“I haven’t a clue”: the Led Zeppelin member Robert Plant called difficult to work with
Being in a band is always a bit of a tricky beast to pull off. As much as someone wants to have their creative voice heard by the other members, there are bound to be those few times when things either don’t work out or someone sticks their foot in their mouths for saying something out of line. Although Robert Plant tended to be diplomatic when it came to his Led Zeppelin bandmates, he remembered that it was always difficult trying to get through to this musical dynamo.
Throughout Zeppelin’s history, there was no way of replacing anyone in the group, either. Plant was the archetype of what a frontman was supposed to be, and even though the drummer is normally considered a tertiary player in any group, it’s a testament to John Bonham’s power behind the drumkit that the band felt they couldn’t go on after his tragic passing following a drinking session.
If there was one person who is Led Zeppelin, though, it’s Jimmy Page. The entire process of the band coming together came from him working with John Paul Jones and then finding ‘Percy’ and loving his voice. Even when looking at their body of work, his riffs are the main thing that jumps out of the speakers before Plant even opens his mouth on tunes like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ or ‘Heartbreaker’.
Compared to every member of the group, though, Jonesy tends to be the unsung hero of everything. He may have favoured being out of the limelight half the time, but looking back on the magic behind those early Zeppelin recordings, a lot of it comes from the way that he plays with the groove, either making singable melodies on his bass in tunes like ‘Ramble On’ or ‘Black Dog’.
Since the rest of the band was interested in making something beyond rock and roll, Jones was the true musician’s musician of the group, usually putting together something complex into the mix and often conducting the orchestral pieces when making their epics. That’s the kind of talent reserved for a musical superhero, but it didn’t always translate to the best person to work with.
When talking about their collaborations later, Plant considered it difficult trying to get through to what Jones wanted half the time, saying, “It was always difficult to collaborate with Jonesy because he never listened to the lyrics. I used to talk about a song, and he would say: ‘Now, which song would that be?’ And I’d go: ‘You know, the one on Presence.’ And he’d say: ‘I’m sorry, I’m not familiar with the titles, what key was it in?’ I’d sigh and say: ‘I haven’t a clue, Jonesy.’”
But part of being in a band is having that kind of artistic rub half the time. It was never going to be the greatest fit trying to follow along with every Zeppelin song, but since they have been preserved throughout history, some of their greatest material is still reverberating throughout generations because of them capturing it once.
And it’s not like Jones wasn’t remembering them through lack of trying. Considering where he’s taken his music since then with everyone from REM to Foo Fighters to Them Crooked Vultures, Zeppelin may as well be just another chapter in his book.
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