definite ’80s sound to it, but the female voice is right out of the girl group era of the ’60s, and the whole track feels like a rockabilly tune. I mean, you don’t say “Pink And Black” anywhere in the song, and the only tune I know with those words is the rockabilly song “A Pink Cadillac And A Black Moustache. ”

Yes, exactly. Actually, (laughs) there is a track called, “Pink And Black” on a Saturday rockabilly collection I have—Charlie Feathers, stuff like that. Toni Halliday’s vocals are great throughout the record—she has that kind of Shangri-Las voice, but it comes over with this sort of haughty feminist disinterest on the other side of the man’s voice as well. I’m tryin’ to impress her all the time—“I know I used to run around, but now I swear I’ve settled down”— and something (ahem) about the song remaining the same. All sorts of silly lines running around on the album.

I’m glad you brought that up. I hear “Shake for me girl” a few times, and “lonely, lonely, lonely” and “tired and confused.”

(Laughing) Hey, I even sing “Do you remember when we met?” and then burst out laughing, don’t I? And I called that track “Easily Lead”! When we were rehearsing the songs, I’d have my little cassette machine with me, and every time I’d start to sing an especially good lick, I’d stick the machine on and go back later and enlarge on it. Eventually, I was creating everything I was singing at the same time it was going down musically. It was that immediacy I was after, and, like I said before, if all of my past is flying around, a snippet here and a snippet there, and you snag it, great. I’d like to talk about the Honeydrippers. Am I correct in saying that the road leading up to it started at the Concert for Kampuchea, when you sang Elvis Presley’s “Little Sister”?

It’s funny about that. The Kampuchea thing was really, for me, just an extension of what I was doing at home on the four-track during that time period. I was doing a lot of Dion stuff. He’s one of my favorite vocal expressionists: I love his fades on songs. To me, the fade is one of the most expressive parts of a song. It might sound ludicrous, but I’ve always gotten off on, like, the end of a Smokey Robinson & The Miracles song, when he takes the melody and starts weaving around it—it’s just so alluring.

Anyway, I was a member of a four-piece band made up of four very strong individuals, and we’d decided that stretching out was not necessary, and I was the first one to agree. But since I’d been the one to lure Dave Edmunds, who’d organized ine Kampuchea thing, onto Swan Song, our label, I felt like I should at least go to the gig. So, there I was, and it was really going great, and Dave asked me to come down and do one, so I did. When it was over, we went offstage and Elvis Costello turned to Dave and said, “I never thought I’d hear you do ‘Stairway To Heaven,’ Dave”—the little bastard (laughs). But, really, when you jam, it’s almost always a hit-or-miss situation, and when you do get up, it’s invariably a 12-bar blues like ‘‘Rock Me Baby” or whatever, and I can’t stand that. I’d rather do a song, with parts, like,

I don’t know, ‘‘Hide And Go Seek” by Bunker Hill, or ”My True Story” by the Jive Five. Something where you can actually get up there and sing, instead of (adopts voice of cocktail lounge host) “And now, someone you must remember—a hero of yesteryear...”

In terms of the public’s view of you, though, wasn’t your singing at Kampuchea a side of you that perhaps people had never seen before?

I guess so. Like I said, around the house, that’s mostly what you’d find me singing on any given day, just to relax.

How did the Honeydrippers record come about?

Well, it’s a hobby, really, something to take away the intensity of creating all these changes. I wanted to sit back on something for a change and was inspired to do so by Ahmet Ertegun, who is probably one of the few remaining men in the world who could impress me enough to make me do it. Because he said, “Look, you can make it live with your voice,” rather than giving the concept to somebody else who would whimper their way through. As it is, I did whimper my way through most of it.

I made a mistake with “Sea Of Love” and “Young Boy Blues.” But, you see, they were the kind of songs that make me kind of winge a bit and get my tongue so much in my cheek that it’s hard to make any sound at all, ’cause I was grinning from ear to ear as I was singing.

Really, it just happened. Ahmet suggested that I fly over here to New York and have a crack at it. We all agreed that if it took more than two afternoons, we were wasting our time, because the whole thing about that music is that it’s spontaneous because it’s not complex, and if you haven’t got the feel right away, you’re not about to find it through take after take. So Ahmet set it up, and he brought in Roy Brown’s “Good Rockin’ at Midnight” and we listened to it and did it on two takes. That was it, really. And once we’d done that one and it sounded like that, we could’ve done a million other songs. That’s why it’s volume one. There are tracks we didn’t use, like “Treat Her Right” by Roy Head, and some Big Joe Turner stuff. And I wanted to do some stuff with strings if I’d had more time, I think I would have gone for some songs that were a bit more bluesy, but then again, why not just go do it? “Young Boy Blues” is a song I’ve loved for a lifetime, even though I could never get anywhere near the Ben E. King version of it, ’cause he’s one of my all-time favorite singers. I just tried to do it in the least complicated way—not to try and go for the blue-eyed soul technique, because then it would have become too dramatic a piece and I would have been trying too hard and in that environment you can’t try too hard or you’ve blown it.

