Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
guest today is Steph Payne, guitarist and leading force of
the band les Zeppelin. Steph, good to have you on
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Hey, thanks, Bob, it's fantastic to be here. Thanks for
having me.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
Let's start from the beginning. Is Steph Payin's your real name?
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Yes, it's my real name. But there is a small
little difference, and that is there's a why in it.
When when I was born there was no why, so
it was P. A. N. E. S. And that's the truth.
And you're the first one to hear it. But it's
a funny story, which if I go into it.
Speaker 1 (00:53):
Well tell the story. We're here, We're here.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
This is all right, Okay, okay. It sort of ties
in because I put the Y in my name after
I moved to England the first time, which is a
long time ago, right after college, and I had found
myself working, you know, trying to be a big rock
(01:17):
star and make it and do all this stuff because
you know, British Invasion rock was my favorite thing. So
I thought I have to go to England. And while
I was here, at that point, I started to write
for the music press, and I was writing for the
NME actually, and when I got my first story published,
(01:41):
I realized, because I was paranoid about working without a
work permit, that if I put a Y in the name,
they could not prove that it was me, because there's
a why in the name and all my passport there isn't.
So that was my thinking and ever since it became
my name and it stuck. So there's a wine.
Speaker 1 (02:04):
Okay, there's a lot to unpact there, but I'm going
to go back to original theme. Les Zeppelin would imply
that it's an act of lesbians. What is the truth?
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Oh, I knew you were going to get there. I
didn't think it would be second. I thought it would
be first. We have always had a don't ask, don't
tell policy since the beginning of the band. Lots of
reasons for that, but I figured I basically, in a nutshell,
I'd get into trouble either way, So don't ask, don't tell,
(02:42):
and we welcome speculation. We're fine with whatever anybody thinks.
And people actually like to guess, so it's fun.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Okay, you yourself have been married, have children, You certainly
have lived a heterosexual lifestyle, So the question because naming
it led Zeppelin, was that to gain attention or was
that because that was the easiest play on the name
led Zeppelin? How did you come up with it? Long?
Speaker 2 (03:11):
Okay, I will tell you my mother came up with it.
Believe it or not. My mother, this is true. She
was an English professor, and she was fantastic with puns
and you know, writing. I mean, it was wonderful. She
(03:34):
used to write poetry and everything. But she was the
quickest person with a pun that I'd ever met. And
we were sitting around the table and I had already
started this, I mean, had this idea to start this band,
and I was gung ho, and we were trying to
think of names, and there were all sorts of really
bad names being put on the table as bands, do
(03:55):
you know, cover your tablecloth with bad names? And she
just turns to me and says, lez Zeppelin. Now, I
had never heard my mother even say the word lesbian
okay out loud. But it was the most brilliant thing
I ever heard. I just that was it. There was
(04:17):
no question in my mind that that had to be
the name of the band. And I think, honestly, I
think it's like the best band name ever. Maybe not ever,
but it's up there.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Okay, for those people unfamiliar with les Zeppelin, how would
you describe the band?
Speaker 2 (04:34):
Okay, it's you mean trying to describe led Zeppelin in
and of itself.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
And someone goes to a led Zeppelin show, someone listens
to your music, what are they getting? What is the
ethos of the band? What is it you're selling?
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Okay, they will get a powerful, very passion very spontaneous
show that is all around the songs of led Zeppelin.
We play the songs as they are written most of
(05:15):
the time, but we improvise where they used to improvise.
And it's kind of an amazing thing because we focus
more on the spirit of the band, i would say,
and the incredible combination of musicianship that made them who
(05:40):
they are, which is why this band has to be
so organic, because we are playing together as musicians like
they were and trying to achieve that special sort of
magical moment of intensity, and that really is our goal.
And you know, sometimes I'll play a solo. I mean
(06:03):
a lot of the solos I play at this point
are you know, in Jimmy Page's style, but they're not
exactly what Jimmy played, and my hope is maybe he
would have played it at some point, but it's much
more evocative, I think, to.
Speaker 1 (06:19):
Go for.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
That essence of the band, and I think people react
to it feeling like they've really been to a led
Zeppelin show, much more than if we just copied everything
they played, which is frankly no interest to me.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
However, having seen the act, it's not like going to
see Bob Dylan today and saying, you know, he played
a song that's famous and I didn't recognize that. The
songs generally speaking, are very faithful to the originals.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
Yes, because you have to be. I mean, it's brilliant
music and you have to be faithful, like, for example,
the Ocean. Well, let's take that song. It's kind of
such a perfect package. I never changed the guitar solos
for that. We never change the arrangements. But you know,
we're only four people, so we play it live like
(07:12):
they played it, So our renditions are how they played
it live. We don't have extra people on stage to
fill all the guitar parts. We're not trying to replicate
the albums. But you know, a song like the Ocean
is very, very true to form. It'll sound like it
sounds on the record without the extra guitar tracks. It
(07:33):
sounds like they played how it sounded when they played
it live.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
But just to nail this down, what is different is
primarily is solos, etc. You're going to the show, You're
if you close your eyes, theoretically you say, okay, this
is led Zeppelin live. Yes, would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (07:53):
Yes, that's my goal. It works, though it succeeds.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
How'd you come up with the idea?
Speaker 2 (08:00):
Pow? Oh gosh, it's really kind of boring. It's boring, Bob,
It's really boring. I mean, frankly, I just love the
music of Led Zeppelin. I mean it was a pure
act of indulgence. And I was between gigs. I had
spent a time playing with Ronnie Specter. That had been
(08:22):
my last gig, I guess, and I was in the
mood to really dig down and get intense with the guitar.
I frankly hadn't really studied Jimmy Page. Before i'd studied
Jimmy Hendrix, I'd studied a lot of jazz, I'd studied
other players, but Jimmy was fascinating to me, and I
(08:46):
really wanted to see if I could get into his zeitgeist,
you know, So I thought, this will be fun. Why
don't I just you know, if I could be in
any band in the whole world, what would it be
led Zeppelin? So I thought, you know, I took the
leap like a little bit of an idiot and said,
(09:09):
why not, let's just play led Zeppelin? And I sort
of set off to do it, and that was really it.
Just I figured, we'll play a gig once a month.
I'll get a couple of girls together, because I knew
that it would be better with all girls, and maybe
(09:31):
we'll make fifty bucks and have a beer and it'll
be really fun and kind of get all rocks off.
But once I started the band, it turned out to
be a much more work than that, way much more work.
And then the level of interest in the group was immediate.
(09:55):
This is twenty twenty four. I'm sorry, two thousand and four.
It's been twenty years actually, and I realized I was
onto something.
Speaker 1 (10:07):
Let's start with the work. You say it was much
more work? Can you go deeper there?
Speaker 2 (10:12):
Oh? Yeah, okay. First I had to find three other
people girls I wanted, girls I had been in one
other all girl band that was amazing and very powerful,
so I had no doubt that girls could do it
and probably better. Where were they?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Oh well, we just have to stop there for one second.
Why probably? Why probably better? Or was that just an
offhand comment?
Speaker 2 (10:39):
It was kind of offhand, but it was kind of
the way I felt. I just my latter The one
all girl band I had been in was called one
nine hundred Bucks, and it was in the nineties, so
it was kind of like a Jane's Addiction kind of band.
We were compared to them a lot, and we were
compared to and I'm telling you, Bob, it was the
(11:02):
most powerful band I've ever played in. And I've played
in a lot of bands with a lot of guys,
not that they can't do it. There was just something
about that band and the intensity of it, So in
my mind, I had no doubt girls could do it.
Can they do it better? Well? Now I think that,
(11:25):
But then you know, I think my band does it better.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I'm going to stop you for one second. Since led
Zeppelin is an all male band, macho males here that
they can't use the word girls. They must use the
word women. From your perspective, What is your take on that.
Speaker 2 (11:47):
Girls is fine with me? I don't. I have no
interest in that kind of semantic volleyball. And I would
take you to task on saying that led Zeppelin were macha,
because I think they were pretty far from macho. I
think there was a lot of posturing and a lot
(12:10):
of sort of you know, peacock feathers, strutting and all
the rest, and it was very sexual. But if you
think about how led Zeppelin looked like girls kind of.
If you think about the beautiful texture and dynamics of
(12:31):
their music, from gentle sort of Celtic folk through to
a whole lot of love or something like that, it
runs the spectrum. And I never consider it cock rock,
as many people have said, or particularly macho, but somehow
(12:51):
it has that reputation. I mean, maybe you can explain it.
Speaker 1 (12:55):
No, I think those words came out of my mouth
and I was doubting. I'm good for you for calling
me on it. But let's go back to the narrative.
So you say, Okay, I'm going to do this. First,
I have to find three other girls. So what did
you do?
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I just word of mouth. I just asked everybody and
I mean everybody, like people who were bankers, people who
were in restaurants. I was like hairdressers. I just figured
if I put the word out, someone will know somebody.
And in fact, that's exactly how that band came together.
(13:30):
Somebody saying, oh, my friend, my hairdresser in fact plays drums,
and my brother went to a party and called me
up and said, I think I found your singer like that,
and that the drummer. I knew what the drummer from
the all girl band that I mentioned, and I called her. Initially,
her name was Chip English, and she went off to
(13:53):
play with the Luna Chiics, if you know who they are.
But Chip is an incredibly intense drummer, and she joined up.
She was gung ho for about a month and a
half until she realized how much work it was, and
then it was I'm not doing this. This is too
much practicing. So I then, you know, found another drummer
(14:18):
word of mouth. But yeah, it was all sort of.
It was a little magical, Bob, I got to tell
you a little bit dark and magical.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
From the moment you say I'm going to start looking
till you find the other three players. How long a
period of time is that.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I would say about a month and a half, two months.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Okay, So do you find the players? What's the next step?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
Practice? Practice, practice, practice. It's kind of like location, location, location,
I mean, and this is the thing. It's not can
you play it technic glean? Okay, that's I mean, there
is some of that. There is a lot of that too,
(15:04):
because it's crazy, some of some of Jimmy's riffs. I
mean they're insane, right, So there is that, But when
you begin to play the music, you realize how much
else there is, how many other little details and in
you and sort of musical innuendos and the feel and
(15:28):
the way you have to lay back in all of
those things and then play together. I mean, it's it's
a lot. And you know, I think once we started going,
because we're girls and I'll say girls because we were girls. Yeah,
(15:51):
because we were girls, I knew that we had to
be twice as good as any guys, no question, because
we would be met by instant skepticism, which we were,
so we really you know, wood shedded is that the term.
