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so i mean this is a hypothetical
question but from what you may know if
bonham hadn’t died do you know if
zeppelin would have continued on for
much longer or would they have come to
an end inevitably anyways at some point
in the near future
well that’s a good question i would say
yes
personally i would say
they’d have just gone on because had
bonham’s not died
uh there would have been another album
and then they would have wanted to tour
that i’m sure
i mean as it turns out you know he did
die
you know so it’s hypothetical and the
fact is that they then had to find their
own
way in the music business you know not
that they had to i mean they’re all
billionaires you know but obviously they
would want to
and so robert found his own
you know had to find a different career
away from zeppelin and i’m sure
he’s very happy that that’s what
happened
you know because he was i think he was
getting fed up with screaming his
socks off i’ll say that in case there’s
any children uh listening
so um you know i think he was getting a
bit fed up with that anyway
and um
because you know it was a heavy rock
band it was blasting and it was good
when they were youngsters but it might
be something that you grow out of you
know of course they could have changed i
suppose you know they could have changed
the uh format a little bit but um well
your question really was would they have
continued and um i think they would have
continued they would definitely have
done another album and maybe they’d have
done another two albums
because that’s they love to do that they
love to get together and they like to
play together
and then
you know that’s also why they would have
probably carried on doing gigs and also
there’s phenomenal money involved
hundreds of millions let’s face it
that’s why the stones do it
no matter how rich they are and also
they have fun and they enjoy it
hopefully you know
that’s interesting so i mean you were we
were talking a little bit earlier that
if zeppelin hadn’t i mean obviously if
bottom hadn’t passed that there would
likely have been another record and you
would have been involved with that to to
some degree or another do you know if
there were any
demos that the band had prepared if
there was any like unreleased material
the band was writing with or
was there nothing ready for a new album
yet from what you from what you may know
there’s no more unreleased material
to be heard
he would have found it because jimmy
doesn’t mess around he’s very much still
dedicated to to
the history of zeppelin
and um
yeah if there was something else around
he would have put it out
do you know if there were any any like
the wheels are turning on starting to
write new material for another record
post no no i don’t know
i don’t think so but i don’t know see
the thing is that we’re only talking i’d
only got to know i’ve only met jimmy a
couple of times when bonham died
so of course yeah i met him yeah we
worked together for five years after
that with if there was any more material
or if they were working together
i don’t i don’t really think so
because i think that if there would have
been if they’d have rehearsed something
or anything then it would have come out
by now you know they’re probably the i
see the thing is they’re about to go on
tour anyway
so and i don’t think they’ve been on
tour for a long time this european tour
so probably that would have been them
getting together to maybe do all sorts
of things and they were rehearsing only
up the road in bray near where i am
so i kept going there in in hopes to
meet jimmy but every time i arrived and
either just left or they hadn’t arrived
yet
and uh but anyway not too long after
this um before the tour
obama was found dead in in jimmy’s uh
house in in windsor and um so that was a
big blow really because i was you know
always was a big blower i mean you know
whether i was getting ready to do the
next afternoon
kind of neither here nor there because
this was a terrible thing for the hat to
happen to them so it was a bit shocking
basically what took place then was us
starting to work on this uh tribute
album
um which was really a tribute to bonap
to bonham
uh starting off with this drum track
bonzo’s montreal crazy uh 24 track tape
of bonzo’s montro which was all was
basically all drums
and and i always say it was like being
thrown in in the deep end really because
you know it could have just been a rock
track but it was it was
it was quite peculiar being all drums i
mean it was magnificent really
um
but um
you know i think it was quite long then
we had to edit it and editing it wasn’t
wasn’t easy but it was um
you know that was the first track we
worked on and then um the other tracks
that were from that zeppelin album were
from uh that made up the zeppelin album
coda
where there was a couple from uh that
were left over from in through the
outdoor i mean i haven’t got that album
in front of me but i’ve been wearing and
tearing there was another one
uh then there was a track called i can’t
quit you yeah which actually was um
jimmy didn’t want it to be known was
going to be known now isn’t it
but jimmy didn’t want it to be known
that it was a live track he wanted it to
uh
to be known that it was some sort of
recording so i had to take all the
audience off but basically it was led
zeppelin i think at the albert hall but
it was a great track i can’t quit he’s a
really good track
and um what else we did there was poor
tom
and for that one and i remember robert
plant coming in that was the first time
i met robert
and that was that was nice you know
because i mean to be honest i wasn’t a
huge zeppelin fan the most i got into
zeppelin was actually when nelton john
bought his first giant stereo system for
his
mansion
he had these he had these massive four
speakers in a lounge a huge lounge and
we just used to have we had zeppelin too
which we used to whack up
to test out his um his stereo and
actually my favorite album was in
through the outdoor without a doubt okay
you know i
i thought that was a great album
but um
you know so also i think i think uh at
that time pretty sure john paul jones
popped in
because i seem to remember playing
something and he said can you turn that
down and what do you think i am you know
and i thought well
i thought you were the bass player in
one of the biggest rock bands in the
world so i thought chances are you like
live loud music you know you would go ah
turn it down
so i mean prior to john bonham’s passing
were you thinking about how you’d
approach working on the next zeppelin
record oh yeah i i was yeah i mean i was
thinking about how i would do it i mean
