Robert Plant Talks Aborted Led Zeppelin Tour

In a just-published Rolling Stone interview, Robert Plant goes into detail about the reasoning behind his turning down a late ’00s tour with Led Zeppelin following the band’s hugely successful reunion show at London’s 02 Arena in 2007. “You’re going back to the same old shit. A tour would have been an absolute menagerie of vested interests and the very essence of everything that’s shitty about about big-time stadium rock. We were surrounded by a circus of people that would have had our souls on the fire. I’m not part of a jukebox!” Plant told RS’s Andy Greene.

Plant walked away from a huge payday, which Rolling Stone estimated could’ve run over a billion dollars, but doesn’t seem to have any regrets. Jimmy Page on the other hand was all for the tour telling Rolling Stone, “There’s bound to be fallout if you just do one show. At the time of the 02 show we were led to believe there were going to be more. You’ll have to ask Robert why he changed his mind. I don’t even know if he considered it. I don’t know what he thinks.” Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham even attempted to find a lead singer to tour without Plant, though those plans were scuttled after Jones joined Them Crooked Vultures. “Singers were being thrown at us from here and there. The material we were coming up with was really, really good. Obviously, other people wanted to just get us out on the road quickly. I wasn’t feeling comfortable. Going out with the three members from the 02 show and another singer might have looked like trying to jam a square peg into a round hole. I wanted to see what we could come up with musically,” Page told Rolling Stone.

Robert Plant hasn’t 100% ruled out a future Led Zeppelin reunion. “I don’t think there’s any reason for me to do that, otherwise we’ve got nothing to be mystic about…Everything will develop as it develops. All doors are open. All phone lines are open. I don’t hear from anybody. Talk is cheap…But I just think everything has to be new. Then you can incorporate history,” the singer told Rolling Stone. For now, let’s just be excited to hear a slew of previously-unreleased material next month when Led Zeppelin issues deluxe editions of their first three studio albums.

In other Led Zeppelin-related news, Jimmy Page has put together a photographic autobiography that’s due out in October via Genesis Publications. The book is said to feature over 600 photos and is the first book by a member of Led Zeppelin. “I’ve been asked on a number of occasions to do a written book and I thought of the other side of the coin. I thought it would be unique to have an autobiography in photographs, charting my whole musical journey,” Page said in a statement. The book was originally issued as a limited-edition piece in 2010 and now will be available in a more accessible and affordable printing.

[via Rolling Stone]