(16:14):
We just practiced for six months until we dared to
play a gig.
Speaker 1 (16:19):
Wow, So how did you decide you were ready.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
Well, I think we got through a set list the
songs we could play. There was power in the band.
I mean we'd go to a rehearsal studio and people
would sit outside the door and listen in, you know,
including the guys that worked there. So we started to feel, Okay,
this is cool. We got it. You know. We just
(16:49):
had to jump off at some point. So there was
also another little detail, and that is I was nine
months pregnant for our first gigs. Okay, yeah, so you
know how Jimmy holds the guitar sideways like I have
a side saddle. I was doing that. So I figured,
(17:11):
let's let's get in a couple of gigs before I
get this little creature out, and then we can go
gung home. So that we had to be ready at
some point to play a few gigs.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Okay, you do a couple of gigs, you have a child.
How long until you start playing again?
Speaker 2 (17:40):
About a month and a half.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Oh, very quickly. Okay, so yes, let's go back before
you have the baby. Tell me about the first couple
of gigs, how you get them. But the reaction is
how you experienced it.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
You know, we were a bit. It was a bit scary.
But we played out of New York City because I
didn't want to play in New York City yet. And
there were these small clubs up in Connecticut because our
singer at the time was from Avon, Connecticut. So we
(18:21):
played this place called Sully's, and we played this place
called the Hungry Tiger, and they were small clubs, and
people went nuts, I mean instantly. And I'm telling you
those gigs were not very good. I mean, you know,
by standards now, I mean there was a lot that
(18:42):
was wrong with the sound, if I'm going to be
picky and playing it correctly. But there was this energy
and there was a desire to see four girls playing
led Zeppelin. I mean it was just like everyone wanted
didn't see it. So the clubs were full and people
(19:06):
went nuts.
Speaker 1 (19:09):
Okay, especially today you're talking two thousand and four. That's
you know, when things really start to change from the
old music business to the new music business. Hey, you
formed the band, b rehearsed the band, See you're ready
to do it. How'd you get the gigs? Did you
personally call? Was there an agent? Was there a manager?
(19:30):
How did you get the gigs?
Speaker 2 (19:33):
Right? So? None of the above. Yes, I personally called
the singer called because she knew the guy at Sully's
or whatever. We had no agent, no manager, just the
four of us with lots of opinions, and it was
(19:57):
it was just like that, like any kind of baby
band starting out, super fun. We were so excited, you know,
when a hundred people showed up and we made two
hundred and fifty bucks, I mean it was a lot,
three hundred dollars or something. And within I would say
(20:18):
a year, we had an agent, and shortly after that
we were approached by managers the whole gamut, and it
was one point we had a business manager, we had PRP,
we had everything. You know, it just sort of snowballed.
But at first, now.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Okay, you have the baby, you start playing again, Walk
me a little bit slower. How many gigs you're playing,
How you get the agent, and how it starts to develop.
Speaker 2 (20:51):
So mostly at the beginning, it was maybe one gig
on a Saturday or Friday. Occasionally we would play. As
we progressed, we would start to play match them up,
you know, maybe we could play here and there. But
that really started to come a little later once we
had an agent. So they were kind of one offs.
(21:15):
Sometimes we'd have to stay in a hotel or something,
but they were all fairly local. So we rented a van,
you know, you know, like a mini van. I don't
even know if they exist anymore. It's an suv or something.
But and we piled our stuff in and drove ourselves up,
(21:38):
played this crazy intense music for an hour and a half,
then packed it up and drove home. So it was
a lot. It was a lot, but it was so rewarding.
Speaker 1 (21:54):
Okay, it started as a lark. When in your brain
did it turn into more than a lark?
Speaker 2 (22:03):
I think that pretty quickly. I realized that I had
something on my hands. You know, I've spent years previous
to this, early on in trying to crack the music business.
(22:24):
I had a million original bands. You know. For a
while I was out as a singer songwriter, I was
playing another bands, and everyone was just trying to get
to that point where they'd even get an agent. When
les Zeppelin came out, everyone wanted to hear it. The
(22:47):
promoters did not even ask when I mean, they just
it was an automatic. Yes, it was sort of like
the easiest thing. And that was unusual. It was you know,
when things are meant to happen, they just happened. There
was no resistance. So I realized pretty fast, Wow, this
(23:11):
is different. This has potential to grow a bit larger.
Did I think it would become what it actually became. No,
not in a million years. I mean it's been twenty
years I've been doing this, and we've had unbelievable experiences
doing stuff that bands like ours should never have done.
Speaker 1 (23:33):
I think, but what are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (23:36):
Not never have done, not never have done? But would
ha had never done? Is what I meant? Like playing
major festivals like we played at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art for the Play It Loud exhibit. We toured all
over the world, Japan, we released records in Japan. Eddie
(23:59):
krane Or produced our first record. You know, crazy surreal
stuff like that. And of course Jimmy came to our gig.
It's just a lot of you know, Bonneroo. We played
at Bonnaroo and it was I don't think there had
been a cover band like ours at Bonnaroo ever, and
(24:21):
it was tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 1 (24:23):
Okay, so you start in two thousand and four, it's
twenty twenty four. Has this been a continuous forgetting COVID
which is its own world? Has this been a continuous upswing?
Have there been ups and downs? And what is the
status of the act today?
Speaker 2 (24:45):
Ah? How much time do we have?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Time?
Speaker 2 (24:49):
Okay, No, it's lots of ups and downs, lots, you know,
like anything. I mean, various things happened that that involved
just dips in the you know, we were soaring for
a while, and then it just seemed to settle down.
(25:10):
And then I had a complete lineup change, and that
stopped me in my tracks. And I could have just
stopped at that point, except I didn't think we were finished,
so I had to get a whole new band together.
That band was great. That continued for a while, So
I've had lineup changes along the way, and you know,
(25:35):
I think generally speaking, we've been very lucky to be
able to tour for twenty years and have audiences and
make money and continue in that, and that's never really dipped.
It's just that it's sometimes it may have been a
(25:56):
little more you know, crazy and maybe popular than others,
but a lot of stuff changed during the life of
the band, Like where you used to have newspaper articles
in radio, which we did a lot of. All of
that disappeared, and I think it took there was some
(26:18):
time to get used to how to operate in this
new sort of music business paradigm with online stuff and
social media, and you know, I think a lot of
people struggled. But we went through that change and it
you know, it was a little bumpy here and there,
(26:38):
but generally speaking, we managed to work. Right now, this
band that's together has been together about six years, so
it's it's an incredible group. And you know, every lineup
had its beautiful qualities. I think this lineup was, without
(26:59):
doubt that best musicianship, no question, and it's very sophisticated.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Okay, bands have arcs. Was the fall off in publicity
and radio because it was no longer a novelty or
was it a change in the marketplace?
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Change in the marketplace? There were no radio stations. They
were dropping, dropping like flies. And if you toured somewhere
in the country, you know, used to try to set
up a studio radio thing you'd play, you know, going
to California or something and then talk about it. But
all of that stuff disappeared, you know, and newspapers it's
(27:41):
sort of nobody if they did stories. Nobody was really
reading newspapers much. So I think it was it wasn't us.
We just had to figure out a different way to
market ourselves.
Speaker 1 (27:58):
Okay, so you coasting at this point or are you
continuing to market yourself in these alternative ways as we
used to say.
Speaker 2 (28:08):
We're We're trying, We're continuing. There was a learning curve,
but yeah, we just we just kept plugging away. I'm
very stubborn. I'm a very stubborn person, and I don't
give up easily, you know, and I wasn't going to
let the entire shift of the music business, you know,
make me give up.
Speaker 1 (28:29):
Well, okay, so let's start. Do you have a mailing list?
Speaker 2 (28:36):
We did, but we now have a huge Facebook, Instagram,
what else? A TikTok page we put out. You know,
we do advertising. There is there is a following on
bands in town. We have people following it, which is
(28:58):
kind of a mailing list, so people can sign up
for that. But we don't really do direct mail as
it were, so much as we do these other things.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Okay, who is doing the posting? Who is coordinating this?
Speaker 2 (29:15):
Well? Right now we have we're so lucky to have
our wonderful jack of all trades and master of all
Joan ch who is our bass player, keyboard player, mandolin player.
She also plays a dozen other instruments. But she has
a degree in marketing and social media, so she's very
(29:37):
good at that, and she pushes us to make little,
you know, shout outs and do silly things and give
her materials so that she can post it. And we
also do advertising, and sometimes I hire social media people
to really plug a show, you know, and we do
(30:01):
our own advertising too.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
So so tell me about first. You said you had
to get a whole new band.
Speaker 2 (30:07):
Why, Well, there were different reasons throughout the twenty some
odd years, but basically I think, you know, people sort
of run their course with a group, except for me,
you know, the guitar player remains the same, I guess.
(30:28):
But you know, this was my baby, so I don't
ever get sick of it. I don't ever, you know,
feel like it's too much work or whatever that is.
So there were some of that, but some of the
players got pulled away by other things. Like one of
our singers got a gig as a on Broadway as understudy,
(30:53):
and it was great money and she took that, so
you know, I totally understand that, But then we had
to find another sing so it was things like that too.
I'm kind of amazed that the band has lasted in
its sort of some form or this form for so long,
(31:13):
because bands don't last that long. I think we're around
twice as long as Led Zeppelin actually were.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
So okay, focusing back on band members, did you ever
have to fire a band member?
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Yeah, once, I sort of didn't fire. I didn't fire
her exactly. I saw an avenue that I could take
to make her quit and it worked. She had already
quit five times, and I figured she'll quit again. There's
(31:48):
no question. If she makes this request and I say no,
she's bound to quit again because all of us had
had enough. She was a little unstable and we'd had enough.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
So okay. So one can say it's your band.
