The band that would make Robert Plant turn down Led Zeppelin: “I’d have probably gone down”
By the end of the 1960s, Robert Plant was still figuring out what being a rock and roll frontman was supposed to be.
Even though he had left his place in the Band of Joy for Led Zeppelin, there were pieces of their debut album where he was still finding his swagger as a frontman before becoming ‘The Golden God’. But despite becoming the archetype for what every frontman should aspire to be, Plant knew that it was much better to let the music do the talking half the time.
After all, no one was denying the fact that Jimmy Page owned the group. His decision to leave The Yardbirds put the entire plan into motion, and while he and Plant would work together to create some of the best riffs that the hard rock world had ever known, it was the riffs that people would remember for eternity.
But in the early days of Zeppelin’s career, they weren’t doing anything too different from what the other British blues bands were doing at the time. There were countless rock acts doing their own versions of ‘You Shook Me’ and ‘I Can’t Quit You Baby’, but the one thing they had over everyone else was power. No one was going to match ‘Percy’s shouts, and when John Bonham got behind the kit, they had that animalistic side that made them impossible to ignore whenever they started playing.
Then again, it’s not like Page was alone in wanting to branch out. Eric Clapton had already left The Yardbirds to form Cream before he even had the chance to join, and while Page left around the same time that Jeff Beck did, his former bandmate had something similar on his mind when he put together the tunes for Truth.
Although Beck did carry a little bit of resentment about Zeppelin’s debut being a virtual carbon copy of the sound that he was going for, it’s not like there was any competition, either. Beck was far and away the better guitar player, but even for as hard as Rod Stewart could belt, it wasn’t going to match what Plant could do on ‘How Many More Times’. If things had gone differently, though, Plant would have happily signed on for whatever Beck had in the pipeline next.
There’s no doubt that he had great chemistry with Page, but Plant felt he could have easily gone over to Beck’s band if he had been asked, saying, “It was good to be able to hit it off like that [with Page]. Had I been asked to join Jeff Beck, I’d have probably gone down and seen him, found out that he was a good guitarist, needed the bread, gone with him and got really off.”
At the same time, would that band have had as much staying power? Keep in mind that Page’s riffs were always complemented by what Plant was doing, and while Stewart did have Beck to battle with onstage, that didn’t make for much room to grow, especially when Beck decided that he didn’t even need singers to make fantastic music on his later fusion records like Blow By Blow.
It’s strange to imagine that one of the most important rock and roll bands of all time could have been close to never existing, but it only serves to prove that Led Zeppelin were the perfect storm of things working out exactly right. They could have easily gone on with Terry Reid as their lead singer, but if fans knew anything after the death of John Bonham, it was that every single member of Zeppelin was essential to the group.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.