it’s awful to talk about it now because
i mean i would have loved it would have
been absolutely brilliant to have uh
to have done that but
um i suppose the booby prize which
wasn’t a bad one though was when i got
to work with jimmy and paul rogers with
the firm yeah you know because that was
you know in some ways you could say it
was maybe even better than maybe what
the zeppelin would have been you know
because you got you’ve definitely got
one of the best singers on the planet
with paul rogers
uh we had chris slade on drums he’s
totally totally amazing and tony um
tony can’t remember his surname on base
simon kirk who’s the drummer with their
bad company yeah he’s a great drummer
well and free wasn’t he was a drummer in
free as well so i think he thought
because they were signed to uh
swanson which is um zeppelin’s record
company i’m pretty i think maybe simon
thought he must be in for that job you
know to take over and he would have been
amazing totally brilliant without a
doubt but i think you know the mark of
jimmy if you like and robert
and john paul jones is that they
you know they felt that
the zeppelin was four people
sorry and um
you know and without um without
bonham it wasn’t
they didn’t want to carry on that ban
that’s the thing which i think is pretty
uh
that’s pretty good of them really you
know not not
you know like this well i mean i
shouldn’t sort of bad mouth but i’m in
the stones you know charlie watts died
right getting another drummer off we go
you know but i think i think zeppelin
were more like a
you know bonhams i don’t say that
charlie watts country contribution was
any less
than john than bonhams but i don’t know
i think they were a closer
closer unit like definitely bonham and
jimmy and
bonham and
robert you know they were just so
tight and close that they couldn’t
imagine going out without him the thing
with bonham
was his feel you know
his
that’s what made them so heavy really
because they did everything
you know it was fairly slow you know and
uh slow tempos
but what makes it heavy is that is their
timing and their and the sound and
giving it plenty of space
you know that’s when you were talking
when we were talking about sound and i
was
uh you know thinking about the mill for
john bonham’s uh drum sound you know
it’s possible to do that but you need
the space
i i don’t mean physical space i mean you
need the space in the sound
so
if the drum is playing at 100 million
miles an hour and he’s hitting the
cymbals all over the place and the
hayek’s all over the place there’s
nowhere for that sound to go whereas it
stomps
you know you can have a nice big
rock sound which is what they used to
get and the thing is that’s what i was
going to say is that zeppelin didn’t
always work in giant rooms you know like
abby road or something
you know that was the other great thing
about jimmy as a producer is that he
no matter what studio they went to he’d
make sure they got he he got a zeppelin
drum sound or a zeppelin sound which was
generally a big
big roomy sound
and i know they worked at the abbas
studios and yeah jimmy used to say
they’d i don’t know they’d put a
microphone in a cupboard or down the
hall or something like that you know
inventing
ways of getting that sound
which wouldn’t just be uh
using a big room you know and anyway i i
recorded you know i mixed john bonham’s
drums so i know what the drum sound is
like and the bass drum was enormous
sounding
it sounded like one of those you get an
affair you know with the beaters
whereas you know the the the the rock
drummer normally uses a takes the front
skin off and puts a load of cushions
inside
this sounded like it definitely had the
front skin on
and um
it’s just enormous but
you know and then the snare sound as
well you know he’s not bashing it away
he’s probably not he’s probably got
quite a light touch in the way and
anyway he’s he was a remarkable drummer
like charlie watts in a way he was sort
of more like a jazz drum or ringo stan
you know jazz would have been
part of his upbringing
you know not just um
straight ahead rock so he’s very uh
bloody good basically so i mean what did
you think i mean i know you didn’t get
to work physically with him but having
been like intimately involved and mixing
his tracks on coda
what did you think of him as a drummer
in particular like what was it about
john bonham that people say he’s the
greatest of all time first of all his
sound like i say it was enormous
and and listening to the individual
multi-tracks when i lifted up the bass
drum i thought plummy it does say bass
drum on it but that’s not a bass drum
i’ve normally heard it was like one of
them fairground things you know bom bom
and what you had to do with that sound
you had to compress it quite a lot so
that you got you still got the attack
you know
but you had to work on it because it had
so many frequencies anyway it was
obviously a very deep
and sounds like a very large bass drum
that’s for sure it wasn’t a tiny little
bass drum i didn’t ask jimmy i didn’t
say
so how big was this back
i just got on with it i just got on with
it and also you could hear that there
are microphones above
you know like above the uh
picking up the snare picking up the
tomtoms the main word is feel
uh fwl that’s the main word that we
would use to describe what separates
john bonham from a lot of other drummers
is his feel
and and i think that uh
you know even hearing him playing on his
own he’s got a great feel and i still
love listening to bonzo’s montreal and
talking about it whereas it’s just drums
so that’s just him and he’s not playing
to a click yeah that’s what uh separates
him out from other drummers there was
something else i was going to say i was
going to say that also within zeppelin
and also because they’re not playing to
a
metronomic click
they’re making their own
feel
and when you get a great rhythm
guitarist like jimmy
playing with a great drummer like
bonham they’re setting up a unique feel
that can’t be replicated by machines or
anything like that really
you know it’s it’s very individualistic
and uh separate separated zeppelin out
from other bands
yeah i mean there’s some great other
dramas phil collins is a great drummer
charlie watts is a great drama
uh zack starkey absolutely brilliant
drama
but um
i mean i suppose you know when someone
dies
however terrible it is
they get they get frozen in time don’t
they yep and the thing is that when we
did the
when we did the um
coder album i mean this was a tribute to
john wasn’t it so we were living john
bonham you know every day when putting
when putting his drums together and i
was very aware that of course the poor
guy died and but but this is great what