Speaker 2 (32:06):
Well, yeah, it's my band, but everyone who plays in
the band feels very passionate about it and they feel
like it's their band as well. Because that's the nature
of this music. You cannot play it without having that
(32:31):
exist on stage. You can't just have backup players doing
their bit. You have to be huddling in the middle
of the stage, staring at each other, throwing riffs back
and forth and being in the moment. And that is
a very intimate, involved way to play music. Far too
(32:51):
rare these days, but that's what it is, and that's
what I love most about it.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
Okay, do you split the money equally?
Speaker 2 (33:00):
No, but I pay for everything.
Speaker 1 (33:04):
Okay. Can you make a living on lives Zeppelin? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (33:11):
Yeah, it depends on what you consider a living. Could
I could I find some very you know, cheap place
to pull up and maybe run the band? It depends.
I mean, now it's super expensive to tour, so it's uh,
it's challenging sometimes, but generally speaking, yes, this is my
(33:37):
this is my job.
Speaker 1 (33:39):
So if you're not living on a subsistence level, how
are you paying the bills other than lives? Zuppelin?
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Well, I've you know, I had, I owned an apartment
in New York City and you sold that. I had
help from my ex for a while. I uh, just investments,
being smart with the money, stuff like that. We've had
times when it you know, we'll play private parties or something.
(34:08):
You know, the money vascillates. It's it's okay, you know,
I make money as a musician. I'm lucky.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Okay, the other three women, if you the band has
been together for six years, are they living on the
income from le Zeppelin or are they doing other things?
And what might they be?
Speaker 2 (34:34):
Yes, everyone has They all have other things that they do.
So Marlaine our singer, she's an actress and she does voiceovers,
so that's a big gig for her. She mainly does that.
You know, this is the only band she's in at
the moment. Joan the bass player, she has a bunch
(34:57):
of other bands. And our drummer is I would say,
well the drummer where with Now she has a full
time job, but it's very flexible so she can work remotely.
So everyone is secure. Plus they have good living situations.
(35:20):
They have partners, and their partners are okay. You know,
they handle a lot too, So nobody in the band
feels desperate for money. It's a good situation to have
because it's not where everyone is up tight. This is
(35:41):
not enough money to play, and you know we're not
getting enough. I mean, you know, I'll take gigs where
I lose money playing, but you know, you keep a
band working, so it's okay. So I think everyone's okay
with it, and they're not totally reliant at.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
This point in time. How many gigs a year does
les Zeppelin do?
Speaker 2 (36:11):
I would say we averaged thirty five to forty gigs
a year, give or take. It's mostly weekends.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
And is it waxed in Wane? Where were there other
years where you played more?
Speaker 2 (36:25):
Yes? Absolutely. I mean there were times when we were
doing European tours and we were out for a month,
or we were in Japan, or we were in Australia,
We've done you know where it was much more constant,
lots more gigs and playing. You know, we had an
(36:46):
agent who was booking us like mad and that that's
really what you need. You know, someone's booking you like that.
And I will say that when I started this band
and in the early days, there were not so many
of these other bands playing led Zeppelin. Now there are
(37:07):
a plethora of these bands. And it's sometimes hard to
described to promoters what the difference is aside from us
being all girls or all women as it were. They
don't really know, and some of them don't really care
(37:30):
because if they can just get people through the door
and buy alcohol whatever, you know, whoever gives them the
lowest price, but I was not dealing with that. Early on.
We were much more unique in our just existence. Forget
about the way we played it, which I still believe
(37:52):
we are unique in that way. But there just weren't
so many of these bands, and it's made it tough for.
Speaker 1 (38:02):
So how do you actually get the gigs today? Do
you have an agent today?
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Yes, we do have a great agent working for us.
We are playing mostly theaters, and now that people know
who we are, the promoters know who we are, so yeah,
it's it's good. But you know you have to book
it so that some other led Zeppelin band isn't down
(38:28):
the block on the same night. You know that's happened,
and then you know it's crazy.
Speaker 1 (38:36):
Have you ever gone to see these other lads up
win bands and say, you know they're better than we are.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
No, you can answer that in a second. I've seen
the big ones.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
If your agent said, okay, I can book you on
one hundred dates this year, would you say set it up?
You say, oh, that's just too much work. I'm too old.
I've been there, done that. I'm forty's pretty good.
Speaker 2 (39:02):
I'd say, what's the money? No, good question, Bob I'd
have to ask the girls what they wanted to do.
You know, if they all were in, then I'd be in.
I'm pretty game at this at this point, at any point.
(39:23):
That's just you know. I love being on stage. I
love meeting people. I love the sound of the guitar.
I just you know, I I can't see giving it up.
It's just part of who I am. And I'm happy
to play. I don't know, I imagine myself not playing.
Speaker 1 (39:43):
So okay, let's go back to the beginning. Where'd you
grow up?
Speaker 2 (39:51):
I grew up in Long Island, in a town called
Great Neck, New York.
Speaker 1 (40:00):
You see, your mother was a college professor. What did
your father do for a living?
Speaker 2 (40:05):
So my dad was a publisher and he worked at home.
He had his own business and he put out all
sorts of publications that they used to call employee relations magazines.
He went to j school and this is what he did.
So he had, you know, big businesses like Bloomingdale's or
(40:29):
a big you know, King Cullin, or he had a
lot of supermarkets and Hurts, you know, was a client,
but he would put out their in house publications. So
it was kind of like a house organ You know,
for the employees to read, they'd read about themselves. They
have stories about what's happening in this store that store.
(40:51):
And it was a good business. And he did the
whole thing himself.
Speaker 1 (40:56):
And how many kids in the family just too other
and myself, your brother older or younger, what's he up to.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
He's a little younger. And he was a violinist, very
serious violinist, so also a musician, and now he's writing
for television. He's writing US series for MGM. Plus if
you've ever seen The Godfather of Harlem, he's a writer
on that.
Speaker 1 (41:23):
Okay. So if he's a serious violinist and you're a musician,
was there music in the house. There must have been
some driving force if you're both into music.
Speaker 2 (41:33):
There was music all the time. I mean, my mother
was a pianist, but not any professional, but she wasn't bad,
you know, she was pretty good. And my dad loved
music but didn't play anything. He played stuff for us,
like there was a lot of classical music mostly that
(41:55):
they liked. They did not like rock and roll. I
was on my own with that. But the one thing
that my dad played for me from when I was
a wee little child was Django Reinhart from as long
as I can remember. He loved Jango Reinhart, and I
grew up listening to that, and I still think he's
(42:18):
the greatest guitarist who ever lived.
Speaker 1 (42:20):
So what point do you start playing an instrument?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
Well, I asked for a guitar at five and got
it for my sixth birthday. So I played it a
little bit, and then I put it under the piano,
and then I took it back out from under the
piano at about eight years old and learned a few
chords and I was off. That was it?
Speaker 1 (42:44):
Well, a little bit slower. What do you you know?
Did you take lessons? What was the music you were
listening to? How'd you learn how to play?
Speaker 2 (42:52):
All by ear? No lessons?
Speaker 1 (42:54):
So if you're eight years old, what are you playing?
Speaker 2 (42:57):
Oh? I was playing folky music like James Taylor. I
was getting into finger picking and beatle songs and stuff
like that. I was interested in. Yeah, and it was
fairly easy for me, you know, so, so I wasn't
frustrated with it, which is why I kept doing it.
(43:18):
And at some point, when I was a tween, I
guess they called them a tween, I did go for
the summer, I went for two summers to this place
called the Guitar Workshop, which was out on Long Island,
and it was kind of this hippie commune of guitar players.
(43:38):
No real rock and roll, but a lot of classical,
a lot of finger picking, a lot of blues. And
there was one guy there who played jazz. And the
second I went for just the summer, it was kind
of like you know, the Guitar Institute. It was just
a cram eight hour day of playing different classes and
(44:01):
technique and ear training and stuff. And when I heard
this guy play jazz, that was it. I just signed
up for the whole jazz program and that's what I studied.
So I did that for two summers.
Speaker 1 (44:14):
And you were how old when you do that?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I would say, thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Okay, that's the summer. You come back home. What are
you playing at home? Are you interested in forming beans?
What's going on?
Speaker 2 (44:27):
I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be Joe passed.
I was like, I wasn't forming bands really well. I
played in the high school jazz band. I was doing that.
I played with a few kids who were into jazz,
but I was not playing rock, and I was not
doing that. I was a real jazz head, which is
(44:48):
funny but actually turned out to be really helpful later on,
I think with playing led Zeppelin actually, But yeah, it
wasn't until I got to college that I started getting
into bands.
Speaker 1 (45:06):
Okay, you ended up going to Brown in Rhode Island,
so one would assume you were a good student.
Speaker 2 (45:13):
I guess you could assume that, although you know, I
wasn't the greatest student in the world, but I was
good enough, and I had a lot of, as they say,
other things on my resume, as it were. I'd worked
on the hill on Capitol Hill for two summers for congressman,
which nobody did in high school. And I did that
(45:35):
in high school. And I was a writer, so I
could I still actually writing is the other thing I do.
So I could write my application pretty well. And I
just had these and then I had jet you know,
I had the guitar play. I just had a lot
of different things, and it appealed to that to schools,
(45:58):
as it were. But yeah, I was all right, My
grades were all right.
Speaker 1 (46:02):
How'd you end up working on Capitol Hill?
Speaker 2 (46:04):
Well, there was a congressman in our town that my
parents had helped write some of his campaign speeches. It's
a Democrat from New York called Lester Wolfe, and we
met one day. I mean I got introduced to him,
actually at a temple. He went to the same temple,
(46:28):
and I just asked him and he said, yeah, your
send me a letter. And I did. I sent him
a letter and I got in and then I loved it.
They loved me. So I went back the next summer.
Speaker 1 (46:43):
Okay, today, are you disillusioned with politics or you think
there's a future?
Speaker 2 (46:51):
Oh boy, I'll tell you. I just kind of stopped
reading newspapers or listening to anything for a good long while.
