Interviewer: Mark Petracca – Creem, September 1993

ROBERT PLANT, looking very fresh with only 27 years of rock ‘n’ rolling under his belt and leather jeans, is seated in the lone hotel in the market town of Street, Somerset, waxing poetic about the legend of King Arthur and Camelot, the pursuit of the Holy Grail, and the famous “rocks” of Stonehenge. For a moment, I swear I hear the distinct refrain of days long gone; Zep days that brought us these stories via ‘Ramble On’ and ‘The Battle of Evermore’. We pick up the action with Robert – as he unravels the legend of the Glastonbury Tor – inside the empty hotel restaurant. RP: Centuries ago, they arrived by boat, not far from here. It’s said that they came ashore, and where Joseph of Arimathea placed his staff, there grew a tree. And the tree grew more successfully than your microphone is working…correct?

Creem: We are hampered by technology. [Slightly nervous and embarrassed by my shoddy equipment, I quickly try to solve my problem. Robert watches me patiently and resumes] RP: Good, so his staff rested in the soil on the side of the water, and from it a tree sprang, and this tree was a May tree. And the May tree flowered at Christmas every year, and throughout the whole of the area, and in Devon and Cornwall, people came from miles around to take cuttings from the tree. And in all the church yards, when they were trying to establish Christianity to take over from the old religion, they would plant one of these tree cuttings.

Creem: And the rest is history as they say… Looking out into the courtyard, Robert notices Kevin Scott MacMichael has arrived. RP: There he is, our cool Canadian.

Creem: Your latest wonder guitarist? RP: Yeah, Kev.

Creem: I love his style. You’re like Frank Zappa – you keep discovering these fantastic guitarists. Suddenly the newest guitarist, Francis Dunnery [formerly of the U.K. cult band It Bites), and his girlfriend try to sneak up on Robert… RP: No, they discovered themselves, except they didn’t get it right. Girl: Frankie’s the best. RP: Frankie was the king of jazz. F: Now I’m king of the blues. Bring on the fucking jazz.

Creem: Well, Robert, it seems you’ve surrounded yourself with a good group of people. Something spiritually centered about them? RP: Ah man, it’s great. We’re really fearsome for the mightiest of possible reasons. Frankie, you’re the last one we’ve been waiting for, we better push off.

And so Robert, the camp/tour director, excuses himself momentarily to assemble his mighty knights. As for talk about Glastonbury? It could have easily been Turkey or Tunisia. Robert Plant is a nomadic traveler, a gypsy king in search of his own holy grail, his own adventure. He promises to continue our discussion after we’re on the road to the festival. I watch, amused, as he gathers them round their requisite vehicles. His daughter Carmen – she being married to the band’s bassist, Charlie Jones – even offers him a late father’s day gift, a fantastic crystal which she claims possesses important healing properties. Robert is truly touched. As I continue my observations, there’s no doubt in my mind that he and his lads are ready to claim victory at the one major festival he’s never played. The anticipation, excitement, and backslapping are infectious. A half-hour later, Robert’s tour manager, Rex King is behind the wheel of Robert’s automobile, leading our caravan through the narrow winding roads towards the festival. I’m sitting in the back seat with a shoddy microphone placed right under Robert’s nose.

RP: Mark, look. Can you see that to the right? Behind that tree? Creem: What is that? RP: That’s the Glastonbury Tor. That’s it, and all that remains of the tower of St. Michael’s church. On summer solstice, I’ve sat there, the path up to it, and watched women walking up. Long, snaky cavalcades of women holding hands walking round and round, backwards up to the top. It’s a cure for being barren. All this dark ages shit comes trumping out.

Creem: It’s all coming back, isn’t it? RP: I think so.

Creem: Holistic medicines are finally catching on in the U.S. Homeopathic cures…. RP: In Britain, the British Medical Association poo-poos all homeopathy and the use of alternative medicine, and yet has to cough and sputter at the fact the queen has her own homeopathic surgeon. Rex stops momentarily and waits for the caravan behind us to catch up. Robert checks his map and teases Rex about his sense of direction.

