Robert Plant on the Led Zeppelin Rehearsals: The Band Has "Done It. It's There."

One that that always struck me about Led Zeppelin in concert was the empathy you had as a band when you improvised. It wasn't just jamming but a kind of traveling in consort. Anyone could lead, and the rest would follow.
Robert could come in at any point [with a vocal idea], and by the time he got halfway through the first line, we'd know what he was going for. And we'd be there with him before he finished that line. That's how on it all was. Of course, we had the benefit of knowing each other so well musically — and also the fact that this band continued on, year after year, tour after tour, album after album. We could take more and more chances with each other onstage. It was challenging and exciting.

I have tapes from the very first tour in early 1969, and you were doing that already.
That's right. But that was the ethic, how it was intended to be. God forbid that it should be safe.

Were you surprised by how immediate it was? When you formed the band, Robert and John were not as experienced as you and John Paul. I hear this a lot. But John Bonham had a reputation in the Midlands. He played with Robert and other bands, and he had just come out of the Tim Rose tour. I hadn't heard of John Bonham. His reputation hadn't come this far down south. [Plant recommended him to Page.] But he was such a proficient drummer.

He had an empathy with what was going on, and that was inspiring to play with. But then we were all inspiring to play with at that point. And Robert had paid his dues in Birmingham bands. He had good, firm roots in the extensions out of that Yardbirds period.

How would you characterize the way Led Zeppelin rehearsed for concerts in the Seventies? How would you get ready for a tour?
We would just go in and jam. The hardest part of the Led Zeppelin set list in those days was actually taking numbers out, to put in new ones. Inevitably, we'd want to play some new numbers from the current album. But sometimes we'd only play one of them, because we didn't want to lose the old numbers. As a result, the set kept getting longer and longer and longer. That was one of the reasons the shows were so long — we just enjoyed playing so much. If we had a rehearsal to go on the road, we'd go over some links within the set, segues between numbers — then afterward, just jamming, coming up with new things that would disappear into the ether. Of course, it was work. But it wasn't a chore. It was something to enjoy and savor.

How much did you feel challenged in Led Zeppelin as a guitarist and songwriter? Robert and John were maturing quickly, but you were on the same runaway train.
It's undeniable that everybody's technique grew in that band. It blossomed. Technique is the wrong word. I don't have technique at all. We'll call it musical character. But it gave everybody a chance for their character to seriously grow.

I was writing things where I could hear Robert singing it. And with John Bonham's powerhouse drumming, that was an interesting perspective — to have verses coming through, then the power chords. To me, that was instinctive, as opposed to having everything going at once. You'd have songs where the colors would be revealed as the song progresses, rather than everything — Bam! — all together, like everybody else was doing.

Is there an ultimate Zeppelin song? Everybody talks about "Stairway to Heaven." Robert often refers to "Kashmir." I'm not in the best position to say that. It's what it conveys to other people — or what it ought to be. I know how music has affected me through my life. On a subjective level, the songs all have various memories for me. You couldn't put it all into one.

What about "Achilles Last Stand" [on Presence]? You orchestrated all of those guitars in the studio, shooting up and out at different angles.
It was done in one evening, the whole of the arrangement. To be honest with you, the other guys didn't know ... "Has he gone mad? Does he know what he's doing?" But at the end of it, the picture became clear. It was like a little vignette, every time something comes around.

Was it difficult to play the song onstage?
It was tough to play live with one guitar. Here I'm showing off: "Let's have a real guitar army." The it was back to one guy — like the soldier in the sentry box [laughs]. The version from Knebworth [in 1979] on the DVD [the two-disc set Led Zeppelin] is not very good. But that's what we had. Sometimes less is more. But in that case ... It certainly showcases everybody else [laughs] — vocals, drumming and John Paul Jones.