But now I'm like a political junkie again. I just can't.
I can't not check in with it every hour or something.
(47:14):
But it's a good question. I think it's a really
dark time. But one thing I will never forget. When
I was an intern on the Hill, sometimes the interns
got to go to these presentations or speakers would come.
(47:37):
And one of the speakers who came to speak to us,
he was already quite sick and was fairly old at
that point, was Hubert Humphrey. So I'm dating myself a little,
but Hubert Humphrey came and talked to all the interns,
and I'll never forget it because he said, sort of,
this thing goes. Don't lose hope in this country or
(48:01):
in this system. It's going to seem like at times
when it's beyond help, but you've got to believe in it.
It is a good system, it does work. Don't lose
hope in it. And I remember that. I'll never forget
it because I thought, Wow, that's a guy that could
have easily lost hope in it, because you know, he
(48:22):
lost a bunch of time. It was very frustrating career
for him. So I have to believe that it'll come
back around.
Speaker 1 (48:37):
Okay, So you go to college. Do you have any
idea you want to make your living in music? What
are you thinking when you go?
Speaker 2 (48:47):
Well, I was sort of I was kind of hedge
in my bets a little like I majored in international
relations because I was interested in all that stuff. But really,
deep down, I just wanted to be a rock star.
I mean, I'll just say it, that's what I wanted.
It sounds childish, but that's was my dream, you know.
(49:11):
So at the so I sort of set off to
do it after I graduated.
Speaker 1 (49:17):
Before you graduated, you say you started playing in bands
in college. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2 (49:22):
Well, I played. I played in a sort of new
wave band. It wasn't very good, but we thought we
were good. And you know, we wrote all the music.
We did some covers like I don't know Joe Jackson
covers or what else did we do? Even Born to
Be Wild. We had a weird mix of things. But
(49:45):
we looked amazing. We really looked great, Like we had
the coolest looking people on the campus, without doubt. But
you know, black leather pants and spiked heels and I
was the only girl that one of our players had
a bouffontaire do I mean? We really look good. We
sounded eh. But all those guys went off to law
(50:08):
school after I wanted, you know, let's let's try it,
let's try it, but they just they all went to
law school. So that's when I graduated. I went to England.
Speaker 1 (50:23):
Okay, a little bit slower. You're a girl.
Speaker 2 (50:27):
There's a lot, there's a lot, Bob, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
Okay, you're a girl. You say in this band, you know,
we hear all about sexism, opportunities. You're a guitar player.
Did you find you know, obstacles in your way or
you just another guitar player and you found opportunities.
Speaker 2 (50:48):
I have to say that in that environment, certainly, at
a school like that, there wasn't sexism, not overtly, not
from my bandmate. I was the lead guitarist. There was
another guitar player, so no, and I was the guitar
player in this stage band. That was just an audition.
(51:11):
It was later and before it's certainly in high school.
I had to prove myself and you know, everyone assumed
I couldn't play. And there was tryouts for the stage
band in high school, and some snotty kid was, hey,
you could play rhythm and I'll play lead, and I
(51:33):
just sort of looked at him like, well, all right,
we'll see. And sure enough, you know, the audition came
and came around and he took his solo and it
was all blues and not even good blues over jazz changes.
And then I just sort of, you know, laughed to
myself in my seat because when it came to me,
(51:53):
I knew how to play jazz, so I was, you know,
da nadauata and his face was just so things that
happened a lot, but not at school a little later.
Even in England, you know, there were some of it,
but it didn't stop me. I mean I figured out
(52:16):
just they'll hear me play and that'll be that end
of conversation. So I wasn't deeply affected by it.
Speaker 1 (52:24):
Okay, you graduate from college, you see, my goal is
to be a rock star. Yes, so tell us about
why you went to England, what the path was, what
was in your head and what actually happened.
Speaker 2 (52:37):
Oh okay, so much to my parents' chagrin to take
that beautiful degree and go to England to be a
rock star. Fine, you know, but they were very look,
they didn't like the idea, but they supported it once
(52:58):
I was determined and they knew they weren't going to
stop me. So I came over all by myself with
a Les Paul in a hardcover case, schlepping it around
because it was heavies and a suitcase. And I had
a friend who was here because I had done a
(53:21):
semester abroad in political science with a program with the
London School of Economics. So I did make a friend.
I stayed with her for a while and then I
found a cold water flat somewhere and started auditioning for bands,
and I also had a few letters of introduction so
(53:45):
that I ended up working for a literary agent part time,
so there was a little money coming in, so that's
what I did. I joined a band and it was
a super progressive, crazy intricate band with two scotsmen and
(54:06):
I think it was called The Death's Heads Piano Players
or something, but it was in German. Why I joined
this band, I don't know, but it was very challenging
and it got nowhere. So eventually, on that along that path,
after about a year or so, I did start it's
(54:26):
a story, but I did start writing for the music
press and I became a rock journalist quite seriously, and
that kind of became my second track for a good
long while. So I was running for the enemy as
a freelancer. And what year we in, Well we're in
(54:47):
the eighties.
Speaker 1 (54:48):
Okay, so we're in the eighties. You're writing for the memy.
What's happening with your goal to become a rock star?
Speaker 2 (54:55):
Well, that band fizzled out, That was no good. So
I ended up in you know, another band or that
had promise but was again it's one of these stories.
Where it implodes because the people are so nuts. We
actually had some sort of publishing deal with CBS, but
(55:20):
we went to make a record and that the singer
showed up and he was so drunk he could I mean,
he just couldn't sing. And the producer, who was Bruce
Thomas from Elvis Costello's band, Yeah, he walked out on
the session because this guy was such a clown. Got
(55:41):
we got him back, but it took some doing. But
that just you know, that didn't We played a few
big gigs and opened for some people, but that also
went puff. And then what happened is I was writing
a lot, but I needed a work permit and the
(56:02):
nmy said that they would get one for me. So
I left the country because they had to stay out
of the country for a while, you know, And at
that time it was tough in England. You know, they
were really crunching down on people coming over and taking
jobs and it was I was a little paranoid about that,
(56:26):
so it was hard to get in. People were questioning
you all of that. So I stayed in the States
for a while waiting for this work permit, and basically
it never came through. So I stayed in New York
City doing what writing, Mostly writing. I played in a
(56:47):
few bands here and there. I started to play myself
as a singer songwriter. I was kind of sick of band,
so I went out kind of Billy Bragg style, you know,
just with a guitar, guitar and my vocal and I
wrote a bunch of songs, a whole bunch of songs,
and I kind of played around New York City, mostly
(57:10):
to very few people. And I had, you know, promises
from this guy and promises from that. You know. It
was that kind of thing. And didn't you know, I
had my own band, I had other bands, and I
just did that for years. But then there got to
(57:31):
be a point when I kind of got sick of
I really I burned out on it. It was too
much rejection. I had too much energy. The other band
people were too unreliable, and I just kind of stopped
for a couple of years. I put my guitars in
(57:51):
the closet and I stopped, and I started on a novel,
which I wrote. But then I saved by Joey Ramone
who called me up. And I hadn't played the guitar
in a long time. And Joey liked my playing because
he had seen me with that all girl band I
(58:11):
mentioned before, and he was looking for a guitar player
to join Ronnie Spector's band because he was working with her,
and he thought I'd be good because he wanted youth
energy in her band rather than just side musicians. So
I flew to Yeah, I flew in, and I was
(58:33):
living in California at the time, actually in San Francisco
with my boyfriend who then became my husband, and I
played with Ronnie for a couple of years. It was
fantastic and I was so happy playing. It's like it
was like a gift. I had been given this gift
(58:54):
of music again that I could play and be happy
and not worry about if I was going to get
a record deal, and not worry about this, and just
have fun on stage. And it was really fantastic. And
I think that that whole experience sort of fed this
les Zeppelin thing because I just wanted to do it
(59:17):
out of pure joy and love with the music. That's it,
that's all. I had no other agenda and no other plans,
and I think that's why it worked.
Speaker 1 (59:28):
Okay, you graduate from college, you want to become a
rock star.
Speaker 2 (59:34):
Ultimately, that sounds so cliched, Bob oh no no.
Speaker 1 (59:37):
No headline, no no, no. People don't understand it. Most
talent is fifty percent the raw desire, you know, and
especially someone who's educated. Whatever. I mean, it's a dream.
But my question ultimately is when you decide to put
the guitar back in the case, how how hard was
(01:00:00):
it to give up the dream?
Speaker 2 (01:00:03):
Impossible? Nearly impossible. That's why I wrote a novel. I
had to funnel it into something else that I did
that was creative that I loved. And I hadn't written
a novel before. I'd written lots of stories and some
short stories and stuff, but I just dove into that.
(01:00:26):
It was like trying to get over a death. I
know that sounds really sort of hyperbolic, but it was
like something died and I just didn't know what to do.
So I wrote, and that was the tonic. It was
the only tonic for me. Really.
Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
How old were you at that point and what ended
up happening with the novel?
Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
Oh, I can't tell you how old I was, but
you can guess, but you know old enough the novel.
I had an age four it's a pretty good novel.
I mean I did get a very you know, fairly
good literary agent and she helped me head it edited
a little, and she sent it out. She didn't send
(01:01:12):
it out a lot. She sent it out maybe two
eight to ten publishers and they liked it, but no
one bit. So the novel is still waiting to be read,
and I will. I will get it out there at
some point, but I'm working on another novel now, so
(01:01:34):
I'm focused on that.
Speaker 1 (01:01:35):
Okay. At this distance, do you still feel as positive
about the novel or you say, now there was some distance, Well,
it really wasn't that great.
Speaker 2 (01:01:46):
So I'm very, very very hard on myself with everything
I do. I mean writing less so, but I was
very hard on myself with my guitar playing hard. I
still am. I think it's a good novel. I let
(01:02:07):
someone read it recently and she really loved it, so
I think it's I think it. My mother thought it
was a great novel, so I'll take.
Speaker 1 (01:02:17):
That, okay. And what was it about?
Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
It was about it was kind of a dual story
of well, it's a first novel, right, so there's a
little bit of you know, life experience in there. But
it's about a girl who finds that who's in a
mental institution because she's driven crazy by her pursuit of
(01:02:42):
being in the music business. Yeah, it comes in, It
comes in big time. But it's also about one of
the nurses in the mental hospital and her whole life,
and the two of them interact and the nurse in
a nuts. The nurse is bereft of any intense, beautiful,
(01:03:08):
adventurous experience, and she starts to feed off this patient
who tells her all these stories and she gets very
into it.
Speaker 1 (01:03:25):
Okay, we're in this story. Do you meet the gentleman
that becomes your husband? And how hard was it to
move to San Francisco And what was that like?
Speaker 2 (01:03:36):
Yeah, so I met him. You will laugh at this.
I will meet him. While I was writing for the Enemy,
and I was in New York and I was sent
to review or I pitched it one or the other.
I was set to review a gig by the Dead Kennedys,
(01:03:58):
who were playing in New York City. Okay, so I
went to this show which was at this place called
the World, and it was crumbling. It was like a
crumbling ballroom and I was standing at the back and
coming up the steps and the banister. It wasn't me
(01:04:20):
who did it, but the banister behind me at some
point fell off the wall like and just like half
the wall fell down, and this was one of the
guys that went to rush and help with it. I
saw him. He looked like someone I knew, so I
was kind of looking at him, and he looked back
at me and we just started talking. You bought me
(01:04:41):
a ginger ale.
Speaker 1 (01:04:44):
So how did you end up moving to San Francisco?
Speaker 2 (01:04:47):
Well, so this guy, you know, we were friendly. He
was very easy going at the time, and it was
it was nice and we'd go to gigs and stuff
like that. So we were compatible in that way eventually.
(01:05:08):
And I have to say this, it's when you live
in New York. A lot of relationship decisions are made
because of apartments, like who can afford an apartment by
themselves and who needs a roommate? And if you happen
to be seeing somebody and you need an apartment, which
(01:05:29):
is what happened, you are then thrust into this mega
decision do I move in with this person? And you know,
everyone knows once you move in with someone, it's pretty
hard to move out, So that's kind of what happened
to us, and we just stayed together and we didn't
(01:05:49):
get married or anything. But he was a union organizer
or would be, and he did that for a while,
and then he went back to college to finish his degree.
He never had his degree. Smart guy, but never So
he went to Columbia, got his degree, did so well
that he got into law school. And the law school
(01:06:12):
he got into was Stanford, and I thought he should
go to Stanford rather than Chicago. I don't know if
that was a good choice, but San Francisco was nicer
weather than Chicago. I think I was more interested in
being there, and he let you know, so we went there.
That's how I ended up in California and stayed there
(01:06:34):
for a while.
Speaker 1 (01:06:35):
Okay, when you're playing in Ronnie Spector's band, are you
living in California or do you move back to New York.
I was.
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
I was going living in both places. I would fly in.
My parents had an apartment that they in the village,
and I could stay there. So I had a way
to do it. And I wasn't making any money because
you know, he was not going to be her manager,
(01:07:06):
was not going to pay my airfare, and I didn't
want to make it seem it was too hard for
me to do the show because I was having so
much fun and it was such a gift that I
just wanted to play. So I'd fly myself back and
forth and basically break even, but it was super fun.
So I was kind of by coastal.
Speaker 1 (01:07:26):
How long did you play for Ronnie Specter and what
did you learn there?
Speaker 2 (01:07:31):
I played with her for a couple of years and
we had a couple of amazing shows. We played at
a G eight conference for like the leaders of the
Western world. That was amazing. You know, Bill Clinton clapping
to be my baby. It was just something to behold.
We went to Japan, just a lot of fun stuff.
(01:07:56):
I learned a lot from her. We had some gigs
here and there where they were small clubs, and you know, Bob,
you know how big a star she was. She was huge.
The ronettes were huge, And there she was in some
club where she had a change behind a screen or something,
(01:08:17):
and it could not have been fun for her to
do that, but I'm telling you, when she got out there,
no matter where she was, she gave it everything and
she was amazing. Her voice was still amazing. She gave
it people a show and she turned up and I
just thought, damn, you know, that's that's a big lesson.
(01:08:41):
Doesn't matter who's it out there, you just that's your
job and you do it. And she was a real
show person, you know, she was great. So I learned
about that too, how to work a stage a little,
you know.
Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
So how did that end?
Speaker 2 (01:08:59):
Well, we went to Japan, and after that I kind
of was getting the feeling that they were sick of
being uncertain and flying, you know, worrying whether I could
fly from here or from there because I had a
fly you know. So they wanted a more New York
based band, and they probably wanted to pay somebody less,
(01:09:20):
to be honest with you whatever. And coincidentally, I was
pregnant the first time, so it all worked out. I
was done with it anyway.
Speaker 1 (01:09:31):
So how'd you end up back in New York?
Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
Well, I thought it would be better to be in
New York to be because I had this amazing little kid,
and my parents had no grandchildren, and I missed New York.
San Francisco was you know, not doing it for me.
I was done. I was over. It wasn't mine.
Speaker 1 (01:09:53):
Yet yes, but you're involved with this man who's going
to Stanford law school. As he moved back to New York.
Speaker 2 (01:09:57):
Oh, he was done. He was done with law. With
law school. He was working in a firm, and he
got a job at a big New York firm, which
didn't last long. But that's what happened. So he was willing,
although I think he didn't. I think he didn't really
want to leave. And I think that that and I
kept asking him because I could tell, but he consisted
(01:10:20):
he was fine. But I think that was one of
the reasons our relationship sort of went a different way.
He should have stayed.
Speaker 1 (01:10:34):
Who blew the whistle? Ultimately him? Were you?
Speaker 2 (01:10:38):
I think you know.
Speaker 1 (01:10:42):
It was no, never mutual.
Speaker 2 (01:10:44):
No, but we grew apart. We grew apart. I probably
realized at first. He realized it pretty quickly and even
said it to me. So I don't know how to
answer that question.
Speaker 1 (01:10:58):
It was important. Yeah, yeah, So are you having this
child sitting steering in four a wall saying God, I
got to do something. What is the genesis of the thought?
And then why is it led Zeppelin?
Speaker 2 (01:11:15):
Okay, this is the great, great, great question. So without
trying to be too wordy. I have a problem with
that sometimes. I never wanted children, ever, not interested. In fact,
I kind of thought it was a feminist thing, like
(01:11:38):
women were destroyed by children they'd have. I had friends
that went to medical school and business school and then
they had a kid and threw it all out the window.
So I was frightened of that whole thing. I thought,
you become some sort of zombie, a kid zombie, and
that's it. Everything is, all your interests are gone, your
life is over all you can about is this toddler
(01:12:01):
or something. So it never interested me. But at the
end of the day, I think I felt, do I
really want to go through life without any kids at all?
And I wasn't sure. So not being sure was the sticker.
The fact that I wasn't sure meant I either had
(01:12:23):
a move or it be made. This is the decision
would be made for me. So I said, all right,
we'll see what happens. Let's just see, and bingo, that's
what happened pretty fast. So I was frightened to death
when I you know, when I realized I was going
to have this kid, I was scared because I thought
(01:12:45):
this was going to happen to me zombie land. Well,
guess what I have this little guy, and I have
to say he was a great zen baby. He was amazing.
But I did not feel trapped. In fact, lo and behold,
(01:13:07):
the exact opposite happened. I felt empowered by this thing,
totally more empowered than I'd ever felt. So I would
have to say that just to cut to your question. No,
I I was thoroughly enjoying my kids, but also empowered
(01:13:34):
to do things that I wanted to do, and I
felt I could do them both. It was a lot
of entery, it was difficult, but I did do them both.
So No, I wasn't staring at four walls. I was
totally engaged. It's just that this thing was still there.
I wanted to do it, and I felt good about
(01:13:54):
everything I fell. Oh, I'll cut a bunch of things out,
like spending time with people who don't interest me, and
I'll form a band. You know, it's like you sort
of have to give and take a little.
Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
Okay, how long from that thought until you settle on
the concept of leeds Zeppelin.
Speaker 2 (01:14:14):
Well, let's see, my first was about three and we
were in New York, so he was two and a
half two and a half ish three, so we were
pretty settled in you know that we had some help.
So it seemed like I could go play a gig.
(01:14:35):
Why not play a gig on a weekend. And you know,
my partner was very he was supportive. He wasn't threatened
by it or anything. He thought why not. It was
so it was supposed to be some little, you know,
fifty buck a week, you know thing or fifty buck
a month, little escapade where I'd have to work really
(01:14:57):
hard to practice, but it would be fun. And then
it turned into something more. And then you know, I
had to decide whether I was going to keep doing
it or bow out because I had kids. But I
didn't bow out. I thought, why bow out, I'll just
(01:15:18):
take them with me, or I'll work around it, or
I'll go weekends. It didn't occur to me that I
couldn't do it all, I guess, and I think a
lot of people make that assumption. They think, oh, I
can't do that because I have kids. It's like, well,
(01:15:39):
sure you can. You just you know, you have to
have the energy to do it, but sure you can.
So that's kind of how it was. Really.
Speaker 1 (01:15:48):
So you decide you want to do something. Do you
decide on other things or is it immediately less Zeppelin?
Speaker 2 (01:15:57):
Well, this was the thing that was. I just wanted
to play. I had the itch to play, so that's
why I went in that direction. I wanted to not
at that point be Jimmy Page that came later, but
I was enamored of his let's just say genius and
(01:16:20):
I wanted to get those riffs. I wanted to dig
into what he was doing, which was so encompassing of
so many things. That's all I just wanted to play.
Speaker 1 (01:16:32):
Okay, you decide you want to play. It could have
been a Beatles cover band, could have been an e
Loo cover band. How long and what was the process
signing no, it's going to be led Zeppelin or was
that a very.
Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
First Okay, so no, it couldn't have been any of
those others, because I know this is going to sound weird.