Creem: Getting back to…Robert, as we talk here, about Moby Grape and your love of the “60s music; have you ever thought about doing an album of cover tunes? RP: Well, yeah, as a matter of fact, I have. And there are some incredible songs on my favorites list that have not become the staple diet of the oldies stations. You hear things like the Youngbloods’ ‘Get Together’, ‘San Francisco’, the only Scott McKenzie song, and Quicksilver Messenger Service; being pop hits, they crop up as regularly as maybe Tommy James and the Shondells. But there are some other beautiful songs that are less well known. What’s beautiful about them is the sentiment – their real venerability. The whole deal of the late ’60s was being of a time of free expression. Something’s gone wrong now, because everybody’s got the right shape and look and all that sort of thing; this return has been threatening pop music for such a long time. It might even return.

Creem: Well, there was an innocence then that we don’t have now. We’re so information-laden now that one loses the innocence as soon as one becomes plugged into the TV. RP: Emotional indigestion is what it is. How can you really care and feel? People can and people do in their own corners, but the group-care is gone.

Creem: There was also that galvanizing focus; whatever you called the movement, there was a spiritual center. The music was that center, and from there you had some cohesion. Now, you have factions of pop phenomena: You have a rave culture; a hip-hop culture; a heavy metal culture; all these cultures vying for attention. RP: At the same time, and that’s good too. It was all there then anyway; there were lots of other things going on. There was more of a group consideration. People were more tuned in to one of two specific conditions: the Viet Nam War, the oppression of minorities. Now, rave and hip-hop and dance don’t really come from any thought process at all.

Creem: I also think our generation has too much information, not enough brain power. We have the brain power, but not the capacity to absorb it all at once. RP: I think with America – because there are no American boys coming back in body bags at the moment – there’s no real sharp area to complain about; but the society is crumbling. And the hip-hop and rave cultures – they’re not even extremes of music – those areas of music are dealing with that at the exclusion of people like me ’cause I don’t get it. Oh, I get the music; the rhythm; the vocal phrasing; but I’m English. We are now 60 miles from where I live. This is the kind of land that I live in. Although I’m fully aware, thanks to CNN, that doesn’t mean I can communicate or contribute to the more aggressive music. But I still care about my environment. And I still care about the consideration that we’ve got to give to each other, even to get on the starting blocks to have a good life. But everybody feels like that.

Creem: Do you feel that you can still translate that to the youth? RP: I don’t know. I haven’t got a clue. I don’t know whether or not youth really wants to consider that, because, as you just said, there’s such a lock-in with this whole festival of sensation which is built around everything from the massive hype that goes with so much music.

Creem: Can the hype translate on other, more cerebral, levels? RP: So much intensity goes behind one moment in time; and if people catch it, they catch it, and if they don’t, they don’t. And there’s so much built around the same old shit, fashion and the face it fits, that often the sentiment of peace and love, unless it comes with a whole sales package, may not actually make it at all. And that sales package has to be rather more in the Lenny Kravitz mold.

Creem: Nietzsche said, “Without music, life would be a mistake.” Bob Dylan said that music can’t change people; it can only allow them to feel a certain emotion. Where do you fit in with your philosophical beliefs? RP: Bob Dylan also said, “You can be in my dream, if I can be in yours.” I would have to go along with that. The wonder of music is that I want to be transported by it. I want something else to think about. I want to be wooed by music. I want something not expensive and not too obstructive. I just want to be taken someplace and dealt with beautifully; and I want to do that too. I want to make music that is sensual and sensuous.

Creem: You always have. RP: Exactly. That’s my plot if I have a plot at all. In fact, if I have a plot at all, it’s improving. The plot is now thickening, and I think maybe this time ’round, whatever the outcome, the focus has finally kicked in to go where it should be going.

Creem: All the old blues artists, they always had that center; so you can listen to B. B. King or John Lee Hooker in ’93, and they still have the same… RP: But they’re kind of trading. They always traded after awhile, after their great zenith when their imagination and power was at its height. I suppose Muddy Waters must have been just before….His zenith must have been ‘Going to Louisiana’ and ‘Catfish Blues’, all that sort of stuff around ’52 and ’53, up to the stuff he did at the Newport Jazz Festival. And then I think after that he traded on his fame, because he just sat back within the framework of the twelve bar blues. The last impressive thing he did was the Muddy Waters Twist EP with ‘You Shook Me’ and ‘You Need Love’ with ol’ Hooker on steel guitar. After that he came to Europe, and everybody said, “Hey man! Howlin’ Wolf, Muddy Waters,” and he just sat back. I used to go and see them play. They were going for the easy way out; because within the blues’ framework, it’s delivery within a three- or four-minute span. What I’m trying to do is to keep writing and opening up the hole.

