Jimmy Page: Days Of Heaven
In this historic multi-part interview, Jimmy Page delves into Led Zeppelin's rich past-album by album.
By Brad Tolinski with Greg DiBenedetto
"Okay, I'm ready," says Jimmy Page, clapping his hands together with a loud smack. "What are we going to talk about this time? Zeppelin? Again? Oh, gawd, didn't we already do this?" he whines, rolling his black eyes skyward. "I'm getting a severe case of d�j� vu. Well, all right. Get out your surgeon's masks and thumb screws. I'm ready for dissection."
In the past, a little of Pagey's sarcasm would have sent the most hardened music journalist scurrying over the hills and far away. But it is clear from his mock outrage that the god of guitar thunder is not really throwing lightning bolts-he is merely teasing. Despite his protest, one gets the feeling that there is nothing in the world that he would rather discuss than his groundbreaking work with rock's most mythic outfit, Led Zeppelin.
And there is much to talk about. Page is here to stake his claim as one of rock's most interesting and innovative producers-the prime architect of Led Zeppelin.
And it's about time. Although no one would ever argue his status as guitar genius, few ever mention Page's brilliant work in the recording studio as a producer, arranger and engineer. Unlike the Beatles and the Stones, Led Zeppelin never relied on the outside guidance of a George Martin or Jimmy Miller. Instead, they followed the direction of their intrepid bandleader/guitarist as he ruthlessly steered the band through one successful experiment after another. Each song in Led Zeppelin's catalog packs the wallop of a full-blown, three-dimensional, four-star rock and roll movie, from intense X-rated features like the orgasmic "Whole Lotta Love" to Disney-esque fantasies like the whimsical "The Song Remains" to exotic 70 mm epics like "Kashmir" and "Stairway To Heaven." No one in rock before or since has equalled Page's flair for the dramatic. He made John Bonham's drums sound like volcanic eruptions and Robert Plant's vocals reverberate as if they were sung from the top of Mount Olympus. But above all, Page was able to manipulate the sound of his own guitar so that it changed colors and hues like some blues-rock chameleon. From the tortured scream of "Since I've Been Loving You" to the mysterious and mellow acoustic ambiance of "Black Mountain Side," Zep's dark lord of the Les Paul covered all the bases with uncanny style. Page claims that the mighty Zeppelin was designed so its music would have "shadow and light." Screw that-Zeppelin lived in nothing less than technicolor.
LED ZEPPELIN I
U.S. RELEASE: January 12, 1969
RECORDED AT: Olympic Studios (London)
GUITARS: 1958 Telecaster, 10-string Fender 800 pedal steel AMPS: Supro
GW: Let's start from the beginning. What did you want Led Zeppelin to be?
PAGE: I had a lot of ideas from my days with the Yardbirds. The Yardbirds allowed me to improvise a lot in live performance and I started building a textbook of ideas that I eventually used in Zeppelin. In addition to those ideas, I wanted to add acoustic textures. Ultimately, I wanted Zeppelin to be a marriage of blues, hard rock and acoustic music topped with heavy choruses-a combination that had never been done before. Lots of light and shade in the music. A prime example of that is "Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You."
GW: How did "Babe" evolve?
PAGE: This is a good time to clear something up that I've really taken offense to. There's a book written by our former road manager, Richard Cole [Stairway To Heaven, HarperCollins Publishers], that claims that when Robert came to my house to initially discuss the band, I played him a recording of Joan Baez singing "Babe" and asked him, "Can you imagine us playing something like this?" The book claims that Robert picked up my guitar and started playing me the arrangement that eventually appeared on the album. Arrrghhh! Can you believe that? First of all, I had worked out the arrangement long before Robert came to my house, and secondly, Robert didn't even play the flippin' guitar in those days! Thirdly, I didn't ask him if he could imagine playing that song, I told him that I wanted to do it.
GW: In addition to having such a strong direction musically, you also had a unique approach to the business aspect of the band in the beginning. By self-producing the first album and tour, weren't you attempting to keep record company interference to a minimum and maximize the band's artistic control?
PAGE: That's true. I wanted artistic control in a vise grip, because I knew exactly what I wanted to do with these fellows. In fact, I financed and completely recorded the first album before going to Atlantic. It wasn't your typical story where you get an advance to make an album-we arrived at Atlantic with tapes in hand. The other advantage to having such a clear vision of what I wanted the band to be was that it kept recording costs to a minimum. We recorded the whole first album in a matter of 30 hours. That's the truth. I know because I paid the bill. [laughs] But it wasn't all that difficult because we were well-rehearsed, having just finished a tour of Scandinavia, and I knew exactly what I wanted to do in every respect.
GW: The stereo mixes on the first two albums are incredible and very innovative. Was this planned ahead of time as well?
