Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My guest today is Steph Payne, guitarist and leading force of the band les Zeppelin. Steph, good to have you on the podcast.
Hey, thanks, Bob, it's fantastic to be here. Thanks for having me.
Let's start from the beginning. Is Steph Payin's your real name?
Yes, it's my real name. But there is a small little difference, and that is there's a why in it. When when I was born there was no why, so it was P. A. N. E. S. And that's the truth. And you're the first one to hear it. But it's a funny story, which if I go into it.
Well tell the story. We're here, We're here.
This is all right, Okay, okay. It sort of ties in because I put the Y in my name after I moved to England the first time, which is a long time ago, right after college, and I had found myself working, you know, trying to be a big rock star and make it and do all this stuff because you know, British Invasion rock was my favorite thing. So
I thought I have to go to England. And while I was here, at that point, I started to write for the music press, and I was writing for the NME actually, and when I got my first story published, I realized, because I was paranoid about working without a work permit, that if I put a Y in the name, they could not prove that it was me, because there's a why in the name and all my passport there isn't. So that was my thinking and ever since it became my name and it stuck. So there's a wine.
Okay, there's a lot to unpact there, but I'm going to go back to original theme. Les Zeppelin would imply that it's an act of lesbians. What is the truth?
Oh, I knew you were going to get there. I didn't think it would be second. I thought it would be first. We have always had a don't ask, don't tell policy since the beginning of the band. Lots of reasons for that, but I figured I basically, in a nutshell, I'd get into trouble either way, So don't ask, don't tell, and we welcome speculation. We're fine with whatever anybody thinks. And people actually like to guess, so it's fun.
Okay, you yourself have been married, have children, You certainly have lived a heterosexual lifestyle, So the question because naming it led Zeppelin, was that to gain attention or was that because that was the easiest play on the name led Zeppelin? How did you come up with it? Long?
Okay, I will tell you my mother came up with it. Believe it or not. My mother, this is true. She was an English professor, and she was fantastic with puns and you know, writing. I mean, it was wonderful. She used to write poetry and everything. But she was the
quickest person with a pun that I'd ever met. And we were sitting around the table and I had already started this, I mean, had this idea to start this band, and I was gung ho, and we were trying to think of names, and there were all sorts of really bad names being put on the table as bands, do you know, cover your tablecloth with bad names? And she just turns to me and says, lez Zeppelin. Now, I had never heard my mother even say the word lesbian
okay out loud. But it was the most brilliant thing I ever heard. I just that was it. There was no question in my mind that that had to be the name of the band. And I think, honestly, I think it's like the best band name ever. Maybe not ever, but it's up there.
Okay, for those people unfamiliar with les Zeppelin, how would you describe the band?
Okay, it's you mean trying to describe led Zeppelin in and of itself.
And someone goes to a led Zeppelin show, someone listens to your music, what are they getting? What is the ethos of the band? What is it you're selling?
Okay, they will get a powerful, very passion very spontaneous show that is all around the songs of led Zeppelin. We play the songs as they are written most of the time, but we improvise where they used to improvise.
And it's kind of an amazing thing because we focus more on the spirit of the band, i would say, and the incredible combination of musicianship that made them who they are, which is why this band has to be so organic, because we are playing together as musicians like they were and trying to achieve that special sort of magical moment of intensity, and that really is our goal.
And you know, sometimes I'll play a solo. I mean a lot of the solos I play at this point are you know, in Jimmy Page's style, but they're not exactly what Jimmy played, and my hope is maybe he would have played it at some point, but it's much more evocative, I think, to.
Go for.
That essence of the band, and I think people react to it feeling like they've really been to a led Zeppelin show, much more than if we just copied everything they played, which is frankly no interest to me.
However, having seen the act, it's not like going to see Bob Dylan today and saying, you know, he played a song that's famous and I didn't recognize that. The songs generally speaking, are very faithful to the originals.
Yes, because you have to be. I mean, it's brilliant music and you have to be faithful, like, for example, the Ocean. Well, let's take that song. It's kind of such a perfect package. I never changed the guitar solos for that. We never change the arrangements. But you know, we're only four people, so we play it live like they played it, So our renditions are how they played it live. We don't have extra people on stage to fill all the guitar parts. We're not trying to replicate
the albums. But you know, a song like the Ocean is very, very true to form. It'll sound like it sounds on the record without the extra guitar tracks. It sounds like they played how it sounded when they played it live.
But just to nail this down, what is different is primarily is solos, etc. You're going to the show, You're if you close your eyes, theoretically you say, okay, this is led Zeppelin live. Yes, would you agree with that?
Yes, that's my goal. It works, though it succeeds.
How'd you come up with the idea?
Pow? Oh gosh, it's really kind of boring. It's boring, Bob, It's really boring. I mean, frankly, I just love the music of Led Zeppelin. I mean it was a pure act of indulgence. And I was between gigs. I had spent a time playing with Ronnie Specter. That had been my last gig, I guess, and I was in the mood to really dig down and get intense with the guitar.
I frankly hadn't really studied Jimmy Page. Before i'd studied Jimmy Hendrix, I'd studied a lot of jazz, I'd studied other players, but Jimmy was fascinating to me, and I really wanted to see if I could get into his zeitgeist, you know, So I thought, this will be fun. Why don't I just you know, if I could be in any band in the whole world, what would it be led Zeppelin? So I thought, you know, I took the leap like a little bit of an idiot and said,
why not, let's just play led Zeppelin? And I sort of set off to do it, and that was really it. Just I figured, we'll play a gig once a month. I'll get a couple of girls together, because I knew that it would be better with all girls, and maybe we'll make fifty bucks and have a beer and it'll be really fun and kind of get all rocks off. But once I started the band, it turned out to be a much more work than that, way much more work. And then the level of interest in the group was immediate.
This is twenty twenty four. I'm sorry, two thousand and four. It's been twenty years actually, and I realized I was onto something.
Let's start with the work. You say it was much more work? Can you go deeper there?
Oh? Yeah, okay. First I had to find three other people girls I wanted, girls I had been in one other all girl band that was amazing and very powerful, so I had no doubt that girls could do it and probably better. Where were they?
Oh well, we just have to stop there for one second. Why probably? Why probably better? Or was that just an offhand comment?
It was kind of offhand, but it was kind of the way I felt. I just my latter The one all girl band I had been in was called one nine hundred Bucks, and it was in the nineties, so it was kind of like a Jane's Addiction kind of band. We were compared to them a lot, and we were compared to and I'm telling you, Bob, it was the most powerful band I've ever played in. And I've played in a lot of bands with a lot of guys,
not that they can't do it. There was just something about that band and the intensity of it, So in my mind, I had no doubt girls could do it. Can they do it better? Well? Now I think that, But then you know, I think my band does it better.
I'm going to stop you for one second. Since led Zeppelin is an all male band, macho males here that they can't use the word girls. They must use the word women. From your perspective, What is your take on that.
Girls is fine with me? I don't. I have no interest in that kind of semantic volleyball. And I would take you to task on saying that led Zeppelin were macha, because I think they were pretty far from macho. I think there was a lot of posturing and a lot of sort of you know, peacock feathers, strutting and all the rest, and it was very sexual. But if you think about how led Zeppelin looked like girls kind of.
If you think about the beautiful texture and dynamics of their music, from gentle sort of Celtic folk through to a whole lot of love or something like that, it runs the spectrum. And I never consider it cock rock, as many people have said, or particularly macho, but somehow it has that reputation. I mean, maybe you can explain it.
No, I think those words came out of my mouth and I was doubting. I'm good for you for calling me on it. But let's go back to the narrative. So you say, Okay, I'm going to do this. First, I have to find three other girls. So what did you do?
I just word of mouth. I just asked everybody and I mean everybody, like people who were bankers, people who were in restaurants. I was like hairdressers. I just figured if I put the word out, someone will know somebody. And in fact, that's exactly how that band came together. Somebody saying, oh, my friend, my hairdresser in fact plays drums, and my brother went to a party and called me up and said, I think I found your singer like that, and that the drummer. I knew what the drummer from
the all girl band that I mentioned, and I called her. Initially, her name was Chip English, and she went off to play with the Luna Chiics, if you know who they are. But Chip is an incredibly intense drummer, and she joined up. She was gung ho for about a month and a half until she realized how much work it was, and then it was I'm not doing this. This is too much practicing. So I then, you know, found another drummer word of mouth. But yeah, it was all sort of.
It was a little magical, Bob, I got to tell you a little bit dark and magical.
From the moment you say I'm going to start looking till you find the other three players. How long a period of time is that.