we’re doing is this tribute and in fact
um there’s a little while ago that um
an absolutely brilliant drummer who
comes close to john bonham who’s zack
starkey i don’t know if you know of
course who he is but anyway he’s a
brilliant guy brilliant drummer and i
think he rang me up or he got in touch
with me
and that was mainly because he was a
total
bottom
fanatic
and when he heard that i did the bonzo’s
montreal he had to meet me he wanted to
work with me and all this thing you know
because um so you know it was great to
be doing that and
and so we were living bonham every day
really one thing i wanted to ask you is
you know obviously jimmy page is known
as being one of the greatest guitarists
ever rightfully so he’s also one of the
greatest producers but people often kind
of overlook that to a certain extent how
would you compare from your experience
with jimmy um i know you’ve worked with
him as a guitarist have you also worked
with him
producing wise like together of course
yeah
how would you compare his approach
producing and recording guitars
yeah good question so um and i do talk
about that because uh
yeah jimmy very eccentric guy not always
easy to understand
when i was working with him for one
reason or another
uh but when we were doing the very first
project that we did as i say was the uh
putting together the um
code around
and um all right so there wasn’t
one interesting thing was that that you
knew that i knew that jimmy page was the
producer of all the zeppelin albums so i
suppose i was waiting to be told what to
do or
i do this now we do this then we do that
now you do this he didn’t he didn’t do
that
but even when we were doing the bonzo’s
ridiculous drum thing he he didn’t tell
me what drum sound he wanted or what
reverbs to use i mean the thing is that
when jimmy came to the mill he brought a
load of his equipment with him because
jimmy which also people don’t know is
he’s an incredibly uh
you know he’s really into equipment he’s
really into technology the whole sound
technology he had a desk at his uh
previous house which was one of the
first fully automated desks
he had all these incredible sort of
computer ideas and machines that would
be uh running delays he had tons of rack
equipment to do with
reverbs and not reverse but delays that
he used to use on robert plant’s voice
so he was very very much into technology
so i sort of assumed he was going to
tell me what to do here but he didn’t he
just sat back and kind of you know i got
the feeling if i was doing something
wrong he’d have said oh no now do this
and um but he he very much let me get on
with it when it came to more of his
ideas as a producer i would say that was
when we were doing the death wish uh
2 soundtrack because he had some great
ideas and backwards pianos and
he was much more it was the producer
side of him that came out much more
during that uh project
he was really putting together singers
he had plenty of ideas that’s for sure
you know as i think he’s well absolutely
great producer
um very very uh good to work with in the
studio you know good good atmosphere not
telling people what you know not telling
people what to do hopefully just putting
together the right bunch of people like
you did with zeppelin really you know
that’s a good that’s a good way of doing
it i mean put the right bunch of people
together and then you don’t have to tell
them to do anything do you because you
know that
they’re going to do the job the way you
want it you know so
so i think that’s how jimmy goes about
stuff really because let’s face it he
was in the music business
and working in studios from such a young
age
as a as a and not everyone knows that
either so as a top session guy you know
going around the studios doing all the
middle-of-the-road stuff god knows of
some of the things he might have done he
probably did adverts and all sorts of
stuff apart from as we know playing with
the kinks and playing on some big pop
records
so he was very very knowledgeable about
the studio there wasn’t much he didn’t
know about it you know he might want he
might know what he wanted to play and
that wasn’t always easy but he
definitely didn’t have a problem with i
want to do this idea so we’re doing that
you know and actually those things are
easier to uh
to sort of have happen you know but um
so definitely
switched on producer no doubt about it
yeah so when you’re recording him as it
like now you’re in producer engineer
mode you’re recording him are there any
particular mics he prefers having his
guitars recorded with like what is his
approach technically in the studio
very good question
very good question i’ve forgotten that
so i’ve got a very good answer for that
because people will want to know this
because this is this is different
so what he would do is he he’d uh he he
if we were doing a solo saying
he’d do a few solos like most people
would like you know he’d do one song do
it again do it yeah
but then what he do
is he tell me to put all three solos up
or all four solos up
and i think blimey that’s
that’s different
so he’d play them all
and then what he would do is he’d design
a solo
he designed a solo made up of the three
or four or five solos
and sometimes that was hard to follow
and sometimes
i’d think to ask him a lot of questions
but then i i found it was better not to
ask questions just to do try and do what
he’s saying
and it all turned out hopefully all
right in the end
so it might you know because i’ve done
that i i’ve done many uh use
many guitarists where you choose bits of
their solos but it was um it was
something when someone else is trying to
tell you what to do it’s not quite so
easy but basically he designed the solo
in that way so there’d be two notes from
that one one note from that one there
might even be a part where there were
two solos playing at the same time
that’s what i mean it was quite
complicated and hard to follow
and there’d probably be times when i was
thinking this is going to be awful you
know this isn’t going to work but then
we finish it we play it back and i think
bloody hell that’s that’s bloody good
that’s a bloody good solo and actually
when i listen now to uh to zeppelin uh
tracks and i hear a solo i can hear
i can hear sort of how it’s been it’s
been made up you know that it wasn’t
always uh a live solo that’s a producer
you know that’s a producer guitarist
producing his own guitar solos also he
used to use i don’t know about mike’s
that was pretty much left to me
but uh that’s also another good question
because it’s i’m remembering back now
and um
the whole time i worked with jimmy
we used an ac30
dialed up to number 12 i would say
it was definitely more than 10.