I had no idea what a tribute band was. I'd
never been in one. I didn't know they existed. To
be honest, I know that it's only after I started
(01:17:07):
this band that another tribute band wrote I don't consider
us a tribute band, which we can get into in
a minute, but wrote to us saying, hey, welcome to
the world of tribute bands or whatever it was. And
I was horrified because this was not what I had
in mind. I did not decide, oh, I'm going to
(01:17:28):
play someone's music and go out there and maybe make money.
What music can I play? It was totally the reverse.
It was like, I just want to be in led Zeppelin.
Speaker 1 (01:17:43):
That's it. Okay, okay, so you were a led Zeppelin fan. Yeah,
how did you become a led Zeppelin fan?
Speaker 2 (01:17:56):
Well, honestly, it wasn't until a little later, or I
was not. I had some of their albums growing up,
but I wasn't a huge fan until I don't know,
I guess maybe thirty in my thirties or something, when
(01:18:18):
I was starting to get more exposed to their music
through some band members, and I just couldn't believe. And
then and then I started listening to it, and my
mother in law bought me the box set for Christmas,
and that was it for me. You know, all the albums.
That was the rabbit hole. I just I just fell
(01:18:40):
into the rabbit hole and I just thought, you know,
this music is kind of a lot better than everything
else I've been listening to I've been playing, it's just
a lot better. And I just was absolutely hooked. And
that's what and I became more obsessed with it.
Speaker 1 (01:19:01):
Okay, so you get these other three girls together. LED's
up when not all their music sounds the same? How
do you decide what you're gonna play?
Speaker 2 (01:19:10):
Ah? Good question. Well, some of some of it was,
you know, let's start with the basics, let's let's let's
take the canon and do this sort of necessary songs,
and then you had to look at them and see
if it was possible to do now. Luckily, and this
(01:19:31):
was a bit of magic just when I was starting
this band, that How the West was one CD and
DVD came out. It was like a godsend because the
DVD was like a playbook literally to how they were
(01:19:53):
handled it as four people. So I I could see
what lines Jimmy picked to play out of the ten
guitar layers. We could see how they finished songs that
trailed out on a record, what do they do? We
had this whole guy set before us, like you know,
(01:20:17):
the Book of Mormon or something, so that was really handy.
So a lot of the songs we started with were
those songs that we could sort of have a guide too,
but it was a pretty basic setlist and if we
found stuff was too hardly, you know, like we didn't
(01:20:37):
start off playing four sticks or Achilles Last Stand or something.
We got to that eventually, but much later.
Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
Okay, As you say, you're a four piece and always
have been without extra players, how hard and how long
did it take you to learn to play those parts?
You know, you're carrying almost a complete band. It's essentially
a trio with a lead singer.
Speaker 2 (01:21:12):
That's right, and I've always loved that. You know, Cream
was my other favorite band. It is it's basically a
power trio, which means the guitar it's totally naked. I
mean you're playing solos over just bass and drums most
of the time. There's no rhythm guitar, there's nothing, there's
(01:21:33):
no safety net man, nothing just out there and it's formidable.
But you know, that's what got me, That's what intrigued me.
I wanted to be that kind of play. I wanted
to do that. It was. It was hard, though, it
took me just I don't know if I could put
(01:21:55):
a time on it, because I think I'm still learning
to be honest with you. But I think about five
or six months before I felt I could really step
on a stage and deliver something with integrity. I didn't
want to just play it. It had to have integrity
(01:22:16):
in its other dimensions. So maybe six months and then
it took a few years of really digging down to
keep getting better and better and better. But I've watched,
you know, my own playing change, and you know, it
would stay at a certain level and then leap up
(01:22:38):
a little, and then leap up a little. So it's
just kind of like that. That's the way it is.
And I still think I can get better, you know,
I'm hoping.
Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
Okay, you know, today we have the internet that goes
deep into how they made all these records, but you're
starting before that becomes a really big thing. I mean
you're listening to the records. Yeah, to a degree, you
have how the West was won, and you could see
what guitar is playing, But how do you figure out
how to actually replicate those sounds with the guitar, with
(01:23:10):
the effect, with the amps, with all the other elements
that go in.
Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
Ah that honestly, by ear, I sat there like an
bloodite with the CD or the record or there was Spotify. Well,
I don't even know what it was on. I could
get it somewhere. I don't remember how I kept repeating it,
but I would literally sit and repeat it and play
(01:23:37):
it and backwind and replay it, and you know, just
over and over and over, and then I'd start to
hear something different in it, so I'd realize, Aha, there's that,
and aha, there's that, and he's wiggling the note here
not there. Like it was all just literally by ear
(01:24:00):
and a little bit by watching. But you know those
videos that they're not all on his fingers. You can't
learn it by it's all over the place. So and
I used a little bit of tablature to get me oriented.
But a lot of the time the tablature is wrong,
so you listen to it and it's like, no, that's
(01:24:21):
not it, you know. But that's how I play by ear,
And it's very old fashioned, but I think it's the
way that Jimmy Page learned to play or and Eric
Clapton and all those guys. So it was kind of
in the style of what they did. It was really
not very technical technically, going.
Speaker 1 (01:24:40):
Okay, you're learning by ear since you went to this
summer camp for two years. Did you learn how to
read music?
Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
Well? Not really. No, I can't really read music. I
can read a little piano music on the right hand,
because I took some piano lessons when I was little.
But maybe if I really tried to get it back,
I could read a little. But music on the guitar,
like if it's not tab, it's just insanely hard because
(01:25:10):
there are so many positions for the same notes, and
that would be useless to me, absolutely useless. The TAB
I could get through a little bit, but I don't
read it that well either.
Speaker 1 (01:25:24):
Okay, how much equipment do you need to replicate Jimmy
Page's sound? I mean he had the last ball, he
had the Gibson with the two necks. How much did
you need and how much do you have?
Speaker 2 (01:25:39):
So this is kind of a trick question. As I said,
I had the basic thing. I did not have all
of his stacks. I had one martial amp. It was
a JCM eight hundred because I could overdrive it. And
I do have a Plexi as well, but it's it
(01:26:00):
doesn't have a master volume, and it's just way too loud.
And to get Jimmy sound, it has to be way
too loud. I mean, it's got to be up at eight.
I know what his settings are, and it's just and
his amp was more beefed up, so you're not really
(01:26:21):
going to get that tone he's going to get unless
you can do that. So you have to just sort
of get as close as you can by overdriving it.
But you can't overdrive it that much because he didn't
play like modern guitars. He didn't play with all that
dirt and overdrive, which basically means you can play with
(01:26:42):
your left hand and you don't even have to pick
the note. You know, most modern guitarists are so in
this sound sort of whirlwind that it's just a very
different tech style. I mean, Jimmy was playing all of it.
It's super hard. So you've got the amp, and I
(01:27:03):
just copied what he had, which was not much. It's
basically a wah it's I had like this Kate. I
had this Klon type pedal to push it a little,
a Phase ninety, an mx R a Phase ninety, and
(01:27:23):
I did have one other. What did I have that's
really I mean, that's mostly it and an echoplex, sorry,
an echoplex, and I had the old echoplex, the tape
echoplex and a theremin. Yeah, I did his whole thing.
But that is basically what you have to work with.
(01:27:46):
If you want to sound like Jimmy Page, you have
to you have to learn to play the notes like
he played them, and that is how you sound like him.
No equipment's going to make you sound like it.
Speaker 1 (01:28:01):
So how'd you end up working with Eddie Kramer?
Speaker 2 (01:28:05):
Again? It was another like crazy balls out steph moment
where I said to our manager we were going to
make a record, and we were making lists of producers,
and I just said, you know, I always used to
joke with the girls about Eddie Kramer. Why don't you
know Eddie Kramer Shoot's going to come and produce a record?
And they'd laugh at me. So I said to Alan,
(01:28:29):
who was our manager, go, I don't know, should you
ask him? He goes, I'll ask him. Couldn't hurt to ask, right,
So he called him up and he asked him, and
Eddie checked out our stuff and he thought, I guess
we were good enough. So I'm sitting in my office
one day with a guitar and the phone rings as
(01:28:50):
they did then, and I picked it up and he goes, oh, hello,
it's Eddie Kramer, and you know, I nearly fell off
my chair because bingo, that was it. I just said
skin and he did it. So he came to New York.
We put him up and he produced this record, this
first record.
Speaker 1 (01:29:08):
What was it like? Would you learn working with Eddie Kreamer?
Speaker 2 (01:29:13):
I'll say there were some surreal moments, you know how
on Physical Graffiti, which we have had discussed where in
a Black Country Woman before that track, there's the you
know Robert going, oh, there's Eddie. You got to get
the those planes off right? He says this thing right,
So we would joke about that. But do you know
(01:29:33):
what it felt like to have that voice in the
control room saying rolling I mean like literally rolling nuts?
Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
Right?
Speaker 2 (01:29:43):
It was just like I'd entered some other dimension of
notting a crazy Zeppelin vortex. The one thing I will
tell you, And he was great. He was very nice
to us. Maybe not so nice to some of the
other people in the studio, but he was nice to us.
That's all I'll say about that. But there was one
(01:30:05):
day when and this was a devil death day, when
I realized it was the guitar solo day, that I
was going to go in just me and Eddie and
I was going to play all the solos, and I'm
telling you, Bob, I nearly threw up. I mean I
was like, am I out of my mind? I was like,
(01:30:27):
what am I thinking? This guy sat with Jimmy Hendricks
for his old career, this guy sat with Jimmy Page
and whoever else, And I'm going to go in and
I'm going to play the solos. I was like, I'm
out forget about. This is crazy. And I don't know
what I did push ups or something, and I had
(01:30:48):
no choice. I had to go and do it. So
I went in, you know, scared to death, and it
was just me and him. We spent an hour or
two finding the right amp because Jimmy didn't use the
Marshall to play the solos, you know, the supro maybe
some other stuff. But we found this crazy little amp
(01:31:11):
which was a vox Nova, which is not a guitar
amp at all. It's actually an amp for horns, if
that makes any sense. It's a weird little amp, but
it sounded great. You turn it all the way up
and it just had the right crunch and something about
the tone. So I basically we chose that, and I
(01:31:32):
think the first song I tried to play was Communication Breakdown.
