Robert Plant tells Dan Rather the best thing about being in Led Zeppelin and how he views their music.
The Conversation
you know I have a feeling Robert if if
one looked up in the dictionary sex
drugs and rock and
roll that theyd probably a picture of
Led Zeppelin well it's very kind of
you well my question I want you to be
reflective uh because you're not
anywhere near the end if if you're half
Lucky in God's grace that's right but
looking back over it what's been the
best of it the best of it
you said there'd be no trick questions I
think maybe the best of it
is that our time initially when the
whole thing was opening up was there
were no charts there were no Maps there
was no structure there was no
conditioning we were flying by the seed
of our pants into this thing there were
many people around us especially from
the Bay Area of San Francisco there were
fantastic bands musical units but we had
no there was no etiquette developed yet
there was no the last thing we were
was uh a good bet to have on a talk show
or anything like that you know it was a
a time to be proud of our music and
also now that I know now the way that
everything's gone look where we are you
know in Warner Brothers the the home of
Once Upon a Time Atlantic Records and
all the great stuff there were no rules
things were being developed and and the
journey there was no nobody could plot
it it was just what do we do now oh maybe we'll
play somewhere bigger you know I mean it
was just like kids going from
playing in the youth club Behind the
church to play in small clubs the
acceleration into another place was crazy I mean a
little like being thrown in as an
astronaut into the cosmos well at least
getting out of the ship halfway across
the journey yeah cuz you had no idea
nobody knew what was going on during
some of what shall I call the most
publicized things of that era Led
Zeppelin is breaking through all those
stories about riding motorcycles in
hotels wrecking hotel rooms throwing
television sets out of Windows and all
of that now I know that some of that was
hyperbole maybe it's like was think but
some of it was true mhm looking back on
it do you regret that well I can only
apologize for the motorbike in the
hallway but it was a tiny meany one and
it fitted very nicely in the elevator
and not being smug but the other stuff
actually to be perfectly honest I think
I must have missed that um but obviously
there was a phenetic energy and it was
not always other bands that were in the
middle of it I don't think it's uh I don't think
it was particularly a magnificent
achievement well true or untrue you said
I think H fenly I must have missed some
of that but the when you sing
particularly when you have the kind of
range that you have you can't stay up
all night every night and perform at
that level no so did you find yourself
sort of slipping away at some point in
the evening and saying at least I have
to get to sleep well you know the thing
is a voice is not going to it's a it's a
muscle it's a funny shaped thing anyway
and um yeah I had a lot of trouble with
my voice along the line I was in
Australia once in Melbourne I remember
waking up and we'd sold out a kind of
some huge Stadium
the stage was on Wheels so they got it
so that if we had 10,000 people that was
fine but if it was 12 they could wheel
the stage back with a tractor pulling it
and then back and then back and then
back and as the day went on more and
more people arrived and I couldn't speak
and I went to a doctor and he hit me
with some adrenaline and stuff like that
and I I mean I turned several shades of
different colors and slid down the wall
covered in perspiration and sang the gig
now that's the last thing a singer needs
to do the damage that you can do one time I
went to see a voice specialist in London
in Harley Street he was pretty high brow
he had a he had a desk with a little
button underneath so that as you walked
in he hit the button and the curtains
all closed around you and he had a kind
of dish on his head and put a camera
down my throat and he said he said in 6
months time your voice won't even be
able to show signs of surprise is he
said it's over and that was 28 years ago so I mean
the number of times you think you've had
it do you think it's gone or and then
and there's quite a lot of singers who
who were so hard on themselves that they
did lose it forever do you consider
music a profession or a craft or an
art well Art's a heavy word you know um
I think craft is the term I would use
the middle term yeah yeah cuz I think
you grow into what might initially be an
an infatuation with the idea
of entering something very special right
very daring and as a kid as a young
teenager I I was drawn to the lights because I
came like so many kids out of my
generation in Britain we came from a
kind of very gray
postwar you know the kind of
the residue of a lot of pain and strife
so I suppose kids in the mid-50s in
Britain were just starting to wake up
after the you know parents coming back
from the war or you know being attracted
to the foot lights and the entertainment
and the smell of a venue and the kind of
um the anticipation in a crowd I love
that I thought that was amazing thing
you know um because I've I've been a
music fan and a fan of all things that
are interesting and occasionally unique
all my life so I'm I'm always a member
of the audience and an
Entertainer really so yeah it's a craft
sometimes it's clever sometimes it's a
real flop you know well I'm particularly
interested in what you said about Great
Britain in the wake of World War II and
I think a lot of people have forgotten
some don't know part because they
weren't alive it was a rather austere
period for Britain at least through most
if not all of the 50s yeah and into the
60s too yeah I mean um into the early
60s um and also now I understand more
about my my father's generation you know
um there were so many people that didn't
come back and and every family had
some member of the family who who just
didn't return so those that did
my father and my mom they got they were
they drew themselves out of that in that
post-war sort of grayness uh my father
was aspiring so I think now I can understand
why he wondered what in God's name I was
doing turning my back on a um a career
that was around the corner beckoning me
and I chose this other Road and he was
beused he just didn't get it at all and when I
think about what he went through before
he he had a wife and a kid and the years
that he spent I can quite understand why
he was quite sort of
um I would say probably slightly
disappointed you know initially did he
talk about the war with
you he never ever talked about it like
so many of my friends of my generation
their fathers never
until um his very latter days and then
he came out with some real corus some
very funny stories of which obviously he
was giving us the funny stuff but
um yeah that generation didn't say much
that generation didn't say much now do
you think that's the reason or not that
so many of rock and
roll's biggest stars most successful
people came out of the post postor War
II generation you think that was part of
it I think definitely there was a kind
of grim you know determination to get on
from our parents generation but for us
we didn't have any real measure of what
they had been dealing with so we were
just going hey let's go what's happening
wow there's a little Richard Little
Richard you know um this guy banging the
piano with a pompadoras mad you know so good and Bill
Haley as he did these tours Bill Haley
in the Comets who you'd say would be
quite tame really by the standards of
what followed were just they were
setting the world on fire and I looked
at them and I went that's what I want I
want to be like that