So far in our Imaginary Interview series, we've brought you... ummm... several imaginary interviews with high profile musicians. Today we're over the top, with legendary guitarist, studio man, rock star, and lover of underage groupies, Mr. Jimmy Page - James Patrick Page.
How are you, Sir?
Nah, don't call me that.
Aren't you a Sir?
Oh, yeah, call me that.
How are you, Sir?
Good. You know, doing this, doing that, doing my wife. Ave you seen er?
Well yes, I have.
Isn't she something?
Yes, I have.
She does art, doesn't she?
Yeah, somin like that. I have to go to galleries and stuff. I tell you - it's worse than touring with Plant, it is.
What's she - thirty-something?
Yeah, a bit long in the tooth. Might have to trade her in for a new model.
Yeah, she's like two of your old ones, isn't she?
Yeah, my solicitors have asked me not to comment on that.
Jimmy, Sir, what's it like to be a Rock God, in addition to a Guitar God?
Well, we had no idea, did we? We were just doing it. Playin the music. Working in the studio and making it up as we went along.
Somebody said, in reference to your busy days as a studio guitarist, that at one point, you were on most of the top 30 hits in England.
That's funny - I was too busy to pay attention. It was the top 50, by the way.
At what point did you realize you provided the soundtrack for millions of lives?
What time is it? [snickers]
Was there pressure?
If you ask the press, yes. We were one of the most hated acts in the known universe, according to them. We were horrible. Fortunately the fans proved otherwise.
Everything went platinum, didn't it?
Well, not immediately. Sometimes it took as long as a month.
As Tom Petty said, the waiting is the hardest part.
I hate him. That voice. Wrote some good songs, but....
Even more important, you influenced generations of guitar players, from beginners on up. Your legacy will continue to influence players.
Ave you heard the radio lately?
Any guitar would have to be an influence.
Ok, but you came from the Holy Yardbirds Triumverate: Page, Eric Clapton, and Jeff Beck. Could you be in any better company?
Have you ever
seen my groupies? Nah, just kidding. Eric..Eric can really put it forward. He's the authentic blues purist. I took it way out there and distorted it. Eric is the truest. Except for the Heroin Years. Cocaine was shit.
And Jeff Beck?
Jeff is a purist too. We just haven't found at what yet. Maybe he's a purist of the kind of stuff they play on Mars. Where he comes up with that stuff, I have no idea. He's always moving, inventing, and all without a pick.
Do you enjoy being an influence?
It's kind of hard to grasp. It's pretty nice, though.
We were touring nonstop for the first few albums. We were very insulated, so we had no idea what was going on outside our little touring group. It's probably better that way. It's good to look back on it, but I never set out to do it.
From what I understand, your insular little touring group was more like a four ring circus.
Well, we were on the road, burning up all that energy onstage. Unfortunately we had way too much energy in general. It got boring, so we had to create our own fun. Idle hands are the devil's work.
Speaking of which, you lived in Alestair Crowley's house, didn't you?
Bloody cold, drab place that was. I didn't hear about Crowley until a year after I bought it. I didn't
enter it until a year after I bought it. As for the black magic - it was so much nonsense. I didn't find out that I was into it for years after I moved out of the place.
But the whips and chains suitcase...
Oh that. Well. yeah. Sure. the suitcase. Nothing black about the suitcase at all. A rock star has to have his toys, doesn't he?
So this fun you had to create.. I hear they renamed LA's Hyatt House the Riot House.
Yeah, we did that one, yeah.
Is it true about Bonzo and the pool table?
Pool table?
Yes, that he destroyed it and threw it out the window?
Really?
That's the popular story.
Nah, nobody told me that. It was probably our manager, Peter Grant. He was a bloody fat man who took great care of his charges. You didn't cross Peter Grant. Even the band were afraid of Fat Pete, as we called him. He was a wise businessman too. If we weren't having a good enough time, he would invent stuff. He used to tell the press, who slagged us constantly but stood in line to cover us, that we were getting up to all sorts of things in hotels. The truth is that Bonzo was really into classical literature.