Creem: Rock ‘n’ roll has that kind of hole built into it, because you can borrow elements from other forms of music and incorporate them. Look at Captain Beefheart. RP: That’s right, marvelous. We have Beefheart’s Doc at the Radar Station in the dressing room. In fact, Mad Frank [Francis Dunnery] was really just a fan of rock ‘n’ roll ’cause he was lost in some world of Genesis and jazz, until he’d taken Beefheart on to be his patron saint.

Creem: Somebody once said, it might have been Lester Bangs in our magazine, that Beefheart was really a white blues singer. He took all the anxiety of a white man and used that in a musical form that came out as it did. The man could spot the experience he needed and distill his brand of the blues. I think he copied them pretty well. RP: ‘Cause if you listen to Beefheart, all you’ve got is Howlin’ Wolf and some absurd acid-inspired lyrics. Not all you’ve got, because it’s really very funny and very good. The sight of Rockette Morton dancing up and down on his amp – without even being plugged in – just howling. Robert looks off in the distance, as Rex maneuvers the auto into the festival parking lot – a massive sea of cars, tents, and rock fans in the middle of a farm. RP: I do hope this is like the old days. The only trouble is. I’m not quite sure if I can remember.

Creem: All of Her Majesty’s subjects await you. RP: England is amazing that it can give so much flamboyance to such a gray, tired, cynical collection of dudes. Rex stops the car and checks with one of the festival guards to inquire if we’re heading in the right direction for the backstage area. The guard seems uncertain. In fact, Rex has to convince him that Robert is one of performers. Not entirely certain, he directs us down the side of a dusty, rocky incline.

RP: Mark, do you know the whole story behind this festival? Creem: I happened to pick up The London Times this morning and got the scoop. A dairy farmer by the name of Michael Eavis went to a music festival in Bath back in 1970; you guys happened to be on the bill. So it all comes full circle now. How many times have you played Glastonbury? RP: This is the first time I’ve ever been here. We’ve always been working somewhere, and I’ve always gone. “Oh well, next year.”

Creem: The interesting thing about this kind of festival is that there doesn’t seem to be any now in America with the exception of Lollapalooza. As we approach the correct parking area, Robert decides to take a break and resume our interview once his entourage is comfortably dug-in backstage. Like the natural leader that he is, he has his merry band in place in little more than 40 minutes. He even manages to iron out the details and set list for the producer of BBC radio, who’s taping his performance for broadcast the following evening. Robert ultimately directs me to two lawn chairs outside of his mobile home-turned-dressing room. On the Pyramid stage – the main stage of Glastonbury – Midnight Oil’s politically correct rock radiates around us. After them, the re-united Velvet Underground will attempt to inspire the masses, and then Plant and the lads will hit the stage. Finally, the Black Crowes, who have already played a number of dates with Robert, will finish the first night (Friday) of this three-day music marathon. The Crowes are blaring vintage Allman Brothers from their makeshift tent, while their Confederate flag lays motionless in the late afternoon sun. And out on Eavis’s farm, somewhere around 60,000 rock fans have already descended upon the festival grounds.

Creem: So we were talking about the crystal your daughter gave you for father’s day today. RP: You can never get enough of that stuff.

Creem: She said it was for the chakra in your thorax. RP: Yeah.. meanwhile – have you seen the Black Crowes’ dressing room? They’ve got all those old carpets the Stones lost in the fire. It’s all fire salvage from Mick Jagger’s house.

Creem: It’s an interesting mix of old and new. I think rock ‘n’ roll is definitely two generations old now. RP: Or three, if you count Jerry Lee [Lewis]. I took my son to see Jerry Lee recently, telling him that, once upon a time, this man had actually helped move the axis of youth concentration round a few degrees to the affirmative.

