Robert Plant Recalls Being ‘Intimidated’ Joining Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin in November 1968: From left, drummer John Bonham, singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
If you’re a member of one of rock’s finest performing bands of all time, there’s well enough reason for you to be intimidated upon joining it in the first place. That’s exactly what Robert Plant felt when he first started in Led Zeppelin.
In a recent interview from BBC’s Desert Island Discs radio, Plant revealed that he felt overwhelmed starring inside Jimmy Page’s the New Yardbirds along with the well-established session musician John Paul Jones. “[John] Bonham and I were coming from the Black Country,” Plant said. “We were big fish there, but we were suddenly alongside John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page, who were really seriously accomplished, far more mature, and pretty well versed in all the different elements of melody and construction and stuff like that.”
And although he did want to be around with “excellence,” he did feel pretty intimidated when he went head-to-head with it.
“It was like all the doors and windows in the house of cards were open,” Plant explained regarding the band’s first rehearsal. “We just blew right through the walls of the cellar and right through the world,” he added.
He also felt uncomfortable listening to any Led Zeppelin music following Bonham’s tragic death in 1980, noting that he loved the drummer and his dear friend “desperately.”
