ROBERT PLANT (2018)
Interview Background
Despite spending almost 40 years following a musical course rarely resembling the sounds of his first successful group, Robert Plant is still routinely introduced in reviews and interviews as ‘Led Zeppelin singer’. Most rock stars would love to be laboured with this iconic descriptor, but Plant isn’t one of them. Contemporary interviews are generally only granted if Plant’s interlocutors stay away from the oft-trod topics from his Led Zeppelin years, but once he was on the phone Plant proved a sparkling wit and exciting foil. Calling from a home in Wales, not too far from the Black Country locations he first flirted with musical stardom playing in pubs more than 50 years before, Plant was sounding invigorated when talking about his new album with the Sensational Space Shifters, Carry Fire. While Plant led the conversation back and forth to Led Zeppelin over the 30 minute conversation, he never let on a very special surprise: the London trip he mentioned to me was in fact to discuss Led Zeppelin’s then-impending 50th anniversary with surviving bandmates John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page…
The following is an edited version of interviews published on the I Like Your Old Stuff website, October 2017 and January 2018. For the full interviews - and plenty more Led Zeppelin material - head to I Like Your Old Stuff.
Robert Plant - "We Can Kick Arse And Turn Things Upside Down!"
by Scott McLennan
Despite being the frontman for one of the best-selling rock bands of all time, the global nature of Robert Plant’s fame really hit home a few years ago. The Led Zeppelin vocalist laughs when recalling a trek with his son Logan in a deserted area of north-west China where few international travellers venture.
“I was with my son on the silk route from Zh-Xi’an in China through Dunhuang and Turpan to Kashgar and we’d seen no Europeans for a couple of weeks,” Plant says. “We were in the middle of nowhere in an area of the Taklamakan Desert between Russia, China and out the back of Mount Everest. There were two Japanese tourists who appeared out of nowhere, made a beeline for me and pronounced I was ‘Lobert Plant’! I looked at Logan and said, ‘This can’t be right! Who’s doing the [Candid Camera] video around here?’.”
After 50 years touring the world, inimitable rock elder Plant prefers to collect knowledge, understanding and musical ideas over cheap trinkets when he travels. Brushed with Americana, North African and ‘60s R&B touches, new album Carry Fire finds Plant eagerly searching for fresh inspiration on his first release since the Celtic and bluegrass sounds of 2014’s Lullaby And The… Ceaseless Roar. Speaking from his property in rural Wales, Plant says his restless interest in exploring new terrain and cultivating knowledge stems from a childhood spent close to his current location.
“My parents would take me to ruined castles in the Welsh mountains,” the 69-year-old recalls. “I would look at the world in the 1950s when I was seven or whatever it is, and it was like, ‘What on Earth am I doing here? What’s all this stuff around me? What’s going on?’. I was quite driven by history and it’s gone through all my singing and stories, such as The Battle Of Evermore in the ‘70s and Ramble On and all that stuff.”
The video for Carry Fire single Bones Of Saints plays on Plant’s childhood love of pouring over illustrated history books and learning about ancient civilisations, knights and fantastical voyages.
“When I was a kid there was a book called Looking At History by RJ Unstead,” Plant says. “There were three volumes of that, beautiful history books, and it was like a potted vision of what had happened in these isles since the beginning of the Iron Age. I was just intrigued, and I had parents who had their eyes wide open. It seemed appropriate to use that visual pictorial to make the point of Bones Of Saints’ lyrics, without it being some sort of current newsreel depicting the ridiculousness of our species.”
First playing to Australian audiences with Led Zeppelin in 1972, Robert Plant has recently been announced as a Bluesfest 2018 headliner. So do Carry Fire’s songs have natural companions in his back catalogue that will play a part in creating a setlist that intertwines eras?
“Well that’s a very profound and very well weighted question – and absolutely is the answer! It’s very simple - we can kick arse and turn things upside down to suit. We can have different moods and themes and make the whole set shimmer in different directions. We are rehearsing right now and I go back in on Monday. It’s all up and running and sounding great.”
After following his muse in Timbuktu, Marrakech and Morocco, is there anywhere on the globe Plant still needs to make a pilgrimage to?
