If the first four years in the life of Led Zeppelin had been about
empire-building, the next four (1972-75) would find them overseeing their
kingdom with all the splendid pomp and inherent arrogance of pharaohs. Zep
were now self-made millionaires so famous they hid behind armed guards,
employed their own drug-dealers and flew by private jet. They were also at
their creative zenith, taking their music far beyond the bounds of most
other rock groups.
Indeed, only the Stones matched them at this time for musical promiscuousness,
as both groups toyed, variously, with funk, reggae, country, West Coast . .
. Arguably, Zep went even further, allowing jazz, synthesizers, folk,
doo-wop and Asian raga influences to seep into their signature sound. They
went further in terms of on-the-road outrage, too.
Keith [Richards] may still have draped silk scarves over his bedside lamps,
carried guns and knives and shot up heroin, while Mick [Jagger] certainly
kept the ladeez busy, but no one was busting up rooms, cars and jaws like
[John] “Bonzo” Bonham; nobody was a bigger babe-magnet than
rocket-in-my-pocket [Robert] Plant; and not even Keef could keep up with
nocturnal [Jimmy] Page’s noneating, non-sleeping regime of smack, coke,
Quaaludes, Jack Daniel’s, cigarettes, weed, wine, whatever. Plus, Page was
the only one using whips and magic wands on any sort of regular basis.
Still basking in the enormous success of the untitled fourth album, it was now
in 1973 that the feeling of invincibility that their manager, Peter Grant,
had helped foster really began to take hold of the band. Of course, this was
also the rock-fabulous age of colour TVs out of windows and white
Rolls-Royces in swimming pools that bands like Zeppelin, the Stones and The
Who came to embody. But no Seventies guitar god represented the extreme
Byronic sensibility in person quite like Jimmy Page. He may have begun
cultivating this dark mystique as a way of concealing his, in reality, more
introspective, quietly spoken, earnestly-watch-ing-from-a-distance nature,
but by 1973 things had started to change.
For those that knew him, it was still just possible to tell the difference,
but as the next few years skittered and jolted by, the mask would become
harder and harder for him to peel off. While both Bonham and Plant invested
in new farmhouse estates in the country – a 100-acre pile in Worcestershire
for the former, which he employed his father and brother to help him develop
into “a home fit for a king”, replete with livestock; a sheep farm in the
Llyfnant Valley on the southern fringe of Snowdonia for the latter, where he
took Welsh lessons and pursued his fascination with Celtic mythology at the
National Library of Wales in nearby Aberystwyth – Page flitted between his
own newly acquired 18th-century manor in Sussex (another riverside abode
named Plumpton Place, replete with moat and terraces off into lakes) and
flying visits to Boleskine House, intent on furthering his “studies” into
Aleisteir Crowley and the occult. It was as though, having conquered this
world, Page and Zeppelin now looked for dominion of the next.
Learning from the Stones – who had quickly shoehorned the new “glam” look of
recent arrivals on the scene like Marc Bolan and David Bowie into the way
they dressed on stage – the new Zeppelin show would be the first to feature
a full-on professional lightshow, including lasers, mirror balls and dry
ice, as well as a whole new set of stage costumes specially designed for
each member – the most flamboyant being Page’s now famous glittering
moon-and-stars outfit, the button-less, wide-lapelled jacket flapping open,
his flared trousers boasting three symbols down the side of the leg, the top
symbol, like an ornate “7”, representing Capricorn, his sun sign, a
bastardised “M” representing Scorpio, his ascendant sign, and below that
what looked like a “69” representing his moon sign.
Even the normally spotlight-avoiding John Paul Jones had his own specially
designed suit, a commedia dell’arte-type jester’s jacket with little red
hearts hanging from the frockcoat sleeves, while Plant became bare-chested,
the lion in spring, his “third leg” showing prominently through his
ultra-tight jeans, his shoulders squeezed into a powder-blue puffed-sleeve
blouse; even Bonzo was now done up in a black T-shirt with a big shiny star
sequinned upon it, the hair now very long indeed, hemmed in by a darkly
sparkling headband.
“It’s a work of art, that suit,” Jimmy told me. “Originally, we saw the whole
essence of our live performance as something that the audience listened to
very carefully, picking up on what was going on, the spontaneity and
musicianship. And you can’t do that if you’re running around the stage all
night, or at least we couldn’t back then.” By 1973, however, “we were much
more ambitious, in that respect. We really wanted to take the live
performances as far as they could go.”
They now travelled by private jet, hired at a cost of $30,000 per tour and
christened The Starship– a Boeing 720B 40-seater owned by former
singer Bobby Sherman, one of the creators of the Monkees.