How come there were no credits on the record when it was released?

It’s the game, now, isn’t it? There’s nothing worse than saying Robert Plant, Jimmy Page— how would the record company market it? (Adopts TV ad announcer voice) Together again! After two hours in the studio, the two masters return! I couldn’t imagine, by the time the record came out in Uruguay or Japan, the stickers they’d be putting on the cover. I just wanted it out. “Good Rockin’ At Midnight” was the track I wanted to get picked up on over here in amongst Styx and REO Speedwagon and Journey and all that, and suddenly, all those horns!

I conducted a little experiment the weekend we recorded the record. I took a rough mix of “Good Rockin’” over to Madison Square Garden when Yes were playing there, and I got someone to go over to the sound board and explain, and I stood back in. the wings and eventually, between the acts, they put the tape on. I just wanted to see what would happen. What I saw was that, instead of that kind of rigidity with which a rock concert is usually faced—that anticipation before the lights go down is usually a bit stiff—I was seeing people with their knees buckling and their asses moving a little bit and almost half of the crowd was bopping around. And when it was over I saw people muttering things to each other because it was so off-kilter from what they usually play over the PA.

Were you surprised by the success of the record?

Well, yeah. I was flabbergasted, really. As “Sea Of Love” kept doing better and better,

I kept calling the record company telling them to turn the bloody thing over for “Good Rockin’”—that’s what we wanted to get across. And they’d say, “Oh, no, we’re picking up stations that no rock ’n’ roller ever gets,” and I kept telling them I didn’t care about that.

I mean, the whole purpose of the thing was to get that Roy Brown/Wynonie Harris rhythm ’n’ blues feel across to FM or AM radio, to say, “Hey, this is where a lot of things came from the first time around. It was black music which wasn’t played on the airwaves; have a listen to this.”

The Honeydrippers record comes at a time where there seems to be a real regeneration of roots music here in the U.S.

I know. This is the first time I’ve seen American musicians really being proud of their own stuff. Now you’ve got Los Lobos and Jason & The Scorchers—bands playing just great stuff. Los Lobos sounds like Del-Fi records had finally found a replacement for Ritchie Valens. With a little bit of schooling, the right production and a little pyrotechnics up their backsides, they could be so searing.

Speaking of those roots—I went to see Jimmy and the Firm recently in Birmingham and I wept, I really did. I make no bones about it—I miss the man furiously. I didn’t realize how good he was. I mean, I never sat in an audience and watched him play all those years. Anyway, I was sitting there with my daughter, Carmen, and I picked her hand up and put it to my cheek and she said, “Dad, what’s the matter? You’re crying.” I said, “It’s so beautiful, what he’s playing.” I couldn’t believe he could play that well, ’cause the man has had his ups and downs, self-inflicted as they may have been at times. But my point is that, in the middle of all that, I’m hearing the Blue Caps’ Cliff Gallup and Eddie Cochran. It could be “Woman Love” or “Bluejean Bop” or any of those, and it’s always there.

In England, we get a lot of the rockabilly guys coming over. Carmen saves up her money and goes out on a date to hear Sonny Burgess. In her world the hepcats are almost a religious organization; all the women try and look like Wanda Jackson, and you can’t step out of that mold unless it’s to dance to some designated crazy tune like “Mellow Saxophone.” She says to me, “Dad, you’re so straight,” and I say, “Yes, Carmen, but you’re such a snob. The very essence of Englishness. Look how you dress. You wander about in this world and nothing else exists for you.” And it’s all built on original music; if you dropped in “Good Rockin’ At Midnight,” everything would just stop. The Diamonds? They’d stop dancing ’cause it’s not the Gladiolas. Authenticity all the way—that little clique is impenetrable.

I think, though, that that side of me—that fluency in black pop from the ’50s and ’60s—is forcing itself more and more into my normal Road to Cavalry music. So in a sense I am dragging some sort of musical commitment up that steep hill. I’m doing a Honeydrippers set in the middle of my show on this tour, but without it being too smooth, I hope. I mean, I’m out for a laugh now. I’ve gotten over the hiccup of becoming a solo artist, and I want this tour to be the one where I don’t stop laughing. When we were doing “Sea Of Love” in rehearsals, in that middle part where the girls go “Bong Bong Bong” I was literally doubled over with ecstatic laughter. I mean, I’d done it. The guy who sang “Kashmir” was finally doing winge-rock and having a great time of it.

Haven’t you always had a pretty good time of it?

Yes, I’ve always had my fun, but the mood shift has opened up a lot of vestibules; I really can’t do enough now. I feel almost like a brand new person, and in many ways I am. I was in the West Indies not long ago, and a beautifuf little girl about 12 years old came running up to me. Her parents apparently had one of those satellite dishes and she said, “You’re the guy who does ‘Big Log’! What did you do before that?” I told her, “It’s a long, long story.