and it was an ac30
and it was a particularly great one and
it would be definitely almost flat down
and then he would use he very rarely use
the les paul in the studio if ever
it would be the fender telecaster
and and that combination was a massive
sound he’d also use his string bender
fender string bender a lot which that
might have been a telecaster i’m not
quite sure
um you know you know do you know this
string bender guitar
yeah
so
so actually when you know and if you
don’t know about that guitar
that’s actually a bit of a
you know it’s it gives his solos a lot
of personality because you hear all this
bendy stuff which you imagine you might
have done with his finger but he does it
with the uh it’s kind of like a country
normally it would be for country sounds
i guess but with it wound up to 10 you
know it worked for rock absolutely
but um so sound wise um yeah i don’t
know what mike i probably would stick an
87 i’m sure on his uh ac30
and
it was a it was a blasting sound yeah
it’s a great sound
great sound and actually i’m going to
say it as well because i always i i
often say this but i haven’t said it for
a long time is that my favorite thing
that jimmy would do is his rhythm
playing yeah you know he’s he got this
phenomenal way of um
of like hitting the the chord right at
the last millisecond you know on the
downbeat so that’s going wow you know it
just gives it
gives it more power that way it’s not
like in front of the b or way behind it
it’s just as it’s coming up and when he
was playing because i never got to work
with him with with john bonham but uh
you know when i put dave mattox i don’t
know if you know the drum drama dave
mattox but uh brilliant drama and him
and jimmy because jimmy seems to work
off of the drums
you know not not the bass or not uh
there’s not many other people in led
zeppelin wasn’t it but
all the vocal it was definitely him and
bonham you know
so they set up this great rhythm and
drums
and and i watched jimmy doing that with
dave mattox and it was it was great
because that
he is a great rhythm player i i
that’s one of the things that maybe even
people don’t realize you know but for me
in the studio his rhythm playing was uh
very very good when you were working
with jimmy page is there anything that
he ever did in the studio that really
surprised you like wow that’s an
interesting way of approaching this or
i never thought a guitar should do that
like was there any one thing that stuck
out to you everything surprised me
because i’d never worked with anyone
like that i’ve got a very good answer
for that okay perfect answer right so
we’re sitting there we’re doing death
wish
and we were using this guitar synth i
mean that was surprising and then cause
one guitar synth wasn’t enough so he had
like
the diet roll and bring down two
two of these uh
pedal boards
and the and basically the guitar synth
you could make it do all sorts of weird
stuff like going up
going up and down you know like swooping
up the note and swooping down and
jimmy would be tapping away on all these
things you know and then he had another
one brought in so it was surprising he
did stand up through all that and not
fall over
but um but then we were in there one day
and someone said his guitar tech
suddenly said what about the theremin on
this
and i i never heard of a theron
and i’m thinking what the hell is a
theremin
so then suddenly someone comes in with
this big cardboard box with aerials
sticking out of it
and i’m sure there was like straw coming
out of it as well and i just thought i
thought they were having a joke on me
you know i thought this was for my
benefit
and uh and they start setting this thing
up and i’m just thinking i think i’ve
seen everything now you know this is
what the hell is this
anyway so they set up this uh
yeah i mean people who know the theremin
they set up this
aerial you know and then it’s connected
to an echoplex
tape and uh and then he’s doing all that
business with the with the sick you know
[Music]
all that business
and uh and i yeah i’d never heard of a
theraman i mean i’ve checked it out you
know i checked it out after that and
found out it was a 19th century
instrument and you know one of the early
electronic
earliest electronic instruments
talk about surprising yeah that was
but you see that’s the thing i mean
jimmy was full of surprises you know
you uh
he was he’s that sort of a guy and
that’s sort of a
that’s that’s the way he sort of
conducted himself i mean the whole fact
he put you know zeppelin was a surprise
wasn’t it if you were around you’re too
young but when but when zeppelin arrived
it was like
what is that you know it was like i mean
all right there were a lot of bands
around at the time that were sort of
similar
but they were they were a phenomenon
without a doubt you know
i mean they were like um
brilliant musicians not many of them i
mean talking about a three piece really
you know you’re talking about bass drums
and guitar one guitar one bass
and drums you know making this amazing
sound great musicians
and uh you know they also followed their
own
um they followed their own way didn’t
they you know didn’t put out singles you
know they wouldn’t do this we don’t do
that we don’t do this you know they’re
very much like designed they designed
themselves you know
so um you know that’s the background
that jimmy came from like you say he’s
considered
one of the greatest guitarists of all
time you know and that’s not bad
actually
what i always say now you know i often
say and i’m very i think very lucky that
this happened this way because i work
with led zeppelin and i’m very proud of
that is because a lot of young bands you
know you say to them and they could be
15 or 16 or 18 and you say who’s your
favorite man they say led zeppelin
i said but led zeppelin disbanded 40
years ago you know isn’t there anything
a little bit later on you know they go
no no that’s up and that was it and
that’s what’s happening unfortunately
then you listen to their music and it’s
nothing like led zeppelin you know
because i’m always looking out for
another lens happening when you’re
working with jimmy in studio on tape how
many takes do you guys do typically and
like do you often double the takes
afterwards like what was what was that
aspect of it like it’s two different
things really so first of all you said
um how many takes would you do yeah yeah
well
um if i was working with gus it could be
hundreds gus being elton john’s producer
used to do many many takes with the
rhythm section in the studio we might do
20 different takes of the same song
and then what he would do is cut between
them cut all the best takes together
even only to make up a four minute track
song
so but but when you’re talking about
that’s the difference between some pop
productions
and and a rock band because a rock band
would tend to not want to do that
a rock band like jimmy like with
zeppelin i’m sure or with the fern is
that you go out there and you do a great
take and you go that’s the one basically
they’d go out there and they’d get a
good groove and then they go was it how
was that and i’d go bloody brilliant
come in and hear it and they go you’re
right and that’s it
and as i say even to the extent when
you’re talking about double track vocals
paul rodgers didn’t even want to do the
song again he didn’t want to sing the
song again