I would say about a month and a half, two months.
Okay, So do you find the players? What's the next step?
Practice? Practice, practice, practice. It's kind of like location, location, location, I mean, and this is the thing. It's not can you play it technic glean? Okay, that's I mean, there is some of that. There is a lot of that too,
because it's crazy, some of some of Jimmy's riffs. I mean they're insane, right, So there is that, But when you begin to play the music, you realize how much else there is, how many other little details and in you and sort of musical innuendos and the feel and the way you have to lay back in all of those things and then play together. I mean, it's it's a lot. And you know, I think once we started going,
because we're girls and I'll say girls because we were girls. Yeah, because we were girls, I knew that we had to be twice as good as any guys, no question, because we would be met by instant skepticism, which we were, so we really you know, wood shedded is that the term. We just practiced for six months until we dared to play a gig.
Wow, So how did you decide you were ready.
Well, I think we got through a set list the songs we could play. There was power in the band. I mean we'd go to a rehearsal studio and people would sit outside the door and listen in, you know, including the guys that worked there. So we started to feel, Okay, this is cool. We got it. You know. We just had to jump off at some point. So there was also another little detail, and that is I was nine
months pregnant for our first gigs. Okay, yeah, so you know how Jimmy holds the guitar sideways like I have a side saddle. I was doing that. So I figured, let's let's get in a couple of gigs before I get this little creature out, and then we can go gung home. So that we had to be ready at some point to play a few gigs.
Okay, you do a couple of gigs, you have a child. How long until you start playing again?
About a month and a half.
Oh, very quickly. Okay, so yes, let's go back before you have the baby. Tell me about the first couple of gigs, how you get them. But the reaction is how you experienced it.
You know, we were a bit. It was a bit scary. But we played out of New York City because I didn't want to play in New York City yet. And there were these small clubs up in Connecticut because our singer at the time was from Avon, Connecticut. So we played this place called Sully's, and we played this place called the Hungry Tiger, and they were small clubs, and people went nuts, I mean instantly. And I'm telling you
those gigs were not very good. I mean, you know, by standards now, I mean there was a lot that was wrong with the sound, if I'm going to be picky and playing it correctly. But there was this energy and there was a desire to see four girls playing led Zeppelin. I mean it was just like everyone wanted didn't see it. So the clubs were full and people went nuts.
Okay, especially today you're talking two thousand and four. That's you know, when things really start to change from the old music business to the new music business. Hey, you formed the band, b rehearsed the band, See you're ready to do it. How'd you get the gigs? Did you personally call? Was there an agent? Was there a manager? How did you get the gigs?
Right? So? None of the above. Yes, I personally called the singer called because she knew the guy at Sully's or whatever. We had no agent, no manager, just the four of us with lots of opinions, and it was it was just like that, like any kind of baby band starting out, super fun. We were so excited, you know, when a hundred people showed up and we made two hundred and fifty bucks, I mean it was a lot,
three hundred dollars or something. And within I would say a year, we had an agent, and shortly after that we were approached by managers the whole gamut, and it was one point we had a business manager, we had PRP, we had everything. You know, it just sort of snowballed. But at first, now.
Okay, you have the baby, you start playing again, Walk me a little bit slower. How many gigs you're playing, How you get the agent, and how it starts to develop.
So mostly at the beginning, it was maybe one gig on a Saturday or Friday. Occasionally we would play. As we progressed, we would start to play match them up, you know, maybe we could play here and there. But that really started to come a little later once we had an agent. So they were kind of one offs. Sometimes we'd have to stay in a hotel or something, but they were all fairly local. So we rented a van, you know, you know, like a mini van. I don't
even know if they exist anymore. It's an suv or something. But and we piled our stuff in and drove ourselves up, played this crazy intense music for an hour and a half, then packed it up and drove home. So it was a lot. It was a lot, but it was so rewarding.
Okay, it started as a lark. When in your brain did it turn into more than a lark?
I think that pretty quickly. I realized that I had something on my hands. You know, I've spent years previous to this, early on in trying to crack the music business. I had a million original bands. You know. For a while I was out as a singer songwriter, I was playing another bands, and everyone was just trying to get to that point where they'd even get an agent. When les Zeppelin came out, everyone wanted to hear it. The promoters did not even ask when I mean, they just
it was an automatic. Yes, it was sort of like the easiest thing. And that was unusual. It was you know, when things are meant to happen, they just happened. There was no resistance. So I realized pretty fast, Wow, this is different. This has potential to grow a bit larger. Did I think it would become what it actually became. No,
not in a million years. I mean it's been twenty years I've been doing this, and we've had unbelievable experiences doing stuff that bands like ours should never have done.
I think, but what are you talking about?
Not never have done, not never have done? But would ha had never done? Is what I meant? Like playing major festivals like we played at the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the Play It Loud exhibit. We toured all over the world, Japan, we released records in Japan. Eddie krane Or produced our first record. You know, crazy surreal stuff like that. And of course Jimmy came to our gig.
It's just a lot of you know, Bonneroo. We played at Bonnaroo and it was I don't think there had been a cover band like ours at Bonnaroo ever, and it was tens of thousands of people.
Okay, so you start in two thousand and four, it's twenty twenty four. Has this been a continuous forgetting COVID which is its own world? Has this been a continuous upswing? Have there been ups and downs? And what is the status of the act today?
Ah? How much time do we have?
Time?
Okay, No, it's lots of ups and downs, lots, you know, like anything. I mean, various things happened that that involved just dips in the you know, we were soaring for a while, and then it just seemed to settle down. And then I had a complete lineup change, and that stopped me in my tracks. And I could have just stopped at that point, except I didn't think we were finished, so I had to get a whole new band together.
That band was great. That continued for a while, So I've had lineup changes along the way, and you know, I think generally speaking, we've been very lucky to be able to tour for twenty years and have audiences and make money and continue in that, and that's never really dipped. It's just that it's sometimes it may have been a little more you know, crazy and maybe popular than others, but a lot of stuff changed during the life of the band, Like where you used to have newspaper articles
in radio, which we did a lot of. All of that disappeared, and I think it took there was some time to get used to how to operate in this new sort of music business paradigm with online stuff and social media, and you know, I think a lot of people struggled. But we went through that change and it you know, it was a little bumpy here and there, but generally speaking, we managed to work. Right now, this band that's together has been together about six years, so
it's it's an incredible group. And you know, every lineup had its beautiful qualities. I think this lineup was, without doubt that best musicianship, no question, and it's very sophisticated.
Okay, bands have arcs. Was the fall off in publicity and radio because it was no longer a novelty or was it a change in the marketplace?
Change in the marketplace? There were no radio stations. They were dropping, dropping like flies. And if you toured somewhere in the country, you know, used to try to set up a studio radio thing you'd play, you know, going to California or something and then talk about it. But all of that stuff disappeared, you know, and newspapers it's sort of nobody if they did stories. Nobody was really reading newspapers much. So I think it was it wasn't us.
We just had to figure out a different way to market ourselves.
Okay, so you coasting at this point or are you continuing to market yourself in these alternative ways as we used to say.
We're We're trying, We're continuing. There was a learning curve, but yeah, we just we just kept plugging away. I'm very stubborn. I'm a very stubborn person, and I don't give up easily, you know, and I wasn't going to let the entire shift of the music business, you know, make me give up.
Well, okay, so let's start. Do you have a mailing list?
We did, but we now have a huge Facebook, Instagram, what else? A TikTok page we put out. You know, we do advertising. There is there is a following on bands in town. We have people following it, which is kind of a mailing list, so people can sign up for that. But we don't really do direct mail as it were, so much as we do these other things.
Okay, who is doing the posting? Who is coordinating this?
Well? Right now we have we're so lucky to have our wonderful jack of all trades and master of all Joan ch who is our bass player, keyboard player, mandolin player. She also plays a dozen other instruments. But she has a degree in marketing and social media, so she's very good at that, and she pushes us to make little, you know, shout outs and do silly things and give
her materials so that she can post it. And we also do advertising, and sometimes I hire social media people to really plug a show, you know, and we do our own advertising too.
So so tell me about first. You said you had to get a whole new band.
Why, Well, there were different reasons throughout the twenty some odd years, but basically I think, you know, people sort of run their course with a group, except for me, you know, the guitar player remains the same, I guess. But you know, this was my baby, so I don't ever get sick of it. I don't ever, you know, feel like it's too much work or whatever that is. So there were some of that, but some of the
players got pulled away by other things. Like one of our singers got a gig as a on Broadway as understudy, and it was great money and she took that, so you know, I totally understand that, But then we had to find another sing so it was things like that too. I'm kind of amazed that the band has lasted in its sort of some form or this form for so long, because bands don't last that long. I think we're around twice as long as Led Zeppelin actually were.