“I didn’t go to Morocco to do anything musical when I first went there all those years ago, I just wanted to see what it was like. It’s not Ali Baba & The Forty Thieves you know, I found a fantastic country filled with remarkable people with great senses of humour. The Moroccans in Morocco and the Berber in the south of Morocco, I guess you have to take them as you find them, but I’ve never know anything but hospitality and great kindness and charm – and a great sense of humour. As for where else I’d go? Anywhere – I’m happy just to get off the bus at the wrong stop!”
Oh come on, surely it’s been years since Robert “I am a golden god!” Plant caught a public bus?
“Well I caught the London Underground a couple of weeks ago, yeah. And it’s remarkable seeing the people who get on and off that thing. Right now I’m in the Welsh mountains just preparing for a journey to London and I’m surrounded by all the beautiful colours of autumn, which is really beautiful. To go into a city to me is like being a stowaway on a galleon and coming to shore and not really knowing what on Earth is going on. The world is definitely changing and London is definitely changing all the time, so it’s fascinating seeing all the people. Maybe the only journey I have to make [to find new musical inspiration] is the five hours to London.”
Even so, as the vocalist behind the wonders of Houses Of The Holy, Led Zeppelin IV and more recently the Grammy-winning Raising Sand, surely it must be hard for Plant to take the Tube without being hounded by people wanting photographs?
“I don’t think there’s many of that generation around to be honest!” Plant jokes. “No, I just wear a funny hat and take my teeth out…”
Some of the most interesting moments in Plant’s extensive music catalogue come from collaborations with female vocalists. From the vocal interplay with Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny on Led Zeppelin IV’s The Battle Of Evermore in 1971 through to 2007’s Grammy Award-winning Raising Sand partnership with bluegrass star Alison Krauss, Plant is lavish with praise for his his former collaborators. Does it feel like a dance when you’re engaging with a new vocal partner and learning how to move with one another?
“Absolutely, yeah – it’s a very good way of putting it, definitely. It’s intriguing and it’s really fresh. Both parties have to see what the measure is, what the climate of the whole thing is, whether it’s driven or whatever. With Sandy Denny that was my first attempt and it wasn’t a bad shot! I’d written the lyrics to The Battle Of Evermore and I just couldn’t sing them all. It was evident there was an A and B to every couplet, like a response to every verse, the response would be a warning or indication or advice. We didn’t sing harmonies, with Sandy we did those tail adds at the end, which were great.”
Carry Fire (Nonesuch/Warner Bros)
Unpublished Interview Material
And are there any current popular musicians you’ve got your eye on for future collaborations, such as Taylor Swift or Angel Olsen?
"(Laughs) I’ve got my eye on… No, I’ve just got my eye on the road."
Are New World’s lyrics about the genocide that came with the conquering ships of the Spanish and English?
"It’s just about imperialism really, and it’s still going on. Just go to South Dakota today and check out the history of the treaties all the way through with the Lakota and the Commanches. It’s unfortunate that in the early primal stages of negotiation between the 1600s and the 1900s there was every good intention, but the trouble is that there’s a need for expansion beyond control. In some aspects of government, it had to be proven that the Native American was actually [classed] a human."
Even here in Australia, Australian Aboriginals were only given the vote 50 years ago.
"Well there we are. So that’s basically what the song is about and I’ve been exposed to it quite a lot with my travels and with this author friend of mine, Kent Nerburn, whose first book of a trilogy, Neither Wolf Nor Dog, I read. Because I’ve lived in Texas, I found myself learning more and more how the Commanche lands, the great Commancheria plains, which for 4000 years had just been Commanche lands, had everything just changed. With all the deals and all that, in the end you’ve got 17,000 Commanches living in Fort Cil, Oklahoma with only two per cent of them speaking their own language now. It’s just… that’s the way it goes."
You’ve been coming to Australia since 1972, but have you ever had a chance to get off the beaten track and see Australia beyond the cities?
"No, I haven’t, but not I’m not a voyeur either. I can’t go wandering around visiting people as a luminary or anything like that, so that isn’t applicable but I’m very aware of it. But there we are – sometimes you don’t just sing about love all the time."
You are the epitome of a humble, noble artist still moving forward, who can acknowledge history without being chained to it. You must have younger acts approaching you for advice on how to manage the tightrope?
"Well they’ve got to get there first, so there really is no tightrope until you’ve been around long enough to see the passing of time."
Thanks for your time.
"Alright cobber! Good to talk to ya! See you in Wagga Wagga! See you mate."
Read more Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin material at I Like Your Old Stuff.
