Led Zeppelin News Update:

Led Zeppelin

Drake Hotel robbery files revealed after more than 50 years

Earlier this week, LedZepNews revealed New York Police Department (NYPD) files that detail its investigation into the theft of $180,000 in cash from Led Zeppelin in July 1973.

The police force spent months examining the theft, which was featured in the film “The Song Remains The Same”, and focused its investigation on two Drake Hotel employees. The department also found that Richard Cole, Led Zeppelin’s tour manager, switched safe deposit boxes hours before the theft took place.

The LedZepNews article is the first time that the NYPD files have been published, more than 50 years after the missing money was discovered.

I spoke to Belfast Live for an article it published earlier today about the documents and the investigation. “This is one of the biggest mysteries of Led Zeppelin’s career with the cash being stolen while the band were set to perform three shows at Madison Square Garden and was eventually mentioned in the iconic concert film ‘The Song Remains The Same’”, I said.

Here’s an exclusive look at a page from the NYPD case file that wasn’t included in the LedZepNews article. It’s the notes from NYPD detective O’Connor’s interview with Drake Hotel employee Robert Rey on August 1. Rey was the employee who unlocked the safe deposit box with Cole on the night of July 29, 1973 when the theft was discovered.

TBL ARCHIVE SPECIAL – JIMMY PAGE TBL INTERVIEW OCTOBER 2014 – ONLINE IN FULL FOR THE FIRST TIME…

Jimmy Page – The TBL Interview

In a landmark TBL interview, Jimmy Page talks to Dave Lewis about his post it note like reference works on the new companion discs, his desire to issue more experimental music, his passion for record collecting and his plans ahead – ‘’I really need to be playing….

A warm autumn Thursday afternoon. I am in the South Kensington area of London. Earlier that morning, on the recommendation from my good friend, Krys Jantzen, I’d popped into the John Varvatos store in Conduit Street just off Regent Street.

This is the high fashion outlet that recently opened with a major launch attended by Jimmy Page, Ringo Starr, Iggy Pop, etc in attendance. Jimmy has also done modelling for the Varvatos brand. A most impressive store it is, too – a sort of Hard Rock Café meets high fashion. It has a variety of rock’n’roll posters on display, books, limited edition guitars and the type of rock’n’roll clothing finery that the likes of Jimmy, etc can be seen in. In effect, it rocks… although at a high ticket price. It’s a great shop with a great atmosphere – a destination place for anyone visiting the area. Oh, and it sells vinyl, no bad thing in my book, of course. The photos of Zeppelin and Jimmy that adorn the walls are something of a scene setter for what I am in town for. I also take the playing of Dancing Days over the shop’s PA as a very good omen.

Back in Kensington and just past the Imperial Museum I notice a plaque commemorating the first Queen gig in July 1970. It strikes me there really should be a plaque in the capital to represent Led Zeppelin. In fact they could do worse than to place it around the corner at the Royal Albert Hall. For inside that hallowed building (the one, naturally, I have just paid homage to), on the night of January 9th 1970 Led Zeppelin came of age, with a remarkable and much chronicled performance – and a very fine way for the guitarist to have spent his 26th birthday.

Nearly 45 years on, just down the road from Albert’s place, the very same guitarist is waxing lyrical about the achievements of the very same group.

Jimmy Page has spent the day giving media interviews on the subject of the soon to be released second series of reissued and remastered Led Zeppelin albums – namely, Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy, and his soon to be published photographic autobiography.

I am here representing the TBL magazine fulfilling one of those media slots.

So yes, at last, the opportunity has arisen to conduct a formal interview with Jimmy Page. A long held ambition of mine is about to fulfilled.

I’ve been reading interviews with Jimmy Page for nearly 45 years. Many memorable ones spring to mind – Richie Yorke’s encounters in 1970 and 1971, Chris Welch’s various Melody Maker chats, Nick Kent for the NME, the Knebworth ‘79 interview with Chris Salewicz in the same paper, and much later, Jimmy’s conversations with Mick Wall in Kerrang! and Classic Rock.