So okay, focusing back on band members, did you ever have to fire a band member?
Yeah, once, I sort of didn't fire. I didn't fire her exactly. I saw an avenue that I could take to make her quit and it worked. She had already quit five times, and I figured she'll quit again. There's no question. If she makes this request and I say no, she's bound to quit again because all of us had had enough. She was a little unstable and we'd had enough.
So okay. So one can say it's your band.
Well, yeah, it's my band, but everyone who plays in the band feels very passionate about it and they feel like it's their band as well. Because that's the nature of this music. You cannot play it without having that exist on stage. You can't just have backup players doing their bit. You have to be huddling in the middle of the stage, staring at each other, throwing riffs back and forth and being in the moment. And that is
a very intimate, involved way to play music. Far too rare these days, but that's what it is, and that's what I love most about it.
Okay, do you split the money equally?
No, but I pay for everything.
Okay. Can you make a living on lives Zeppelin? Yeah?
Yeah, it depends on what you consider a living. Could I could I find some very you know, cheap place to pull up and maybe run the band? It depends. I mean, now it's super expensive to tour, so it's uh, it's challenging sometimes, but generally speaking, yes, this is my this is my job.
So if you're not living on a subsistence level, how are you paying the bills other than lives? Zuppelin?
Well, I've you know, I had, I owned an apartment in New York City and you sold that. I had help from my ex for a while. I uh, just investments, being smart with the money, stuff like that. We've had times when it you know, we'll play private parties or something. You know, the money vascillates. It's it's okay, you know, I make money as a musician. I'm lucky.
Okay, the other three women, if you the band has been together for six years, are they living on the income from le Zeppelin or are they doing other things? And what might they be?
Yes, everyone has They all have other things that they do. So Marlaine our singer, she's an actress and she does voiceovers, so that's a big gig for her. She mainly does that. You know, this is the only band she's in at the moment. Joan the bass player, she has a bunch of other bands. And our drummer is I would say, well the drummer where with Now she has a full time job, but it's very flexible so she can work remotely. So everyone is secure. Plus they have good living situations.
They have partners, and their partners are okay. You know, they handle a lot too, So nobody in the band feels desperate for money. It's a good situation to have because it's not where everyone is up tight. This is not enough money to play, and you know we're not getting enough. I mean, you know, I'll take gigs where I lose money playing, but you know, you keep a band working, so it's okay. So I think everyone's okay with it, and they're not totally reliant at.
This point in time. How many gigs a year does les Zeppelin do?
I would say we averaged thirty five to forty gigs a year, give or take. It's mostly weekends.
And is it waxed in Wane? Where were there other years where you played more?
Yes? Absolutely. I mean there were times when we were doing European tours and we were out for a month, or we were in Japan, or we were in Australia, We've done you know where it was much more constant, lots more gigs and playing. You know, we had an agent who was booking us like mad and that that's really what you need. You know, someone's booking you like that. And I will say that when I started this band and in the early days, there were not so many
of these other bands playing led Zeppelin. Now there are a plethora of these bands. And it's sometimes hard to described to promoters what the difference is aside from us being all girls or all women as it were. They don't really know, and some of them don't really care because if they can just get people through the door and buy alcohol whatever, you know, whoever gives them the lowest price, but I was not dealing with that. Early on.
We were much more unique in our just existence. Forget about the way we played it, which I still believe we are unique in that way. But there just weren't so many of these bands, and it's made it tough for.
So how do you actually get the gigs today? Do you have an agent today?
Yes, we do have a great agent working for us. We are playing mostly theaters, and now that people know who we are, the promoters know who we are, so yeah, it's it's good. But you know you have to book it so that some other led Zeppelin band isn't down the block on the same night. You know that's happened, and then you know it's crazy.
Have you ever gone to see these other lads up win bands and say, you know they're better than we are.
No, you can answer that in a second. I've seen the big ones.
If your agent said, okay, I can book you on one hundred dates this year, would you say set it up? You say, oh, that's just too much work. I'm too old. I've been there, done that. I'm forty's pretty good.
I'd say, what's the money? No, good question, Bob I'd have to ask the girls what they wanted to do. You know, if they all were in, then I'd be in. I'm pretty game at this at this point, at any point. That's just you know. I love being on stage. I love meeting people. I love the sound of the guitar. I just you know, I I can't see giving it up. It's just part of who I am. And I'm happy to play. I don't know, I imagine myself not playing.
So okay, let's go back to the beginning. Where'd you grow up?
I grew up in Long Island, in a town called Great Neck, New York.
You see, your mother was a college professor. What did your father do for a living?
So my dad was a publisher and he worked at home. He had his own business and he put out all sorts of publications that they used to call employee relations magazines. He went to j school and this is what he did. So he had, you know, big businesses like Bloomingdale's or a big you know, King Cullin, or he had a lot of supermarkets and Hurts, you know, was a client, but he would put out their in house publications. So it was kind of like a house organ You know,
for the employees to read, they'd read about themselves. They have stories about what's happening in this store that store. And it was a good business. And he did the whole thing himself.
And how many kids in the family just too other and myself, your brother older or younger, what's he up to.
He's a little younger. And he was a violinist, very serious violinist, so also a musician, and now he's writing for television. He's writing US series for MGM. Plus if you've ever seen The Godfather of Harlem, he's a writer on that.
Okay. So if he's a serious violinist and you're a musician, was there music in the house. There must have been some driving force if you're both into music.
There was music all the time. I mean, my mother was a pianist, but not any professional, but she wasn't bad, you know, she was pretty good. And my dad loved music but didn't play anything. He played stuff for us, like there was a lot of classical music mostly that they liked. They did not like rock and roll. I was on my own with that. But the one thing that my dad played for me from when I was a wee little child was Django Reinhart from as long
as I can remember. He loved Jango Reinhart, and I grew up listening to that, and I still think he's the greatest guitarist who ever lived.
So what point do you start playing an instrument?
Well, I asked for a guitar at five and got it for my sixth birthday. So I played it a little bit, and then I put it under the piano, and then I took it back out from under the piano at about eight years old and learned a few chords and I was off. That was it?
Well, a little bit slower. What do you you know? Did you take lessons? What was the music you were listening to? How'd you learn how to play?
All by ear? No lessons?
So if you're eight years old, what are you playing?
Oh? I was playing folky music like James Taylor. I was getting into finger picking and beatle songs and stuff like that. I was interested in. Yeah, and it was fairly easy for me, you know, so, so I wasn't frustrated with it, which is why I kept doing it.
And at some point, when I was a tween, I guess they called them a tween, I did go for the summer, I went for two summers to this place called the Guitar Workshop, which was out on Long Island, and it was kind of this hippie commune of guitar players. No real rock and roll, but a lot of classical, a lot of finger picking, a lot of blues. And there was one guy there who played jazz. And the second I went for just the summer, it was kind
of like you know, the Guitar Institute. It was just a cram eight hour day of playing different classes and technique and ear training and stuff. And when I heard this guy play jazz, that was it. I just signed up for the whole jazz program and that's what I studied. So I did that for two summers.
And you were how old when you do that?
I would say, thirteen fourteen.
Okay, that's the summer. You come back home. What are you playing at home? Are you interested in forming beans? What's going on?
I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be Joe passed. I was like, I wasn't forming bands really well. I played in the high school jazz band. I was doing that. I played with a few kids who were into jazz, but I was not playing rock, and I was not doing that. I was a real jazz head, which is funny but actually turned out to be really helpful later on, I think with playing led Zeppelin actually, But yeah, it wasn't until I got to college that I started getting into bands.
Okay, you ended up going to Brown in Rhode Island, so one would assume you were a good student.
I guess you could assume that, although you know, I wasn't the greatest student in the world, but I was good enough, and I had a lot of, as they say, other things on my resume, as it were. I'd worked on the hill on Capitol Hill for two summers for congressman, which nobody did in high school. And I did that in high school. And I was a writer, so I could I still actually writing is the other thing I do. So I could write my application pretty well. And I just had these and then I had jet you know,
I had the guitar play. I just had a lot of different things, and it appealed to that to schools, as it were. But yeah, I was all right, My grades were all right.
How'd you end up working on Capitol Hill?
