Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Podcast. My
Speaker 1: guest today is Steph Payne, guitarist and leading force of
Speaker 1: the band les Zeppelin. Steph, good to have you on
Speaker 1: the podcast.
Speaker 2: Hey, thanks, Bob, it's fantastic to be here. Thanks for
Speaker 2: having me.
Speaker 1: Let's start from the beginning. Is Steph Payin's your real name?
Speaker 2: Yes, it's my real name. But there is a small
Speaker 2: little difference, and that is there's a why in it.
Speaker 2: When when I was born there was no why, so
Speaker 2: it was P. A. N. E. S. And that's the truth.
Speaker 2: And you're the first one to hear it. But it's
Speaker 2: a funny story, which if I go into it.
Speaker 1: Well tell the story. We're here, We're here.
Speaker 2: This is all right, Okay, okay. It sort of ties
Speaker 2: in because I put the Y in my name after
Speaker 2: I moved to England the first time, which is a
Speaker 2: long time ago, right after college, and I had found
Speaker 2: myself working, you know, trying to be a big rock
Speaker 2: star and make it and do all this stuff because
Speaker 2: you know, British Invasion rock was my favorite thing. So
Speaker 2: I thought I have to go to England. And while
Speaker 2: I was here, at that point, I started to write
Speaker 2: for the music press, and I was writing for the
Speaker 2: NME actually, and when I got my first story published,
Speaker 2: I realized, because I was paranoid about working without a
Speaker 2: work permit, that if I put a Y in the name,
Speaker 2: they could not prove that it was me, because there's
Speaker 2: a why in the name and all my passport there isn't.
Speaker 2: So that was my thinking and ever since it became
Speaker 2: my name and it stuck. So there's a wine.
Speaker 1: Okay, there's a lot to unpact there, but I'm going
Speaker 1: to go back to original theme. Les Zeppelin would imply
Speaker 1: that it's an act of lesbians. What is the truth?
Speaker 2: Oh, I knew you were going to get there. I
Speaker 2: didn't think it would be second. I thought it would
Speaker 2: be first. We have always had a don't ask, don't
Speaker 2: tell policy since the beginning of the band. Lots of
Speaker 2: reasons for that, but I figured I basically, in a nutshell,
Speaker 2: I'd get into trouble either way, So don't ask, don't tell,
Speaker 2: and we welcome speculation. We're fine with whatever anybody thinks.
Speaker 2: And people actually like to guess, so it's fun.
Speaker 1: Okay, you yourself have been married, have children, You certainly
Speaker 1: have lived a heterosexual lifestyle, So the question because naming
Speaker 1: it led Zeppelin, was that to gain attention or was
Speaker 1: that because that was the easiest play on the name
Speaker 1: led Zeppelin? How did you come up with it? Long?
Speaker 2: Okay, I will tell you my mother came up with it.
Speaker 2: Believe it or not. My mother, this is true. She
Speaker 2: was an English professor, and she was fantastic with puns
Speaker 2: and you know, writing. I mean, it was wonderful. She
Speaker 2: used to write poetry and everything. But she was the
Speaker 2: quickest person with a pun that I'd ever met. And
Speaker 2: we were sitting around the table and I had already
Speaker 2: started this, I mean, had this idea to start this band,
Speaker 2: and I was gung ho, and we were trying to
Speaker 2: think of names, and there were all sorts of really
Speaker 2: bad names being put on the table as bands, do
Speaker 2: you know, cover your tablecloth with bad names? And she
Speaker 2: just turns to me and says, lez Zeppelin. Now, I
Speaker 2: had never heard my mother even say the word lesbian
Speaker 2: okay out loud. But it was the most brilliant thing
Speaker 2: I ever heard. I just that was it. There was
Speaker 2: no question in my mind that that had to be
Speaker 2: the name of the band. And I think, honestly, I
Speaker 2: think it's like the best band name ever. Maybe not ever,
Speaker 2: but it's up there.
Speaker 1: Okay, for those people unfamiliar with les Zeppelin, how would
Speaker 1: you describe the band?
Speaker 2: Okay, it's you mean trying to describe led Zeppelin in
Speaker 2: and of itself.