let alone double track it that’s it it’s
finished
so basically what you’re talking about
there is a band trying to reproduce what
they might do live on stage in the
studio
and that’s quite a different um
that’s quite a different thing
to the way pop records are made now or
even what
records are made now where you’re
layering and layering and layering
you know and you’re using pro tools and
you’re copying and pasting and all this
sort of stuff it’s very very different
and and basically yeah you still end up
you can end up with amazing results
absolutely and some might say you end up
with better results
but but then if you go back to some of
the 70s music and 80s music which wasn’t
done that way and you go wow that’s
that’s better you know and then if you
describe how it was recorded which was
just four or five people
playing live in the studio and an
engineer recording it you go wow they’re
geniuses you know
compared to today unfortunately
without getting too depressed about it
[Music]
you know musicians today i mean
very difficult it’s not often you come
across amazing drummers like john bonham
incredible singers like paul rogers
and amazing producer guitarists like
jimmy page you talk about jimmy page he
was playing guitar when he was about
eight
you know and only wanted to be a great
guitarist
you know not being the biggest band in
the world he probably had no idea about
that he just wanted to be a great
guitarist and be playing live you know
and so he made it his thing to be that
person
and the same with paul rogers as far as
singing was concerned not to be the
greatest songwriter in the world not to
be in the biggest man he just wanted to
be able to sing the best and that’s what
i say to a lot of youngsters and
hopefully someone that are watching
is that you know
try not to be everything and and it’s
not actually very possible to be
everything
in music you know but try and be the
best at even just one thing
is is sometimes definitely good enough
that’s unfortunately what a lot of
youngsters they want to be the singer
the guitarist the bass player the
producer the engineer the writer this
that and the other you know
unfortunately not so many uh records are
done these days in teams of people and
the best teams of people being bands
that’s where the best music was made
within you know i mean with a little
with a lot of heartache a lot of the
time a lot of screaming and shouting and
pulling and pushing and this that and
the other but but out of it came some
great music i want to ask you about the
firm so how did that all come together
with jimmy like were you were you
involved with that from the beginning i
know they had two records you worked on
the first one what was it like working
on that on that record
brilliant totally brilliant
i think those stories that um that jimmy
was very depressed maybe because of
zeppelin splitting up and
uh not splitting up i mean you know
couldn’t carry on so
um
i don’t know i read a few stories about
that but one way or another paul rodgers
i’d been working with paul
on his solo stuff on his solo album so i
sort of knew him and anyway bad company
was signed to swan song so they were
part of that uh
group and and jim you know i knew
paul
admired jimmy so much you know and i’m
sure that was the same because
paul rogers is an amazing singer so one
way or another i can’t remember
any more discussions it was just we were
we were going to do we started work on
that album and it was paul rogers jimmy
page like i said and this crazy crazy
drama guy chris chris slade and tony
who’s pretty amazing bass player and uh
i set them up in the studio
and i set up a guide what i thought was
going to be a guide vocal and i put
screens up and all that business
and um
because actually yeah prior to that um
jimmy did make a start on a different
band and that was with chris squires
and alan white and that was a good
project it wasn’t really a singer that
was the only thing
and i kept putting forward ideas for
singers but i don’t think jimmy could
find a singer that matched it but it was
good music but anyway but this there was
nothing peculiar about the firm
i would say it was great material
amazing singer in fact paul the only one
of the problems was that when we they’d
be out there doing one of the tracks
you know whatever it was and then they
come in and go yeah that’s the one
and then i’d assume that we would then
do the vocal again and you’d go no no
that’s there’s nothing wrong with that
like we can’t keep that it’s got guitars
on it you know you can hear the drums in
the background no no we’re not doing
that again so um so that was a bit weird
but the you know but they were they were
they were brilliant vocals and uh you
know i always thought that uh you’ve
lost that loving feeling should have
been a singer i love that
that should definitely been a single
that was such a great version of that
and i thought right the thing that i
regret on the album when i listen to it
is the bloody reverbs i use that’s the
thing
because at the time you know digital
reverb was all the rage
so i stuck a lot of reverbs on it and
that kind of dates it a bit
and when i listen to it seems to work on
radioactive which was a mad track anyway
but i think on some of the others i’m
wishing i could turn the reverb down a
bit i know what i’d like to do jimmy if
you’re if you’re listening
is uh remix it
yeah that would be bloody good let’s
remix it let’s remix the firm album we
we love that album you know there’s a
lot of zeppelin fans that love the phone
it would be good to remix it that’s for
sure yeah you were saying that you felt
that jimmy page might have had
like a little bit of a
post led zeppelin depression thing and
that’s kind of why maybe he did the firm
to kind of get out of that funk when you
were working on the firm or when you
were working on coda was
was the death of john bonham was that
kind of looming over any of it or was
that not really there no i don’t yeah i
don’t remember that i mean he’s quite a
private guy really jimmy see the thing
is that for for people that
you know have been doing this a long
time even then when you get in the
studio you’re there to do you’re there
to do what you’re there to do
and it’s difficult enough doing that
without getting into
you know other areas that could spoil
the session or for for anything like
that so you’re looking to have a good
time to have a good atmosphere that’s
what i remember about the firm actually
that everyone was kind of having a good
time and also to that
and also definitely when we did the
death wish 2 uh soundtrack
which actually i reckon that was the
better that was the best one probably
the firm was the best music but from a
technical point of view death wish 2 was
probably the best thing i did with jimmy
because um
you know doing music for film isn’t easy
you know it’s very technical you know
the director’s already told you where he
wants the music
and also we we were using like technical
um
gizmos or whatever it was but actually
they were quite early ones to achieve
what what had to be done you know and
then
there was orchestrations to do so from a
technical point of view that was um
probably death wish 2 was the one jimmy
as crazy guy as he kind of is he’s so
methodical he’s so methodical in
everything he seems to do i mean they
just brought out a photographic book he