Well, there was a congressman in our town that my parents had helped write some of his campaign speeches. It's a Democrat from New York called Lester Wolfe, and we met one day. I mean I got introduced to him, actually at a temple. He went to the same temple, and I just asked him and he said, yeah, your send me a letter. And I did. I sent him a letter and I got in and then I loved it. They loved me. So I went back the next summer.
Okay, today, are you disillusioned with politics or you think there's a future?
Oh boy, I'll tell you. I just kind of stopped reading newspapers or listening to anything for a good long while. But now I'm like a political junkie again. I just can't. I can't not check in with it every hour or something. But it's a good question. I think it's a really dark time. But one thing I will never forget. When I was an intern on the Hill, sometimes the interns got to go to these presentations or speakers would come.
And one of the speakers who came to speak to us, he was already quite sick and was fairly old at that point, was Hubert Humphrey. So I'm dating myself a little, but Hubert Humphrey came and talked to all the interns, and I'll never forget it because he said, sort of, this thing goes. Don't lose hope in this country or in this system. It's going to seem like at times when it's beyond help, but you've got to believe in it. It is a good system, it does work. Don't lose
hope in it. And I remember that. I'll never forget it because I thought, Wow, that's a guy that could have easily lost hope in it, because you know, he lost a bunch of time. It was very frustrating career for him. So I have to believe that it'll come back around.
Okay, So you go to college. Do you have any idea you want to make your living in music? What are you thinking when you go?
Well, I was sort of I was kind of hedge in my bets a little like I majored in international relations because I was interested in all that stuff. But really, deep down, I just wanted to be a rock star. I mean, I'll just say it, that's what I wanted. It sounds childish, but that's was my dream, you know. So at the so I sort of set off to do it after I graduated.
Before you graduated, you say you started playing in bands in college. Tell us about that.
Well, I played. I played in a sort of new wave band. It wasn't very good, but we thought we were good. And you know, we wrote all the music. We did some covers like I don't know Joe Jackson covers or what else did we do? Even Born to Be Wild. We had a weird mix of things. But we looked amazing. We really looked great, Like we had the coolest looking people on the campus, without doubt. But you know, black leather pants and spiked heels and I was the only girl that one of our players had
a bouffontaire do I mean? We really look good. We sounded eh. But all those guys went off to law school after I wanted, you know, let's let's try it, let's try it, but they just they all went to law school. So that's when I graduated. I went to England.
Okay, a little bit slower. You're a girl.
There's a lot, there's a lot, Bob, Yeah.
Okay, you're a girl. You say in this band, you know, we hear all about sexism, opportunities. You're a guitar player. Did you find you know, obstacles in your way or you just another guitar player and you found opportunities.
I have to say that in that environment, certainly, at a school like that, there wasn't sexism, not overtly, not from my bandmate. I was the lead guitarist. There was another guitar player, so no, and I was the guitar player in this stage band. That was just an audition. It was later and before it's certainly in high school. I had to prove myself and you know, everyone assumed
I couldn't play. And there was tryouts for the stage band in high school, and some snotty kid was, hey, you could play rhythm and I'll play lead, and I just sort of looked at him like, well, all right, we'll see. And sure enough, you know, the audition came and came around and he took his solo and it was all blues and not even good blues over jazz changes.
And then I just sort of, you know, laughed to myself in my seat because when it came to me, I knew how to play jazz, so I was, you know, da nadauata and his face was just so things that happened a lot, but not at school a little later. Even in England, you know, there were some of it, but it didn't stop me. I mean I figured out just they'll hear me play and that'll be that end of conversation. So I wasn't deeply affected by it.
Okay, you graduate from college, you see, my goal is to be a rock star. Yes, so tell us about why you went to England, what the path was, what was in your head and what actually happened.
Oh okay, so much to my parents' chagrin to take that beautiful degree and go to England to be a rock star. Fine, you know, but they were very look, they didn't like the idea, but they supported it once I was determined and they knew they weren't going to stop me. So I came over all by myself with a Les Paul in a hardcover case, schlepping it around
because it was heavies and a suitcase. And I had a friend who was here because I had done a semester abroad in political science with a program with the London School of Economics. So I did make a friend. I stayed with her for a while and then I found a cold water flat somewhere and started auditioning for bands, and I also had a few letters of introduction so that I ended up working for a literary agent part time, so there was a little money coming in, so that's
what I did. I joined a band and it was a super progressive, crazy intricate band with two scotsmen and I think it was called The Death's Heads Piano Players or something, but it was in German. Why I joined this band, I don't know, but it was very challenging
and it got nowhere. So eventually, on that along that path, after about a year or so, I did start it's a story, but I did start writing for the music press and I became a rock journalist quite seriously, and that kind of became my second track for a good long while. So I was running for the enemy as a freelancer. And what year we in, Well we're in the eighties.
Okay, so we're in the eighties. You're writing for the memy. What's happening with your goal to become a rock star?
Well, that band fizzled out, That was no good. So I ended up in you know, another band or that had promise but was again it's one of these stories. Where it implodes because the people are so nuts. We actually had some sort of publishing deal with CBS, but we went to make a record and that the singer showed up and he was so drunk he could I mean, he just couldn't sing. And the producer, who was Bruce Thomas from Elvis Costello's band, Yeah, he walked out on
the session because this guy was such a clown. Got we got him back, but it took some doing. But that just you know, that didn't We played a few big gigs and opened for some people, but that also went puff. And then what happened is I was writing a lot, but I needed a work permit and the nmy said that they would get one for me. So I left the country because they had to stay out of the country for a while, you know, And at
that time it was tough in England. You know, they were really crunching down on people coming over and taking jobs and it was I was a little paranoid about that, so it was hard to get in. People were questioning you all of that. So I stayed in the States for a while waiting for this work permit, and basically it never came through. So I stayed in New York City doing what writing, Mostly writing. I played in a few bands here and there. I started to play myself
as a singer songwriter. I was kind of sick of band, so I went out kind of Billy Bragg style, you know, just with a guitar, guitar and my vocal and I wrote a bunch of songs, a whole bunch of songs, and I kind of played around New York City, mostly to very few people. And I had, you know, promises from this guy and promises from that. You know. It was that kind of thing. And didn't you know, I had my own band, I had other bands, and I
just did that for years. But then there got to be a point when I kind of got sick of I really I burned out on it. It was too much rejection. I had too much energy. The other band people were too unreliable, and I just kind of stopped for a couple of years. I put my guitars in the closet and I stopped, and I started on a novel, which I wrote. But then I saved by Joey Ramone who called me up. And I hadn't played the guitar
in a long time. And Joey liked my playing because he had seen me with that all girl band I mentioned before, and he was looking for a guitar player to join Ronnie Spector's band because he was working with her, and he thought I'd be good because he wanted youth energy in her band rather than just side musicians. So I flew to Yeah, I flew in, and I was living in California at the time, actually in San Francisco with my boyfriend who then became my husband, and I
played with Ronnie for a couple of years. It was fantastic and I was so happy playing. It's like it was like a gift. I had been given this gift of music again that I could play and be happy and not worry about if I was going to get a record deal, and not worry about this, and just have fun on stage. And it was really fantastic. And I think that that whole experience sort of fed this les Zeppelin thing because I just wanted to do it out of pure joy and love with the music. That's it,
that's all. I had no other agenda and no other plans, and I think that's why it worked.
Okay, you graduate from college, you want to become a rock star.
Ultimately, that sounds so cliched, Bob oh no no.
No headline, no no, no. People don't understand it. Most talent is fifty percent the raw desire, you know, and especially someone who's educated. Whatever. I mean, it's a dream. But my question ultimately is when you decide to put the guitar back in the case, how how hard was it to give up the dream?
Impossible? Nearly impossible. That's why I wrote a novel. I had to funnel it into something else that I did that was creative that I loved. And I hadn't written a novel before. I'd written lots of stories and some short stories and stuff, but I just dove into that. It was like trying to get over a death. I know that sounds really sort of hyperbolic, but it was like something died and I just didn't know what to do. So I wrote, and that was the tonic. It was the only tonic for me. Really.
How old were you at that point and what ended up happening with the novel?
Oh, I can't tell you how old I was, but you can guess, but you know old enough the novel. I had an age four it's a pretty good novel. I mean I did get a very you know, fairly good literary agent and she helped me head it edited a little, and she sent it out. She didn't send it out a lot. She sent it out maybe two eight to ten publishers and they liked it, but no one bit. So the novel is still waiting to be read,
and I will. I will get it out there at some point, but I'm working on another novel now, so I'm focused on that.
Okay. At this distance, do you still feel as positive about the novel or you say, now there was some distance, Well, it really wasn't that great.