Speaker 1: And someone goes to a led Zeppelin show, someone listens
Speaker 1: to your music, what are they getting? What is the
Speaker 1: ethos of the band? What is it you're selling?
Speaker 2: Okay, they will get a powerful, very passion very spontaneous
Speaker 2: show that is all around the songs of led Zeppelin.
Speaker 2: We play the songs as they are written most of
Speaker 2: the time, but we improvise where they used to improvise.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of an amazing thing because we focus
Speaker 2: more on the spirit of the band, i would say,
Speaker 2: and the incredible combination of musicianship that made them who
Speaker 2: they are, which is why this band has to be
Speaker 2: so organic, because we are playing together as musicians like
Speaker 2: they were and trying to achieve that special sort of
Speaker 2: magical moment of intensity, and that really is our goal.
Speaker 2: And you know, sometimes I'll play a solo. I mean
Speaker 2: a lot of the solos I play at this point
Speaker 2: are you know, in Jimmy Page's style, but they're not
Speaker 2: exactly what Jimmy played, and my hope is maybe he
Speaker 2: would have played it at some point, but it's much
Speaker 2: more evocative, I think, to.
Speaker 1: Go for.
Speaker 2: That essence of the band, and I think people react
Speaker 2: to it feeling like they've really been to a led
Speaker 2: Zeppelin show, much more than if we just copied everything
Speaker 2: they played, which is frankly no interest to me.
Speaker 1: However, having seen the act, it's not like going to
Speaker 1: see Bob Dylan today and saying, you know, he played
Speaker 1: a song that's famous and I didn't recognize that. The
Speaker 1: songs generally speaking, are very faithful to the originals.
Speaker 2: Yes, because you have to be. I mean, it's brilliant
Speaker 2: music and you have to be faithful, like, for example,
Speaker 2: the Ocean. Well, let's take that song. It's kind of
Speaker 2: such a perfect package. I never changed the guitar solos
Speaker 2: for that. We never change the arrangements. But you know,
Speaker 2: we're only four people, so we play it live like
Speaker 2: they played it, So our renditions are how they played
Speaker 2: it live. We don't have extra people on stage to
Speaker 2: fill all the guitar parts. We're not trying to replicate
Speaker 2: the albums. But you know, a song like the Ocean
Speaker 2: is very, very true to form. It'll sound like it
Speaker 2: sounds on the record without the extra guitar tracks. It
Speaker 2: sounds like they played how it sounded when they played
Speaker 2: it live.
Speaker 1: But just to nail this down, what is different is
Speaker 1: primarily is solos, etc. You're going to the show, You're
Speaker 1: if you close your eyes, theoretically you say, okay, this
Speaker 1: is led Zeppelin live. Yes, would you agree with that?
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my goal. It works, though it succeeds.
Speaker 1: How'd you come up with the idea?
Speaker 2: Pow? Oh gosh, it's really kind of boring. It's boring, Bob,
Speaker 2: It's really boring. I mean, frankly, I just love the
Speaker 2: music of Led Zeppelin. I mean it was a pure
Speaker 2: act of indulgence. And I was between gigs. I had
Speaker 2: spent a time playing with Ronnie Specter. That had been
Speaker 2: my last gig, I guess, and I was in the
Speaker 2: mood to really dig down and get intense with the guitar.
Speaker 2: I frankly hadn't really studied Jimmy Page. Before i'd studied
Speaker 2: Jimmy Hendrix, I'd studied a lot of jazz, I'd studied
Speaker 2: other players, but Jimmy was fascinating to me, and I
Speaker 2: really wanted to see if I could get into his zeitgeist,
Speaker 2: you know, So I thought, this will be fun. Why
Speaker 2: don't I just you know, if I could be in
Speaker 2: any band in the whole world, what would it be
Speaker 2: led Zeppelin? So I thought, you know, I took the
Speaker 2: leap like a little bit of an idiot and said,
Speaker 2: why not, let's just play led Zeppelin? And I sort
Speaker 2: of set off to do it, and that was really it.
Speaker 2: Just I figured, we'll play a gig once a month.
Speaker 2: I'll get a couple of girls together, because I knew
Speaker 2: that it would be better with all girls, and maybe
Speaker 2: we'll make fifty bucks and have a beer and it'll
Speaker 2: be really fun and kind of get all rocks off.