Creem: Did he buy into it? RP: He was prepared to do that, because he’s heard the records, but unfortunately Jerry Lee had decided to have a little bit more bourbon before the show than was a good idea. So, there we are: He was a failure, and I was left holding the emotional baby.

Creem: Does your son make you take him to his favorite shows? What are some of the bands he relates to? RP: Hendrix, the Crowes, Jellyfish, that’s about it.

Creem: I also saw a reference to New Kids on the Block, or was that just a personal observation? I had hoped he would be a bit more hip than that, Robert. RP: Well, once upon a time, he was young. He had a moment where he thought they were important.

Creem: Who are some of the new bands coming up that you think are relevant or will have some kind of lasting impact? The U.K. seems to be notorious for building up things that don’t last. RP: You mean like Suede? To be perfectly frank, L7 make me laugh. I think that’s a shape. I want Belly to be really important.

Creem: But L7’s like GTO, aren’t they? RP: Exactly, but flippancy is a wonderful thing. Let’s get real now; depending on how you are with me, I will be how I will be with you. If we want to talk about Lenny Kravitz, and we develop a studied overview on what retro is, for example, it’s not worth the conversation because it’s only entertainment, and most people don’t give a flyin’ fuck whether it’s a Led Zeppelin riff, whether Sly Stone said it in the beginning, or whether it’s an Arthur Alexander melody line. You put them all together in the melting pot, and you’ve got ‘Whole Lotta Love’. So, really what’s important to me musically is not a reverential thing. If I want to get serious, and I want to be moved, then I listen to certain kinds of music. And then I get extravagant and ridiculous, and want something else. Then I get a bit inquisitive, and want to find new soul. For example, Soul Asylum and the Horse They Rode in On is a really vital collection of songs played vitally, but with not a care in the world. Like the early Let’s Active stuff is really inquisitive. Now, I’m looking, and I don’t know; the new hard rock in America, or whatever it is, the rock with a conscience, the rock from another place…. There’s not much of it that really hits me on the head and says. “Hey boy, this is the beginning of the new time.” But a lot of people are hanging on to it because it’s better than Bon Jovi and all that kind of studied, structured posture-pop…

Creem:…so produced, predictable, and marketable. What do you think of Pearl Jam? RP: I think they’re serious. They remind me a bit of the attitude that early U2 had where they kind of mean it and they’re not just there. What they’re doing, they’re doing because they really mean it. They’re not just hangin’ on. I see some groups that hang on – they’ve run out of ideas already, but they’re still hangin’ in. And then you get the band that I’m trying to think of; who did the acoustic hit? Who had the one record? Who is so unforgettable that we’ve forgotten them? And they put out an album with three sides….

Creem: Extreme. RP: There’s situations where you have careers which have to be maintained at any cost, so you use posture gesture. But that’s an observation that’s always been there – whether it’s been Ricky Nelson running out of ideas, or whether it’s been Vanilla Fudge making some sub-standard records. When it’s gone, it’s gone, and hopefully it’ll come back. What about me? How many times have I lost it? I never think I have. People keep telling me, “Man, if you had a consistent solo career. If you had gotten a shape and held that shape.” I’d have a post office in fucking Wisconsin, if I’d had the same shape all the way through. I’d have been so fucking bored with myself.

Creem: How far do you take it? Where do you go? RP: I go on forever; I have to, right to the end. I’m hungry. I’m hungry to marry this acoustic/electric trundle. It’s a lumbering trundle. What you see tonight has got a lope about it which comes from the drums. It’s always come from the drums. That’s why there’s no Led Zeppelin.

Creem: That’s what Peter Gabriel said as well. He said he writes from his drum rhythms outward. RP: It comes from the drums, and it comes from Michael Lee, the man who ran away from the Cult. It really does come from there. Fate of Nations is Fate of Nations. And now, adapting that attitude with Michael Gregovich [engineer] and his different guitar approach, it all goes really well for what we’re gonna do. I mean, we start recording new stuff on Wednesday this week.

Creem: So you feel like you’ll be even more acoustic-driven? The organic aspect of that music…. RP: It’s a marriage. If you remember ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ by Zep, that kind of combination between acoustic and electric dynamically, it’s really powerful; and it’s very simulating to have that sort of high and low. Playing throughout Europe has been really tremendous, because you get by using lights and sound dynamics. You take everything into absolute nothing. Everything stops and then goes bang. I’ve never done that before. Simple boy having some simple fun now.