So I'm very, very very hard on myself with everything I do. I mean writing less so, but I was very hard on myself with my guitar playing hard. I still am. I think it's a good novel. I let someone read it recently and she really loved it, so I think it's I think it. My mother thought it was a great novel, so I'll take.
That, okay. And what was it about?
It was about it was kind of a dual story of well, it's a first novel, right, so there's a little bit of you know, life experience in there. But it's about a girl who finds that who's in a mental institution because she's driven crazy by her pursuit of being in the music business. Yeah, it comes in, It comes in big time. But it's also about one of the nurses in the mental hospital and her whole life, and the two of them interact and the nurse in
a nuts. The nurse is bereft of any intense, beautiful, adventurous experience, and she starts to feed off this patient who tells her all these stories and she gets very into it.
Okay, we're in this story. Do you meet the gentleman that becomes your husband? And how hard was it to move to San Francisco And what was that like?
Yeah, so I met him. You will laugh at this. I will meet him. While I was writing for the Enemy, and I was in New York and I was sent to review or I pitched it one or the other. I was set to review a gig by the Dead Kennedys, who were playing in New York City. Okay, so I went to this show which was at this place called the World, and it was crumbling. It was like a crumbling ballroom and I was standing at the back and
coming up the steps and the banister. It wasn't me who did it, but the banister behind me at some point fell off the wall like and just like half the wall fell down, and this was one of the guys that went to rush and help with it. I saw him. He looked like someone I knew, so I was kind of looking at him, and he looked back at me and we just started talking. You bought me a ginger ale.
So how did you end up moving to San Francisco?
Well, so this guy, you know, we were friendly. He was very easy going at the time, and it was it was nice and we'd go to gigs and stuff like that. So we were compatible in that way eventually. And I have to say this, it's when you live in New York. A lot of relationship decisions are made because of apartments, like who can afford an apartment by
themselves and who needs a roommate? And if you happen to be seeing somebody and you need an apartment, which is what happened, you are then thrust into this mega decision do I move in with this person? And you know, everyone knows once you move in with someone, it's pretty hard to move out, So that's kind of what happened to us, and we just stayed together and we didn't
get married or anything. But he was a union organizer or would be, and he did that for a while, and then he went back to college to finish his degree. He never had his degree. Smart guy, but never So he went to Columbia, got his degree, did so well that he got into law school. And the law school he got into was Stanford, and I thought he should go to Stanford rather than Chicago. I don't know if that was a good choice, but San Francisco was nicer
weather than Chicago. I think I was more interested in being there, and he let you know, so we went there. That's how I ended up in California and stayed there for a while.
Okay, when you're playing in Ronnie Spector's band, are you living in California or do you move back to New York. I was.
I was going living in both places. I would fly in. My parents had an apartment that they in the village, and I could stay there. So I had a way to do it. And I wasn't making any money because you know, he was not going to be her manager, was not going to pay my airfare, and I didn't want to make it seem it was too hard for me to do the show because I was having so much fun and it was such a gift that I
just wanted to play. So I'd fly myself back and forth and basically break even, but it was super fun. So I was kind of by coastal.
How long did you play for Ronnie Specter and what did you learn there?
I played with her for a couple of years and we had a couple of amazing shows. We played at a G eight conference for like the leaders of the Western world. That was amazing. You know, Bill Clinton clapping to be my baby. It was just something to behold. We went to Japan, just a lot of fun stuff. I learned a lot from her. We had some gigs here and there where they were small clubs, and you know, Bob, you know how big a star she was. She was huge.
The ronettes were huge, And there she was in some club where she had a change behind a screen or something, and it could not have been fun for her to do that, but I'm telling you, when she got out there, no matter where she was, she gave it everything and she was amazing. Her voice was still amazing. She gave it people a show and she turned up and I just thought, damn, you know, that's that's a big lesson. Doesn't matter who's it out there, you just that's your
job and you do it. And she was a real show person, you know, she was great. So I learned about that too, how to work a stage a little, you know.
So how did that end?
Well, we went to Japan, and after that I kind of was getting the feeling that they were sick of being uncertain and flying, you know, worrying whether I could fly from here or from there because I had a fly you know. So they wanted a more New York based band, and they probably wanted to pay somebody less, to be honest with you whatever. And coincidentally, I was pregnant the first time, so it all worked out. I was done with it anyway.
So how'd you end up back in New York?
Well, I thought it would be better to be in New York to be because I had this amazing little kid, and my parents had no grandchildren, and I missed New York. San Francisco was you know, not doing it for me. I was done. I was over. It wasn't mine.
Yet yes, but you're involved with this man who's going to Stanford law school. As he moved back to New York.
Oh, he was done. He was done with law. With law school. He was working in a firm, and he got a job at a big New York firm, which didn't last long. But that's what happened. So he was willing, although I think he didn't. I think he didn't really want to leave. And I think that that and I kept asking him because I could tell, but he consisted he was fine. But I think that was one of the reasons our relationship sort of went a different way. He should have stayed.
Who blew the whistle? Ultimately him? Were you?
I think you know.
It was no, never mutual.
No, but we grew apart. We grew apart. I probably realized at first. He realized it pretty quickly and even said it to me. So I don't know how to answer that question.
It was important. Yeah, yeah, So are you having this child sitting steering in four a wall saying God, I got to do something. What is the genesis of the thought? And then why is it led Zeppelin?
Okay, this is the great, great, great question. So without trying to be too wordy. I have a problem with that sometimes. I never wanted children, ever, not interested. In fact, I kind of thought it was a feminist thing, like women were destroyed by children they'd have. I had friends that went to medical school and business school and then they had a kid and threw it all out the window. So I was frightened of that whole thing. I thought, you become some sort of zombie, a kid zombie, and
that's it. Everything is, all your interests are gone, your life is over all you can about is this toddler or something. So it never interested me. But at the end of the day, I think I felt, do I really want to go through life without any kids at all? And I wasn't sure. So not being sure was the sticker. The fact that I wasn't sure meant I either had a move or it be made. This is the decision would be made for me. So I said, all right, we'll see what happens. Let's just see, and bingo, that's
what happened pretty fast. So I was frightened to death when I you know, when I realized I was going to have this kid, I was scared because I thought this was going to happen to me zombie land. Well, guess what I have this little guy, and I have to say he was a great zen baby. He was amazing. But I did not feel trapped. In fact, lo and behold, the exact opposite happened. I felt empowered by this thing, totally more empowered than I'd ever felt. So I would
have to say that just to cut to your question. No, I I was thoroughly enjoying my kids, but also empowered to do things that I wanted to do, and I felt I could do them both. It was a lot of entery, it was difficult, but I did do them both. So No, I wasn't staring at four walls. I was totally engaged. It's just that this thing was still there. I wanted to do it, and I felt good about everything I fell. Oh, I'll cut a bunch of things out, like spending time with people who don't interest me, and
I'll form a band. You know, it's like you sort of have to give and take a little.
Okay, how long from that thought until you settle on the concept of leeds Zeppelin.
Well, let's see, my first was about three and we were in New York, so he was two and a half two and a half ish three, so we were pretty settled in you know that we had some help. So it seemed like I could go play a gig. Why not play a gig on a weekend. And you know, my partner was very he was supportive. He wasn't threatened
by it or anything. He thought why not. It was so it was supposed to be some little, you know, fifty buck a week, you know thing or fifty buck a month, little escapade where I'd have to work really hard to practice, but it would be fun. And then it turned into something more. And then you know, I had to decide whether I was going to keep doing it or bow out because I had kids. But I didn't bow out. I thought, why bow out, I'll just take them with me, or I'll work around it, or
I'll go weekends. It didn't occur to me that I couldn't do it all, I guess, and I think a lot of people make that assumption. They think, oh, I can't do that because I have kids. It's like, well, sure you can. You just you know, you have to have the energy to do it, but sure you can. So that's kind of how it was. Really.
So you decide you want to do something. Do you decide on other things or is it immediately less Zeppelin?
Well, this was the thing that was. I just wanted to play. I had the itch to play, so that's why I went in that direction. I wanted to not at that point be Jimmy Page that came later, but I was enamored of his let's just say genius and I wanted to get those riffs. I wanted to dig into what he was doing, which was so encompassing of so many things. That's all I just wanted to play.
Okay, you decide you want to play. It could have been a Beatles cover band, could have been an e Loo cover band. How long and what was the process signing no, it's going to be led Zeppelin or was that a very.
