Quotes

[on Bo Diddley] His voice and relentless, glorious anthems echo down through my years. This royal shapeshifter continues to influence four generations of musicians on a daily basis.

[on Roy Harper] The dynamics and drama in Roy's music are phenomenal.

I find ironing helps get me in the mood before I perform. I always have an ironing board in my room before going on.

[on Led Zeppelin's infamous performance at Live Aid (1985)] Live Aid was a fucking atrocity. It made us look like loonies.

It's a two-dimensional gig being a singer, and you can get lost in your own tedium and repetition.

I asked Nic [Band of Joy road manager Nicola Powell] if my rambling between songs on stage is getting too obscure. She says no, it's just about mad enough to capture the spirit of the thing.

When you see what we did last night [in Toronto], that is why we do it. Yes, there's a lot of smiling on stage, but there's a lot of hard work and there are a lot of fuck-ups too. We've worked together a lot now, we know each other; there are no secret corners. I'm as absurd as ever and they are gratefully patient. Every male-driven innuendo I come up with, Patti [Patty Griffin, touring with band of Joy in 2010] just rolls her eyes and chuckles.

"We are good at everything you would expect to be good because you could never find more talented musicians than these; playing together or in those passages sometimes when people are dropping in and out, when sometimes one of us will just opt out for a minute and a half.

When you hear Morth African or Indo-jazz fusion in the Band of Joy mix, that is mine. If I take credit for anything in this band, that's it, that's something I've brought to Nashville, and I'm proud of that.

[on his singing] [My style has] subliminal flutters passing Don Van Vliet, Son House, Terry Reid and the call to prayer from the minaret of the Koutoubia in Marrakech, all waiting to contribute to the next sound. Every 16 bars, we visit another country.

The further I get into it, the harder it will be to get a gig in the Top Rank. I won't fit. If I continue doing this, it will mean obsolescence for me.

I'm just incredibly fortunate that my eyes and ears have been opened. I have to be honest with myself and remove as much of the repetition and fakery as is humanly possible. To soothe the savage heart, we have to repeat ourselves sometimes--that's entertainment.

[on Led Zeppelin] That tumultuous, amazing combination of friends. We were great when we were great. I was part of something magnificent which broke the Guinness Book of Records, but in the end, what are you going to get out of it? Who are you doing it for? You have to ask these questions: who pays the piper, and what is valuable in this life? I don't want to scream "Immigrant Song" every night for the rest of my life, and I'm not sure I could.

The physical topography, and the regional peculiarities of the place I come from [Kidderminster, Worcestershire, UK] is so much part of me. But I plough a lone furrow, and I do feel more and more this telepathy with south Nashville. That is where this music is, that is where the mind is. I need to be with these people.

I'm a singer, and there's a lot of singing in this band [Band of Joy]. When one sings like this, with others, the voice is good. I'm really pleased with how I sing with this band. Hell, never mind my raison d'être, what about my singing? How else am I going to feel accomplished?

Whenever I have bid a hasty goodbye to a loved one, I've always made sure that my record collection was safely stored away in the boot of the car. Sometimes the parting was so fast, I was not able to get them into alphabetical order, but I still got away with my records, that was essential.

There are far more important things than this [Band of Joy]. This is just a little bit of ear candy, really, in the great cut and thrust of things. For some people, it's just a night at the theatre. Never mind politics--it's true of everybody, just getting on with their lives. For me, it is something to do which gives me very great pleasure. Which is why I'll keep on making music, so long as it meets the standard.

When I was a kid, I'd be there in the stands thinking, "Come on Wolves [Wolverhampton Wanderers, his favorite soccer team], do it for me!" And here I am again: "Come on Wolves", pleading with a borrowed laptop!

Every band should end their show with "Stairway To Heaven". In fact, The Who do a very nice version of it.

[on John Bonham] Bonzo was totally and absolutely devoted to getting it right. Everything that he listened to he could go beyond, not only could he recreate it but he could take it somewhere new. He knew that he was a powerhouse among drummers . . . we seemed to have a great affinity for each other.

Sad old hippies still keep their hair long because we were part of something that meant something more than just ego and income.

A drummer contacted me and said, "I love Bonham [John Bonham] so much I wanna sit behind you when you sing". It was Phil Collins. His career was just kicking in and he was the most spirited and positive and really encouraging force.

Kashmir, to me, is the definitive Led Zeppelin song.

Jimi Hendrix once told Bonham that he had a right foot like that of a rabbit.

A lot of people think we were sexual predators on the prowl for girls, when actually what we were looking for was the next great paperback novel.

Jonesy [John Paul Jones] was a bit... not withdrawn, but he stands back a little and shoots the odd bit of dialogue into the air. It's good stuff, but an acquired taste, really. And Jimmy's [Jimmy Page] personality, initially, was... I don't think I'd ever come across a personality like it before. He had a demeanor which you had to adjust to; it certainly wasn't very casual to start with.

[on his relationship with Jimmy Page] The two of us are almost umbilically attached in some strange way and have been down the years. And that's survived everything. From the time I was 19 to now.

Working with Jimmy [Jimmy Page] was very stimulating because he was my senior in every respect, but the melding was good and by about the eighth song we wrote together, I began to realise that I had something with this guy that was very special.

[1988] I don't know where it came from, my style. I must have been pretty insecure when Zeppelin started to want to run around puffing my chest out and pursing my lips and throwing my hair back like some West Midlands giraffe. But I did it again last night. And when I did it, I laughed so much. It was like self-parody; I was wiggling around like some ageing big girl's blouse and I realise how stupid it all looks. I mean, last night while I was crouching and leaping up in the air and doing a spiral as I came down again, I thought 'I wonder if -[David Coverdale] does that yet?' But that's what I'm good at. That's what I know.