Most of everything you'll ever need to know about the band Led Zeppelin.

A Story by i.am.the.sun.

another English write.

Jimmy page was the leading guitarist for Led Zeppelin, but what was he doing before that? And how did it lead to the greatest musicians in history coming together to form this unique band? Your about to find out.
In 1966 jimmy page joined a group called the Yardbirds to play the bass guitar after the previous one had left the group, he later picked up on the electric guitar with Jeff Beck. After touring for a long time the group began winding down, and eventually in 1968, the name and rights were givin’ to jimmy page and bassist Chris Dreja. But, with the name comes a price, the “Yardbirds” still had concerts to attend in Scandanavia, so it was left up to Jimmy and Chris to fulfill the promise. After asking singer Terry Reid to play with them and being declined, jimmy went to a local bar in Birmingham and found Robert Plant singing with his band in a live performance. Plant eventually agreed to sign for the two man group (at the time). He later recommended a childhood friend and a fellow band member john Bonham from Redditch, the drummer from the band he was seen playing with in the bar. Shortly after Dreja opted out of the group and became a photographer, thus leaving the band looking for yet another member. They didn’t find him though, he found them. At the persuasion of his wife, John Paul Jones called jimmy page about the vacant position in the group. Already knowing JPJ’s abilities from previous studio recordings with the Yardbirds, jimmy instantly accepted the offer.
They finished the Scandanavia tour under the name of the New Yardbirds. After talking to Keith Moon and John Entwistle, (drummer and bass player for “the who”) they decided to change their name to lead zeppelin, after keith moon said that the group would go down like a lead balloon. A lead balloon was something Entwhistle used to describe a bad gig. They dropped the “A” in lead at the suggestion of their manager peter grant who said it would prevent “thick” Americans from pronouncing it as “LEED”, so they did.
Grant got them a $200,000 advance deal from Atlantic records, at the time Atlantic records had only blues, jazz, soul, and a very small amount of progressive English rock, they were signed before Atlantic even saw them.
While touring, John Mendelsohn, a reporter for Rolling Stone magazine, savagely accused them of copying black artists and stealing lyrics and riffs from artists such as Bert Jansch and blues artists of the like. This created a long term feud between the band and the magazine which consisted of interview rejections, refusals to print lyrics, play their music, and rejection of cover stories as their popularity increased exponentially.
When Led Zeppelins first self titled album was released, it met some Eva Von Zeppelin, a descendant of the namesake creator of the zeppelin, and was appalled by the image of the Hindenburg crashing and burning on their cover, so she had the concert pulled from the air in spite.
Their second album was recorded almost entirely on the road whilst touring North America, an album that had been claimed to be the blueprint for hard rock for the seventies and years to come.
Their third album was compiled in 1970, in a remote cottage in wales. the four members of the band retired there, a place called Bron Yr Aur, immortalized as the title and influence for one of their songs, “Bron Y Aur Stomp” misspelled on the album cover. With the release of this mostly acoustic album, they lost some fans that were attracted to that hard, heavy, almost metal sound they were producing in some of their songs, but in time acoustic was accepted as part of their sound. “I don’t think people should label us a metal band since about a third of out songs are acoustic.” �" Robert plant.
As the group grew in popularity they chose the rough road, the legit one, they refused television appearances saying that people should attend a concert to get the full feel of the band. Zeppelin was not interested in releasing singles (although Atlantic records did without their consent) they were more towards album rock, of which you have to listen to the whole thing.
The next five years of their career belittled the previous record setting ones. From 1970 to 1975 they would release their most popular albums, improve their stage presence, and start to wear more flashy clothing and jewelry like other popular bands in that era were doing. They would start to travel in a private jet plane, nicknamed “Starship”. They would rent entire sections of hotels where the side effects of being a band are shown vividly. One of these episodes consists of drummer john Bonham throwing TV sets out the windows in a drunken rage, then blaming groupies for the damage in the morning.
They then released their fourth album, untitled. Often referred to as Zoso, runes, sticks, man with sticks, IV, while most commonly referred to as led zeppelin IV. This record topped the charts as the 9th best selling album in the world at the time. Then 2 years later they put out their 5th album, “houses of the holy” which depicts nude children crawling up rocks, “The Giants Causeway” in Northern Ireland, to an unseen idol at the top. This cover was followed by much controversy, in some counties such as Spain the album was banned.
In 1975 the world first saw the release of zeppelins first double album, “physical graffiti”, it consisted of a number of songs, 15 new ones, eight of which were recorded under their own record name “swan song” and a few more previously unreleased but pre recorded for their earlier CDs. At the release of this, all the Led Zeppelin albums simultaneously re-entered the top 200 album chart.
While taking a break from touring, all members of zeppelin retired for a while, in this calming break while driving on the country side in Rhodes, Greece, Robert Plant accompanied by his wife Maureen, got involved in a serious car accident. Plant had shattered his ankle and had to walk around a mile before getting noticed and picked up by a passing fruit truck. His wife Maureen was badly injured and needed a blood transfusion that saved her life. While unable to tour, they planned an wrote the songs to the album “presence”, soon after recuperating from his injuries, plant got the band together and finished the CD.
To produce their last album, “In through the out door”, the band went to Sweden and recorded it with polar studios. Once again, this drew mixed reactions from critics and fans, but also once again their album still topped charts within two weeks of being released.
In 1977 you can start to see the end of the greatest band to ever exist. Their ending years started with Robert plants son dieing of a respiratory illness, and jimmy page starting his heroin addiction. You could, and still can, hear this in their changing musical tastes. But there was no slow burnout for led zeppelin. September 24th 1980 john Bonham picked up assistant Rex King to attend the bands rehearsal. On the way there Bonham stopped for some breakfast. John Bonhams breakfast consisted of: 4 quadruple vodkas (equivalent to 16 shots of vodka.) and a ham roll.
Arriving at the studio, Bonham continued to drink. At the end of the day the band retired to Pages house. Around midnight Bonham fell asleep, and was carried to bed by Benji LeFevre (zeppelins tour manager) and John Paul Jones, who layed him down on his side. The next morning John Henry Bonham was found dead. Officially, his cause of death was asphyxiation. In short, he choked on his own vomit, a result of his alcoholism that developed in the earlier days of led zeppelin.
After their drummer’s death, page, JPJ, and Plant decided not to continue as led zeppelin anymore, and put an end to the band. Later on plant and page would get together and tour under a different name. Although Kashmir was overall the bands favorite song, not once was there a planned gig containing stairway to heaven.