http://www.billboard.com/bb/specialreport/led_zeppelin/pg1.jsp


Legendary rock quartet Led Zeppelin is being celebrated with the
recent release of the five-hour concert DVD "Led Zeppelin DVD"
and triple-disc live album "How the West Was Won," the first such
comprehensive archival project of the band's career. 

Zeppelin guitarist/producer Jimmy Page talked with Billboard's
 Jonathan Cohen about these historic releases for an article
 that appeared in the May 17, 2003, issue of the Billboard 
(the full text of that piece is available to subscribers in
 Billboard.com's Premium Services section). 

The following pages comprise an extensive Q&A with Page that
 is exclusive to Billboard.com. 

Largely without the benefit of mass media exposure, Led Zeppelin
 built its reputation as one of the greatest bands in rock history
 through a decade-plus of groundbreaking albums and transcendent
 live performances. But as far as live documents went, there were
 hardly any audio or video recordings that band members deemed 
worthy of release, much less survived years in storage. 

All that changed with Atlantic's May 27 release of the five-hour,
 double-disc "Led Zeppelin DVD" and the triple-disc live album
 "How the West Was Won." It's a veritable bonanza of Zeppelin
 concert material that guitarist Jimmy Page has been conceptualizing
 for more than 20 years and took him nearly a year to compile. 

Page managed to unearth what he proudly calls "the full story" of
 Led Zeppelin -- an endlessly compelling peek at the legendary U.K.
 quartet (Page, vocalist Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist
 John Paul Jones, and late drummer John Bonham) on stage in 1970
 (London's Royal Albert Hall), 1973 (New York's Madison Square Garden),
 1975 (London's Earls Court), and 1979 (the U.K.'s Knebworth Park).
 Page even extracted outtakes from the 1976 Zeppelin concert film 
"The Song Remains the Same" and located rare footage from the band's
 scant television appearances. 

As for "How the West Was Won," it combines material from two
 July 1972 concerts at the Los Angeles Forum and the Long Beach
 Auditorium in California. The set is highlighted by performances
 of tracks like "The Ocean" and "Over the Hills and Far Away"
 from the then-unreleased album "Houses of the Holy," plus a
 mind-bending, 23-minute medley during "Whole Lotta Love." 

During a telephone conversation from his home in England,
 Page discussed the DVD and CD releases, what is left in 
the proverbial vaults, and the enduring power of Led Zeppelin's
 music. 

So, let's just start at the beginning. I'd love to know the genesis
 of this project. How long have you been working on it? Did it
 go through various ideas in terms of presentation? 

Jimmy Page: All right. It's quite an epic story, really [laughs].
 And it's quite an organic process in the way that it has all
 come together, from the inception of an idea to where we're at
 now, which is a double-DVD and three-CD. At least we'll be able 
to clarify just exactly what's there at the end of the day,
 because you know, the worst thing that could happen is for 
people to think what's on the CDs is the same as... you know,
 the DVD without visual. Let's see. Where do we start this [laughs]? 

There was very little that was shot of Led Zeppelin, okay? For
 a start. That's camera-wise. The reason for that is that when
 the first album came out, we had certain ways to promote the 
product. One was sort of live radio. That wasn't at the time 
in concert programs, although eventually [U.K. broadcaster] 
the BBC was doing full concert programs, and the evidence of
 that is on the [Led Zeppelin compilation] "BBC Sessions."
 Initially, it was just like a few, maybe three or four, 
live songs sandwiched into another program which comprised 
all manner of different things; you know, recorded music 
and maybe other live groups or whatever. You'd be a special
 guest. And so, there was that. And I must say, the BBC 
engineers were real top rate. You got a really, really 
good sound on those. 

As far as single play went, it was non-existent, certainly 
for the sort of music that we did. So it suited us quite 
well to be portrayed on the radio playing the music live.
 Because we preferred to play live, rather than what would
 be the other string to the bow, which would be miming if
 you were a top-20 band -- which of course we weren't. 
With us, we weren't doing anything like that. We were doing
 numbers that were five minutes, sort of averaging on that 
first album. 

And in the early days, it was either radio or television.
 We were a square peg in a round hole, really. There was 
this Danish TV clip that has been seen a few times in the
 past, say on a bootleg source, but now we've got it in 
on the DVD. And you can see that the audience is absolutely
 terrified. They were obviously asked to sit down and they 
don't know what to do, you know [laughs]? They're sitting 
there and it's frightening them to death what they're hearing
, because Zeppelin really was quite scary and intimidating and
 avant-garde in its day! And also there's a clip from French 
TV on there. It was bizarre. We're playing there, and there's
 a Salvation Army band there ready to play. They're all 
sitting there behind their bandstands in two rows. They're
 looking extremely uncomfortable. The thing is, now, it's
 quite quirky and it's almost at the point of being quite
 surreal, the whole thing. 