First Okay, so no, it couldn't have been any of those others, because I know this is going to sound weird. I had no idea what a tribute band was. I'd never been in one. I didn't know they existed. To be honest, I know that it's only after I started this band that another tribute band wrote I don't consider us a tribute band, which we can get into in a minute, but wrote to us saying, hey, welcome to the world of tribute bands or whatever it was. And I was horrified because this was not what I had
in mind. I did not decide, oh, I'm going to play someone's music and go out there and maybe make money. What music can I play? It was totally the reverse. It was like, I just want to be in led Zeppelin.
That's it. Okay, okay, so you were a led Zeppelin fan. Yeah, how did you become a led Zeppelin fan?
Well, honestly, it wasn't until a little later, or I was not. I had some of their albums growing up, but I wasn't a huge fan until I don't know, I guess maybe thirty in my thirties or something, when I was starting to get more exposed to their music through some band members, and I just couldn't believe. And then and then I started listening to it, and my mother in law bought me the box set for Christmas, and that was it for me. You know, all the albums.
That was the rabbit hole. I just I just fell into the rabbit hole and I just thought, you know, this music is kind of a lot better than everything else I've been listening to I've been playing, it's just a lot better. And I just was absolutely hooked. And that's what and I became more obsessed with it.
Okay, so you get these other three girls together. LED's up when not all their music sounds the same? How do you decide what you're gonna play?
Ah? Good question. Well, some of some of it was, you know, let's start with the basics, let's let's let's take the canon and do this sort of necessary songs, and then you had to look at them and see if it was possible to do now. Luckily, and this was a bit of magic just when I was starting this band, that How the West was one CD and DVD came out. It was like a godsend because the DVD was like a playbook literally to how they were
handled it as four people. So I I could see what lines Jimmy picked to play out of the ten guitar layers. We could see how they finished songs that trailed out on a record, what do they do? We had this whole guy set before us, like you know, the Book of Mormon or something, so that was really handy.
So a lot of the songs we started with were those songs that we could sort of have a guide too, but it was a pretty basic setlist and if we found stuff was too hardly, you know, like we didn't start off playing four sticks or Achilles Last Stand or something. We got to that eventually, but much later.
Okay, As you say, you're a four piece and always have been without extra players, how hard and how long did it take you to learn to play those parts? You know, you're carrying almost a complete band. It's essentially a trio with a lead singer.
That's right, and I've always loved that. You know, Cream was my other favorite band. It is it's basically a power trio, which means the guitar it's totally naked. I mean you're playing solos over just bass and drums most of the time. There's no rhythm guitar, there's nothing, there's no safety net man, nothing just out there and it's formidable. But you know, that's what got me, That's what intrigued me. I wanted to be that kind of play. I wanted
to do that. It was. It was hard, though, it took me just I don't know if I could put a time on it, because I think I'm still learning to be honest with you. But I think about five or six months before I felt I could really step on a stage and deliver something with integrity. I didn't want to just play it. It had to have integrity in its other dimensions. So maybe six months and then it took a few years of really digging down to
keep getting better and better and better. But I've watched, you know, my own playing change, and you know, it would stay at a certain level and then leap up a little, and then leap up a little. So it's just kind of like that. That's the way it is. And I still think I can get better, you know, I'm hoping.
Okay, you know, today we have the internet that goes deep into how they made all these records, but you're starting before that becomes a really big thing. I mean you're listening to the records. Yeah, to a degree, you have how the West was won, and you could see what guitar is playing, But how do you figure out how to actually replicate those sounds with the guitar, with the effect, with the amps, with all the other elements that go in.
Ah that honestly, by ear, I sat there like an bloodite with the CD or the record or there was Spotify. Well, I don't even know what it was on. I could get it somewhere. I don't remember how I kept repeating it, but I would literally sit and repeat it and play it and backwind and replay it, and you know, just over and over and over, and then I'd start to hear something different in it, so I'd realize, Aha, there's that, and aha, there's that, and he's wiggling the note here
not there. Like it was all just literally by ear and a little bit by watching. But you know those videos that they're not all on his fingers. You can't learn it by it's all over the place. So and I used a little bit of tablature to get me oriented. But a lot of the time the tablature is wrong, so you listen to it and it's like, no, that's not it, you know. But that's how I play by ear, And it's very old fashioned, but I think it's the way that Jimmy Page learned to play or and Eric
Clapton and all those guys. So it was kind of in the style of what they did. It was really not very technical technically, going.
Okay, you're learning by ear since you went to this summer camp for two years. Did you learn how to read music?
Well? Not really. No, I can't really read music. I can read a little piano music on the right hand, because I took some piano lessons when I was little. But maybe if I really tried to get it back, I could read a little. But music on the guitar, like if it's not tab, it's just insanely hard because there are so many positions for the same notes, and that would be useless to me, absolutely useless. The TAB I could get through a little bit, but I don't read it that well either.
Okay, how much equipment do you need to replicate Jimmy Page's sound? I mean he had the last ball, he had the Gibson with the two necks. How much did you need and how much do you have?
So this is kind of a trick question. As I said, I had the basic thing. I did not have all of his stacks. I had one martial amp. It was a JCM eight hundred because I could overdrive it. And I do have a Plexi as well, but it's it doesn't have a master volume, and it's just way too loud. And to get Jimmy sound, it has to be way too loud. I mean, it's got to be up at eight.
I know what his settings are, and it's just and his amp was more beefed up, so you're not really going to get that tone he's going to get unless you can do that. So you have to just sort of get as close as you can by overdriving it. But you can't overdrive it that much because he didn't play like modern guitars. He didn't play with all that dirt and overdrive, which basically means you can play with your left hand and you don't even have to pick
the note. You know, most modern guitarists are so in this sound sort of whirlwind that it's just a very different tech style. I mean, Jimmy was playing all of it. It's super hard. So you've got the amp, and I just copied what he had, which was not much. It's basically a wah it's I had like this Kate. I had this Klon type pedal to push it a little, a Phase ninety, an mx R a Phase ninety, and
I did have one other. What did I have that's really I mean, that's mostly it and an echoplex, sorry, an echoplex, and I had the old echoplex, the tape echoplex and a theremin. Yeah, I did his whole thing. But that is basically what you have to work with. If you want to sound like Jimmy Page, you have to you have to learn to play the notes like he played them, and that is how you sound like him. No equipment's going to make you sound like it.
So how'd you end up working with Eddie Kramer?
Again? It was another like crazy balls out steph moment where I said to our manager we were going to make a record, and we were making lists of producers, and I just said, you know, I always used to joke with the girls about Eddie Kramer. Why don't you know Eddie Kramer Shoot's going to come and produce a record? And they'd laugh at me. So I said to Alan, who was our manager, go, I don't know, should you
ask him? He goes, I'll ask him. Couldn't hurt to ask, right, So he called him up and he asked him, and Eddie checked out our stuff and he thought, I guess we were good enough. So I'm sitting in my office one day with a guitar and the phone rings as they did then, and I picked it up and he goes, oh, hello, it's Eddie Kramer, and you know, I nearly fell off my chair because bingo, that was it. I just said skin and he did it. So he came to New York.
We put him up and he produced this record, this first record.
What was it like? Would you learn working with Eddie Kreamer?
I'll say there were some surreal moments, you know how on Physical Graffiti, which we have had discussed where in a Black Country Woman before that track, there's the you know Robert going, oh, there's Eddie. You got to get the those planes off right? He says this thing right, So we would joke about that. But do you know what it felt like to have that voice in the control room saying rolling I mean like literally rolling nuts?
Right?
It was just like I'd entered some other dimension of notting a crazy Zeppelin vortex. The one thing I will tell you, And he was great. He was very nice to us. Maybe not so nice to some of the other people in the studio, but he was nice to us. That's all I'll say about that. But there was one day when and this was a devil death day, when I realized it was the guitar solo day, that I was going to go in just me and Eddie and I was going to play all the solos, and I'm
telling you, Bob, I nearly threw up. I mean I was like, am I out of my mind? I was like, what am I thinking? This guy sat with Jimmy Hendricks for his old career, this guy sat with Jimmy Page and whoever else, And I'm going to go in and I'm going to play the solos. I was like, I'm out forget about. This is crazy. And I don't know what I did push ups or something, and I had no choice. I had to go and do it. So I went in, you know, scared to death, and it
was just me and him. We spent an hour or two finding the right amp because Jimmy didn't use the Marshall to play the solos, you know, the supro maybe some other stuff. But we found this crazy little amp which was a vox Nova, which is not a guitar amp at all. It's actually an amp for horns, if that makes any sense. It's a weird little amp, but it sounded great. You turn it all the way up and it just had the right crunch and something about
the tone. So I basically we chose that, and I think the first song I tried to play was Communication Breakdown. So I went into this. I wed in and there's Eddie Kramer and there's Roland, you know, and I just played the solo and I actually played it okay, and he stopped after it. He goes, come in here. I think that's it. I'm like, you don't want me to do it again. He's like, come out here, and he played it. He goes, you did it, that's it. One take.