Speaker 2: But once I started the band, it turned out to
Speaker 2: be a much more work than that, way much more work.
Speaker 2: And then the level of interest in the group was immediate.
Speaker 2: This is twenty twenty four. I'm sorry, two thousand and four.
Speaker 2: It's been twenty years actually, and I realized I was
Speaker 2: onto something.
Speaker 1: Let's start with the work. You say it was much
Speaker 1: more work? Can you go deeper there?
Speaker 2: Oh? Yeah, okay. First I had to find three other
Speaker 2: people girls I wanted, girls I had been in one
Speaker 2: other all girl band that was amazing and very powerful,
Speaker 2: so I had no doubt that girls could do it
Speaker 2: and probably better. Where were they?
Speaker 1: Oh well, we just have to stop there for one second.
Speaker 1: Why probably? Why probably better? Or was that just an
Speaker 1: offhand comment?
Speaker 2: It was kind of offhand, but it was kind of
Speaker 2: the way I felt. I just my latter The one
Speaker 2: all girl band I had been in was called one
Speaker 2: nine hundred Bucks, and it was in the nineties, so
Speaker 2: it was kind of like a Jane's Addiction kind of band.
Speaker 2: We were compared to them a lot, and we were
Speaker 2: compared to and I'm telling you, Bob, it was the
Speaker 2: most powerful band I've ever played in. And I've played
Speaker 2: in a lot of bands with a lot of guys,
Speaker 2: not that they can't do it. There was just something
Speaker 2: about that band and the intensity of it, So in
Speaker 2: my mind, I had no doubt girls could do it.
Speaker 2: Can they do it better? Well? Now I think that,
Speaker 2: But then you know, I think my band does it better.
Speaker 1: I'm going to stop you for one second. Since led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin is an all male band, macho males here that
Speaker 1: they can't use the word girls. They must use the
Speaker 1: word women. From your perspective, What is your take on that.
Speaker 2: Girls is fine with me? I don't. I have no
Speaker 2: interest in that kind of semantic volleyball. And I would
Speaker 2: take you to task on saying that led Zeppelin were macha,
Speaker 2: because I think they were pretty far from macho. I
Speaker 2: think there was a lot of posturing and a lot
Speaker 2: of sort of you know, peacock feathers, strutting and all
Speaker 2: the rest, and it was very sexual. But if you
Speaker 2: think about how led Zeppelin looked like girls kind of.
Speaker 2: If you think about the beautiful texture and dynamics of
Speaker 2: their music, from gentle sort of Celtic folk through to
Speaker 2: a whole lot of love or something like that, it
Speaker 2: runs the spectrum. And I never consider it cock rock,
Speaker 2: as many people have said, or particularly macho, but somehow
Speaker 2: it has that reputation. I mean, maybe you can explain it.
Speaker 1: No, I think those words came out of my mouth
Speaker 1: and I was doubting. I'm good for you for calling
Speaker 1: me on it. But let's go back to the narrative.
Speaker 1: So you say, Okay, I'm going to do this. First,
Speaker 1: I have to find three other girls. So what did
Speaker 1: you do?
Speaker 2: I just word of mouth. I just asked everybody and
Speaker 2: I mean everybody, like people who were bankers, people who
Speaker 2: were in restaurants. I was like hairdressers. I just figured
Speaker 2: if I put the word out, someone will know somebody.
Speaker 2: And in fact, that's exactly how that band came together.
Speaker 2: Somebody saying, oh, my friend, my hairdresser in fact plays drums,
Speaker 2: and my brother went to a party and called me
Speaker 2: up and said, I think I found your singer like that,
Speaker 2: and that the drummer. I knew what the drummer from
Speaker 2: the all girl band that I mentioned, and I called her. Initially,
Speaker 2: her name was Chip English, and she went off to
Speaker 2: play with the Luna Chiics, if you know who they are.
Speaker 2: But Chip is an incredibly intense drummer, and she joined up.
Speaker 2: She was gung ho for about a month and a
Speaker 2: half until she realized how much work it was, and
Speaker 2: then it was I'm not doing this. This is too
Speaker 2: much practicing. So I then, you know, found another drummer
Speaker 2: word of mouth. But yeah, it was all sort of.