However, we had a soundcheck on there. And on the broadcast
 the voice is going up and down and the balance is changing.
 Quite clearly, episodes like that were the reasons why we 
didn't really want to continue with TV. We weren't going to
 fit into this sort of pop format, because our music didn't
 fit in anyway into that niche. And they didn't really quite
 know how to portray a new band like us in those days on 
the telly. After this initial sort of flirting with TV and
 stuff, we decided to give it a total miss and rely on our
 albums and on live performance basically, and word of mouth.
 And so what I'm getting at in a long-winded way: there were
 no real reasons to be documenting it. It was an expensive
 thing to do, to film stuff.

We sort of had a crack in 1970 of documenting the Royal
 Albert Hall when we played there. That comprises DVD disc
 one basically. And then in 1975, well, again that might
 have been for a TV thing but it wasn't, because of a few
 reasons why. Basically they didn't have enough footage.
 They only had one camera at the best of times. Then in 
1973 we tackled [New York's] Madison Square Garden with
 a view to possibly doing something and in the end it 
actually came out as a film [1976's "The Song Remains 
the Same"], to cut a long story short. 1975 at Earls Court
 was the first time anyone had used backscreen projection.
 It sounds bizarre now, but actually that was a first, in
 the U.K. anyway. We just decided because it was going up
 on the screen, we'd record the mix of the cameras all
 evening. Of course, Knebworth was a big, big to do over
 here, to be playing to that many people in an open-air
 over two weekends. That was recorded properly with cameras
 and a 24-track soundboard. 

But anyway, let's get back to the 1970 performance at Albert
 Hall. The material, and I'm not going to go into all the
 history of it, but basically it ended up in somebody's
 hands and he was going to sell it through Sotheby's.
 So we actually had to buy it back from this chap at 
quite an inflated price. But as you can see, as far as
 what was recorded of Led Zeppelin on official sources,
 it was just so limited. I knew we had the 8-tracks of it,
 and so we acquired it. The idea initially was to put it
 out, the Albert Hall. But in the process of retrieving the
 8-tracks, I was coming across all these multi-tracks of
 Earls Court, Knebworth, and again even Madison Square Garden.
 Then the videotapes were turning up, and then I got the film
 canisters. 

I put everything together. It sounded like a good idea to put
 out the Royal Albert Hall but to put out these other concerts
 as well, you know? And so in actual fact, it gives the full
 story of how we started off doing the TV thing right through
 to pretty much a full concert at the Royal Albert Hall, and
 then these other venues. 

I must say, it really was quite an epic job. Just loading the
 material alone was five weeks into the computers, and backing
 up, and this, that, and the other. It was quite amazing, 
because I thought I'd probably be mixing within a couple of
 weeks [laughs]. Quite clearly, I had to check everything 
that we had, and that included all of the live material 
that we had. Again, we didn't have a great deal. 

But we did have 1972 on the West Coast. We had L.A. Forum and
 Long Beach Auditorium. And when I put these tapes on, it was 
like, wow. Every single member of the band was playing at 110%
 and the four of us were combining to make this extra, this
 fifth element, this just magical element, our chemical quality
 we seemed to be able to pull together. And there it was. Even
 without the visuals, it was just coming right at you. It was
 leaping out of the speakers. As far as a live performance, 
without a doubt it was one of Zeppelin at its best. We always
 had a very high standard, but every now and again there'd be
 these magic nights, of which we were so fortunate to actually
 have [tapes of] two. Of course, in a perfect world, wouldn't
 it have been wonderful to have had the cameras there on a night
 like that, but of course it wasn't to be. But there we are. It's
 what you've got. The glass is half full rather than half empty,
 and that was how the project was approached. Let's see what we've
 got and let's put it out, knowing that in this day and age we
 could accommodate SurroundSound and really good digital quality
 on a home TV, if people have got that. Even still, the stereo
 mixes are pretty hot, let me tell you! 

Even when "The Song Remains The Same" was premiered, something 
that was forgotten, I must say, by Warner Bros. when they decided
 to put it out on DVD, was the fact that it actually was premiered
 in Dolby SurroundSound in its day. That was five speakers. It didn't
 have the subwoofer in its time, but it wouldn't have taken much 
to run them through a process to supply that. So actually I was 
a bit disappointed that it came out like that. What I'm saying 
is, I wasn't a stranger to actually mixing the band in a Surround format. 