Despite spending almost 40 years following a musical course rarely resembling the sounds of his first successful group, Robert Plant is still routinely introduced in reviews and interviews as ‘Led Zeppelin singer’. Most rock stars would love to be laboured with this iconic descriptor, but Plant isn’t one of them. Contemporary interviews are generally only granted if Plant’s interlocutors stay away from the oft-trod topics from his Led Zeppelin years, but once he was on the phone Plant proved a sparkling wit and exciting foil. Calling from a home in Wales, not too far from the Black Country locations he first flirted with musical stardom playing in pubs more than 50 years before, Plant was sounding invigorated when talking about his new album with the Sensational Space Shifters, Carry Fire. While Plant led the conversation back and forth to Led Zeppelin over the 30 minute conversation, he never let on a very special surprise: the London trip he mentioned to me was in fact to discuss Led Zeppelin’s then-impending 50th anniversary with surviving bandmates John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page…
The following is an edited version of interviews published on the I Like Your Old Stuff website, October 2017 and January 2018. For the full interviews - and plenty more Led Zeppelin material - head to I Like Your Old Stuff.
Robert Plant - "We Can Kick Arse And Turn Things Upside Down!"
by Scott McLennan
Despite being the frontman for one of the best-selling rock bands of all time, the global nature of Robert Plant’s fame really hit home a few years ago. The Led Zeppelin vocalist laughs when recalling a trek with his son Logan in a deserted area of north-west China where few international travellers venture.
“I was with my son on the silk route from Zh-Xi’an in China through Dunhuang and Turpan to Kashgar and we’d seen no Europeans for a couple of weeks,” Plant says. “We were in the middle of nowhere in an area of the Taklamakan Desert between Russia, China and out the back of Mount Everest. There were two Japanese tourists who appeared out of nowhere, made a beeline for me and pronounced I was ‘Lobert Plant’! I looked at Logan and said, ‘This can’t be right! Who’s doing the [Candid Camera] video around here?’.”
After 50 years touring the world, inimitable rock elder Plant prefers to collect knowledge, understanding and musical ideas over cheap trinkets when he travels. Brushed with Americana, North African and ‘60s R&B touches, new album Carry Fire finds Plant eagerly searching for fresh inspiration on his first release since the Celtic and bluegrass sounds of 2014’s Lullaby And The… Ceaseless Roar. Speaking from his property in rural Wales, Plant says his restless interest in exploring new terrain and cultivating knowledge stems from a childhood spent close to his current location.
“My parents would take me to ruined castles in the Welsh mountains,” the 69-year-old recalls. “I would look at the world in the 1950s when I was seven or whatever it is, and it was like, ‘What on Earth am I doing here? What’s all this stuff around me? What’s going on?’. I was quite driven by history and it’s gone through all my singing and stories, such as The Battle Of Evermore in the ‘70s and Ramble On and all that stuff.”
The video for Carry Fire single Bones Of Saints plays on Plant’s childhood love of pouring over illustrated history books and learning about ancient civilisations, knights and fantastical voyages.
“When I was a kid there was a book called Looking At History by RJ Unstead,” Plant says. “There were three volumes of that, beautiful history books, and it was like a potted vision of what had happened in these isles since the beginning of the Iron Age. I was just intrigued, and I had parents who had their eyes wide open. It seemed appropriate to use that visual pictorial to make the point of Bones Of Saints’ lyrics, without it being some sort of current newsreel depicting the ridiculousness of our species.”
First playing to Australian audiences with Led Zeppelin in 1972, Robert Plant has recently been announced as a Bluesfest 2018 headliner. So do Carry Fire’s songs have natural companions in his back catalogue that will play a part in creating a setlist that intertwines eras?
“Well that’s a very profound and very well weighted question – and absolutely is the answer! It’s very simple - we can kick arse and turn things upside down to suit. We can have different moods and themes and make the whole set shimmer in different directions. We are rehearsing right now and I go back in on Monday. It’s all up and running and sounding great.”
After following his muse in Timbuktu, Marrakech and Morocco, is there anywhere on the globe Plant still needs to make a pilgrimage to?
“I didn’t go to Morocco to do anything musical when I first went there all those years ago, I just wanted to see what it was like. It’s not Ali Baba & The Forty Thieves you know, I found a fantastic country filled with remarkable people with great senses of humour. The Moroccans in Morocco and the Berber in the south of Morocco, I guess you have to take them as you find them, but I’ve never know anything but hospitality and great kindness and charm – and a great sense of humour. As for where else I’d go? Anywhere – I’m happy just to get off the bus at the wrong stop!”