Really.
Oh yeah, he was writing a novel in the style of Shakespeare.
How was it?
Well, he had to
decipher Shakespeare first. I mean... haven't you ever read Shakespeare? Bloody same words in a different language, innit? You think he drank himself to death. That was Grant. In truth, while working on the novel, he popped an aneurysm trying to understand it and Bob was his uncle. I miss him. Especially at sheep-shearing time.
You guys tore up the stage, but lived in hidden mansions in the middle of nowhere, England. How do you reconcile the two?
Well, it was a lot cheaper in the middle of nowhere. There were no hotels to destroy. There were no young birds to pull. My wife at the time had absolutely no sense of humor about groupies. That's why she's my wife at the time. I'm still paying for her. Rock star marriages are cheap compared to rock star divorces.
Back to the present day, what can we expect from Jimmy Page? I heard rumors of a tour in 2018.
That one never came together. You have no idea how hard it is to find people to play with. Nobody wants to play with Jimmy Page.
Jimmy, all of your serious musician friends can name 400 people you should play with, as opposed to... ummm.. your previous efforts.
Nobody tells me anything.
Price of fame?
Quite.
So I gotta ask you about Stairway.
Yeah, the new place has a winding one.
Stairway to Heaven.
No, it don't go that far.
Your song Stairway to Heaven.
Oh that one. Did I play on that?
You cowrote it.
Oh yeah, that's the one that went on forever. Plant's words were even farther out there than normal.
What do they mean?
How the fucking hell should I know? Plant can't even tell you.
He sang them with such conviction. It's the anthem of all school students from the mid 70s on.
Well. yeah, that was his thing. You know how, if you say something with an authoritative voice, people believe you? Plant sang everything with an authoritative voice, so people thought he was deep. The words to Stairway weren't supposed to be the final words - they were only used as a guide for when he was done writing the full words. The album got out before we corrected that. Between you and me, the critics were right on that one.
What's the story on the famous doubleneck? On your first tour with the Firm, the tech put it out on a stand and it got an ovation.
I used a Fender XII in the studio and needed some way to play a 12 and a 6 for the entire song. I had Gibson whip one up for me. It's special - no one knows, aside from Gibson, how it differs from a regular doubleneck. That's why I get so much per guitar they sell.
Should we expect a tour any time soon?
Oh yeah, definitely.
Who will be touring?
I don't know yet.
What did the rest of you do while Bonzo attempted to assimilate Shakespeare? Or while Shakespeare tried to assimilate Bonzo? I hear Billy was a serious drinker.
Well, it was evenly split between the three of us. Robert used to run around the hotel, trying not to get caught by the screaming groupies. He frequently lost, meaning he won. I think his record was four. Simultaneously. Then four more. Then their mothers. Sometimes their pets. Jonesy, he had a fondness for napping. He was so accomplished, he could nap onstage and no one would be the wiser. I think most of Song Remains the Same was videotaped while he was napping. Me, I... well.... I was destroying underage groupies, which was ok because I'm Jimmy Page. And keeping an eye on stocks. You know, stocks and groupies. As for the destruction, it was mostly Jonesy, the quiet one.
It always is. I saw an interview with you guys on Leno. Jones was the talkative one. Witty, too.
Yeah, he puts that on when tv cameras get near. He spent the entire plane ride napping. But when he put his mind to it, he could do incredible damage to a hotel. Absolutely unequaled in the annals of rock. This is the stuff you
didn't hear. He's very shy, so nobody published a word of it. If anything got out, Bonzo got blamed. Jonesy is a fan of explosives. He has a masters in demolition, so he didn't mess about. When he needed a hotel taken down, it got taken down. But he was a gentle man - he had the guests relocated first, at his expense. Then BOOM. He was so good, he could destroy only one room, all the way up to a city block.
Bonzo used to drive the staff crazy with his constant demands for fresh towels. Some nights he'd have 75 fresh towels brought up. No one knows why. He was also fond of tea, a nice robe, and some really good pipe tobacco. He tipped generously, so no one complained. Unless he was mad. You didn't want to see him mad. I've seen people chew their own limbs off rather than upsetting him.
