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

In "The Song Remains the Same", the scene where you play drums, with your dad on bongos, is wonderfully prophetic.
They sent me the original footage of that. I'm actually playing to Dr. John, "Right Place, Wrong Time." [In the film, the soundtrack is John Bonham's solo, "Moby Dick."] My dad's at the jukebox, and he asked me, "What do you want to play to?" There is also footage of Dad playing on my kit, doing [Ike and Tina Turner's] "Nutbush City Limits." He sat at my little drums. That is priceless.

People don't think of him as an R&B drummer.
I have this collection of stuff that people give me, these outtakes. It frustrates Jimny [laughs]. And one is just the drums of "Whole Lotta Love" for a few bars. And it's funky. It's not rock. It's a funk feel, and nobody ever got that. All of his favorite music was in more of a folk and funk thing. I remember he loved the Hall and Oates album, Abandoned Luncheonette, with "She's Gone" on it. He loved that kind of vibe. I got the chance to tell Stevie Nicks at the Ahmet Ertegun memorial [in New York] that my father loved Fleetwood Mac's Rumours. Now when I listen back to it, it makes me smile, because it reminds me of sitting with Dad, going to motorcross races, with my bike on the back of a Range Rover.

People think of your dad as the raging drum animal. Do you think he got a raw deal after his death, because of the way he died?
When you look at the movie, you go, "I get it." He was the only guy who didn't want to show a fantasy life. What Dad showed was reality. He's on the tractor, he's going to the pub, playing snooker. That wasn't a fantasy scene. That was my Dad's life — playing drums, being with his family. All the others had their little dream fantasies — John Paul as the Night Rider, Jimmy with Father Time, Robert as King Arthur. But that was just Dad. There was an element to him that people don't know.

How different are you from your dad as a drummer?
Probably not much. You should ask this the other way around — what don't I do that Dad did? When I get to play this music, I can pick and choose key moments that were phenomenal, from the catalog of what I have on bootlegs and live things. I have this blueprint in my head of what I want to use where. Before we knew what songs we were going to do, I had to make sure I had everything covered for every part, in every year. I have to have certain things down that I would miss if I was watching the gig.

I have a great blueprint to look at. Occasionally, I'll do something that is in the mold, although it might not be something Dad did in that song. I might even take something that he did in Presence and put it in something off Led Zeppelin II.

One of the greatest feelings I had, after the first day [of rehearsal], was when we all went out for dinner together. We sat in a crowded restaurant — we had to share a table with another couple — and nobody knew who we were. They were telling me some great things about Dad, funny stories. And to see them laughing and interacting together, I was like, "Wow." I didn't feel like I was a kid looking up to them anymore. [Smiles] It was very weird.