So I went into this. I wed in and there's
Eddie Kramer and there's Roland, you know, and I just
played the solo and I actually played it okay, and
(01:31:54):
he stopped after it. He goes, come in here. I
think that's it. I'm like, you don't want me to
do it again. He's like, come out here, and he
played it. He goes, you did it, that's it. One take.
He goes, I'll tell you something. He said. I wasn't
sure you could do this. He goes, but you can
do it. So after that we were good.
Speaker 1 (01:32:18):
Okay, tell me about meeting Jimmy Page.
Speaker 2 (01:32:21):
Oh okay, this could be a whole podcast and of itself.
So it took ten years before I actually met Jimmy,
which is probably good actually, because I was so in
Jimmy world that, you know, it's probably good. It took
(01:32:42):
ten years, but I met him at the when I
didn't know I was really going to meet him. It
was the last minute. My friend had an extra ticket.
My friend who knows Jimmy and who's worked with him
and is a con vintage guitar dealer. He had an
extra ticket to the premiere of Celebration Day in New
(01:33:03):
York at the zig Field Theater. Did I want to go? Damn? Yeah,
this is a half an hour before the show or something.
I didn't even you know, and I realized I might
actually meet Jimmy, who knows. I don't know, but I
had to get dressed, throw something on race down there
(01:33:23):
we saw the thing, you know, Jimmy and Robert, they
all came in the room, and just then being in
the room was amazing. But then we got to go
to the after party and I thought, okay, you'll probably
walk in. I'll get a chance finally to meet him.
So Jimmy finally comes in after about an hour. I've
(01:33:45):
been hanging out with Joan Jet at the bar, talking
about women in music, which is very interesting, and about
you know, being a girl guitar player. So Jimmy comes
in and this friend of mine grab me and says,
we got to get him before he gets lost in
this crowd. So we pulls me up, shoves me in
(01:34:09):
front of him and says, Jimmy, this is Steph from
Les Zeppelin, and Jimmy stops and he turns and he
looks at me and he's like, oh wow, great to
finally meet you, like, oh my god, thank god, like
he actually knows the band and is big hug, right,
(01:34:31):
big hug. And we stand back and I say, Jimmy,
you know, I got to tell you, and I don't
know how I thought of this. He said, it's really
hard being you and he just laughed and he goes,
it is. I said, yeah it is. He goes, yeah,
I know it is. And we had this crazy life
because it was he knew I meant more than just
(01:34:54):
playing the guitar and all this stuff. It was everything about,
you know, being the Jimmy person. And then he said
to me, you know what you're doing out there is
really great. It's stunning, especially the first album, and I was,
oh my god, he knows the albums like this is.
(01:35:15):
And then I got to say to him how much
his music meant to me and how much love it's
brought into my life, and we just stared at each
other like love birds. I was fuck because we both
have the same love, you know, led Zeppelin, and it
was just an instant. Yeah, we were soulmate, we're friends.
(01:35:36):
This is it. So then he came around the room.
I was like done, I didn't need anything after that,
but he did come around the room and someone else
dragged me over and said, Jimmy, you got to see
her band, and we both I was like, no, he knows,
it's fine, it's fine. But then we talked for like
fifteen twenty minutes and it was it was great. It
(01:35:58):
was really just he was so friendly and it was
clearly we liked each other. And I told him, I said, Jimmy,
you know we we got you got to see us.
We have to come to England. Goes yeah, I know,
you guys. Last time you were here, I wasn't there.
I wasn't in town. I said, well, we'll come again.
So after that night, first thing I did is I
(01:36:23):
called this guy in England who was trying to book
us a tour who wildly underpaid. I mean, I couldn't
even do it because it was no money in it.
But I called him and I said, look, we got
to come to England. You know, we got to do it.
Can you can you arrange it? And he came back
the next day with a small tour which which started
(01:36:47):
off with the Isle of Wight. We played at the
Isle of Wight. It was it was like I'm telling you,
it was nuts. And the next day this is a
whole funny story, but you know, I've been I've been
sending Jimmy messages or his office telling him when we
were going to be there, and he didn't respond to
(01:37:10):
me at that point, so I didn't know if he
even knew. But we were coming back from the Isle
of Wight and we were in the van on the
way to London where we played at this place called
the Garage or the Garage, and I open up my
(01:37:30):
little flip phone, you know how it used to be
where when you're overseas you have to get one of
those Motorola flip phones where you poke at the at
the anyway. And I see a message and the message
says love Jimmy XOXO. And I look at it and
(01:37:52):
I'm exhausted, right, and I say love Jimmy, and my
drummer Lisa, looks over at me and says, steph Jimmy,
and I was like, oh oh, and I like go
into the messages, and sure enough there was this whole
other message and he forgot to sign his name, so
(01:38:13):
the one message said love Jimmy. But then there was
a whole other message and it was going on and
on about how he was me, Oh, I hope it's
going well and blah blah blah, like to try to
come and I'm reading it and I'm freaking out. And
then I try to start messaging him back. And as
(01:38:34):
I'm poking away at this phone ABC D housing and
my hands are sort of shaking, the phone rings. The
phone rings in my hand, so I look at it
and Lisa again, my goes, Steph, answer the phone. It's like,
(01:38:55):
this is so funny and so silly, it's very Monty
Python it. So I answered the phone, and of course
it's it's him. Hey, Hello, is this step It's it's
Jimmy Page right. I'm like, oh hi, and the whole van,
the whole crew silence. And he's a little bit ticked
(01:39:16):
off that I didn't answer him. You know, it's like
I didn't know he texted me, because you know, I
called you or I texted you, but I said.
Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
Oh, I know I did.
Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
I didn't see it, and blah blah blah blah. So anyway,
he's talking and he's telling me about how he's in
the studio he was working on those big three three
set reissues that you know, was one, two, and three,
and he was in the studio mastering all that stuff.
So well, finally, after about ten minutes of a conversation,
(01:39:49):
because well, I'd like to try to come, and uh so,
maybe just put put me on the guest list, and
he gave me his friend's name goes put us put
me under this name plus. So I did that. Okay, great, Well,
I hope you see you later. I said, come anyway,
even if it's you know, halfway done. Great, bye, hang
(01:40:10):
up the phone, and they all look at me, and
then there's this like, you know, eruption of So that
was I don't know if you even asked me this question,
but I'm telling you the whole thing. But then I
you know, then I have the problem of knowing he
might show up and having to play for him. Finally,
(01:40:30):
so that was that was formidable. Well did he show up, Yes,
he showed up. I knew he'd show up. I kind
of knew, and so I was again, it was kind
of like going into the studio with Eddie Kramer, right,
I was, Okay, Jimmy is going to be in the audience,
(01:40:51):
and I have to play his solos in front of him.
And you know, Bob, I took this all very seriously.
This is not just oh, let's play he led Zeppel.
I mean I was hook line and sinker. I was in.
I was a lifer in this stuff. I was so
serious about getting it all right, kind of like him.
(01:41:12):
You know, it's not easy being Jimmy how to be right.
So I realized I had two choices. I could freak
out and not be able to go on stage and
totally fuck it up right. Or I could just tell myself,
you know, I play as if he's in the audience
every night, so what difference does it make if he's
(01:41:35):
out there? And that is the little lie that I
told myself, and I gave the band a big pep talk,
and we were all nervous and we were all freaking out.
We didn't know if he had come. So we go
out and we're playing this show and we're all hyped up.
It is super energetic, and I think, excuse me, I
(01:41:57):
think it was during days and confused when he actually
walked in. So I'm up there with the bow, right,
you just have to imagine this. I'm doing a bo
solo and Jimmy is in the back and I did
not know this, but the other girls did. They told
(01:42:18):
me later. Everyone else did, and they're like, oh my god,
he's out because they saw his white hair. You know
he's out there. Oh shit, don't tell Steph. That was like,
just don't tell her. So I'm doing the bow solo
and we get through days crowd loves it. We play
the rest of the show, and at some point toward
the end, I did see him in the back, but
(01:42:41):
I'd already been playing, so whatever. So after the show,
I was in such a state of hyped up crazy,
you know, show spirit. We go backstage and he makes
a beat line for the for the State for the
(01:43:03):
green room, at which point security everyone else got cleared out.
He got let in and the door closed and that
was it. No one else was coming in. And I
got to tell you, Bob, when he came in, he
was he was kind of beside himself. He was, I mean,
(01:43:23):
I was on mars. I couldn't even really hear any
of it. I was so done. I was so spent.
Everything I had went into that. But he said, that
is how it should be done. That's the way this
music should be played. Each and every one of you
are great, but that is that's it, that's what this
(01:43:47):
is about. And I got to tell you that, you know,
it was amazing. We've done our job, and you know
he has since he stayed with us for an hour
and we just hung out and then he suggested that
we take a picture. He suggested it, and you got
(01:44:09):
to know that he knew what that meant. So we
took a pick pictures. I had this this woman who
was doing pr for us and she was a great
photographer also, and her name is Judy Totten. I don't
know if you know who she is, but she used
to do a lot of PR in the UK and
I hired her for this little run and she took
(01:44:31):
some pictures of us that were fantastic. So it was
really thank god. I don't know, thank god because if
he didn't like it, I don't I'm not sure what
I would have done.
Speaker 1 (01:44:50):
Okay, the band's going on the road for the fiftieth
the anniversary. You're playing Physical Graffiti start to finish. Tell
me about that.
Speaker 2 (01:44:59):
Yes, it's not our fiftieth anniversary, but we'll talk again
when that happened. But yes, fiftieth anniversary of Physical Graffiti.
You know, for some reason, Physical Graffiti was my dream
to play it the whole album. Really from the beginning,
I just thought, God, that would be so cool and
so fun because it's so it's kind of got all
(01:45:25):
the elements of what Led Zeppelin were, I think in
that one double album. It sort of runs the spectrum
of the genres that they touched on, and there's some crazy,
weird stuff in it, but there are some amazing things
in it, like you know, ten years Gone, which is
(01:45:47):
probably if I were pigeonholed would have to say, is
my favorite led Zeppelin song. But in my time of
dying Cashmir there's just a whole bunch of things that
are really sick again, it's cool, you know, there's just
some some cool stuff. So we got to the point
(01:46:07):
where our promoter, who's our agent, he's started as our promoter,
suggested it, and this is a couple of years ago.
