The album that tortured John Paul Jones the most: “A hard time for me”
Led Zeppelin were a perfect storm of talent. It’s as simple as that.
When the band first met up, they were in a small basement room in Chinatown, with little knowledge of one another and no prior experience playing together – things were awkward at first, sure, but once the music started playing and jams were flowing, it became pretty clear that the four of them were on the verge of something special.
John Paul Jones was incredibly excited when he went to this jam session. “We first played together in a small room on Gerrard Street, a basement room, which is now Chinatown,” he recalled. “There was just wall-to-wall amplifiers, and a space for the door – and that was it. Literally, it was everyone looking at each other – ‘What shall we play?’ Me doing more sessions, didn’t know anything at all.”
The bassist continued, recalling that after a few awkward pauses here and there, the band finally kicked into gear. “There was an old Yardbirds tune,” he said. “Called ‘Train Kept a Rollin”… The whole room just exploded.”
This was the beginning of what would become one of the biggest rock bands of all time. Led Zeppelin wound up taking over the world with their completely unique approach to rock music. It was very exciting for all those within earshot, as Led Zeppelin seemed like a band who simply couldn’t be stopped. How sad, then, that the thing which did eventually break them up was tragedy, as the group decided not to continue making music together after the tragic loss of their drummer, John Bonham.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” said Robert Plant. “I had to go and find out if I really want to do it. Did I want to do it, or did I just want to sit back there like a croupier at a gambling thing, and just kind of rake [the money] in? Or, did I want to actually continue this kind of gig of finding out where I’m going? I wanted to take all the trappings away, because I’d lost my best mate.”
However, that wasn’t the end of Led Zeppelin, the band got back together for a couple of reunion shows, and Robert Plant and Jimmy Page decided to team up again and work on the album No Quarter: Jimmy Page and Robert Plant Unledded, which consisted of acoustic renditions of Led Zeppelin songs – it was a fine album, but it lacked the same explosive quality that was present in that basement room in Chinatown. The reason? Well, leaving out band member John Paul Jones could have played a part.
John Paul Jones has since said that while he was happy the album got his two former band members making music again, he was upset about being left off the record. Even now, when all band members are on relatively good terms, they don’t tend to talk about the record, given that it brings back negative memories.
“At least he was playing. It was probably good for him,” said Jones, concluding, “We don’t actually joke about it. It was quite a hard time for me. But we’re past it, if you know what I mean.”
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