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SPS: Back to Led Zeppelin for a moment. Was it ever polarized or split up between "Page and Plant" and "you and Bonham"?
JPJ: No. The only time it was ever polarized was very early, and then it "Page and Grant" and the three of us, because they had toured before, and sometimes they were in different hotels! And Bonham, Plant and myself – we shared rooms. Big rooms, but you know, they were rooms. So that was the initial polarization.
SPS: I also read or heard that you…
JPJ: I mean they did go off… there was a point where Bonham and I went home and they [Page and Plant] carried on touring as it were. [Laughing]
SPS: They went to Morocco and all?
JPJ: That’s right. So, in that respect. It wasn’t a polarization within the group. It was only kind of when they… Things like "Stairway to Heaven" were written like that ’cause they… Robert had a cottage in Wales, and the two of them stayed up there. So there wasn’t. Not in the group. ... It was a very tight group.
SPS: It was actually about two years ago, October ’99, you played in Philadelphia. During that live version of "Snake Eyes," I said, "Man, that is definitely some King Crimson influence right there."
JPJ: Oh really?
SPS: Yeah, just the way that it’s so progressive and things like that. The instrumentation…
JPJ: Well, we always used to think that Zeppelin was a progressive rock band until it became [laughing] a slightly dirty word. Well, we thought we played progressive rock. People asked, "What sort of band are you?" I said I had played progressively – progressive rock – thinking that it just meant forward-thinking as opposed to anything [inaudible, laughing]. But you’re right, "Snake Eyes" was, oops. "Snake Eyes" was in its truest sense progressive rock. ... [laughing] And again, my only record on that label…
SPS: I love trying to figure out how to play "Snake Eyes." I have perfect pitch, so things sort of come naturally, but I mean, when it’s that discordant, it’s tough.
JPJ: Yeah, it’s tough.
SPS: I once figured it out, but I’ve since forgotten. Sort of like, "What’s Jimmy’s symbol mean?" "I used to know."
JPJ: Who knows? I don’t think anybody knows.
SPS: Back to the instruments for a second. You always complained about the Mellotron. I always hear, "Oh, that Mellotron." [laughs]
JPJ: I mean, it sounded great when it worked.
SPS: You used it every year from ’72 to ’77.
JPJ: But I had no choice! I had no choice!
SPS: There wasn’t much else out?
JPJ: There was nothing else! Nothing else! No string machines and… It was the only thing you could get that had strings and flutes on it. When we used to start "The Rain Song," I had one foot on the volume control and one had like a tuning control. So I used to have to come in [quickly hums the guitar intro] just at the start of the guitar, and I’d play [imitates the Mellotron] and I’d try and tune it [makes a tuning noise] before it got too loud. Oh, awful. ’Cause you’d set it up and tune it, and then the crowd would come in. Basically, their heat would make the tapes stretch, and so you simply didn’t know what it would be. We hated each other.
SPS: You and the Mellotron?
JPJ: But it was great. As I said, once you got going it was fine, but at that first intro… [People would say to me,] "Oh, the Moody Blues can do it." Because it could work for them. He was constantly rebuilding his Mellotron [inaudible]. He was a Mellotron technician and was constantly rebuilding it [inaudible]. Oh, it was hell. And the day that I managed to replace it, I did, and that was the GX-1. ...
SPS: Then you sold that to Keith Emerson, right?
JPJ: Yeah, while it was getting big in the United States. I wasn’t really using it. I’d already replaced that, ’cause that was huge. It had to weigh a quarter of a ton. I think I had a roadie who used to live in the flying case, it was that big. And I replaced that with the Fairlight. I used that on one tour. I was one of the few people ever to use a Fairlight on the road.
SPS: There's a historical footnote.
JPJ: Yeah, that was 1980 on the European tour.
SPS: You never toured with keyboards until ’70. Then it was Hammond organ until ’71. Rhodes piano. And then in ’71 you added the mellotron. Clavinet and Steinway grand in ’75. Then, finally, the Yamaha synthesizers after that. So you’re constantly expanding your role on the keyboards... Was that your idea?
JPJ: Well, yeah, I mean. As I said, the very first album was mainly and inherently Yardbirds.
