Ever since the late Keith Moon of the Who drove a pink Cadillac into a swimming pool on the grounds that he hated the colour, rock musicians have competed to do something just as outrageous. Led Zeppelin proved themselves more than equal to the challenge, wrecking hotel rooms, throwing refrigerators from hotel balconies and committing unspeakable acts of backstage debauchery.

So, if the current procession of rock dinosaurs such as Bryan Ferry and the Rolling Stones causes you unease, prepare for the return of the 1970s group who made the likes of Mick Jagger look like Cliff Richard. Led Zeppelin, the prototype hard rock band whose appalling behaviour was satirised in the American film Spinal Tap, are set to reform for a comeback tour.

Although they split up in 1980 after the classic rock’n’roll death of their drummer from alcohol poisoning, Britain’s princes of heavy rock continue to inspire a fanatical devotion among their fans, including Tony Blair.

The wild foursome — singer Robert Plant, bassist John Paul Jones, late drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham and guitarist Jimmy Page — matched their excesses with prodigious sales, becoming one of the most successful bands of all time, even though they never had a hit single (unless you count the unlikely 1993 cover version by Rolf Harris of their most popular opus, Stairway to Heaven).

By 1973 they had sold more albums than any group in the world, including the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, allowing the survivors to retire seven years later to their stately homes as multimillionaires.

While other acts hired private jets to transport themselves about on tour, Led Zeppelin acquired one of their own, Starship, which they had customised to include a lavishly appointed bedroom. Here they would entertain squadrons of female admirers.

But it was on the ground that the group gave full rein to their high spirits. The flavour of their mayhem was captured by Richard Cole, their tour manager and biographer, in his description of yet another hotel suite’s destruction: “Chairs crashed against the walls. Couches soared out of shattered windows. A television set followed close behind, exploding on an air conditioning unit more than a dozen storeys below. Hearing the commotion, I sprinted down the hall, joined by a couple of our security men. The door to Bonham’s suite was ajar and as we stormed inside he was hovering near the pool table, plotting his next move. ‘Well, don’t just stand there!’ he roared.”

Bonham, later to die after a drinking binge, was at the centre of a famous incident in 1969 at the Edgewater Inn in Seattle. It earned the group the distinction of being voted No 1 in the 100 Sleaziest Moments in Rock survey two years ago. The band’s orgy followed a fishing expedition in which they caught mud sharks and hung them in the hotel room wardrobes.

The tour photographer, Robert Zagaris, recalled: “Everyone was smoking joints and hash. A blonde groupie was stripped naked.” A party guest emptied a bag of fish entrails over the girl, who was writhing about with Cole and Bonham, according to Spin, the American movie magazine. Then Bonham reportedly grabbed a shark and performed a “sex act” on the woman. A counter version holds that it was a red snapper.

Led Zeppelin are known as the gurus of hard rock — the band who taught Aerosmith to play loud and Guns N’ Roses to behave badly. Their concerts were mind-blowing experiences delivered via 70,000 watts of amplification.

Yet their best music was characterised not by unbridled rock’n’roll but by a pop-melodic discipline and the carefully controlled ingenuity of the arrangements. Stairway to Heaven, which still holds the record for the most radio plays in the history of popular music, was inspired as much by Celtic bell-tinkling as by the blues.

Discipline remained an unfamiliar concept off-stage, however. On a record-breaking month-long tour of America in 1978, Cole feared the worst when he was asked to hire a motorbike and a 10ft python. The bike, it transpired, was for riding up and down the corridor on the ninth floor of the group’s hotel in Hollywood’s Sunset Strip. He was spared discovering what they had in mind for the python, since serpent-hire was not listed in the Yellow Pages.

Explore Music

• CD Reviews

• Live Reviews

• Classical

Editor's choice

• The 100 Best Films of the Decade
• 70 facts you didn't know about Marvel
• The 50 Biggest Movies Of 2010