Jimmy has always been a good interviewee with a lot to say. Another interview that springs to mind is Cameron Crowe’s 1975 on tour rap with Jimmy for Rolling Stone. Back then, in the pre TBL days, holed up in my Zep bedroom den and devouring every interview as a passionate teenage Zep fan, the idea that I might one day fire the questions at Jimmy was pretty inconceivable.

So, on the one hand it does feel like I am about to have my own Almost Famous moment, in the way that Cameron Crowe is depicted in the film. On the other, it’s perfectly logical that a specialist Led Zeppelin magazine would seek to interview the band members.

John Paul Jones has been very forthcoming in that department, but it has not been so easy in the case of Robert Plant and Jimmy Page. Robert remains elusive but the quest for Jimmy is about to reach fruition.

So, how did this all come about? Well, the genesis of what will be mainly a talk about the latest Led Zep reissues, stretches back to a chat I had with Jimmy back in January 2013 at the Olympia Record Fair. He informed me then that he was working on the remastering of the Led Zeppelin catalogue. In fact, he was viewing a few of the studio bootlegs on some of the stalls and it was evident he was assessing what was out there as reference to his own archive findings.

It was then that I suggested an interview regarding all this for the TBL magazine would be of much interest to the readership. Jimmy agreed, and the plan he initially came up with was that we should perhaps get together for an interview after the first releases came out. He felt it ‘’would give us plenty of scope.’’

Later in the year, at the November Olympia Fair when I launched my Then As It Was, Led Zeppelin at Knebworth book, Jimmy was more than happy to talk on the progress of the project – revealing that each album would have a separate disc with alternate versions. “Each of the companion discs will be like looking through a portal and seeing where we were at during that particular stage’’, he told me, adding, very enthusiastically, ‘’The version of Since I’ve Been Loving You is so dramatic.”

Since then of course, many things have happened involving this project. I have been lucky enough to attend the two Olympic Studios playbacks and the Paris Olympia launch, with Jimmy undertaking a promotional campaign to enlighten the world’s media of this Zep reissue programme of quite massive proportions.

I duly kept out of the way in requesting an interview around the time of the first three reissues but it was always been at the back of my mind that, come the release of the next two (Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy), I should strike. With a little help from one or two friends in high places and the Warners/Rhino/Outside guys, I’ve been added to the press pack line-up over two days of interviews taking place on October 1st and 2nd. I have been allocated a half hour slot at 3.30pm.

Now, I’ve been lucky enough to have had a fair few informal chats with Jimmy over the years – stretching back to 1980 and the Over Europe tour in Cologne, Frankfurt, Mannheim and Munich, in the Swan Song office in September later that year (a week before it all ended), in Swan Song to talk about the Coda album in the spring of 1982, backstage at Robert Plant’s Wembley Arena show in 1985, on tour with Robert in 1995 and 1998 and at various record fairs in recent years.

Up until now though, I have never conducted a one-on-one formal interview – and yup, I’m nervous. In fact very nervous . The sheer magnitude of what I am about to undertake is hitting home to me. Informal chats are one thing, a one on one interview conversation is something much more substantial. A quick pre interview pint is called for and I retire to the Queens  Arms pub nearby, scene of more than one TBL pre-gig meet, notably that bizarre Teenage Cancer charity gig in early February 2002, when Jimmy and Robert appeared separately on the same bill.

I’ve diligently prepared a host of questions with the central theme of Led Zep IV and Houses Of The Holy, and a list of things extracted from an ongoing file I’ve had under the title ‘Questions I’d love to ask Jimmy Page’. Given the time restraints, I know the latter may have to wait for (hopefully) another time. No matter, finally I am here to interview him, and that represents a long time coming major coup for the TBL mag.

Unsurprisingly, things are running late as I arrive at the very plush Gore Hotel. BBC Online are filming an interview with Jimmy, and Michael Hann from the Guardian is yet to go in for his spot. There are already two other journalists in the queue behind me.

No time for nerves now. I am led into the extremely plush sitting room where Jimmy is conducting the interviews on his own. He greets me amiably, dressed in usual black attire and scarf (instant mental flashback at this point: Jimmy on stage at the Indianapolis rehearsal in 1975, in polka dot scarf).