SPS: That’s with "Your Time is Gonna Come." That’s my favorite -- I’m a keyboard player.
JPJ: That’s right. All right.
SPS: Whenever I sit down...
JPJ: Oh, yeah! You’re the chap that plays the organ. Did you write me on my site?
SPS: Yeah, pretty early on.
JPJ: I thought I recognized... Yeah, basically, you can’t do everything at once. I was doing some keyboards in the very early rehearsals. ... Were there keyboards on the first album?
SPS: Yeah, "Your Time is Gonna Come."
JPJ: Oh. That’s on the first album, right?
SPS: Yeah.
JPJ: Right, OK. You have to excuse me. ...
SPS: ...And "You Shook Me" is.
JPJ: All right, OK, so I was already playing Hammond organ. But taking it on tour, you’ve got the logistics of it: hiring the instrument and all that. ...
SPS: But sometimes if you were playing a city hall or something there would be something there for you to play.
JPJ: Well, no, we had to rent it in or we’d have to [inaudible]. And so, yeah, I mean, I played a lot of keyboards. And once you play one keyboard, you can play a lot. I don’t actually play a lot of instruments. I just play a lot of families. ...
SPS: People ask me what all I play, I’m like, "Oh, piano, organ, accordion..."
JPJ: "Harpsichord, clavichord..."
SPS: "...Synthesizers! Keyboards!"
JPJ: Yeah, exactly. It’s very impressive to people who don’t know.
SPS: "Wow, that’s like 12 different things!"
JPJ: There are subtle differences. I mean, I consider myself an organ player as well as pianist. ...
SPS: If you could talk to me about John Bonham as a family man, as a traveling companion, as a friend, what was he like?
JPJ: Well, he was tremendous fun. I mean, apart from being … I mean, actually, tremendous fun! Very funny man. Great sense of humor. He didn’t actually like being on the road. He hated traveling. He hated flying! [Laughing] He had actually got to the airport and ordered the driver to turn down occasionally. We used to really have to trick him onto airplanes at times. Great affection, very generous. Yeah, he used to get a bit wild, but it was mainly because he hated being on the road. He loved playing, but the rest of it… Hotels, he hated hotels. It’s just a shame. But no, he was a lovely man. As a drummer, he’s just very delighting.
SPS: Was it ever tough on you playing shows that go on three hours long, like in ’77?
JPJ: No, no. If you’re playing, it’s great!
SPS: Night after night, it never would wear on you?
JPJ: No! No! It was the sort of band that was always interesting on stage. We were always changing, and we could do this and we could do a bit more of it or a bit less of it… You could always work off the crowd a lot.
SPS: Winchester Cathedral. I read that you wanted to be choirmaster there.
JPJ: It was a joke. Somebody said, "Do you like being on the road?" I said, "No, I'm… I'm…" You know. "I'm gonna… I saw this advert for a job for the organist out by the cathedral. I'm gonna bide for that. I'm gonna take that. I'm gonna apply for that." It was one of those things.
SPS: When that was supposed to happen coincided with that month that you took off from Led Zeppelin. It was December 1973. Is that a fabricated lie too? …Where you wanted to…?
JPJ: There was a point, yes, where I think I'd got fed up with it all, 'cause we were touring [a lot] and really working hard and I'd had enough of it for a while. And I wasn't going to get another job. [Laughing] I wouldn’t call [that] a job! 'Cause a cathedral organist, that was what I wanted to be when I was 16. I was too young to go to college so I went on the road instead.
SPS: So I guess if that stuff's not true, that you wanted to leave to be a choirmaster and all that…
JPJ: Should we be debunking all of this?
SPS: Yeah!
JPJ: …Because isn't that part of our whole thing? I mean, you don't really want to tell people… Wouldn't they rather believe that I left to be a choirmaster in Westminster?
SPS: There's a phrase that we have 'cause of the show The X Files, "The truth is out there." I think that…
JPJ: Oh, all right. Do you want to know the truth? If the truth was in here, there wouldn’t be more X files!
SPS: [Laughing] Yeah, true.
JPJ: [Laughing]
SPS: OK, I'll… I'll debate about whether I’m gonna…
JPJ: OK.