When they picked it up at Chicago’s O’Hare airport, it was parked next to
Playboy boss Hugh Hefner’s plane, the words “Led Zeppelin” emblazoned down
one side. Fitted with lounge-seats and dinner tables, a fully stocked bar
and a TV lounge, there was also an electric Thomas organ which Jonesy would
sometimes entertain the “guests” with, and, in a rear cabin, a double bed
covered in shaggy white fur that became one of the most popular compartments
on the plane – though few ever slept in it.
Back “home” in LA at the end of May, they had sold all 36,000 tickets for
their two shows at the Forum within hours of the box office opening. The
first show happened to coincide with Bonham’s 25th birthday. His present
from the band: a new top-of-the range Harley-Davidson motorcycle. “He just
tore up the hotel corridors and made an incredible mess, apparently,” said
his old pal Bev Bevan, who had left the Move and now joined ELO. “But he
paid the bill the next day then told ’em – ‘Oh, and keep the bike.’
Unbelievable, but that was John.” The Forum audience had also given him a
birthday cheer during his 20-minute rendition of Moby Dick.
“Twenty-one today,” Plant had announced from the stage, and “a bastard all his
life”. Afterwards there was a huge party thrown for him at the Laurel Canyon
home of a local radio station owner. Guests included George and Patti
Harrison, Roy Harper, B. P. Fallon, Phil Carson, and the usual gaggle of
dealers, groupies and hangers-on.
Writer Charles Shaar Murray, who was also there, recalled “gallons of
champagne, snowdrifts of cocaine, bayous full of unfeasibly large shrimp,
legendary porn flick Deep Throat looping on a videotape player at a
time when VCRs were hugely expensive items available only to the
stupendously wealthy.” George Harrison crowned Bonham with his own birthday
cake. Bonzo threw the former Beatle and his wife into the pool fully
clothed, followed by anybody he could lay his hands on.
Jimmy, meekly complaining he couldn’t swim, was allowed to walk into the pool
in his new white suit with the “ZoSo” symbol on the back. Harrison later
claimed it was the most fun he’d had since the Beatles.
The LA music scene had moved on from the Laurel Canyon vibe the band had
become so entranced by three years before. Just as in London and New York,
the hip new sound of 1973 belonged to Bowie, T Rex, Mott the Hoople, Alice
Cooper and Roxy Music – glam rock.
The complete opposite of the be-whiskered, down-at-heel ambience of the
nouveau pastoralists, suddenly artists like Rod Stewart and Elton John were
shaving their stubble and donning pink satin pants, stack-heeled boots and
spraying their hair with glitter. The new cool hang out was Rodney
Bingenheimer’s English Disco on Hollywood Boulevard.
Soon the walls of Rodney’s office at the club were decorated in pictures of
him not just with Bowie et al but Phil Spector, Mick Jagger, John Lennon
and, eventually, Led Zeppelin, attracted to the club not for the music but
because of the teenage girls that packed the place seven nights a week.
Although the glam scene had a large gay following, you’d never have known it
sitting at Rodney’s table.
When Zeppelin hit LA now, they practically owned it. No longer content with
booking the entire ninth floor at the Hyatt, they now took over the eleventh
floor too, just a few steps from the rooftop swimming pool. They had
permanently reserved tables at all the best-known Hollywood rock dives, not
just Rodney’s but at their other favourite new hang-out, the Rainbow Bar &
Grill, where they had their own special half-moon tables roped-off at the
back. With a fleet of limos waiting kerbside, they also attracted star-name
hangers-on such as Iggy Pop, sitting crosslegged in the corner of Jimmy’s
suite, rolling joints as endless platoons of gorgeous girls wandered in and
out, happy to trade “favours” in return for access to the Zeppelin magic
kingdom.
Rejected by the Laurel Canyon sophisticates – much to Plant’s chagrin – who
were offended by Zeppelin’s sleazy reputation, the band simply took over
Rodney’s or the Rainbow and treated the places as they did the Hyatt: to use
and abuse at will. For many chroniclers of the LA music scene, this was the
beginning of its bleakest period. Writer Nick Kent, another visitor to
Rodney’s, claims he’d “never seen anyone behave worse [there] in my life
than John Bonham and [tour manager] Richard Cole.
“I saw them beat a guy senseless for no reason and then drop money onhis
face.” Even Miss P (legendary groupie Pamela Des Barres) – still on the
scene but now reconciled to a life without Jimmy after their brief affair,
except for those occasions when he suddenly remembered her number – would
later tell writer Barney Hoskyns: “As much as I really loved Zeppelin, they
kind of f***ed things up in LA. The magic really went out of rock’n’roll.”
