kicking off in 1982 with Pictures At Eleven, which
was using drum boxes and stuff, just trying to
break the mould of expectation of me being part
of some huge juggernaut. The bottom line is to dig
deep. At the time, I kept on twisting and turning
with these musical threads. When I look back now,
I never quite reached the point where I was trying
to get to with some of them, but with other ones
I really did. Doing Your Ma Said You Cried In Your
Sleep Last Night [a cover of Kenny Dino’s early-60s
hit, on 1990’s Manic Nirvana] with the actual run-in
to the track being the sound of the stylus on the
original vinyl in my house was just idiosyncratic
beyond all belief. Nobody gave a flying fuck. But
I did. And that’s what counted. The whole idea of
doing this thing is that it brings these songs back to
life, which is fun. They almost come to life in
a totally different way.
It’s amazing how the whole
idea of podcasts, as a mode of
entertainment, has replaced
radio in many people’s
imaginations. I’ve also got
forty-plus tracks that I’ve never
put out. I’ve got stuff that I did
in New Orleans with the Li’l
Band O’ Gold and Allen
Toussaint. I’ve done so many
things. I’ve got a whole album,
Band Of Joy II, that I did with
Buddy Miller and Patty Griffin.
I’ve got stuff everywhere. So it
might be a good way to gather
some pretty powerful stuff and just
eke it out there. I’ve just been
tidying up my little studio here, to
do some rehearsing later in the
week, and found some stuff with the Space
Shifters that we did at Rockfield two years ago. So
it’s not just about stuff that came out through the
normal channels.Going back to the start of your solo career, am
I right in saying that it almost
didn’t happen? You were all set
to go to teacher training college
at one point.
In 1977 we lost our son, Karac [he
died of a stomach virus while Led
Zeppelin were on tour in America].
He was only five years old. I’d spent
so much time trying to be a decent
dad, but at the same time I was
really attracted to what I was doing
in Zeppelin. So when he bowed
out, I just thought: “What’s it all
worth? What’s that all about?
Would it have been any different if
I was there, if I’d been around?” So
I was thinking about the merit of
my life at that time, and whether ornot I needed to put a lot more into
the reality of the people that I loved
and cared for – my daughter and my
family generally. So yeah, I was
ready to jack it in, until Bonzo came along.He convinced you otherwise?
Yeah. He had a six-door Mercedes limousine and it
came with a chauffeur driver’s hat. We lived five or
six miles apart, not far from here, and sometimeswe’d go out for a drink. He’d put the chauffeur
driver’s hat on and I’d sit in the back of this stretch
Mercedes and we’d go out on the lash. Then he’d
put his hat back on and drive me home. Of course,
he’d be three sheets to the wind, and we’d go past
cops and they’d go: “There’s another poor fucker
working for the rich!” But he was very supportive
at that time, with his wife and the kids. So I did go
back [to Zeppelin] for one more flurry.Similarly, a few years later, Phil
Collins helped you on your way
when you went solo.
Phil was at such a huge peak and
very prolific. I sat in a room with
Atlantic Records and Peter Grant,
talking about the solo thing. I said:
“Look, there’s no other way to do
this, really. I’ve got to keep going,
because I’m thirty-two years old
and I haven’t actually felt anything
else other than this juggernaut
success thing. I need to find out
what the other side of it is like.”
Consequently, Phil Carson, of
Atlantic, was dealing with Phil
Collins’s solo stuff, post-Genesis.
GEO Phil was such a huge fan of John
RG
E^ B
OD
NA
R^ A
RCH
IVE
/IC
ON
ICP
IX^ x
2
“A lot of the endeavours
that have been and gone
since the passing of
Led Zep have been
great dalliances.”
Plant with Phil Collins on a visit to Billy
Bob’s Texas Honky Tonk Rodeo in Fort
Worth, Texas, on a day off on the
Principle Of Moments US tour.The Principle Of Moments US
tour band in 1983 : (l-r) Bob
Mayo, Robbie Blunt, Jez
Woodruffe, Robert Plant, PaulMartinez, Phil (^) Collins.
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