He goes, I'll tell you something. He said. I wasn't sure you could do this. He goes, but you can do it. So after that we were good.
Okay, tell me about meeting Jimmy Page.
Oh okay, this could be a whole podcast and of itself. So it took ten years before I actually met Jimmy, which is probably good actually, because I was so in Jimmy world that, you know, it's probably good. It took ten years, but I met him at the when I didn't know I was really going to meet him. It was the last minute. My friend had an extra ticket. My friend who knows Jimmy and who's worked with him
and is a con vintage guitar dealer. He had an extra ticket to the premiere of Celebration Day in New York at the zig Field Theater. Did I want to go? Damn? Yeah, this is a half an hour before the show or something. I didn't even you know, and I realized I might actually meet Jimmy, who knows. I don't know, but I had to get dressed, throw something on race down there we saw the thing, you know, Jimmy and Robert, they all came in the room, and just then being in
the room was amazing. But then we got to go to the after party and I thought, okay, you'll probably walk in. I'll get a chance finally to meet him. So Jimmy finally comes in after about an hour. I've been hanging out with Joan Jet at the bar, talking about women in music, which is very interesting, and about you know, being a girl guitar player. So Jimmy comes in and this friend of mine grab me and says, we got to get him before he gets lost in
this crowd. So we pulls me up, shoves me in front of him and says, Jimmy, this is Steph from Les Zeppelin, and Jimmy stops and he turns and he looks at me and he's like, oh wow, great to finally meet you, like, oh my god, thank god, like he actually knows the band and is big hug, right, big hug. And we stand back and I say, Jimmy, you know, I got to tell you, and I don't know how I thought of this. He said, it's really hard being you and he just laughed and he goes,
it is. I said, yeah it is. He goes, yeah, I know it is. And we had this crazy life because it was he knew I meant more than just playing the guitar and all this stuff. It was everything about, you know, being the Jimmy person. And then he said to me, you know what you're doing out there is really great. It's stunning, especially the first album, and I was, oh my god, he knows the albums like this is.
And then I got to say to him how much his music meant to me and how much love it's brought into my life, and we just stared at each other like love birds. I was fuck because we both have the same love, you know, led Zeppelin, and it was just an instant. Yeah, we were soulmate, we're friends. This is it. So then he came around the room.
I was like done, I didn't need anything after that, but he did come around the room and someone else dragged me over and said, Jimmy, you got to see her band, and we both I was like, no, he knows, it's fine, it's fine. But then we talked for like fifteen twenty minutes and it was it was great. It was really just he was so friendly and it was clearly we liked each other. And I told him, I said, Jimmy, you know we we got you got to see us. We have to come to England. Goes yeah, I know,
you guys. Last time you were here, I wasn't there. I wasn't in town. I said, well, we'll come again. So after that night, first thing I did is I called this guy in England who was trying to book us a tour who wildly underpaid. I mean, I couldn't even do it because it was no money in it. But I called him and I said, look, we got to come to England. You know, we got to do it. Can you can you arrange it? And he came back the next day with a small tour which which started
off with the Isle of Wight. We played at the Isle of Wight. It was it was like I'm telling you, it was nuts. And the next day this is a whole funny story, but you know, I've been I've been sending Jimmy messages or his office telling him when we were going to be there, and he didn't respond to me at that point, so I didn't know if he
even knew. But we were coming back from the Isle of Wight and we were in the van on the way to London where we played at this place called the Garage or the Garage, and I open up my little flip phone, you know how it used to be where when you're overseas you have to get one of those Motorola flip phones where you poke at the at the anyway. And I see a message and the message
says love Jimmy XOXO. And I look at it and I'm exhausted, right, and I say love Jimmy, and my drummer Lisa, looks over at me and says, steph Jimmy, and I was like, oh oh, and I like go into the messages, and sure enough there was this whole other message and he forgot to sign his name, so the one message said love Jimmy. But then there was a whole other message and it was going on and on about how he was me, Oh, I hope it's going well and blah blah blah, like to try to
come and I'm reading it and I'm freaking out. And then I try to start messaging him back. And as I'm poking away at this phone ABC D housing and my hands are sort of shaking, the phone rings. The phone rings in my hand, so I look at it and Lisa again, my goes, Steph, answer the phone. It's like, this is so funny and so silly, it's very Monty Python it. So I answered the phone, and of course it's it's him. Hey, Hello, is this step It's it's Jimmy Page right. I'm like, oh hi, and the whole van,
the whole crew silence. And he's a little bit ticked off that I didn't answer him. You know, it's like I didn't know he texted me, because you know, I called you or I texted you, but I said.
Oh, I know I did.
I didn't see it, and blah blah blah blah. So anyway, he's talking and he's telling me about how he's in the studio he was working on those big three three set reissues that you know, was one, two, and three, and he was in the studio mastering all that stuff. So well, finally, after about ten minutes of a conversation, because well, I'd like to try to come, and uh so, maybe just put put me on the guest list, and he gave me his friend's name goes put us put
me under this name plus. So I did that. Okay, great, Well, I hope you see you later. I said, come anyway, even if it's you know, halfway done. Great, bye, hang up the phone, and they all look at me, and then there's this like, you know, eruption of So that was I don't know if you even asked me this question, but I'm telling you the whole thing. But then I you know, then I have the problem of knowing he might show up and having to play for him. Finally,
so that was that was formidable. Well did he show up, Yes, he showed up. I knew he'd show up. I kind of knew, and so I was again, it was kind of like going into the studio with Eddie Kramer, right, I was, Okay, Jimmy is going to be in the audience, and I have to play his solos in front of him. And you know, Bob, I took this all very seriously. This is not just oh, let's play he led Zeppel. I mean I was hook line and sinker. I was in.
I was a lifer in this stuff. I was so serious about getting it all right, kind of like him. You know, it's not easy being Jimmy how to be right. So I realized I had two choices. I could freak out and not be able to go on stage and totally fuck it up right. Or I could just tell myself, you know, I play as if he's in the audience every night, so what difference does it make if he's
out there? And that is the little lie that I told myself, and I gave the band a big pep talk, and we were all nervous and we were all freaking out. We didn't know if he had come. So we go out and we're playing this show and we're all hyped up. It is super energetic, and I think, excuse me, I think it was during days and confused when he actually walked in. So I'm up there with the bow, right, you just have to imagine this. I'm doing a bo solo and Jimmy is in the back and I did
not know this, but the other girls did. They told me later. Everyone else did, and they're like, oh my god, he's out because they saw his white hair. You know he's out there. Oh shit, don't tell Steph. That was like, just don't tell her. So I'm doing the bow solo and we get through days crowd loves it. We play the rest of the show, and at some point toward the end, I did see him in the back, but I'd already been playing, so whatever. So after the show, I was in such a state of hyped up crazy,
you know, show spirit. We go backstage and he makes a beat line for the for the State for the green room, at which point security everyone else got cleared out. He got let in and the door closed and that was it. No one else was coming in. And I got to tell you, Bob, when he came in, he was he was kind of beside himself. He was, I mean, I was on mars. I couldn't even really hear any of it. I was so done. I was so spent. Everything I had went into that. But he said, that
is how it should be done. That's the way this music should be played. Each and every one of you are great, but that is that's it, that's what this is about. And I got to tell you that, you know, it was amazing. We've done our job, and you know he has since he stayed with us for an hour and we just hung out and then he suggested that we take a picture. He suggested it, and you got to know that he knew what that meant. So we
took a pick pictures. I had this this woman who was doing pr for us and she was a great photographer also, and her name is Judy Totten. I don't know if you know who she is, but she used to do a lot of PR in the UK and I hired her for this little run and she took some pictures of us that were fantastic. So it was really thank god. I don't know, thank god because if he didn't like it, I don't I'm not sure what I would have done.
Okay, the band's going on the road for the fiftieth the anniversary. You're playing Physical Graffiti start to finish. Tell me about that.