Speaker 2: It was a little magical, Bob, I got to tell
Speaker 2: you a little bit dark and magical.
Speaker 1: From the moment you say I'm going to start looking
Speaker 1: till you find the other three players. How long a
Speaker 1: period of time is that.
Speaker 2: I would say about a month and a half, two months.
Speaker 1: Okay, So do you find the players? What's the next step?
Speaker 2: Practice? Practice, practice, practice. It's kind of like location, location, location,
Speaker 2: I mean, and this is the thing. It's not can
Speaker 2: you play it technic glean? Okay, that's I mean, there
Speaker 2: is some of that. There is a lot of that too,
Speaker 2: because it's crazy, some of some of Jimmy's riffs. I
Speaker 2: mean they're insane, right, So there is that, But when
Speaker 2: you begin to play the music, you realize how much
Speaker 2: else there is, how many other little details and in
Speaker 2: you and sort of musical innuendos and the feel and
Speaker 2: the way you have to lay back in all of
Speaker 2: those things and then play together. I mean, it's it's
Speaker 2: a lot. And you know, I think once we started going,
Speaker 2: because we're girls and I'll say girls because we were girls. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because we were girls, I knew that we had to
Speaker 2: be twice as good as any guys, no question, because
Speaker 2: we would be met by instant skepticism, which we were,
Speaker 2: so we really you know, wood shedded is that the term.
Speaker 2: We just practiced for six months until we dared to
Speaker 2: play a gig.
Speaker 1: Wow, So how did you decide you were ready.
Speaker 2: Well, I think we got through a set list the
Speaker 2: songs we could play. There was power in the band.
Speaker 2: I mean we'd go to a rehearsal studio and people
Speaker 2: would sit outside the door and listen in, you know,
Speaker 2: including the guys that worked there. So we started to feel, Okay,
Speaker 2: this is cool. We got it. You know. We just
Speaker 2: had to jump off at some point. So there was
Speaker 2: also another little detail, and that is I was nine
Speaker 2: months pregnant for our first gigs. Okay, yeah, so you
Speaker 2: know how Jimmy holds the guitar sideways like I have
Speaker 2: a side saddle. I was doing that. So I figured,
Speaker 2: let's let's get in a couple of gigs before I
Speaker 2: get this little creature out, and then we can go
Speaker 2: gung home. So that we had to be ready at
Speaker 2: some point to play a few gigs.
Speaker 1: Okay, you do a couple of gigs, you have a child.
Speaker 1: How long until you start playing again?
Speaker 2: About a month and a half.
Speaker 1: Oh, very quickly. Okay, so yes, let's go back before
Speaker 1: you have the baby. Tell me about the first couple
Speaker 1: of gigs, how you get them. But the reaction is
Speaker 1: how you experienced it.
Speaker 2: You know, we were a bit. It was a bit scary.
Speaker 2: But we played out of New York City because I
Speaker 2: didn't want to play in New York City yet. And
Speaker 2: there were these small clubs up in Connecticut because our
Speaker 2: singer at the time was from Avon, Connecticut. So we
Speaker 2: played this place called Sully's, and we played this place
Speaker 2: called the Hungry Tiger, and they were small clubs, and
Speaker 2: people went nuts, I mean instantly. And I'm telling you
Speaker 2: those gigs were not very good. I mean, you know,
Speaker 2: by standards now, I mean there was a lot that
Speaker 2: was wrong with the sound, if I'm going to be
Speaker 2: picky and playing it correctly. But there was this energy
Speaker 2: and there was a desire to see four girls playing
Speaker 2: led Zeppelin. I mean it was just like everyone wanted
Speaker 2: didn't see it. So the clubs were full and people
Speaker 2: went nuts.
Speaker 1: Okay, especially today you're talking two thousand and four. That's
Speaker 1: you know, when things really start to change from the
Speaker 1: old music business to the new music business. Hey, you
Speaker 1: formed the band, b rehearsed the band, See you're ready
Speaker 1: to do it. How'd you get the gigs? Did you
Speaker 1: personally call? Was there an agent? Was there a manager?