just brought out
a photographic book he’s got you know
and he had all this stuff and if he
didn’t have it
he hires researchers to go looking for
as one of the researchers rang me up to
say have you got any pictures of the
mill and all this sort of stuff you know
he’s very very switched on methodical
and uh
eccentric i would say you know he he
likes to get everything right and
present it correctly and the whole bit
you know which is funny in a way when
you then think about the music the best
music that he’s known for
which actually is quite messy if you
like and rocky and
you know
extravagantly all over the place but
somehow comes together you know in the
in the tightness in the field
but it’s not you know it’s not classical
music is it it’s not like
you know everyone reading notes which
would you’d have you’d have thought that
would have been
something of someone who’s that uh
careful about everything might be more
into you know i mean it’s very lairy
what he does he’s a larry guitarist
around yeah
he’s all over the shop with it you know
nothing like not like clapton if you
like who’s more precise you know i mean
let’s face it look it’s a bit like when
people start comparing racing drivers
you know who’s the greatest racing
driver on earth who’s the greatest
racing driver that’s ever been who’s the
grey is this or that in the other when
you talk about guitarists they’re all
different they just had different styles
and that’s what made makes it so great
you know that it’s still a bloody bit of
wood with six strings on it
but between them they managed to make it
sound
completely different you know jimi
hendrix died at what was it 27 yep
and and let’s face it well in my opinion
he he was he was definitely the greatest
guitarist of all time i got to meet him
actually i only got to meet him uh
really
yeah i got to meet him when he was um
he was playing on steve steele’s first
album because my mate clive was
engineering it at uh
island studio basin street and jimmy and
he was like really quiet really shy and
listen when he came along you know we
used to have rouse
about who was the best guitarist
and it wasn’t jimmy page it was eric
clapton or jim or jimi hendrix and as
far as i was concerned
you know it was it was definitely jimi
hendrix but you’d have terrible rounds
with people’s you know i can’t be
friends with you then
what you don’t like what you’re saying
eric clapton’s a better guitarist than
jimmy page at jimi hendrix where you can
puck off there because you’re mad
so going back to koda for a moment is
there anything else about the making of
that record that stuck out to you
that’s when i met um robert i think he
might have done some vocals
i think he came in to do the vocals
jimmy brought in some great mics you
know he had one of these old
47s that the beatles used and
i think i was very pleased
if robert plants come in and i’m
definitely going to set up that
microphone you know
because it will just look great apart
from it will obviously sound great
because uh
he’s got a great voice but um so we
definitely did that walters walk
yeah that was that was definitely i
think that was the one that uh robert
did some vocals on walter’s walk that
was a funny track yeah okay interesting
good track why why is that funny to you
like what’s the stuck out about that
track to you i’ll tell you what it is is
because
led zeppelin are a good example of bands
in the 70s and 80s that didn’t have a
genre
you know it wasn’t like oh they’re a
heavy metal band or they’re a pop band
they’re a rock band they do all sorts of
stuff and walter’s walk is like a
country in western i think and poor tom
is definitely
it’s like country and western you know
because they all like various different
types of music and on the one album
you’d get all sorts of different
announcements to do the same thing you
know it’d be country comforts like a
country and western song you know and
that was what was great also about those
bands they got such a wide spectrum of
uh music on each record definitely we
worked on poor tom
we did all sorts of because everything i
did with jimmy was usually complicated
to be honest apart from maybe the firm
which was fairly straightforward
although there were probably complicated
stuff in it but i know we did something
weird with poor tom
i don’t know what it was because i think
maybe jimmy didn’t have the multi-track
or i don’t know we had to do something i
can’t quit you i was saying um
he didn’t want it to be known it was at
the uh it was live so i couldn’t use the
ambient
mics i couldn’t use the audience mics
so i brought in this incredible uh early
emt digital reverb to recreate that so i
did that the ones that came from uh in
through the outdoor there was nothing to
do they were just mixed
how did your relationship with zeppelin
begin did you work with them prior to
coda like how did that all come together
yeah well it’s it’s not really the yeah
it’s not so much uh direct
relation with uh zeppelin it was more
with jimmy page and that came about
because in about 1980 i guess
uh gus dudgeon who owned the mill
studios in cookham had to sell it
and one of the people that came to view
it interested to buy it was jimmy page
and uh yeah i was there we were working
with an american band actually shooting
star and um there’d been a lot of sort
of um
you know we weren’t allowed to know who
was coming he was coming in a helicopter
he’s flying in and there’s all this
mystery about it which later i found out
is pretty much par for the course with
jimmy and led zeppelin always surrounded
in a bit of mystery somehow
and um anyway in walks this guy you know
obviously recognized him straight away
as jimmy page and he was very quiet very
shy
had a look around took note what was
going on and next thing we hear he’s
buying the studio
so um and also i heard that he wanted to
keep me on
um
as engineer and i guess studio managers
so that was very nice and uh
yeah so i was now really looking forward
to working with jimmy that’s awesome
so another huge artist you worked with
is elton john you remember what it was
like working with him for the first time
in the first elton john album i booked
the studio i booked the i booked the
musicians i booked the piano i booked
the organ you know i was really
coordinating um
coordinating is what we were doing
uh for those albums
and that would have been honky honky
chateau and tumbleweed uh doing the
sleeves i was instrumental in putting
the sleeves together photo sessions i
was organizing press receptions you know
gigs for elton equipment for elton you
were 18 years old when you started
working with them on that american tour
for you personally what was that like i
mean you’re 18 you’re working with elton
john what was that experience like for
you
well it was totally brilliant but the
funny thing is that because it was just
i haven’t got anything to compare it
with it was just like almost like normal
you know and and what was exciting about
it what was apart from never been to
america and now we’re on tour which i’ve
never done in my life
was also because i’ve been such a fan
and we were we were promoting elton in
the uk and getting nowhere
so now we’d be playing carnegie hall and
all these kids are jumping up and down
and screaming and going berserk
and including canada uh where we started
playing as well
so it was so great to see our mate
