“I was 19, soon to be 20,” the singer recalled. “Once John’s wife finally gave him permission to come to rehearsal — because Pat always said, ‘Keep away from Plant, because you’re just going to end up broke and in trouble’ … in that room, on that afternoon, when we kicked in with a bunch of songs that nobody really knew … I knew that I was in a room full of giants, really — and that was it.”
Within a few months, that group of Plant, Bonham, John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page changed their name from the New Yardbirds to Led Zeppelin. By the following year, they released their debut album and completed four tours of the U.S. and U.K.
“By 1973, what happened in that one room had exploded into some of the most adventurous non-rock rock that you could ever wish to find, and it was just the sum of the parts,” Plant continued. “Those guys were just insanely good. And it was as if everybody had just been waiting for each other with whatever happened prior to that. It was just like, bang!”
Plant is currently on tour in the U.S. with Alison Krauss. Get all the tour dates here.
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