SPS: You played on an album by Jobriath. Am I pronouncing that right (joe BRY uth)?
JPJ: Yeah.
SPS: Do you know if that was his first or second album?
JPJ: Oh, I don't know.
SPS: And was it Eddie Kramer that got you involved in that?
JPJ: [Silence]
SPS: He was producing the album.
JPJ: Was he? Oh, Eddie was… Yes. Probably. ...
SPS: And Madeline Bell, you played on her album around that same time.
JPJ: I produced it.
SPS: I just wrote about that a couple of days ago. All this stuff was happening in December 1973, so it was a couple of days ago that I was writing about this for the mailing list.
JPJ: Oh, OK. I see. Yeah, she'd been a family friend forever.
SPS: She's the godmother of the children?
JPJ: That's right.
SPS: How's she doing then?
JPJ: She's great. She lives in Spain now.
SPS: In 1973, you fractured your ribs on tour?
JPJ: I think I actually did it in England and didn’t realize it. It was kind of like on the cusp as it were. I think I like coughed or something like that in a hotel room, and something goes, "Wah!" Really, really [inaudible], and I thought, "Cor, ah, you know!" So it turned out that I'd fractured them. The doctor fired up an X-ray and then put me onstage. "OK, that's no excuse. You've still got arms and legs, and your head's all right. You're doing all right. Play!"
SPS: There's a show in Dallas, I think it was May 18, 1973, and Robert's saying how you're standing up there playing, "He might not be able to finish the whole gig."
JPJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're always saying these things to each other all the time. Four old blokes have a sit-down and say, "[inaudible]," really, it was that sort of band ... That's what made it work. Nobody could have an attitude for longer than about five minutes. [laughs] Yeah, I sat down for the show. I was all right if I didn't laugh.
SPS: I think he might have been trying to make you laugh though. He said something like, "We thought he'd got the clap!"
JPJ: Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was, well, you know… [gets up and walks across the room for a bottle of water] As I said, that’s how it was. We all laughed at each other.
SPS: Now the city you actually played right before that one was New Orleans 1973. You had a huge reception with… I think Lisa Robinson was there, you had Ernie K. Doe, Professor Longhair …
JPJ: Oh, right, I remember that one.
SPS: … all the great New Orleans jazz musicians. Do you remember anything else –
JPJ: [pours water from the bottle into two cups]
SPS: Thanks. Do you remember anything else about that particular city that particular year?
JPJ: Well, maybe. You'll probably have to remind me …
SPS: Oh, maybe a song named after the Royal Orleans hotel …
JPJ: Oh, that was Robert in his usual homophobic manner. I don't know what … You see, the only trouble with that book [Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis], that stupid book was that it got all its facts wrong. It got all the stories the wrong way around. Part of that, it wasn’t funny. I mean, some of the stories were actually hilarious, but the way the book reads is, "What a bunch of miserable bastards we are!" But no, I mean, everybody knew who those people were. They were friends of Richard [Cole]'s. And yes, we knew they were transvestites. We were friends. Her name was … Her name was … Stephanie! We'd see her every time we'd go to New Orleans. But Robert was a bit provincial. They weren't like big city boys. They don't like all that sort of thing. Richard and Jimmy and I … They were friends of the band, for God's sake, you know. And then this idiot, Steve Davis, gets it all mixed up. I mean, OK, so we were in our room, drinking, and probably fell asleep, and I [clears his throat] found the room full of firemen!
SPS: Yadda, yadda, yadda.
JPJ: All that stuff that he didn’t know, it was like, "Oh, come on…" But in fact, there was another member of the band who found himself in situations where they didn’t know it was a boy, and it certainly wasn’t me.
SPS: [inquisitively] Ah! [laughs] You don't want to elaborate on that?
JPJ: No, I don't. So it's all … And then he writes a song about it! You know, thank you so much, Robert. He was a bit homophobic in those days. I think it's just 'cause they had a sheltered upbringing as lads.
SPS: I know Jimmy did, living on a farm. He had this huge manor and just basically stayed by himself …
JPJ: He certainly didn’t have an –
SPS: … an only child.
JPJ: Well, I'm an only child and didn't have a sheltered upbringing. Not in the slightest!
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