The surprising band who inspired Robert Plant’s 1988 Led Zeppelin resurgence
Led Zeppelin were a unit, and the band wouldn’t have worked had those four musicians not come together in the way that they did.
Their first jam took place in a tiny basement room in London. Things were awkward at first, naturally, given they had never played together as a collective. However, once things got flying, and the band dove into a cover of one of The Yardbirds’ classics, it became clear that not only were they capable of playing with one another, but they could also put their minds together and create some truly awe-inspiring music.
As such, when John Bonham, one of the band members, passed away, it made sense for them all to call it a day in general. The idea of continuing to make music and tour without their drummer, who was singlehandedly changing the way that people viewed the instrument, just didn’t seem right. Robert Plant was one of the artists who led the charge to disband once Bonham shuffled off the mortal coil.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” said 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.”
Of course, while it didn’t feel right having the band continue making music, it wasn’t like Jimmy Page, Plant and John Paul Jones could simply put a lid on their creativity. Instead, they all pursued different endeavours, which meant writing solo records, working in other bands, or teaming up for unlikely duets.
Plant seemed to move away from the standard Led Zeppelin sound, leaning further from the screeching vocals that he became famous for throughout the 1970s, instead opting for a more controlled and harmonic style. He also enjoyed playing around with different genres of music, going so far as to release an electronic-inspired album at one point, which no one in music was expecting at the time. When you’ve made such a home for yourself within the realm of hard rock, though, there is no escaping the fact that eventually, you’ll return to that sound.
For Plant, this return came in 1988 with his album Now and Zen, which felt a lot more similar to the kind of music that he’d been making previously in Led Zeppelin. “I remember sitting with a friend in New York after I had played the Meadowlands on my last tour, and he said to me, ‘Why not make it easy on yourself?’” he recalled, “I was fighting my past just to be different. I still like creating something new, but I haven’t totally forgotten the past. Let’s just say I’m very comfortable with the music on this album.”
A conversation with his friend certainly convinced Plant to try engaging with that Led Zeppelin sound again; however, another huge inspiration came from a pretty unlikely place: The Beastie Boys. When he heard their music, particularly their song ‘Rhymin & Stealin’, which sampled a Zeppelin classic, he felt like enough time had passed for him to show the people that were inspired by his former band exactly how it was done.
“The only band that really opened my eyes in surprise was The Beastie Boys,” he said, “They used part of ‘When The Levee Breaks’ on one of their songs. My attitude after hearing that was, ‘If those schmucks can do it, why can’t I?’”
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