PAGE: I wouldn't go that far. But, certainly, after the overdubs were completed I had an idea of the stereo picture and where the echo returns would be. For example, on "How Many More Times," you'll notice there are times where the guitar is on one side and the echo return is on the other. Those things were my ideas. I would say the only real problem we had with the first album was leakage from the vocals. Robert's voice was extremely powerful and it would get on some of the other tracks. But oddly, the leakage sounds intentional. I was very good at salvaging things that went wrong. For example, the rhythm track in the beginning of "Celebration Day" [Led Zeppelin III] was completely wiped by an engineer. And that is why you have that synthesizer drone from the end of "Friends" going into "Celebration Day," until the rhythm track catches up. We put that on to compensate for the missing drum track. That's called "salvaging." [laughs]
GW: What do you remember about "Good Times Bad Times"?
PAGE: The most stunning thing about that track, of course, is Bonzo's amazing kick drum. It's superhuman when you realize he was not playing with a double kick. That's one kick drum! That's when people started understanding what he was all about.
GW: What did you use to overdrive the Leslie on the solo?
PAGE: [thinks hard] You know, I don't remember what I used on "Good Times Bad Times," but curiously, I do remember using the board to overdrive a Leslie cabinet for the main riff in "How Many More Times." It doesn't sound like a Leslie because I wasn't employing the rotating speakers. Surprisingly, that sound has real weight. The guitar is going through the board, then through an amp which was driving the Leslie cabinet. It was a very successful experiment. But for most of the record I was using a Supro amp, a wah-wah and a distortion unit called a Tonebender, which was one of Roger Mayer's creations. [Ed. Note-In the late Sixties, Mayer created custom effects for Page, Jimi Hendrix and Jeff Beck, among others.]
GW: How did you develop the backwards echo at the end of "You Shook Me"?
PAGE: When I was still in the Yardbirds, our producer Mickie Most would always try to get us to record all these horrible songs. He would say, "Oh, c'mon, just try it. If the song is bad we won't release it." And, of course, it would always get released! [laughs] During one session, we were recording "Ten Little Indians," which was an extremely silly song that featured a truly awful brass arrangement. In fact the whole track sounded terrible. In a desperate attempt to salvage it, I hit upon an idea. I said, "Look, turn the tape over and employ the echo for the brass on a spare track. Then turn it back over and we'll get the echo preceding the signal." The result was very interesting-it made the track sound like it was going backwards. Later, when we recorded "You Shook Me," I told the engineer, Glyn Johns, that I wanted to use backwards echo on the end. He said, "Jimmy, it can't be done." I said, "Yes, it can. I've already done it." Then he began arguing, so I said, "Look, I'm the producer. I'm going to tell you what to do, and just do it." So he grudgingly did everything I told him to, and lo and behold, the effect worked perfectly. When Glyn heard the result, he looked bloody ill! The funny thing is, Glyn did the next Stones album and what was on it? Backwards echo ! And I'm sure he took full credit for the effect.
GW: When people talk about early Zeppelin, they tend to focus on the band's heavier aspects. But your secret weapon was your ability to write great hooks. "Good Times Bad Times" has a classic pop hook. Did playing sessions in your pre-Yardbird days hone your ability to write memorable parts?
PAGE: My session work was invaluable. At one point I was playing at least three sessions a day, six days a week! And I rarely ever knew in advance what I was going to be playing. But I learned things even on my worst sessions-and believe me, I played on some horrendous things. I finally called it quits after I started getting calls to do Muzak. I guess it was destiny that a week after I quit doing sessions Paul Samwell-Smith left the Yardbirds, and I was able to take his place. But being a session musician was good fun in the beginning-the studio discipline was great. They'd just count the song off, and you couldn't make any mistakes.
GW: Did your blues purist friends ever rag on you for playing jingles?
PAGE: I never told them what I was doing. I've got a lot of skeletons in my closet, I'll tell ya! [laughs]
GW: Were you ever a blues purist like Eric Clapton?
PAGE: The blues appealed to me, but so did rock. The early rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore were just as important to me as the blues guitarists.
GW: How did "How Many More Times" evolved?
PAGE: That has the kitchen sink on it, doesn't it? It was made up of little pieces I developed when I was with the Yardbirds, as were other numbers such as "Dazed And Confused." It was played live in the studio with cues and nods.
GW: You used the bow on that track.
PAGE: I think I did some good things with the bow there, but I really got much better with it later on. For example, I think there is some really serious bow playing on the live album [The Song Remains The Same]. I remember being really surprised with it when I heard it play back. I thought, "Boy, that really was an innovation that meant something."
GW: Your bow playing, especially on "Dazed And Confused," is really enhanced by echo. What did you use?
PAGE: It was actually reverb. We used those old EMT plate reverbs.
GW: That's a little surprising, because there are some areas on the record that sound like you're using tape echo. In fact, Led Zeppelin I was the first album that I can think of that employed such long echoes and delays.
PAGE: It's a little difficult to remember, and I can't tell you on exactly which tracks, but there was a lot of EMT plate reverb put on to tape and then delayed-machine delayed. You were only given so much time on those old spring reverbs.
GW: How did Atlantic react when you delivered the tape?
PAGE: They were very positive-I mean they signed us, didn't they? And by the time they got the second album, they were ecstatic.
<< more articles