So, it was cool and challenging and really exciting. How long did
 it take? Five to six months I'd say, including all that loading up
 time. As it was loading up, I was taking copious notes of every 
performance and everything that we had. You'd find that you'd 
put on one tape, and the bass drum hadn't been recorded for 
five numbers of one evening, like at Earls Court, and it was 
like, oh, boy. But no, it all came together and fantastic. 

Did you find specific performances you wanted to include but
 couldn't because of those reasons? 

JP: Well, immediately I can tell you that at Knebworth, the two sets
were different that we played on the 4th of August and the 11th of
August in 1979. Both concerts had different material, which meant basically
that, well, one performance we did "Achilles' Last Stand" and we 
didn't on the second performance. On one night, we played "Ten Years Gone."
I was really, really keen, because I had an old tape of this, which had just
a guide track run off from the out-front mixing console. And "Ten Years Gone"
was actually quite a nice performance, but when it came to the multi-tracks,
of course, it went so far, stopped, the tape ran out, and then it started up
again like 30 seconds from the end of the song. So there's one immediately
you couldn't use. That's the sort of thing that was a little upsetting, you
know what I mean? We had a fantastic version of "Nobody's Fault But Mine,"
a great version of "Kashmir," and so, you know, it all leveled out. 

There is even some fan-shot footage on the DVD. Where did that stuff come from? 

JP: Well, to fill out what we had, I thought it would be a great idea
to go for every source that we could possibly go for. So, in other words,
we might be using stills providing it was from the right night, or bootleg
footage, if there was any. I hoped that there might be some from Earls Court,
but there wasn't any [laughs]. But there was, surprisingly enough, 
bootleg footage from Madison Square Garden, which was fantastic,
because it gave an extra dimension to it.  Even though there were a number
of cameras covering us on the video shoot of Knebworth, there was some
bootleg footage there that was fantastic and gave an incredible dimension.
And so, bit by bit, the whole thing, you know, came together using whatever
we could get our hands on to augment it, but still keeping  very faithful
to the night and to the event. 

What can you tell me about the extracts from "The Song Remains the Same?" 

JP: Well, for start, we've got "Black Dog" from another night than the one
that is on "The Song Remains the Same." That's another version. However,
some of the footage, because again, it was very, very limited as far as
what there  was, is similar to "The Song Remains the Same." But we've got
"Misty Mountain Hop" and we've got "The Ocean," which weren't even in
"The Song Remains the Same." That was a treat, you know, to put stuff in from '73

You mentioned that you took copious notes, and I'm wondering if you could
talk about any insights you had while poring over everything? 

JP: Well, the thing is: every night was different. That's the thing to marvel
at really, for me to marvel at. Even I knew it, but it was wonderful to be
able to review the fact that no two concerts were exactly the same. You just never
knew when you actually went on stage and you'd go on and do the first
number, what was going to happen in the rest of the set. Sure, you'd have the
framework  of a set. But you'd have areas where there could be improvisation. 

You'd never quite know where it was going to take you. You might be halfway
through a song and Robert would decide to sing something from another source,
and  all the sudden we're right there with riffs. And that's how the band was,
really, right from day one until the last concert that we ever played. That was
the unquantified ingredient, if you like, that level of improvisation and inspiration
which was there every night. 

Sometimes you'd find far more of it than maybe other nights, but the overall thing
was in change, and very healthy at that. That's what made it so exciting to play
in the band, you know? You were always having to stay on top of it all the
time, without doubt. There was no way you could be going through a number and be
thinking about something else. You had to be staying on top of it all the way through. 

Were there songs that were particularly hard for Led Zeppelin to reproduce live,
or perhaps that weren't even played live, because of the difficulty in translating
how they were recorded in the studio? I'm thinking mainly of songs
like "Stairway to Heaven." 

JP: I'll put it another way without putting my head in a noose [laughs]. First,
the process is that they're written. Then the track is laid down in the studio.
Then there'd be all the guitar overdubs that would go on it. Usually it
was mainly guitar overdubs that went on it, you know, although there could be a bit
of keyboard or this, that, and the other. But more or less, the filigrees would be
from the guitar. And then it would go into the [live] set, if it made it into the
set. Then, it was back to the way it was really written, do  you see what I mean?
Before it was sort of finessed to a degree in the studio. 

