Jimmy Page - Promotional Interview For 'Outrider' 1988 (EPK) 1080p HD
Jimmy Page - Promotional Interview For 'Outrider' 1988 (EPK) 1080p HD
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00:00Jimi, your brand new album, your first as a solo artist, Outrider,
00:29is just about to be released, was actually recorded right here in these studios.
00:33Yeah, it was recorded here and mixed here.
00:35How long did it actually take to make?
00:37Well, it was made over about a nine-month period,
00:39but that was including holidays and things like that.
00:43It's definitely what you would, I suppose, what you might call an album of two sides, isn't it?
00:47I mean, side one's very rocky, very upfront, very aggressive,
00:50whereas side two is, it's the blues, isn't it?
00:53Yeah, there is a heavy blues content in it, yeah.
00:56I wanted to try and incorporate, as well as electric guitar playing,
01:01you know, acoustic guitar playing and blues playing,
01:04just to give an overall sort of spectrum, really.
01:07Of the nine tracks on the album, three are instrumentals.
01:10The remaining six tracks feature no less than three different singers,
01:14John Miles, Chris Farlow and Robert Plant, of course.
01:18It's an interesting mixture of styles.
01:20Of course, they all write their own lyrics as well, don't they?
01:22That's right, that's right, yeah.
01:26Well, I wanted to use Chris Farlow because he had such a strong identity to his voice.
01:33And after working with somebody as immediately identifiable as Robert,
01:40I needed somebody with that strength of vocal character of their own.
01:45And I think you can tell from hearing the album
01:48that, you know, it really worked well, we worked well together on that.
01:51John Miles is technically a really superb vocalist
01:55and what can we say about Robert? He's brilliant.
01:58On seven of the tracks on your new album,
02:00I noticed you've got Jason Bonham playing the drums with you.
02:03That's right.
02:04Of course, a lot of people will know Jason is the son of John Bonham,
02:06who was the drummer in Zeppelin.
02:08And Jason's also going to be your permanent drummer when you go out live.
02:11Yeah.
02:13Do you think his presence playing alongside you is going to raise a lot of eyebrows?
02:17Possibly, possibly.
02:21He's certainly got the sort of power within his drumming,
02:26which is just right for me, anyway.
02:28Do you think he sounds like his father used to sound?
02:31He's got the same approach with his bass drum.
02:33Mind you, his father taught him to play drums, you know,
02:36encouraged him virtually from the point where he could sit on a drum stool,
02:39literally, I'm sure.
02:40Right.
02:41Didn't Jason used to come along to sound checks?
02:43He did.
02:44He did.
02:45He came to...
02:46There was one amusing story, really, when we were playing Nedworth,
02:49which was actually our last British gig.
02:52Right.
02:53And we were doing a sound check and doing Trampled Underfoot.
02:57And we were playing along, concentrating on the guitar,
03:01and I looked round and Jason was on the drums.
03:03You're kidding.
03:04Yeah.
03:05It was so John could go out the front and listen to his, you know, sound balance.
03:09But you didn't actually know it was him playing?
03:11You didn't know it was him playing until I looked round.
03:13It was quite a, you know, quite a shock.
03:15How old would he have been at that point?
03:17Goodness.
03:18I don't know.
03:19Nine, I suppose, possibly.
03:20Yeah.
03:21Ten, nine, ten.
03:22You know, strangely enough, it seems over the last couple of years
03:25there's been this huge resurgence of interest in Zeppelin
03:28and, like, a vast critical reappraisal as well.
03:31How do you explain the influence that Zeppelin still has
03:34on so many of today's new bands?
03:37Well, I can't explain it.
03:40It's something which is there.
03:43Obviously, the thing that we were doing
03:47and the energy we were putting out obviously touched a lot of people.
03:51And it's wonderful to have been part of something like that.
03:55You know, I guess it's every musician's dream to have been in a band like that.
04:00I'm just fortunate to have been there and honoured to have been in it.
04:02There was a period, of course, just after Zeppelin folded,
04:05three- or four-year period, I think,
04:07it was almost as if you'd become a bit of a recluse.
04:09Did you ever actually consider knocking it completely on the head and retiring?
04:12Did it get that bad at any point?
04:14There was a point after that where I hadn't touched a guitar for ages.
04:18And, you know, I just, the whole, you know,
04:21it just related everything, you know, to what had happened,
04:24the tragedy that had happened.
04:26But I called up my road manager one day and said,
04:30look, get the Les Paul out of the storage.
04:33You know, it's about time I got back on it.
04:36And he went there and the case was empty.
04:38In fact, he'd sort of, I think somebody had sort of,
04:41they shouldn't have done, but they took it out and borrowed it
04:44and it eventually reappeared.
04:46When he came back and said, the guitar's missing,
04:48I said, that's it, forget it, I'm finished.
04:50You know, I don't want to know, but it sort of turned up,
04:53and thank God it did.
04:55When you're sitting at home and you get bombarded
04:58with all these people ripping off all your old licks,
05:00how does it make you feel?
05:01I must admit, there were a few moments when, you know,
05:04I felt as though there were sort of ghosts walking around.
05:08A ghost of myself so many years back, you know.
05:11Getting back to the present, not only have you got
05:13your first solo album about to be released,
05:15but you've got a brand new band to back you,
05:17you've got new management, a new record deal.
05:20Were all these deliberate moves made by you
05:22to actually conspicuously break with your past?
05:25Oh, not to break with the past.
05:27It's more just a new extension of how I was going to,
05:31as I say, it's a solo career,
05:33and I just wanted to have, you know,
05:37just totally a new team to battle the fresh horizons with me, really.
05:42Jimmy Page, thank you very much indeed.
05:44Thank you.