When Bill Clinton failed to reform Led Zeppelin
When you think of Led Zeppelin, the last person anyone would associate with the band is the former President of the United States, Bill Clinton. However, the ex-governor of Arkansas and executive of America is a big fan of the English outfit, and a decade ago, he attempted – albeit unsuccessfully – to reunite the surviving members for one last hurrah.
Although people typically equate Bill Clinton with the ‘Third Way’ political ideology, Monica Lewinsky, and impeachment, many do not realise that he is also a big fan of rock music, which slightly changes the dimensions with which he is viewed.
The arrival of Led Zeppelin changed the face of popular culture forever. Formed out of the ashes of guitarist Jimmy Page’s old band The Yardbirds, they quickly cultivated a fanbase off the back of their blues-inspired but more thunderous style of rock, and over the course of their 12 years as a band, their sound continued to develop with them making the form a more expansive and enchanting beast than it had ever been before.
The combined power of Page, frontman Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham was a sight to behold, and they quickly established themselves as the biggest band on the planet, breaking The Beatles’ record for show attendance before 1969 album Led Zeppelin II knocked Abbey Road off the number one spot on the album charts. By the time 1970 had arrived, Led Zeppelin were the undisputed kings of rock, and the decade was to be theirs.
Back in 2013, CBS reported that Clinton revealed that he tried and failed to get Led Zeppelin to reform the year before, per Billboard. In said CBS report, David Saltzman of the Robin Hood Foundation – the organisation behind the Hurricane Sandy benefit show in New York – revealed that he and the now-disgraced film executive and convicted rapist, Harvey Weinstein, had flown to Washington D.C. specifically to enlist Clinton to help them get Led Zeppelin to reform for the concert that boasted the likes of The Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and The Who.
Clinton agreed to Saltzman and Weinstein’s request and approached Page, Plant and Jones in Washington and the Kennedy Center Honours gala, which took place only days before the Hurricane Sandy benefit. Reflecting just how wishful Saltzman and Weinstein’s dream was, even the famously silver-tongued former President could not get them to reunite.
“Harvey Weinstein had this great idea that we could enlist Bill Clinton to convince Led Zeppelin to reunite,” Saltzman said. “The President was terrific – ‘I really wanna do this, this will be a fantastic thing, I love Led Zeppelin’. And Bill Clinton himself asked Led Zeppelin to reunite, and they wouldn’t do it.”
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