None of which fazed Jimmy Page, who was entranced by the city’s dark side,
boasting to Kent about “one of his Hollywood girlfriends [who] bit into a
sandwich that had razorblades in it”. There was also the city’s strong
connection with the occult. As Angie Bowie commented in her autobiography:
“Hollywood is very likely the most active occult area on the planet, and
it’s been that way for decades. The black arts are established to the point
of being ingrained, and in the mid-Seventies they were thriving as never
before or since. There were almost as many occult bookstores as health food
joints.”
Even Robert began to exult in “the recklessness that for me became the whole
joy of Zeppelin . . . ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of 100
years outside it.”
Mostly, though, LA was about the girls. It was now that Page began the most
notorious of his on-the-road relationships, lavishing attention on a
14-year-old habituée of Rodney’s named Lori Maddox. Tall, dark, skinny, with
huge baby seal eyes, Lori and her friend Sable Starr were two of the
best-known “dancers” at the club. She later recalled being “kidnapped” by
Richard Cole one night, who drove her in a limo to the Hyatt, where she was
taken to Page’s top-floor candle-lit suite.
“I saw Jimmy, just sitting there in a corner, wearing this hat slouched over
his eyes and holding a cane,” she said. “It was really mysterious and weird
. . . He looked just like a gangster. It was magnificent.”
But then, as B. P. Fallon, the band’s PR, says now: “The whole world was
different then. Better or worse? You choose. The end of the Sixties, much of
the Seventies, it was freer then, less uptight, less censorious. For a while
it seemed anything was possible. And if you were a band on the road in
America it was, quite simply, sex and drugs and rock’n’roll. Didn’t mean you
were forced to partake but it was there on a plate – or a mirror – if you
wanted it.
“You’d be locked up if you did that stuff now. Underage sex? Forget it, baby.
Back then through the dented mists of time, rock’n’roll was a truly powerful
potion! There were fresh enthusiastic girls everywhere going completely mad
for it and there wasn’t the horror of Aids. You can imagine the Rat Pack at
their height in Vegas all chasing women and going wild and being completely
untouchable. Zeppelin were like that, with the volume turned up. There were
placid moments but . . . c’mon! Wonderful.”
It wasn’t just in LA that the band enjoyed themselves. Out on the road,
groupies and drug dealers were now everywhere. Three members may have been
married but the concept of the “on-the-road lady” was still a valid one in
the Seventies. In New Orleans, they stayed at the famous Royal Orleans hotel
and hung out in the French Quarter where Jonesy got embroiled in “a spot of
bother” with the local drag queens.
They all now regarded cocaine as “rocket fuel”, though wary of attracting too
much attention had begun to employ a full-time “coke lady”, a mysterious
Englishwoman whose sole purpose was to administer cocaine with her index
finger to members of the band then dab their noses with a pinch of cherry
snuff and a drop of 1966 Dom Perignon. None of which was considered
addictive, but rather sophisticated, even elegant.
Was that part of the buzz, I once asked Jimmy. That different rules applied?
“Sure, yeah, it was part of the reality of it. That’s the point, it’s part
of the reality of it and that was exhilarating, yeah. But it was very
apparent that we were right on the cutting edge of everything that was
happening.”
Did it make it hard, though, for life away from the stage to match that kind
of excitement and intensity? “No, I was still celebrating!” He grinned. “No,
because things were in a balance. There was the intensity and energy and
creativity that was going on, that was the slot for that. The rest of the
time was preparation or recovery. You know, most of it was so cocooned. We
used to leave the stage, jump into the cars and get whisked off to the
aeroplane, which would fly us to the next gig. Our feet never really touched
the ground.”
He paused. “There was always a lot of theatre. There always is on rock’n’ roll
tours, though I think we might have pioneered a lot of it.
“In fact, I know we did . . .”
THE FISH INCIDENT
On July 27, 1969, the band played at the Seattle Pop Festival. The following
day they decided to chill out at the Edgewater Inn, where guests could fish
from their balconies. By 4am, a drunken Bonham had caught some red snappers
and mud sharks, which Cole hung in a closet.
“So what are you going to do with them?” asked Plant the next day, holding his
nose. “We’ll find something,” said Ricardo. Sure enough, that night they
did, when one 17-year-old groupie named Jackie idly inquired: “Are you guys
into bondage?” Cole led the way, inviting Jackie to strip off and lie naked
on the bed, where he tied her hands and feet to the bedposts and the fish
were brought out.
“What then happened was pretty disgusting”, recalled a witness, “It was
nutso.” While such adventures have never been denied, it’s equally clear how
little such tawdry scenes meant to the band. As Plant told me: “People
forget when they tut-tut about this stuff what a laugh we were having.”
© Mick Wall 2008. Extracted from When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography
of Led Zeppelin, published by Orion at £20. Times readers can order a copy
for £18 from Books
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