my mate elton going down the storm with
the audiences and finally being
appreciated you know so there was so
much excitement there i mean we were all
sort of wide-eyed because no one had
really well elton had been through
america a couple of times before but
this was all new to all of us and we’re
all sort of like a bit like a circus in
a way you know a traveling circus
but because we were all experiencing it
the same it was it was just great fun it
was absolutely great fun i’m not crazy
about flying
that’s that’s just
the tip of the iceberg i hate flying so
um yeah i didn’t like that aspect
uh i seem to have found out i had a bit
of a phobia for large and closed spaces
they always make make me dizzy or
something so there was a lot of those
when it’s
when you’re touring so it was actually
only the physical
aspects that were
you know you had to sort of cope with
all this traveling and sitting around
and waiting and all that stuff but the
but the gigs always made it worthwhile
because they were so exciting you know
it was great fun and they’re all my
mates nigel and dee uh you know the
first band was just a three piece piano
bass and drums extremely exciting great
days and and definitely more exciting
looking back
50 years ago you know than it is that it
probably was at the time
you know i’m sure it wasn’t quite as um
because touring actually everyone thinks
it is so exciting but actually it’s a
lot of the time it’s very boring sitting
around waiting and all that
he has a lot of waiting for planes
waiting for this waiting for that but it
was you know seeing elton go from
obscurity to people actually
almost ignoring him on purpose
by talking by talking in gigs and he’s
saying shut up he’s trying to play a
song in
to actually going berserk when he walks
out on stage you know and loving it
was was just so thrilling because he’s a
mate you know it’s not this isn’t like
some
someone you don’t know this is this is
your buddy and i was kind of looking
after him although most of the time he’s
looking after me really we were just
traveling you know
i mean they were great tours absolutely
i mean i did two uh
two tours as his personal assistant and
then the last tour i did was um actually
i was looking after kiki d
and that was in 1974
but by 74 he was just huge we had our
own plane in fact we had the same plane
that zeppelin uh
really used to use yeah the starship
uh the rolling stones used it zeppelin
used it
and then elton had it for the 1974 he
had it for a couple of tours i think
so like literally the exact same plane
or the same model yeah exactly the same
plane i think oh really cool yeah
so and we used to have a sea of
limousines you know the 74 tour
i mean now he has his own plane a band
of their own plane i mean obviously it’s
it’s even moved on from then but uh
but the last tour i did which was as i
say way back in 74 when we did madison
square gardens when john lennon came on
stage
it was um
yeah i mean it was pretty amazing really
so i do miss touring i miss that
and we we’ve you know we traveled to
some great places we went to some great
places where you are in canada you know
i really like
love the canadian audiences and um
being in canada anyway generally was
very nice so yeah i missed that i’d have
to do that again at some point so how
did your friendship with ellen john
begin and how did you end up working
with him i met him at 15.
um
he’s 74 so uh he was about 20 21
and uh you know basically i went from
school started this is very interesting
the way this interview has gone because
normally we start with that
but now this is at the end i like that
yeah
so uh
so we’ve come for so um anyway yeah i
went from school working for a guy
called dick james who was the beatles
music publisher
and he was also elton john’s publisher
or reg dwight as he was known then
and i pretty quickly got to meet reg and
he was a great guy you know outrageous
uh very
again you know very eccentric even then
but what i always say is that when he
then sat down and played the songs
there’s nothing eccentric about that
well except you know they were just
brilliant and this is a guy sitting just
over there you know i’ve never never
experienced that before
and i just thought well i always wanted
to be a singer-songwriter but but this
is something else you know he’s amazing
so from that day i sort of wanted to be
more involved in what he was doing
musically and in the business
so um i went from office boy to disc
cutter to
working in them
a r and um
plugging
but then i i started helping run the
record company that we formed djm
with steve brown and steve brown was
really uh
elton john’s manager he was actually his
first record producer as well and so i
was his assistant so i was doing
everything on a day-to-day business uh
day-to-day basis to do with elton
and you know we were great buddies and
uh working on his career
and we used to sort of dream about the
day one day he’d be uh
well known like cat stevens and james
taylor and joni mitchell and that’s how
we saw elton john as a singer songwriter
sitting at the piano playing these songs
who would have thought that he would
then
find
actually only sitting at the piano not
enough
but he wanted to bounce up and down jump
around go nuts dress up as donald duck
or whatever it was
and become like the biggest thing on the
planet
we didn’t know that
don’t even know if he knew that that’s
why he became the biggest through his
performing and through his outrageous
behavior you know yeah of course he’s uh
genius songwriter and singer singer
songwriter and pianist
but um but then so is joni mitchell in
my opinion so is jackson brown and so
but what what took him into the heights
was his outrageous
and wanting to be jerry lee lewis and
little richard and all those people
wrapped up in one
uh what’s the other guy liberace i
suppose you know
so he had he had um
well delusions of grandeur i suppose he
would call it but they weren’t they
weren’t delusional
as it turned out
of course
could have all gone the other way you
know he could have made a fool of
himself made a twitter himself
he was never one to uh you know to
shrink back from a
you know from a challenge in any way he
goes
full throttle and that’s the other thing
i i try to tell i look for in youngsters
that i’m working with this this passion
and this um
you know over the top
uh
wanting to be
something they dream about you know
they’ve got a dream of how they see
themselves and
it’s not enough just to write a song or
to play guitar or to play the piano they
want i mean i say that
people should specialize but i mean
elton specialized in writing songs and
singing and then performing but he
didn’t do it all in one go he did it in
stages anyway not many people know that
elton didn’t even see himself as a
singer
he he only saw himself as a songwriter
he just wanted to be a great songwriter
and yeah and pianist and he used to do
but he used to do sessions as a pianist
not as a singer
you know he was going around like the
same way jimmy was and at the same time
actually when jimmy page was doing
guitar
sessions uh elton was doing uh piano
sessions and keyboard sessions as he
started to write more songs
and they were they weren’t really that
easy to cover
[Music]
for other people to sing
so it was put to him that maybe he he’ll
have to sing them because no one else is