Seated opposite each other, on extremely comfortable sofas, I set up my recording gear – digital dictaphone and back up cassette recorder( analogue rules!)

So I’m finally face to face with Jimmy Page one on one. And the opening words have to be…

So, shall we roll it, Jimmy?

DL: Just to backtrack to the first three reissues. La La was a real surprise. Why was it unfinished at the time?

JP: It was unfinished because there wasn’t any guide vocal that went on it from Robert. However, there are lots of overdubs on it, there’s acoustic guitar, lead guitar, all manner of stuff. And at the end there’s wah wah and echoplex bottleneck stuff. I mean there’s a lot that’s gone in to it but in a very short space of time. The recording process was done with ruthless efficiency. There wasn’t any hanging around and going down the pub and coming back, it was just full on commitment. So that was approached in exactly the same way. It was one of those things we put together in the studio. It had not had a previous run through or rehearsal, so you wouldn’t have expected Robert to know what to add. So, at the time, you might have heard, there was a guide vocal put on by John Paul Jones going ‘’la la la la.’’

DL: So that’s where the title comes from?

JP: Yeah, whatever the working title was, John Paul Jones did a ‘’la la’’ over the top, then it became La La, but it’s not something you could actually put out like that at the time.

DL: So there was a tape with him doing that guide vocal?

JP: After all the overdubs were on, he said, ‘’I’ve got a melody idea’’ and that was the ‘La La’ piece. It’s good though. It’s almost like one of those old ska things. It’s not a ska rhythm but it’s all that weaving around. I’m pleased we found it.

DL: Have there been things that you thought were in the tape archive that you could not locate?

JP: What do you mean, like Jennings Farm Blues? I knew that had been nicked. I tell you what I didn’t think I had. I didn’t think I had what was going to be the overture for The Song Remains The Same. I didn’t think I had that, I thought that had got nicked along with the Bombay sessions and all of that. I mean I did have stuff that got lifted right back in the day – the analogue tapes disappeared. But I did have that. It was for my own reference with all the guitars on it. It wasn’t a detailed mix but it’s got all the elements on and that’s what’s important really – I was shaping it all up.

DL: Am I right in saying that you used Fleetwood’s Mac’s Oh Well as a template for the vocal arrangement in Black Dog?

JP: Not really. We called it ‘call and response’. It was the way to approach the riff really.

DL: The version of Stairway To Heaven on the companion disc has a certain majesty about it. That’s from the Sunset Sound mix that was unused at the time?

JP: Yeah, and I’ve used the Misty Mountain Hop Sunset Sound version as well on the companion disc.

DL: So, why was the Sunset Sound mix of the album not used at the time?

JP: What happened with the Sunset Sound mix was this. Andy Johns and I went over to Sunset Sound in Los Angeles to mix the fourth album there, because of the facilities they had. They had natural echo chambers. I knew they had natural echo chambers at EMI, for example, but you couldn’t get in there. There was so much music that I liked that had come out of Sunset Sound, and it was a result of the limiters, the compression and the echo chambers – like the Byrds’ stuff, that was all done there.

I was keen and Andy was, too. There was also extra things that later came out on Physical Graffiti that we did at Headley at the time of recording the fourth album. There was Night Flight, Boogie With Stu, obviously, and Down By The Seaside – they all got mixed at Sunset, too. Going To California was mixed at Sunset but Battle Of Evermore wasn’t, that one didn’t go there for a mix but all the other things we did at the time we mixed there.

You might have heard this – and as a myth or rumour – but when we actually arrived, as were going through the airport, there’s an earthquake going on and when we get to the hotel room I was tired, but I felt the bed shaking, so I called Andy up and as I do, the bed’s juddering. I called him and said ‘’Are you ok?’’ and he said there’d been more tremors soon.  We were due to go into the studio that night and, no word of a lie, I said to Andy there’s no way we are mixing Going To California until the end, because the lyrics mention an earthquake!

DL: The mountains and the canyons did start to tremble and shake – quite literally!