Speaker 1: How did you get the gigs?
Speaker 2: Right? So? None of the above. Yes, I personally called
Speaker 2: the singer called because she knew the guy at Sully's
Speaker 2: or whatever. We had no agent, no manager, just the
Speaker 2: four of us with lots of opinions, and it was
Speaker 2: it was just like that, like any kind of baby
Speaker 2: band starting out, super fun. We were so excited, you know,
Speaker 2: when a hundred people showed up and we made two
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty bucks, I mean it was a lot,
Speaker 2: three hundred dollars or something. And within I would say
Speaker 2: a year, we had an agent, and shortly after that
Speaker 2: we were approached by managers the whole gamut, and it
Speaker 2: was one point we had a business manager, we had PRP,
Speaker 2: we had everything. You know, it just sort of snowballed.
Speaker 2: But at first, now.
Speaker 1: Okay, you have the baby, you start playing again, Walk
Speaker 1: me a little bit slower. How many gigs you're playing,
Speaker 1: How you get the agent, and how it starts to develop.
Speaker 2: So mostly at the beginning, it was maybe one gig
Speaker 2: on a Saturday or Friday. Occasionally we would play. As
Speaker 2: we progressed, we would start to play match them up,
Speaker 2: you know, maybe we could play here and there. But
Speaker 2: that really started to come a little later once we
Speaker 2: had an agent. So they were kind of one offs.
Speaker 2: Sometimes we'd have to stay in a hotel or something,
Speaker 2: but they were all fairly local. So we rented a van,
Speaker 2: you know, you know, like a mini van. I don't
Speaker 2: even know if they exist anymore. It's an suv or something.
Speaker 2: But and we piled our stuff in and drove ourselves up,
Speaker 2: played this crazy intense music for an hour and a half,
Speaker 2: then packed it up and drove home. So it was
Speaker 2: a lot. It was a lot, but it was so rewarding.
Speaker 1: Okay, it started as a lark. When in your brain
Speaker 1: did it turn into more than a lark?
Speaker 2: I think that pretty quickly. I realized that I had
Speaker 2: something on my hands. You know, I've spent years previous
Speaker 2: to this, early on in trying to crack the music business.
Speaker 2: I had a million original bands. You know. For a
Speaker 2: while I was out as a singer songwriter, I was
Speaker 2: playing another bands, and everyone was just trying to get
Speaker 2: to that point where they'd even get an agent. When
Speaker 2: les Zeppelin came out, everyone wanted to hear it. The
Speaker 2: promoters did not even ask when I mean, they just
Speaker 2: it was an automatic. Yes, it was sort of like
Speaker 2: the easiest thing. And that was unusual. It was you know,
Speaker 2: when things are meant to happen, they just happened. There
Speaker 2: was no resistance. So I realized pretty fast, Wow, this
Speaker 2: is different. This has potential to grow a bit larger.
Speaker 2: Did I think it would become what it actually became. No,
Speaker 2: not in a million years. I mean it's been twenty
Speaker 2: years I've been doing this, and we've had unbelievable experiences
Speaker 2: doing stuff that bands like ours should never have done.
Speaker 1: I think, but what are you talking about?
Speaker 2: Not never have done, not never have done? But would
Speaker 2: ha had never done? Is what I meant? Like playing
Speaker 2: major festivals like we played at the Metropolitan Museum of
Speaker 2: Art for the Play It Loud exhibit. We toured all
Speaker 2: over the world, Japan, we released records in Japan. Eddie
Speaker 2: krane Or produced our first record. You know, crazy surreal
Speaker 2: stuff like that. And of course Jimmy came to our gig.
Speaker 2: It's just a lot of you know, Bonneroo. We played
Speaker 2: at Bonnaroo and it was I don't think there had
Speaker 2: been a cover band like ours at Bonnaroo ever, and
Speaker 2: it was tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you start in two thousand and four, it's
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. Has this been a continuous forgetting COVID
Speaker 1: which is its own world? Has this been a continuous upswing?
Speaker 1: Have there been ups and downs? And what is the
Speaker 1: status of the act today?
Speaker 2: Ah? How much time do we have?
Speaker 1: Time?