Oh come on, surely it’s been years since Robert “I am a golden god!” Plant caught a public bus?
“Well I caught the London Underground a couple of weeks ago, yeah. And it’s remarkable seeing the people who get on and off that thing. Right now I’m in the Welsh mountains just preparing for a journey to London and I’m surrounded by all the beautiful colours of autumn, which is really beautiful. To go into a city to me is like being a stowaway on a galleon and coming to shore and not really knowing what on Earth is going on. The world is definitely changing and London is definitely changing all the time, so it’s fascinating seeing all the people. Maybe the only journey I have to make [to find new musical inspiration] is the five hours to London.”
Even so, as the vocalist behind the wonders of Houses Of The Holy, Led Zeppelin IV and more recently the Grammy-winning Raising Sand, surely it must be hard for Plant to take the Tube without being hounded by people wanting photographs?
“I don’t think there’s many of that generation around to be honest!” Plant jokes. “No, I just wear a funny hat and take my teeth out…”
Some of the most interesting moments in Plant’s extensive music catalogue come from collaborations with female vocalists. From the vocal interplay with Fairport Convention’s Sandy Denny on Led Zeppelin IV’s The Battle Of Evermore in 1971 through to 2007’s Grammy Award-winning Raising Sand partnership with bluegrass star Alison Krauss, Plant is lavish with praise for his his former collaborators. Does it feel like a dance when you’re engaging with a new vocal partner and learning how to move with one another?
“Absolutely, yeah – it’s a very good way of putting it, definitely. It’s intriguing and it’s really fresh. Both parties have to see what the measure is, what the climate of the whole thing is, whether it’s driven or whatever. With Sandy Denny that was my first attempt and it wasn’t a bad shot! I’d written the lyrics to The Battle Of Evermore and I just couldn’t sing them all. It was evident there was an A and B to every couplet, like a response to every verse, the response would be a warning or indication or advice. We didn’t sing harmonies, with Sandy we did those tail adds at the end, which were great.”
Carry Fire (Nonesuch/Warner Bros)
Unpublished Interview Material
And are there any current popular musicians you’ve got your eye on for future collaborations, such as Taylor Swift or Angel Olsen?
"(Laughs) I’ve got my eye on… No, I’ve just got my eye on the road."
Are New World’s lyrics about the genocide that came with the conquering ships of the Spanish and English?
"It’s just about imperialism really, and it’s still going on. Just go to South Dakota today and check out the history of the treaties all the way through with the Lakota and the Commanches. It’s unfortunate that in the early primal stages of negotiation between the 1600s and the 1900s there was every good intention, but the trouble is that there’s a need for expansion beyond control. In some aspects of government, it had to be proven that the Native American was actually [classed] a human."
Even here in Australia, Australian Aboriginals were only given the vote 50 years ago.
"Well there we are. So that’s basically what the song is about and I’ve been exposed to it quite a lot with my travels and with this author friend of mine, Kent Nerburn, whose first book of a trilogy, Neither Wolf Nor Dog, I read. Because I’ve lived in Texas, I found myself learning more and more how the Commanche lands, the great Commancheria plains, which for 4000 years had just been Commanche lands, had everything just changed. With all the deals and all that, in the end you’ve got 17,000 Commanches living in Fort Cil, Oklahoma with only two per cent of them speaking their own language now. It’s just… that’s the way it goes."
You’ve been coming to Australia since 1972, but have you ever had a chance to get off the beaten track and see Australia beyond the cities?
"No, I haven’t, but not I’m not a voyeur either. I can’t go wandering around visiting people as a luminary or anything like that, so that isn’t applicable but I’m very aware of it. But there we are – sometimes you don’t just sing about love all the time."
You are the epitome of a humble, noble artist still moving forward, who can acknowledge history without being chained to it. You must have younger acts approaching you for advice on how to manage the tightrope?
"Well they’ve got to get there first, so there really is no tightrope until you’ve been around long enough to see the passing of time."
Thanks for your time.
"Alright cobber! Good to talk to ya! See you in Wagga Wagga! See you mate."
Read more Robert Plant and Led Zeppelin material at I Like Your Old Stuff.