The unhappiest staff were the ones who had to clean Robert's room after we checked out. They had hazmat suits and masks. It looked like an alien invasion. It smelled worse. There were still women on the floor, in the loo, and occasionally on the ceiling. Some were still alive.
Were you bigger than Jesus?
Lennon really had something there. He was a bit of a dirty hippie, but they really
were bigger than Jesus at the time. He helped Jesus gain a little traction. We were definitely bigger than Jesus. I mean.. I'm 6' tall. Jesus couldn't have been more than 5'8". Squat fellow. Curly hair. I wish he could have worked on our staging - we needed somebody good with wood.
What was the whole mystical spiritual thing about?
Oh, that. More press from Grant. We had some photos taken in front of some sand and Grant told everyone we were at a spiritual retreat. We were at Robert's place, consuming massive amounts of alcohol. He has a basement full of it.
A wine cellar?
Well, yeah, but on the other side, he has a stash of fun liquor the size of several supermarkets. He has ptsd, so he likes to keep stocked, for fear he won't be able to find some when he needs it.
Who was Percy?
Percy was a nickname for Plant, around the time the pants got impossibly tight, the shirts were open all the way, and there was always .... something... in his jeans.
I don't mean to be indelicate, but Robert talked to the audience a lot and I didn't understand some of the stuff he said.
No matter, neither did we. Most times we just let him get on with it. Sometimes we'd take advantage and go backstage for some chocolate milk or a Jack and Chocolate. By the time we finished our drinks, we were ready to do the next song. It got out of hand one time.. I think it was Denver 74. I had an amp melt and he started talking. Only this time he didn't stop. They flew a tech in from London, who rebuilt the entire amp while Robert was sharing wisdom with the crowd. When the lights were going down, a roadie hit him with a large frying pan and he stopped talking. Briefly. Sometimes it was hard to get through with a straight face. The audience thought we were so happy at the music we were making. We were, but we were hysterical over Robert's behavior. If you ever interview him, you must remember to call him Robert. Rob, Bob, Johnny, and Sugarpie are right out. You'll get a serious tongue-lashing, but you might not understand any of it. One guy at a stadium called him Bob. I think he's still at the loony bin after all these years. Don't get Robert mad or you'll get a talking to.
Let's get to the meat... tell me about your guitars.
Do I play guitar? Sometimes I forget. Oh yeah, I have a 59 Les Paul that's my baby. It was featured on everything after 1972 and I toured with it relentlessly. There's the Tele with the B-Bender, which I overused. The original Tele that Fender just reissued - that one was on every album til 1972. There's another 58 Les Paul, with custom switching on it.
What do the switches do?
I'll be damned if I know. I just leave em where they are. If something sounds odd, I have my tech, Jimmy Stage (we call him Susan) come out and push the buttons til they're in the right order. It was fun, though, because the entire guitar community was trying to figure out how it was wired. They had no idea the switches didn't do anything and there was no way it was physically possible to do what we claimed it could do. Rock Gods need to laugh too.
You were known for Marshalls most of the time. Your more modern rigs feature Orange and other custom-looking amps. Regardless, you still sound like you.
Yes, I do have a lot of amps, I do.
Let me tell you a secret: I sound the same through everything because I use a small 5 watt Marshall that sits in back of the stacks. The stacks are there for decoration. Plus it keeps the internet guessing. Since I can't put together a band, this has become a pastime for me. Sometimes I log onto guitar forums under a fake name and join the arguing. The best times are when people say 'Page NEVER used that amp' and I actually did. It's a game that goes on all day and I never get tired of it.
Wow. That's a lot to take in. What was it like making the Loud movie with Edge and that kid?
That was pretty fun. My favorite part is when the 6 person road crew brought in Edge's pedalboard. I have planes smaller than his pedalboard. The kid, I forget his name, eyed me reverently. Could barely play a note. Edge actually plays a note, then the delays do the rest. I played humble. Tossers.