so he started singing and making him you
know getting good at it which is what
he’s like if i’m going to do something
i’m going to be great at it you know
and and then it was said we you’ll have
to go out and perform
you know i don’t want to do that you
want to do that either
but
otherwise you’re not going anywhere i
have to do it and if i’m going to do it
i’m going to do it
full throttle 100 give it everything you
know which he always did you know and he
always does
he goes out there to
that’s what he did in america actually
i mean
they before he was famous they were
still sitting there like what’s this guy
all about you know come from england and
maybe they’d heard his album it’s a
little bit funny your song the classical
stuff
and um
you know he was determined to show them
what he could do
and then um yeah you’re right sort of
aged 18 i went out and was touring with
him as a personal assistant
um
and i i was getting into production as
well you know i produce a noun with two
girls that elton played on birds of a
feather
and i thought i always wanted to be a
producer really
um but it wasn’t until
uh gus dungeon built the um the mill
studios
but then um elton came to do actually it
was with
it was with clyde franks my mate
clive who was producing this album
called a single man
and um so now i was actually engineering
you know i engineered single man and
then we did ice on fire
and then i co-produced um
a track with elton when he did the duet
sound i put him together with chris rear
they did a duet i would have loved to
have produced an elton john john album
but uh that really happened i only did
like a track or two tracks but i
engineered a lot and i engineered a lot
of um
i did some live gigs uh without
doing live sound because actually live
sounds something that i’ve done quite a
lot of
so um yeah lots of lots of stuff without
to do with that when i was at rocket
records i might as well tell you this uh
we were offered a band you know that we
had a tape of this band two tapes two
ten inch spools it was queen
oh cool they were called queen
and i used to play it i put it on i went
well i mean that’s
great guitar stuff going on there
never heard all that before all these
guitar harmonies i thought they were
really good you know queen and i played
it with steve who was running rocket
records but the fact is they wanted a
hundred thousand pounds and that was in
1972
and they weren’t kidding either you know
they wanted that much money and we were
running the whole company on about 20
000 a year you know so it was like
completely impossible and anyway they
weren’t that great
you know you got when you got the
beatles and the stones and the who and
the kings
and the whatever you know there were so
many great bands around in the 70s
they weren’t as they went they weren’t
better than those you know they were
like good
but they certainly weren’t better and
they weren’t worth a hundred grand
and anyway we didn’t go to see them live
you know i don’t think they were playing
live
a lot of the bands that we because i
went on to work at rocket records and we
were signing uh
new artists and um
often it would be that you’d hear the
tape and then they’d say and that band’s
playing at the marquee in london which
was a great club
so you go down and then you’d see
thin lizzy or whatever it was you know
and you’d see this great band live with
the front guy and all that
had that have happened with queen
maybe elton would have put his hand in
his pocket to find 100 grand because
then you’d have seen freddy you know as
this amazing front guy with this
incredible band
so that might have made the difference
in signing them but all we had was a
tape so
so when you say they weren’t that great
it was you’re referring to the tape like
the tape wasn’t incredible but once you
actually just wasn’t yeah i mean you
know what it wasn’t the greatest singer
they weren’t the amazing greatest songs
it didn’t sound so original
uh
the main thing i like was that well no
one else liked it i was playing elton
heard it bernie heard it steve brown
earned it they all heard it and no one
signed them
so
at that time i would say it didn’t stand
out as being there’s nowhere near like
whatever the beatles were doing then the
white album well no we’ve gone beyond
the white house it was just it
wasn’t anything
actually i’ve never been a queen fan
anyway i’ve never been a big queen fan
interesting so um i just of love that
but you’ve got to say that live they
were
spectacular because of freddie as a
front guy you know
and they became better anyway this is
the first album i don’t even know what
it was called
but uh
so this was only the first album i think
what i was trying to say is though that
there were so many great bands around
and music was at such a high level at
that time
you know we also we also when i was at
dj and we we had the tapes no they were
tapes they came in uh it was a band
called america okay
yeah but they were nowhere near as good
as crosby seals and nash
who who we already heard and loved you
know so we didn’t sign them either
which maybe was maybe it was a mistake
but that crosby stills in nashville like
amazing their first album their second
album you know
totally brilliant you know
so at that time there was so much great
stuff to choose from
and i’ve and i haven’t even got the full
list you know i mean bands are a funny
dynamic aren’t they it’s a shame that
they seem to be on the decline i would
say and technology has got a lot to do
with that 100
100 yeah and i think they they probably
find pr they find pretty early on that
actually it’s not possible to do so then
hopefully sometimes they get in touch
with me and say what’s wrong with me i
can’t seem to make my track sound light
set
let zeppelin all the beatles
and i’ve got all this equipment i’ve got
pro tools i’ve got everything and why is
it not sounding right
so um you know you can we can soon tell
them why that is
and um
i don’t know what’s going to happen i
don’t know how we can get back to that
if ever
it might just be something that’s that’s
well i’m not i’m not complaining too
hard because i like the fact that i’m
still that the music i worked on is
still so highly regarded
you know so i mean we thought it was
good at the time but it doesn’t seem to
have been bettered
as you would imagine it should have been
if you imagine the music that went
before it you know
it was such a
it was such a
unique uh happening the music of the 60s
and the 70s but it could have been it
could equally have been bettered so much
that you just uh we don’t even bother
listening to it anymore and that’s
that’s not really the case you know i
mean you know i don’t know whether you
i’m sure you’ve seen it but anyway
there’s this film with the beatles out
at the moment get back
and uh it’s it’s just it just
you know it just uh emphasizes
immensely
that dynamic between
people in a band you know musicians in a
band getting together it just emphasizes
it in such a great way yeah it shows you
some of the disagreements and you know
what they go through but it also shows
you just how magnificent they were as a
band there’s four guys
sitting around talking they suddenly
pick up instruments
and they’re playing something and it’s
like
it’s brilliant
because you know it’s live and you can
see them doing it
and it’s
no one person can do that