Speaker 2: Okay, No, it's lots of ups and downs, lots, you know,
Speaker 2: like anything. I mean, various things happened that that involved
Speaker 2: just dips in the you know, we were soaring for
Speaker 2: a while, and then it just seemed to settle down.
Speaker 2: And then I had a complete lineup change, and that
Speaker 2: stopped me in my tracks. And I could have just
Speaker 2: stopped at that point, except I didn't think we were finished,
Speaker 2: so I had to get a whole new band together.
Speaker 2: That band was great. That continued for a while, So
Speaker 2: I've had lineup changes along the way, and you know,
Speaker 2: I think generally speaking, we've been very lucky to be
Speaker 2: able to tour for twenty years and have audiences and
Speaker 2: make money and continue in that, and that's never really dipped.
Speaker 2: It's just that it's sometimes it may have been a
Speaker 2: little more you know, crazy and maybe popular than others,
Speaker 2: but a lot of stuff changed during the life of
Speaker 2: the band, Like where you used to have newspaper articles
Speaker 2: in radio, which we did a lot of. All of
Speaker 2: that disappeared, and I think it took there was some
Speaker 2: time to get used to how to operate in this
Speaker 2: new sort of music business paradigm with online stuff and
Speaker 2: social media, and you know, I think a lot of
Speaker 2: people struggled. But we went through that change and it
Speaker 2: you know, it was a little bumpy here and there,
Speaker 2: but generally speaking, we managed to work. Right now, this
Speaker 2: band that's together has been together about six years, so
Speaker 2: it's it's an incredible group. And you know, every lineup
Speaker 2: had its beautiful qualities. I think this lineup was, without
Speaker 2: doubt that best musicianship, no question, and it's very sophisticated.
Speaker 1: Okay, bands have arcs. Was the fall off in publicity
Speaker 1: and radio because it was no longer a novelty or
Speaker 1: was it a change in the marketplace?
Speaker 2: Change in the marketplace? There were no radio stations. They
Speaker 2: were dropping, dropping like flies. And if you toured somewhere
Speaker 2: in the country, you know, used to try to set
Speaker 2: up a studio radio thing you'd play, you know, going
Speaker 2: to California or something and then talk about it. But
Speaker 2: all of that stuff disappeared, you know, and newspapers it's
Speaker 2: sort of nobody if they did stories. Nobody was really
Speaker 2: reading newspapers much. So I think it was it wasn't us.
Speaker 2: We just had to figure out a different way to
Speaker 2: market ourselves.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you coasting at this point or are you
Speaker 1: continuing to market yourself in these alternative ways as we
Speaker 1: used to say.
Speaker 2: We're We're trying, We're continuing. There was a learning curve,
Speaker 2: but yeah, we just we just kept plugging away. I'm
Speaker 2: very stubborn. I'm a very stubborn person, and I don't
Speaker 2: give up easily, you know, and I wasn't going to
Speaker 2: let the entire shift of the music business, you know,
Speaker 2: make me give up.
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so let's start. Do you have a mailing list?
Speaker 2: We did, but we now have a huge Facebook, Instagram,
Speaker 2: what else? A TikTok page we put out. You know,
Speaker 2: we do advertising. There is there is a following on
Speaker 2: bands in town. We have people following it, which is
Speaker 2: kind of a mailing list, so people can sign up
Speaker 2: for that. But we don't really do direct mail as
Speaker 2: it were, so much as we do these other things.
Speaker 1: Okay, who is doing the posting? Who is coordinating this?
Speaker 2: Well? Right now we have we're so lucky to have
Speaker 2: our wonderful jack of all trades and master of all
Speaker 2: Joan ch who is our bass player, keyboard player, mandolin player.
Speaker 2: She also plays a dozen other instruments. But she has
Speaker 2: a degree in marketing and social media, so she's very
Speaker 2: good at that, and she pushes us to make little,
Speaker 2: you know, shout outs and do silly things and give
Speaker 2: her materials so that she can post it. And we
Speaker 2: also do advertising, and sometimes I hire social media people
Speaker 2: to really plug a show, you know, and we do
Speaker 2: our own advertising too.
Speaker 1: So so tell me about first. You said you had
Speaker 1: to get a whole new band.