Creem: Do you write on acoustic instruments? RP: Yeah, I’ve fucked around with them. Have you heard ‘Colors of Shade’? I’ll see if I can get you a copy of it before you leave here. It’s one of the tracks from the album that kind of was and wasn’t on the album.

Creem: Is it a bonus track in Europe or a B-side? RP: It’s a bonus track in Europe with uilleann pipes and hurdy-gurdy and stuff. It’s beautiful. Plus, all the acoustic shit that I’ve done on the B-sides of these European singles. There’s an American player called Rainer [Ptacek] who plays this bottle neck National. And he works in a guitar repair shop in Tucson. In Europe, he’s got a record deal through Demon Records, and I saw him play, and I asked him to come and play with me in the studio. I took him some bits of poetry that I had gotten, some essence of bitterness from the remains of the Manic Nirvana torture. And he just started playing and we got it, and it’s some great stuff. I’m surprised I haven’t given you this shit to listen to. There’s an acoustic version of ‘Whole Lotta Love’ that’s tearing.

Creem: Well, that’s the greatest compliment: A great melody is easily workable on any acoustic instrument. And a great song remains a great song. What’s lacking in a lot of today’s music are melodies, strong melodies. There are great technical players; the equipment is fantastic…. RP: It’s how far you go. That’s the whole thing about it, Mark. It is how far to go before you actually do become Ricky Nelson or Ricky Nelson’s dad. And that’s the thing I’m frightened of. When ‘Sea of Love’ became the biggest hit I’ve ever had, I was appalled because that’s what it is.

We look over and notice Lou Reed walking back and forth in front of his trailer. Lou must be nervous; he’s up next. No doubt, the Underground never played to so many people. Midnight Oil’s still rocking out on stage, its music still fighting with the Crowes’ taped music. RP: Lou, meanwhile, now is making some kind of physical gesture along with the music. He’s sort of swinging along with the beat.

Creem: Loping about. Robert laughs.

Creem: Oh, I don’t think you always have to be so studied with music. The beauty of even interviewing someone is not to go in there just hanging on every word and every lyric and be so labored with all of it. RP: My great problem is that I’m caught in my own time now. Having gone through all this sanctimonious Zeppelin hangover for so long, I can only be silly.

Creem: I wouldn’t call your new record silly. RP: It’s not flippant.

Creem: The attitude, the backstage camaraderie, and all of the mechanisms that get you on stage…. RP: It’s quite interesting, ’cause I’ve always wanted to play loads and loads of concerts where you play with other people, where you’re sharing some kind of event; and I never did that in Zep. After 1973, it just all stopped, and we were always on our own. I think maybe [Roy] Harper played with us once and maybe the Pretty Things someplace.

Creem: I loved the Pretty Things. They were on your label. RP: Yeah, Silk Torpedo; it was brilliant.

Creem: I’m surprised it hasn’t made it to CD yet. RP: The meanderings of Swan Song were a mystery. I have no idea what happens inside the head of Swan Song.

Creem: So what’s the most enjoyable aspect now? The looseness of it all? You’ve come from the wildness of youth and have acquired maturity. You’re directly surrounded by your family – Charlie’s married to your daughter; she’s here; your ex-wife is here today; your son…. RP: I’m still a bit of a vagrant. This is a particular time for us because we’re in England. This is the first time we’ve played in England. We’ve played like 19 or 20 shows already in a month around Europe. All the people you never see come, including you. Normally, I like the whole idea of actually taking Europe by its balls, and coming onstage at eight o’clock before the star and workin’ it; because a lot of bands who do big in America, and don’t have any profile in Europe, keep quiet. I think Europe is fantastic. I never realized how ahead of the game it’s become in the last five or ten years, and how its ability to take in such a variety of music has really gotten quite stimulating. That’s exciting.

Creem: When are you coming to the States? RP: I think October, maybe September the 15th or 16th for the Letterman show.

Creem: Shall we grab another warm beer? RP: Perhaps you didn’t stay out quite as late as me; I think I stayed out 10 years too late.