JP: Yeah! So anyway, so these mixes were done and the best way to describe it is that it was at the real audiophile end of the studio. It wasn’t limp, it was so powerful, the playbacks on their monitor system. We had accentuating highs and real deep lows on the low end of it.

So when we came back with these tapes to Olympic, we played them in the listening room through these little Tannoy speakers and the whole of the frequency range suddenly disappeared into the middle. And it was like ‘Oh god.’ And you have to understand, at the time there was talk of tapes getting damaged in transit and tapes getting wiped. It was like ‘Has something happened?’ as opposed to going ‘Wait a minute.’ The logical side of this is that the monitor system at Sunset was just totally different. It was a bit of a worry and a bit of a shock but I knew the mixes were good. It comes to the point where Levee Breaks – which is on the companion disc as the English mixed version – well, at the time it couldn’t replicate what’s going on with the depth, the density and the sort of menace that is there on the Sunset Sound mix. So the Sunset Sound mix got slipped on to the fourth album! I actually thought the Sunset mixes were pretty good, so we have got the opportunity now to hear three of those mixes, because we’ve got the original Levee and we’ve got Misty Mountain and Stairway on the new releases.

DL: It’s interesting to hear the acoustic outro to Over The Hills And Far Away on the companion disc version. How did you eventually come up with the reverb ending?

JP: I had the idea for it in my head, but the only way was to fade the track down and have the nakedness of the clavinets sort of thing going on. It’s just an experiment but I knew what I was trying to do. The mix you hear now, I hadn’t got to investigate it yet. So this version is a reference – it’s like a Post-it note. Then the whole thing changed – like the keyboard part, that isolated instrument, that was a really good way to end it. Like I said, what you’re hearing on the companion disc version, of over The Hills And Far Away – it’s like a Post-it note. That’s a good way to describe it.

DL: Did you consider using an alternative D’yer Mak’er mix, as that track is missing in the companion disc line up?

JP: The reason it’s not on there is there just wasn’t another mix that turned up. There wasn’t a rough mix from Stargroves. That’s all there was to it.

DL: The instrumental No Quarter really brings out the prowess of the group, musically. Did it feel as though you were breaking new ground at the time with that arrangement?

JP: Yes, for sure. John Paul Jones had the verse of No Quarter. The opening passage and the verse, that’s what he had with No Quarter. To move it from just having a verse to having that chorus and the riff that comes into the chorus, and then going back into the verse… well, it’s got this real movement to it and it’s absolutely classic. I knew it was so atmospheric and spooky. I knew something like that would work.

It was the same with Four Sticks as well. It’s abstract, it was going into the world of abstract, and that was really marvellous. That was what is what was so good about the band. There are these different character statements. They are called the songs but they are really character statements and they are all so different to each other. You can see how far we were pushing things.

DL: It’s so apparent how Houses Of The Holy is so different, in terms of the sound and general texture of sound to Led Zeppelin IV, isn’t it?

JP: Yes, that was always intentional – the fact that every album would be so different, and not just in as much as the actual content but the whole atmosphere.

DL: Looking ahead, what is the plan for the Coda companion disc which provides  quite a lot of scope I would think?

JP: I can’t give much away at this point. Let’s say that if you think of what the original concept of Coda was in the first place, then I’m going to extend that.

DL: Are there any plans to release further Led Zeppelin live sets?

JP: Well, I remember talking to Ahmet Ertegun many years ago. I said to him about putting out bootlegs and he liked the idea of having bootlegs of the bootlegs, he thought that was fun… but it didn’t really come to much. Everyone would have thought ‘Yeah, that’s a good idea’. You just see what’s voted the top ten bootlegs and you just put them out. I know it’s been done now by other acts but at the time I thought of it, nobody had actually done it. A lot of ideas I had did not necessarily come to fruition and that was one of them.

DL: So you could put out something like Japan 1971?

JP: I could, but I’ve been doing so much Led Zeppelin work… and it’s not just compiling it , but it’s promoting it. That all takes time. I mean I’m not 40-years old or even 50-years old – where I can say ‘I’ve got at least another 25 years’. I maybe don’t have another 25 years and it comes to the point where you look at everything you’ve got and for me the website was the first thing I needed to do. The website was going to loop and deal with the history, if you like, up to the point there’s a history. That was important, just because, again, it was like nobody had done anything like that. Nobody had done a website that caught up and came round upon itself and looped.