Speaker 2: Why, Well, there were different reasons throughout the twenty some
Speaker 2: odd years, but basically I think, you know, people sort
Speaker 2: of run their course with a group, except for me,
Speaker 2: you know, the guitar player remains the same, I guess.
Speaker 2: But you know, this was my baby, so I don't
Speaker 2: ever get sick of it. I don't ever, you know,
Speaker 2: feel like it's too much work or whatever that is.
Speaker 2: So there were some of that, but some of the
Speaker 2: players got pulled away by other things. Like one of
Speaker 2: our singers got a gig as a on Broadway as understudy,
Speaker 2: and it was great money and she took that, so
Speaker 2: you know, I totally understand that, But then we had
Speaker 2: to find another sing so it was things like that too.
Speaker 2: I'm kind of amazed that the band has lasted in
Speaker 2: its sort of some form or this form for so long,
Speaker 2: because bands don't last that long. I think we're around
Speaker 2: twice as long as Led Zeppelin actually were.
Speaker 1: So okay, focusing back on band members, did you ever
Speaker 1: have to fire a band member?
Speaker 2: Yeah, once, I sort of didn't fire. I didn't fire
Speaker 2: her exactly. I saw an avenue that I could take
Speaker 2: to make her quit and it worked. She had already
Speaker 2: quit five times, and I figured she'll quit again. There's
Speaker 2: no question. If she makes this request and I say no,
Speaker 2: she's bound to quit again because all of us had
Speaker 2: had enough. She was a little unstable and we'd had enough.
Speaker 1: So okay. So one can say it's your band.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's my band, but everyone who plays in
Speaker 2: the band feels very passionate about it and they feel
Speaker 2: like it's their band as well. Because that's the nature
Speaker 2: of this music. You cannot play it without having that
Speaker 2: exist on stage. You can't just have backup players doing
Speaker 2: their bit. You have to be huddling in the middle
Speaker 2: of the stage, staring at each other, throwing riffs back
Speaker 2: and forth and being in the moment. And that is
Speaker 2: a very intimate, involved way to play music. Far too
Speaker 2: rare these days, but that's what it is, and that's
Speaker 2: what I love most about it.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you split the money equally?
Speaker 2: No, but I pay for everything.
Speaker 1: Okay. Can you make a living on lives Zeppelin? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it depends on what you consider a living. Could
Speaker 2: I could I find some very you know, cheap place
Speaker 2: to pull up and maybe run the band? It depends.
Speaker 2: I mean, now it's super expensive to tour, so it's uh,
Speaker 2: it's challenging sometimes, but generally speaking, yes, this is my
Speaker 2: this is my job.
Speaker 1: So if you're not living on a subsistence level, how
Speaker 1: are you paying the bills other than lives? Zuppelin?
Speaker 2: Well, I've you know, I had, I owned an apartment
Speaker 2: in New York City and you sold that. I had
Speaker 2: help from my ex for a while. I uh, just investments,
Speaker 2: being smart with the money, stuff like that. We've had
Speaker 2: times when it you know, we'll play private parties or something.
Speaker 2: You know, the money vascillates. It's it's okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I make money as a musician. I'm lucky.
Speaker 1: Okay, the other three women, if you the band has
Speaker 1: been together for six years, are they living on the
Speaker 1: income from le Zeppelin or are they doing other things?
Speaker 1: And what might they be?
Speaker 2: Yes, everyone has They all have other things that they do.
Speaker 2: So Marlaine our singer, she's an actress and she does voiceovers,
Speaker 2: so that's a big gig for her. She mainly does that.
Speaker 2: You know, this is the only band she's in at
Speaker 2: the moment. Joan the bass player, she has a bunch
Speaker 2: of other bands. And our drummer is I would say,
Speaker 2: well the drummer where with Now she has a full
Speaker 2: time job, but it's very flexible so she can work remotely.
Speaker 2: So everyone is secure. Plus they have good living situations.