He said, what about Physical Graffiti? You know, can I
ever get that from you? And I thought, you know what,
We're ready to do it. We're ready, let's do it.
Because so we just started working on it and there
(01:46:30):
are a couple of songs that are really hard to do,
Like in the Light near impossible because you just need
too many people. With four people, it's almost impossible. But
we figured it out and we got a whole multimedia
show and it's really I love it, you know, in
the Light, I mean I cry, you know, ten years gone.
(01:46:54):
I cry. I'm just like I'm up there unless I'm
really screwing it up and I'm crying for another reason.
But yeah, we're going to play it all year twenty
twenty five. We have a lot of shows booked, mostly
you know theaters, and it's an amazing shows. It's just
(01:47:17):
and then we throw in a couple of rocker numbers
after that. But it's it really is so satisfying, but
it's not easy to do.
Speaker 1 (01:47:27):
How long did it take you to learn it? And
how long did it take for the band to learn it?
Speaker 2 (01:47:32):
It took a while to figure out a couple of things,
like in the Light took a while. We had to
go through different experiments of how to get this sound
on the keys, how to get the drone, how to
turn the drone off. I mean I hit a few things.
Joan switches keyboards, so that it took a while. I
(01:47:55):
don't know I would say it took us a couple
of months to maybe we really get it so that
we could play each song pretty well, even down by
the seaside.
Speaker 1 (01:48:07):
How often do you play the guitar and how often
do you play these songs?
Speaker 2 (01:48:13):
I don't practice nearly enough. I admit it. I'm bad.
I'm a bad I just I just don't. I should.
I go through spells of practicing, but I don't play enough,
and I think if I did, I'd be a lot better. Then.
I'm not bad or anything, it's just I think I
could be even better. But I play when we learn
(01:48:37):
something new, I'm constantly playing, and we're always trying to
add to our repertoire. And then we rehearse, and you know,
the girls are really We all learn it on our
own and then we come together, so we're pretty prepared
by the time we actually attempt it. And like I said,
these girls are amazing musicians, so it's not like we're
(01:49:00):
starting from square one. We're already in the feel of
what we have to do and how we have to play,
you know, which is a big thing.
Speaker 1 (01:49:10):
Okay, so what's your favorite Lids Up One album?
Speaker 2 (01:49:15):
H have we done this before? I'm not sure we have.
It's not really a fair question. It's another trick question, Bob.
I don't know if I could really say what's my
favorite that they're all sort of have. I have favorite things,
(01:49:39):
I mean one or two or physical graffiti. Maybe would
have to narrow it down. But I don't know if
you really had a you know what is it a
knife over my head? And I had to decide probably
physical graffiti because of the aforementioned things. I mean, one
(01:50:03):
is amazing because it is you know, I think they
were at the height of their playing powers. It's just insane,
as are their first gigs. I mean, it's that level
of playing is amazing. And two is very well crafted.
It's got some great stuff, you know. I guess I'll
just say PG just because I have to. You're making
(01:50:26):
me say it.
Speaker 1 (01:50:28):
Okay, what about you? I always used to say the
first album, Now I say physical graffiti. In terms of
the second album was way overplayed. I bought it the
day came out. You have no idea what it was like.
Third album. I saw the band live on that tour.
They punched the clock in the Haven. But third album
(01:50:51):
the renaissance of criticism. I believe is unfounded. It's kind
of like on Dennis Wilson solo, Wow, these are things
I'm familiar with, but they were not that great. Fourth album,
you know, Steerway to have we never have to hear,
but Battle of Evermore, you know, going to California rock
(01:51:12):
and roll Black Dog don't really mean that much to me.
But when the levee breaks Houses of the Holy, a
lot of people think that's the best. I don't think so,
and I certainly believe the two albums after Physical Graffiti
presence is not as good as in Through the Outdoor.
But they were kind of spent, so they're all listenable.
(01:51:32):
But if I play them, I'll play the first, I'll
play Physical Graffiti, I'll play stuff off the fourth.
Speaker 2 (01:51:39):
Okay, so we pretty much agree. I would put presents
way before in Through the Outdoor. But we can have
this discussion on the ski slopes because as it yeah,
it's a long discussion, but yeah, I basically agree with you.
And you know, we did not play Stairway for years. Yeah,
the first four or five years at least, we did
(01:52:01):
not play Stairway out of choice.
Speaker 1 (01:52:04):
So what works live? What does the audience react to
most in terms of songs.
Speaker 2 (01:52:12):
Black Dog, rock and roll, whole lot of love.
Speaker 1 (01:52:16):
So the classic hits, they want to hear those absolutely.
Speaker 2 (01:52:21):
And our sound guy night Bob is always slamming us, saying,
you gotta play the hits you just got, you know,
and this is this is how the set should be.
And we're just stubborn, you know, We're just like, oh
but we love four sticks and oh but we love
you know, you know, no quarter, I mean no quarter.
You know you can play that for twenty minutes and
(01:52:44):
we have done.
Speaker 1 (01:52:46):
If we've done that, the low quarter is long to
begin with. Did everybody go to the bathroom?
Speaker 2 (01:52:50):
Then? Right? No, they go to the bathroom during the
acoustic set.
Speaker 1 (01:52:56):
Really, yeah, why do you think that is?
Speaker 2 (01:52:59):
I just think it gets less loud and they all
think it's okay to leave. I don't know it's it,
but yeah, that's that's when they go so to speak.
Speaker 1 (01:53:10):
And are these people out for a casual night or
how many of these people are die hard led Zeppelin fans?
Speaker 2 (01:53:17):
Ah, it's it's a mix. Well, at first, let's put
it this way. The band is called led Zeppelin, right,
so you got half the guys coming because they think
we're going to kiss each other or maybe we will, so, hey,
I want to do that. The music can't be very good,
but they might kiss each other. So we got crowds
(01:53:39):
for that, and then of course they would leave saying,
oh my god, I can't believe they actually played like that.
So we got a lot of really hardcore led Zeppelin fans.
A lot of them are you know guys from I
would say fifty to seventy maybe, and they are serious,
(01:54:02):
but they love the band they do, and I was
worried about those guys, mostly guys. There were girls too,
a lot of more girls than you think. But I
needn't have worried because they are some of our biggest supporters.
But now in the last ten years, the audience is kids.
To the guys that saw them twelve times, little kids
(01:54:25):
in the front, and it is the most beautiful thing
to see little girls. You know, their earplugs are in,
they're with their parents, and they're staring up at four
female musicians, never in their a million years having a
thought I cannot do this, this is not what I
(01:54:46):
can do, which was the thought I had when I
was that age and I wanted to be a rock star. Whatever.
Eric Clapton or whoever. I thought, I can't do this.
I'm a girl, literally, that's what I thought. But I
did it anyway, as you can see my personality. But
those little girls and those little boys, all of them,
(01:55:08):
they just have it. It's great. And there are a
lot of young people. Sometimes it looks like the seventies.
I'm like staring out there and there are these kids
with long hair and jumping up. You know, they're teenagers
or twenty. It's like, is this is it nineteen seventy two?
I don't know, could be?
Speaker 1 (01:55:29):
Do these little girls and boys come up to you
after the show and ask you questions, et cetera.
Speaker 2 (01:55:35):
They are some of those kids that are even too
young or shy, but yes they do. Or like I
hand them a pick or something and they're, oh my god,
they're so enthralled, they really are. They love it. It's amazing.
It's great.
Speaker 1 (01:55:51):
So you've gone on. You said some great things about
Jimmy Page. Jimmy doesn't play live much at this point,
if at all, but there are a lot of other
inter acts of that vintage. We're going out and playing
the same songs that they've been playing for fifty years. However,
they were the original artists. To what degree do you
feel stifled having to do this music all the time?
Speaker 2 (01:56:16):
You know, I don't feel stifled at all. I mean,
there are times I don't want to go on stage
and play the Ocean. I'll give you that. I'm not
in the mood. I'm not in the mood to start
into a whole lot of Love with all of its antics,
because it ends up being this intense, crazy show. We
(01:56:38):
do it a whole show, you know, with the theerremen
and lots of improvisation. But once I get into it,
I'm there and I still love it. I you know,
I even if it's a road worn set, you know,
(01:56:59):
like all the hits which we play or we'll do,
the song remains the same concert and most of that
is all the hits, you know, it's the most including Stairway.
You gotta play that. But I don't know, I'm always
finding something new in it, and I'm always finding something
I didn't catch. So it's fun. It's fun because I'm
(01:57:22):
communicating with the band and I don't know what they're
gonna do all the time, and they don't know what
I'm gonna do, and they have to respond, and that's
what keeps it interesting. And I dare say that's what
Jimmy loved.
Speaker 1 (01:57:35):
And you said earlier, led Zeppelin is not a tribute band.
Experanid that well.
Speaker 2 (01:57:44):
I think partially for the reason I just said, we
do not impersonate led Zeppelin. I would have no interest
in that whatsoever. And I also don't really have an
interest in playing every single note that they played that
(01:58:05):
I would get bored with. If I had to do that,
I would feel stifled. Like you said, right, but this
music breathes. It's not that, and I feel like what
we have to offer is more of The only word
I could coin was she incarnation of the band, meaning
(01:58:27):
we are a real band. This is our canon of music.
We've studied our parts the way the composers wanted us
to play them, but we still are musicians in our
own right, and we go out there and once we
take hold of this material, something of us comes through.
(01:58:47):
And you know, we're not scared of that, because if
you're looking for exactly the same notes or whatever, you're
not going to have that all the time. When it
comes to see you're going to have something else, something
being created. And for that reason, We are not a
tribute band. That's a real band, and you're.
Speaker 1 (01:59:09):
A real person, Steph. I want to thank you so
much for telling your story and sharing your thoughts with
my audience.
Speaker 2 (01:59:18):
It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Bob, really,
it's an honor. I love your columns. You're very important
to our stream of discussion these days, so thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:59:33):
Till next time, This is Bob left Stand