Yes, it's not our fiftieth anniversary, but we'll talk again when that happened. But yes, fiftieth anniversary of Physical Graffiti. You know, for some reason, Physical Graffiti was my dream to play it the whole album. Really from the beginning, I just thought, God, that would be so cool and so fun because it's so it's kind of got all the elements of what Led Zeppelin were, I think in
that one double album. It sort of runs the spectrum of the genres that they touched on, and there's some crazy, weird stuff in it, but there are some amazing things in it, like you know, ten years Gone, which is probably if I were pigeonholed would have to say, is my favorite led Zeppelin song. But in my time of dying Cashmir there's just a whole bunch of things that are really sick again, it's cool, you know, there's just
some some cool stuff. So we got to the point where our promoter, who's our agent, he's started as our promoter, suggested it, and this is a couple of years ago. He said, what about Physical Graffiti? You know, can I ever get that from you? And I thought, you know what, We're ready to do it. We're ready, let's do it. Because so we just started working on it and there are a couple of songs that are really hard to do, Like in the Light near impossible because you just need
too many people. With four people, it's almost impossible. But we figured it out and we got a whole multimedia show and it's really I love it, you know, in the Light, I mean I cry, you know, ten years gone. I cry. I'm just like I'm up there unless I'm really screwing it up and I'm crying for another reason. But yeah, we're going to play it all year twenty twenty five. We have a lot of shows booked, mostly
you know theaters, and it's an amazing shows. It's just and then we throw in a couple of rocker numbers after that. But it's it really is so satisfying, but it's not easy to do.
How long did it take you to learn it? And how long did it take for the band to learn it?
It took a while to figure out a couple of things, like in the Light took a while. We had to go through different experiments of how to get this sound on the keys, how to get the drone, how to turn the drone off. I mean I hit a few things. Joan switches keyboards, so that it took a while. I don't know I would say it took us a couple of months to maybe we really get it so that we could play each song pretty well, even down by the seaside.
How often do you play the guitar and how often do you play these songs?
I don't practice nearly enough. I admit it. I'm bad. I'm a bad I just I just don't. I should. I go through spells of practicing, but I don't play enough, and I think if I did, I'd be a lot better. Then. I'm not bad or anything, it's just I think I could be even better. But I play when we learn something new, I'm constantly playing, and we're always trying to
add to our repertoire. And then we rehearse, and you know, the girls are really We all learn it on our own and then we come together, so we're pretty prepared by the time we actually attempt it. And like I said, these girls are amazing musicians, so it's not like we're starting from square one. We're already in the feel of what we have to do and how we have to play, you know, which is a big thing.
Okay, so what's your favorite Lids Up One album?
H have we done this before? I'm not sure we have. It's not really a fair question. It's another trick question, Bob. I don't know if I could really say what's my favorite that they're all sort of have. I have favorite things, I mean one or two or physical graffiti. Maybe would have to narrow it down. But I don't know if you really had a you know what is it a knife over my head? And I had to decide probably
physical graffiti because of the aforementioned things. I mean, one is amazing because it is you know, I think they were at the height of their playing powers. It's just insane, as are their first gigs. I mean, it's that level of playing is amazing. And two is very well crafted. It's got some great stuff, you know. I guess I'll just say PG just because I have to. You're making me say it.
Okay, what about you? I always used to say the first album, Now I say physical graffiti. In terms of the second album was way overplayed. I bought it the day came out. You have no idea what it was like. Third album. I saw the band live on that tour. They punched the clock in the Haven. But third album the renaissance of criticism. I believe is unfounded. It's kind of like on Dennis Wilson solo, Wow, these are things
I'm familiar with, but they were not that great. Fourth album, you know, Steerway to have we never have to hear, but Battle of Evermore, you know, going to California rock and roll Black Dog don't really mean that much to me. But when the levee breaks Houses of the Holy, a lot of people think that's the best. I don't think so, and I certainly believe the two albums after Physical Graffiti presence is not as good as in Through the Outdoor. But they were kind of spent, so they're all listenable.
But if I play them, I'll play the first, I'll play Physical Graffiti, I'll play stuff off the fourth.
Okay, so we pretty much agree. I would put presents way before in Through the Outdoor. But we can have this discussion on the ski slopes because as it yeah, it's a long discussion, but yeah, I basically agree with you. And you know, we did not play Stairway for years. Yeah, the first four or five years at least, we did not play Stairway out of choice.
So what works live? What does the audience react to most in terms of songs.
Black Dog, rock and roll, whole lot of love.
So the classic hits, they want to hear those absolutely.
And our sound guy night Bob is always slamming us, saying, you gotta play the hits you just got, you know, and this is this is how the set should be. And we're just stubborn, you know, We're just like, oh but we love four sticks and oh but we love you know, you know, no quarter, I mean no quarter. You know you can play that for twenty minutes and we have done.
If we've done that, the low quarter is long to begin with. Did everybody go to the bathroom?
Then? Right? No, they go to the bathroom during the acoustic set.
Really, yeah, why do you think that is?
I just think it gets less loud and they all think it's okay to leave. I don't know it's it, but yeah, that's that's when they go so to speak.
And are these people out for a casual night or how many of these people are die hard led Zeppelin fans?
Ah, it's it's a mix. Well, at first, let's put it this way. The band is called led Zeppelin, right, so you got half the guys coming because they think we're going to kiss each other or maybe we will, so, hey, I want to do that. The music can't be very good, but they might kiss each other. So we got crowds for that, and then of course they would leave saying, oh my god, I can't believe they actually played like that. So we got a lot of really hardcore led Zeppelin fans.
A lot of them are you know guys from I would say fifty to seventy maybe, and they are serious, but they love the band they do, and I was worried about those guys, mostly guys. There were girls too, a lot of more girls than you think. But I needn't have worried because they are some of our biggest supporters. But now in the last ten years, the audience is kids. To the guys that saw them twelve times, little kids in the front, and it is the most beautiful thing
to see little girls. You know, their earplugs are in, they're with their parents, and they're staring up at four female musicians, never in their a million years having a thought I cannot do this, this is not what I can do, which was the thought I had when I was that age and I wanted to be a rock star. Whatever. Eric Clapton or whoever. I thought, I can't do this. I'm a girl, literally, that's what I thought. But I
did it anyway, as you can see my personality. But those little girls and those little boys, all of them, they just have it. It's great. And there are a lot of young people. Sometimes it looks like the seventies. I'm like staring out there and there are these kids with long hair and jumping up. You know, they're teenagers or twenty. It's like, is this is it nineteen seventy two? I don't know, could be?
Do these little girls and boys come up to you after the show and ask you questions, et cetera.
They are some of those kids that are even too young or shy, but yes they do. Or like I hand them a pick or something and they're, oh my god, they're so enthralled, they really are. They love it. It's amazing. It's great.
So you've gone on. You said some great things about Jimmy Page. Jimmy doesn't play live much at this point, if at all, but there are a lot of other inter acts of that vintage. We're going out and playing the same songs that they've been playing for fifty years. However, they were the original artists. To what degree do you feel stifled having to do this music all the time?
You know, I don't feel stifled at all. I mean, there are times I don't want to go on stage and play the Ocean. I'll give you that. I'm not in the mood. I'm not in the mood to start into a whole lot of Love with all of its antics, because it ends up being this intense, crazy show. We do it a whole show, you know, with the theerremen and lots of improvisation. But once I get into it,
I'm there and I still love it. I you know, I even if it's a road worn set, you know, like all the hits which we play or we'll do, the song remains the same concert and most of that is all the hits, you know, it's the most including Stairway. You gotta play that. But I don't know, I'm always finding something new in it, and I'm always finding something
I didn't catch. So it's fun. It's fun because I'm communicating with the band and I don't know what they're gonna do all the time, and they don't know what I'm gonna do, and they have to respond, and that's what keeps it interesting. And I dare say that's what Jimmy loved.
And you said earlier, led Zeppelin is not a tribute band. Experanid that well.
I think partially for the reason I just said, we do not impersonate led Zeppelin. I would have no interest in that whatsoever. And I also don't really have an interest in playing every single note that they played that I would get bored with. If I had to do that, I would feel stifled. Like you said, right, but this music breathes. It's not that, and I feel like what we have to offer is more of The only word I could coin was she incarnation of the band, meaning
we are a real band. This is our canon of music. We've studied our parts the way the composers wanted us to play them, but we still are musicians in our own right, and we go out there and once we take hold of this material, something of us comes through. And you know, we're not scared of that, because if you're looking for exactly the same notes or whatever, you're not going to have that all the time. When it comes to see you're going to have something else, something
being created. And for that reason, We are not a tribute band. That's a real band, and you're.
A real person, Steph. I want to thank you so much for telling your story and sharing your thoughts with my audience.
It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Bob, really, it's an honor. I love your columns. You're very important to our stream of discussion these days, so thank you.
Till next time, This is Bob left Stand