Interviewer: Steve Turner – The Times, June 1990

This month’s tour by Robert Plant, which reaches England tonight, has been his first European jaunt since his days with Led Zeppelin, the band which dissolved ten years ago after the death of drummer John Bonham. “I missed touring, but touring was such a drama with Zeppelin that it wasn’t much fun,” says the 41-year-old singer who, with his pre-Raphaelite hair and tight blue jeans, looks remarkably unchanged since the seventies.

“I rather like it now because everything is so fresh. There are no drugs and there’s no boss, apart from my manager. It’s a very healthy working situation.” Led Zeppelin inspired a generation of imitators. Plant says that they are out to make easy money knowing that Zeppelin maintains one of the music industry’s most lucrative back catalogues.

“These new bands shower me with respect,” he notes, “but at the same time they’re glad we’re not still doing it because it has left some space for them.” Manic Nirvana, Plant’s current solo offering, shows him in tough Zeppelinesque form himself, and reached the top ten in America. Plant believes it would have made a worthy successor to Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti, a record he rates “the best collection and selection” the band ever made.

If he wanted to, he could re-form Led Zeppelin and earn the sort of mega-dollars recently pocketed by the Who and the Rolling Stones. “But it would just be an exercise in how to re-create,” he says. They did get together for Live Aid, appearing at Philadelphia’s JFK Stadium, but many critics wish they hadn’t bothered. Earlier this month they performed with Jason Bonham (son of John) as drummer at Bonham’s wedding.

“Zeppelin’s motivation was never financial and shouldn’t become financial now,” Plant argues. “However, if Jimmy Page and I could comfortably write together, there would be nothing wrong with that.” The current tour is scaled down from the Zeppelin caravan, and the fanfares don’t sound quite so loudly. Does he miss it all? “I still have it now,” he says, “I just don’t have it on such a huge commercial level. But what I have is much more focused.

“I think my last album, Now and Zen, which was made with American radio programming in mind, was ultimately too much of a compromise, although it became my most successful solo album. WithManic Nirvana I wanted more definition.” Despite his wild-man-of-rock reputation and his influence on the flair and hair of heavy-metal singers, Plant is much more musically eclectic than his Spinal Tapimitators, with favourites including acts as diverse as Ray Charles and the Cure.

The influences on Manic Nirvana are equally varied. He says ‘Watching You’ reflects his interest in North African berber music, ‘Big Love’ was written after hearing Aerosmith’s ‘Love in an Elevator’ and ‘Nirvana’ is his attempt at psychobilly. ‘Hurting Kind’, his first single from the album, is the most reminiscent of Zeppelin, but Plant credits Gene Vincent for the inspiration. “As a kid I wanted to be Gene,” he says. “He was really kind of slinky. There was a lot of sex in his voice.”

Plant is too garrulous to be slinky but he does have plenty of sex in his voice and in his lyrics. “I don’t need to do research for my songs,” he says. “All I have to do is to get into the situations I get into. I’m not very easy to live with and I wear people out. To write well I find I need the conflict.” Just as Paul McCartney has been reconciled to singing Beatles songs in concert, so Plant feels there’s now enough distance between his solo career and Zeppelin to tour with some old favourites.

“I didn’t feel I could make a career out of singing ‘Black Dog’,” he says. “I had to go out and do what I do.” So what makes Robert Plant want to keep on writing, recording and touring? “I just enjoy doing the thing that I do quite well,” he explains. “I really do have a good time and I just long to see what the next project is. “I don’t need the money. What would I need it for? You can only have one car and one season ticket to Wolverhampton Wanderers.”