The whole thing was that you never wanted to lose that spark of what initiated
the thing in the first place. Once it went into the set, then it would start to
take on a life of its own. It would start to grow, because we had a sort of
philosophy that there was no harm in changing the music. Once it was born, it
started to really live. That's why the numbers can be quite radically different.
I'll tell you what, even on the "BBC Sessions," you've got "Communication Breakdown"
in three different versions. And the only reason for that is that's  where we were
on that particular day. That's exactly the same theme that runs right through from
beginning to end of the DVD and the CDs you've got there. Even though the numbers
may have the same titles, the approaches and certain key parts of them may be quite
different. 

Given that this was such an exhaustive process, is there anything left in the "vault,
" either from live performance or the studio, that you think is worthy of release someday? 

JP: We had a tape from Southampton University. And we're doing "The Song Remains the Same."
Again, that's a number that's got a lot of overdubs. We're just feeling our way really,
or at least I'm feeling my way with it in a live situation. It got very, very chatty with
the audience. In a way, it almost got a little too intimate, do you know what I mean?
It got a little jokey. In actual fact, whereas I thought it was going to be really good,
it was a little disappointing to the quality, certainly when you put on something like
the L.A. Forum show. You're talking about two different things, though. You're talking about
playing in front of a few hundred as opposed to a few thousand. 

The American audiences, it was no doubt about it! In those days, we just couldn't wait to
play in front of American audiences, because they were just so  friendly and they'd urge
you on. And they'd react at all the right points. You know, as I said, within this
improvisation stuff, you'd hit something that actually was pretty good between the four
of you onstage, and you'd get this big roar coming at you. It would drive you on and on and
on. It is like an exchange. No matter what, a concert is an exchange. You send out to the
audience and they send it back, and then it goes back to the audience, and then this 
fantastic energy just builds up all night. There's no doubt about it. 

So, what's left? Well, as far as the live stuff, there just isn't. There's a few things
from Japan but I really don't know whether they'd ever see the light of day, to be honest
with you. And then, as far as the studio stuff, there's some interesting sort of alternate
mixes that were done at the time, and alternate versions of the songs. We have rough mixes,
but sometimes even more overdubbed guitars. That's all there is, really. The work-in-progress
stuff. Very interesting. Fascinating stuff, but really that's what it is. I think, you know,
as far as a live blitz, an onslaught, this is it, really. This is really where it's at.
Because now you can really see the band. You can see how it was playing and what it was doing.
And it can be heard certainly firing on all cylinders. 

You don't play live very often. I am wondering if you miss that? 

JP: Well, I've been in the studio for the last six months, so that sort of stopped me
playing live last year. I did play in the early part of last year at the Royal Albert Hall.
I haven't played this year yet though, that's for sure. I've got a few things that I want
to sort of pull together. I've been in the studio for quite awhile now, and I'd like to
sort of translate my creative ability into a playing format. 

Further to that, is there any new music you're working on? 

JP: I've got some ideas that I had before I went into this Zeppelin thing. But to be honest
with you, it was going to be: do I put the time into these ideas that had come up, and actually,
there were two very positive things and they're both totally different. Or, is this the time to
get in there and put together this Zeppelin thing which, to be honest with you, had been eating
at me even back in 1980, when I wanted to do a chronological live album. The [new] projects
would be quite complicated and they'd take quite a bit of putting together, but we'll see. 

Are you talking about pieces of music or group projects? 

JP: I'm talking about something which has never been done before. I'll say that. And it
would involve a cast of thousands [laughs hard]. We'll see. 

I'd love to know if you have any plans to collaborate with Robert or John Paul on a musical level? 

JP: The thing is, during the time I was in the studio doing the live album, I was told we were
touring this summer by everybody and their uncle and their grandson and their dog. However,
at that time, I said, wait a minute. I'm working on this. I wanted to do that. And to be honest
with you, what I'd said at that point in time is, I'd like to get this material out. I mean,
it's a live blitz. But the last thing I'd want to do is to go out there promoting a DVD of
something I did 30 years ago. 

If any other band did that, I'd be, as they say in England, taking the piss. And quite rightly
so. So, we'll let the water go under the bridge, we'll let the dust settle, and who knows?
Maybe along the way, the members of Led Zeppelin, if they can keep communicating long enough,
or if they communicate at all [laughs], may get into a room and see how things are. 

I think really we'd need to see how we got on in every respect. I mean, it's all very well.
I know everyone would love to see us play together, but the reality of it is, if you start doing
that, you commit to a period of time. And you've got to make sure that the music is jelling, and
the personalities are jelling. But you know, who knows? Everything is possible! We've got a
chronological live album after 20 years [laughs hard]. Let's be positive and say that maybe it
could be. It certainly wouldn't be because anyone had gone  ahead and booked dates for us.
No, no, no, no, no. That wouldn't be the case at all. It would be because we felt like we'd
like to do it.