I've never played a lefty doubleneck before. Can you get Gibson to make me one? The last one I saw was ten grand. Can I play yours?
No. Next.
How about Les Paul #1? I'll let you play my 58 lefty reissue.... I love it when righties play my guitars.
Still no.
How about my hyper metal ADA rack preamp with 2 tubes and a vibrator?
No.. .wait... a vibrator.. 2 tubes. .. .ok.
I feel honored.
Your playing is shit, by the way.
Jimmy.. I've been waiting all my life to hear that. Fellow musicians tell me that all day, every day, but to have Jimmy frickin Page tell me I suck is like a blessing from on high.
Don't mention it. Can I keep the .. ummm... vibrator for a bit? You know, to audition the preamp....
Sure - it's the least I could do. In high schools all over the country, people used to argue over who was the best guitarist and put together celebrity bands. You got to play in a lot of bands. Unlike now... maybe I can make some calls for you. Is this whole thing Robert's fault?
I'm sworn to secrecy on that, so I'll just say it's Robert's fault. Jonesy is all ready and Jason Bonzo takes after his father in a way that makes our hearts glad. Except for the Shakespeare, which also makes our hearts glad.
My work wife, the lesbian, says she likes your music but Plant makes her ears bleed.
For some unknown reason, we never went over well with lesbians. Maybe because Robert was prettier than most girls... we gave up guessing.
How did you come about the massive stacking of guitars you did in the studio?
If there was a spare track, there was a spare guitar. I wanted more, but they told me more would erase the bass, drums, and vocals. I didn't see the problem but they were insistent, so I went along.
It was quite a shock to a young guitar player to learn that his favorite tunes were actually played on a lot of guitars. Because of this, I learned all the parts to Ten Years Gone as one guitar. I feel silly now.
Don't feel silly. Can you uh.. show me how you did that?
You're too kind. What were your impressions of Ten Years Gone? The stacking, the production, the haunting words, the drop D tuning...
Well, as we were wont to do, Robert came in with the words and I made up the music. We knew we had an anthem with that one.
It's my favorite Led Zeppelin song of the entire catalog. Let's switch hats and I'll tell you a story. Long ago, I met my first love. She played guitar and was the most beautiful girl in the entire school. Not being a suave football type, I used guitar to get to know her. We got along famously and were together for quite a while. I taught her Ten Years Gone. When she got hold of a new song, she would play it constantly, to the point I'd beg her to find a different song. She carried on, undeterred. She passed way to early, so every time I hear the song, I think of her.
I'm sorry, what did you say? I was in the loo.
Never mind. Are you writing anything new these days? We're all pretty hungry for some epic Page. And the whole reissue thing has petered out. How about some video of a really good Zep concert; one where Jones was awake throughout?
That was a rumor. The footage doesn't exist.
Did you know there's an entire community dedicated to your equipment? These guys can tell everybody which Tone Bender version you were using at which show. And when you changed to the next version. And which guitars you used at which concert.
That's quite odd. It's time to go on the internet again under the fake name. I'm going to start a rumor that one of the switches on the main Les Paul actually did something, but I'm not going to tell them which switch or what it did. This should take up most of 2019 and give me great joy. Since you haven't asked me any stupid questions, I'll tell you. It was a signal to my cigarette roadie that I needed another one. Between songs or guitar changes, he'd light up two; one for me and one for the Les Paul. If I got done first, I got the Les Paul's fag too.
What influence did the cigarettes have on your playing?
Depending on the results of my next doctor visit, cancer. They were always getting in the studio's equipment and fouling things up. We ruined several 24 track decks with just my smoke. They left in a yellow state. Looked like its liver had stopped working and it had jaundice. We'd keep track of the machines with a slash on the studio wall. Physical Grafitti ran through six of them.
Jimmy, thanks for coming by and sharing so much information with me and all four of my blog readers. Jimmy? Jimmy?
And with that, all I saw was curtains flying. He had disappeared into the ether. Probably to write some new tunes or put together a band. Or log into the internet.
