When Giants Walked the Earth: A Biography of Led Zeppelin by Mick Wall

[Zoneboy]

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As well as being the most complete account yet of a great British rock band, When Giants Walked the Earth is, as its title implies, a document of a bygone age. Long before you reach the story about the American groupie known as “the dog act” - whose great dane was an integral part of hotel sex sessions involving champagne, pieces of fried bacon and large cans of baked beans - it's clear that Led Zeppelin were creatures of a time that seems very distant from our own.

If any grouchy, drunken rock star now tried to ape Zeppelin drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham's habit of launching unprovoked attacks against innocent passers-by - such as the woman from the record company who smiled at him in a restaurant, got punched in the face for her trouble and was left on the floor with the parting message, “Don't ever do that to me again” - he would get arrested. Such was the awe in which Led Zeppelin were held in their heyday, particularly in America where their album sales soon overtook the Beatles', they could get away with just about anything short of homicide. Although Bonham was eventually apprehended by a Swat team after nearly blinding one of promoter Bill Graham's security men at a show in Oakland in 1977, his psychotic antics went largely unpunished.

His bandmates' sympathetic view that poor old Bonzo was motivated by homesickness, brought on by their lengthy tours, reflected their own culpability. With the exception of bassist John Paul Jones, “the quiet one” who took to staying in different hotels from the rest and nearly left in 1973 in protest at the mayhem, they were all prone to abuse the power that being in the biggest-grossing band on the American live circuit conferred. Guitarist Jimmy Page used to travel with a collection of whips that he would use, he explained, to tame any groupies he found to be “teasing and acting haughty. If you humiliate them a bit, they tend to come on all right after that”.

The band's rampant misogyny extended beyond their ever-present gang of willing sex slaves. When a young female journalist from Life magazine, Ellen Sander, joined Zeppelin's 1969 tour, she reported how, after she went to the dressing room to say goodbye, “two members of the group attacked me...shrieking and grabbing at my clothes”. She fought them off “but not before they managed to tear my dress down the back”. Like most of the band's hapless victims, Sander never pressed charges. Page later described her account as “not a false picture”, adding unrepentantly that he always got “very edgy” before going on stage and that there were “different ways of releasing that surplus adrenaline”.


Add the terrifying reputation of their manager Peter Grant - a whale-sized heavy who once worked as an enforcer for the 1960s slum landlord Peter Rachman - and you can understand why it was hard to find anybody willing to support Led Zeppelin when they headlined Knebworth in 1979. The best that can be said about the way these “giants” conducted themselves is that they summed up the best and worst of rock culture in the 1970s. Much of their offstage behaviour was informally sanctioned at a time when the libertarian ideology of the previous decade had decayed into unchecked self-indulgence. As one of their regular groupies, Pamela Des Barres, explained: “It wasn't just them. The Who were doing that stuff, and the Hendrix boys.”

On the plus side, Led Zeppelin were a group of formidably accomplished musicians with a unique chemistry. Remarkably, this had nothing to do with teenage friendships, as was the case with the Beatles, the Stones and the rest. The band was put together in 1968 by Page, a top session guitarist and a former member of the Yardbirds whose prowess in the studio meant that he knew everybody who was anybody on the British rock scene. His original idea was to create a “supergroup” like Eric Clapton's new venture Blind Faith. Among the many “name” players he considered was Keith Moon, who memorably commented that his leaving the Who would go down like a “lead zeppelin” with Pete Townshend. Page's eventual choices were three virtual unknowns, whose combined interests encompassed the blues, jazz and, in the case of their “golden god” vocalist Robert Plant, Celtic folk music. While other “progressive” rock bands struggled to incorporate these ingredients and often ended up sounding too clever by half, Led Zeppelin were soon able to blend them into popular power anthems such as Stairway to Heaven, a song that still holds the record for the most plays on American radio.

The mystical symbolism on the cover of the album containing Stairway flagged another of Page's interests: the writings of the British occultist Aleister Crowley. The studiously non-judgmental Mick Wall is keen to negotiate this can of worms, arguing by way of a potted biography of the old rogue that Crowley wasn't a devil worshipper as such, and neither was, or is, Page. He does concede, though, that Page's heroin addiction and extreme promiscuity were partly inspired by Crowley's example - which, in the context of all the rough stuff above, does leave you wondering whether a dash of Satanism could have made much difference.

In any event, the story of Led Zeppelin amounts to a Faustian tale in which the protagonists - minus the retiring Jones - all suffer terribly in the end. Bonham dies in his sleep in 1980, at the age of 32, after a monster vodka binge; Page never fully recovers his creative powers following a decade of drug addiction, and Plant loses his five-year-old son, Karac, in 1977, to a mystery virus. But it's not all doom and gloom: as the hysteria surrounding last year's one-off reunion bash in London proved, the power of Zeppelin's music lives on.

Anybody interested in learning more about the turbulent circumstances of its making should definitely consult Wall's book. Unlike most heavy-metal specialists, he writes clearly and with authority. He has interviewed all of the characters at some point, so doesn't need to rely on the widely repeated recollections of Zeppelin's tour manager, Richard Cole - laid out in lurid detail in Stephen Davis's sleaze-riddled Hammer of the Gods.

A little more insight into the continuing rift between the band's two principals would have been useful. Is the reason why Zeppelin haven't properly re-formed simply because Plant likes to be his own boss, or is there any truth in the theory that they fell out over Page and his occult practices? Aside from neglecting this FAQ, Wall has done his subject proud.

[TripperFan]

THANK YOU!


I just found what I'm getting my brother this Christmas - this book!

It looks like a fascinating read!

It's a wonder none of them got arrested for serious stuff - I've heard the legend of Page keeping 13 yr old girls in his dressing and hotel rooms.

[catlover79]

Sounds great...I'll keep my eyes peeled!