The other thing that is important to address is the duality of Led Zeppelin and the duality is, there’s the studio recordings and there is live concerts – so I wanted to initially redress the balance, and this is what we’ve done with the first three albums. It took the first three albums to come out for people to understand what the game plan. I wanted to bring it back into the studio. When people start listening to the studio stuff afresh… and they are given all this new information, too. It’s like ‘Wow’. So, it’s great to turn people on to it.

For me, it’s for the fans. It’s about all the people along the way who have listened… not just heard it, but listened to Led Zeppelin. I’m really happy to be able to put this stuff out.

DL: What can fans expect from the instrumental music you are about to release via your website.

JP: What I am doing with the website, what I started doing, is to put out some soundtrack stuff. There’s only two but it’s all extra material. I even found something from Lucifer Rising that pre dates what I sent to Kenneth Anger, and it’s really, really terrific. It’s from my own mixes and I’m really proud of this and I want it to be heard. It’s quite different to the one that came out on the website previously. So I’ve got experimental stuff that I did, and it’s interesting to think what I was doing with that back then.

DL: Is that coming out on vinyl?

JP: It will come out on vinyl and CDs. There’s also stuff from Death Wish which never got heard but it will now, so that’s basically what I’ve got in the pipeline.

DL: I know one of your great pastimes is record shopping. What inspired you to get back to collecting LPs again?

JP: Like you!

DL: Indeed!

JP: Probably when my children grew up… because what doesn’t mix is children and vinyl! All of us fathers know this. When our vinyl is in easy reach and becomes in easy reach of children. Children and vinyl don’t mix, so I kept having to shift it up a level. Then it got put away, and then there was separation, divorce or whatever. So, once I got back into my own space Dave, I thought ‘Right, I’m going to get my records out and I’m going to listen to them again’. It’s like meeting old friends again and ‘Yeah’ it’s great. I’m my own man, I can play records when I want, I can watch TV when I want. I can do what I like now, so I’m going to make sure I’m going to resuscitate my vinyl collection! There’s a lot of stuff in there. I’ve got Led Zeppelin white labels and all the stuff you would salivate over.

DL: What has been the latest addition to the collection?

JP: It was a Velvet Underground LP – Ross picked it up for me.

DL: You mentioned your desire to be seen to be playing. Can we expect by this time next year you would have made inroads on that?

JP: I bloody hope so!

DL: So, you are very keen to get out there?

JP: Christ, yes. Yes, I want do it. I want to do what I do well, which is play guitar and surprise people and scare them! It’s time to do that. As I said, all the things – like the website, the book I’m putting out and these releases – now they are staggered to come out. Before the first releases, I had the whole of the project finished, as far as the sonic side is concerned. It had to be. I couldn’t think ‘That’s alright, I’ll come back to that’. I needed to finish all of them.

The other thing is, I really need to be playing… if I don’t, it would be such a waste. I’ve got to do it while I feel this passion for what I do.

With things running so late, I am not surprised when, after about twenty minutes, head consultant to the reissue project, Robin Hurley pops his head around the door to signal I have five minutes left. Robin appears again. ‘’Sorry to have to do this to you of all people, Dave, but we need to move on’’.

DL: So Jimmy, final thoughts for the fans on the forthcoming Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy reissues…

JP: Basically, these scheduled releases of Led Zeppelin – of which there’s been three out already, and there’s going to be Led Zeppelin IV and Houses Of The Holy coming up soon, and of course all the rest of the catalogue will come out in due course… all of it has new information that people wouldn’t have heard before. In fact, they wouldn’t have heard it on bootleg before – at least a major percentage of it. Well, I’ve put it this way before but it’s absolutely true. It’s like a portal, it’s like a view point into that time when those recordings were made for those particular albums, those classic albums. And I knew right from the beginning, in thinking about this project, that it was for you, the fans. Because we sort of understand the difference between just hearing Led Zeppelin and really listening to it. I knew that people with that level of understanding would really get off on it, hearing all of these different versions and things that they haven’t heard before.

