Robert Plant once named the weakest link in Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant has always been honest about his work. From showing ample self-confidence regarding the quartet’s power to providing interesting critiques of classic songs, he’s always been realistic in his appraisals. Furthermore, the West Bromwich native has always used a dash of that classic West Midlands humour to make his point.
On the more positive side of the coin, Plant once recalled the moment he knew Led Zeppelin would be a triumph. He told Rolling Stone: “When we kicked in with a bunch of songs that nobody really knew, ‘Train Kept a-Rollin”… I knew that I was in a room full of giants, really. And that was it.”
He continued: “By 1973, what happened in that one room had exploded into some of the most adventurous non-rock rock that you could ever wish to find. It was just the sum of the parts. Those guys were just insanely good. And it was as if everybody had just been waiting for each other with whatever happened prior to that. It was just like, bang!”
This idea that Plant was in a band with giants is something that he has revisited numerous times throughout his career. When discussing the classic ‘Achilles Last Stand’, on episode three of his Digging Deep podcast in 2019, he reflected on what he deemed was the weak link in the band: himself. Surprisingly critical, even for someone as famously humble as he, Plant likened himself to a “wedding singer” before calling the rest of his bandmates, Jimmy Page, John Bonham and John Paul Jones, “amazing”.
“If you think of Led Zeppelin as a trio, really, with a kind of wedding singer up front … my enthusiasm was a good contribution, but in fact those guys were amazing,” Plant said when discussing ‘Achilles Last Stand’ from 1976’s Presence. He also posited that the album is “not always the most comfortable listen” because of his personal struggles at the time. However, he continued: “Despite this, the interaction and fusion of musicality of these three guys in this song is insane.”
Regarding the painful time recording Presence, which saw the frontman in a wheelchair for most of it as he recovered from a severe car accident, he concluded: “It was an uncomfortable moment, but it was a different moment. I began to compose about freedom and escape. The desire throughout this song is to be in a place that is a reward. Were basically the Atlas mountain range and return to Morocco.”
Listen to the episode of Digging Deep below.
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