The other thing is, I really need to be playing… if I don’t, it would be such a waste. I’ve got to do it while I feel this passion for what I do.

And that is where we have to leave it…

Questions such as, was Slush the working title of The Rain Song, and a couple of Mike T. requests  – could he once and for all confirm or deny whether The Yardbirds played their very last gig in Montgomery, Alabama or in Luton, and does he remember playing Las Vegas at the Ice Palace with Zep – and a fair few others will have to wait for another day.

There’s just enough time to hand over to Jimmy an album I’ve brought along for him – The Everly Brothers’ Two Yanks in England. ’’Oh, that’s the one with the Hollies on” says Jimmy, astutely. And he should know… he played on it.

Very graciously, Jimmy signs my Feather In The Wind book (again putting in the number as 666) and my copy of the reissued Led Zeppelin 1 (‘’Dave, the start of it all. Zep 1!’’). I also showed him a photo of him and I from Feather In The Wind, taken on June 18th 1980, before the Cologne gig. ‘’Oh that a Brazilian football shirt I’ve got on there’’ he notices.

As we both posed for a ‘then and now’ photo, he laughed, ‘‘We look a whole lot younger then!”

Younger then and older now, but neither of us any less fervent for the band – his band, that really is a way of life.

‘’Thanks for all your enthusiasm, Dave’’ is his parting shot. No, Jimmy… thank you for all yours.

Back out in the bar area, as the next journo is ready to go in. I clock a look at the framed pics of the food splattered Rolling Stones, taken in this very building at their Beggars Banquet album launch back in 1968.

Then a walk across the road and a final glance over at Albert’s place. It’s been a long day and maybe it’s all in my head but I’m sure I could hear the strains of an instrumental version of Stairway To Heaven, (ala the 1983 Arms arrangement) coming from within the confines of this lovely old building.

After the interview I headed over to Euston to see my lifelong friend Dec for a beer or two and and boy did I need it. Dec has been listening to my Zep tales for over 40 years. We laughed when we recalled one story – this would have been 1974. Dec being an avid singles collector played a single by Neil Christian and the Crusaders down the phone to me to decide if Jimmy was on it.

I was in a public telephone at the time as we had no home phone. The things we did back then in the name of extending knowledge of the guitarist. The one I’ve just interviewed. In my wildest dreams I could never have foreseen this situation occurring back in 1974.

Years later, that night at the Royal Albert Hall back in 1983 signaled something of an artistic rebirth for the man. During our interview earlier, hearing his desire to get back out there and be seen to be playing again, well, I have a feeling another rebirth is on the way. In fact, it strikes me that the grand old building would be and appropriate setting for such a return. Here’s hoping.

Clearly Jimmy Page still has the passion for his music. That much I know, because I have just experienced that passion firsthand..

Dave Lewis. October 8th, 2014. With thanks to Ross Halfin and Chris Goodman.

POSTSCRIPT 2024:

As you can imagine that was an incredible afternoon for me – I would go on to interview Jimmy the following June and work with him on the BBC Sessions reissue sleeve notes in 2016. Amazing times indeed. Incredible to think that it’s nearly ten years since this first interview took place.

Jimmy made it clear to me that he was planning new music but as we all know, that is a claim he made in several interviews around that period. It’s a disappointment that he did not pursue that route but I for one respect that decision. Sometimes projects with the the best intensions do not come off for a variety of reasons. I can relate to that is some of the TBL projects I touted I had plans to do but was unable to bring to fruition.

There are always reasons for that and Jimmy will have his own – what has happened in the past decade is that Jimmy has continued to enjoy himself. His relationship with Scarlett Sabat has clearly enriched his life and one thing that has been made clear recently is that he can certainly still play -witness the superb performance of Rumble at the Hall of Fame induction of Link Wray last November.

He may decide to tread the boards again in some shape or form or he may not. I have said before he owes nobody anything – because during his seven decade career Jimmy Page has achieved everything…

Dave Lewis – January 17 2024

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