Speaker 2: They have partners, and their partners are okay. You know,
Speaker 2: they handle a lot too, So nobody in the band
Speaker 2: feels desperate for money. It's a good situation to have
Speaker 2: because it's not where everyone is up tight. This is
Speaker 2: not enough money to play, and you know we're not
Speaker 2: getting enough. I mean, you know, I'll take gigs where
Speaker 2: I lose money playing, but you know, you keep a
Speaker 2: band working, so it's okay. So I think everyone's okay
Speaker 2: with it, and they're not totally reliant at.
Speaker 1: This point in time. How many gigs a year does
Speaker 1: les Zeppelin do?
Speaker 2: I would say we averaged thirty five to forty gigs
Speaker 2: a year, give or take. It's mostly weekends.
Speaker 1: And is it waxed in Wane? Where were there other
Speaker 1: years where you played more?
Speaker 2: Yes? Absolutely. I mean there were times when we were
Speaker 2: doing European tours and we were out for a month,
Speaker 2: or we were in Japan, or we were in Australia,
Speaker 2: We've done you know where it was much more constant,
Speaker 2: lots more gigs and playing. You know, we had an
Speaker 2: agent who was booking us like mad and that that's
Speaker 2: really what you need. You know, someone's booking you like that.
Speaker 2: And I will say that when I started this band
Speaker 2: and in the early days, there were not so many
Speaker 2: of these other bands playing led Zeppelin. Now there are
Speaker 2: a plethora of these bands. And it's sometimes hard to
Speaker 2: described to promoters what the difference is aside from us
Speaker 2: being all girls or all women as it were. They
Speaker 2: don't really know, and some of them don't really care
Speaker 2: because if they can just get people through the door
Speaker 2: and buy alcohol whatever, you know, whoever gives them the
Speaker 2: lowest price, but I was not dealing with that. Early on.
Speaker 2: We were much more unique in our just existence. Forget
Speaker 2: about the way we played it, which I still believe
Speaker 2: we are unique in that way. But there just weren't
Speaker 2: so many of these bands, and it's made it tough for.
Speaker 1: So how do you actually get the gigs today? Do
Speaker 1: you have an agent today?
Speaker 2: Yes, we do have a great agent working for us.
Speaker 2: We are playing mostly theaters, and now that people know
Speaker 2: who we are, the promoters know who we are, so yeah,
Speaker 2: it's it's good. But you know you have to book
Speaker 2: it so that some other led Zeppelin band isn't down
Speaker 2: the block on the same night. You know that's happened,
Speaker 2: and then you know it's crazy.
Speaker 1: Have you ever gone to see these other lads up
Speaker 1: win bands and say, you know they're better than we are.
Speaker 2: No, you can answer that in a second. I've seen
Speaker 2: the big ones.
Speaker 1: If your agent said, okay, I can book you on
Speaker 1: one hundred dates this year, would you say set it up?
Speaker 1: You say, oh, that's just too much work. I'm too old.
Speaker 1: I've been there, done that. I'm forty's pretty good.
Speaker 2: I'd say, what's the money? No, good question, Bob I'd
Speaker 2: have to ask the girls what they wanted to do.
Speaker 2: You know, if they all were in, then I'd be in.
Speaker 2: I'm pretty game at this at this point, at any point.
Speaker 2: That's just you know. I love being on stage. I
Speaker 2: love meeting people. I love the sound of the guitar.
Speaker 2: I just you know, I I can't see giving it up.
Speaker 2: It's just part of who I am. And I'm happy
Speaker 2: to play. I don't know, I imagine myself not playing.
Speaker 1: So okay, let's go back to the beginning. Where'd you
Speaker 1: grow up?
Speaker 2: I grew up in Long Island, in a town called
Speaker 2: Great Neck, New York.
Speaker 1: You see, your mother was a college professor. What did
Speaker 1: your father do for a living?
Speaker 2: So my dad was a publisher and he worked at home.
Speaker 2: He had his own business and he put out all
Speaker 2: sorts of publications that they used to call employee relations magazines.
Speaker 2: He went to j school and this is what he did.
Speaker 2: So he had, you know, big businesses like Bloomingdale's or
Speaker 2: a big you know, King Cullin, or he had a
Speaker 2: lot of supermarkets and Hurts, you know, was a client,
Speaker 2: but he would put out their in house publications. So
Speaker 2: it was kind of like a house organ You know,
Speaker 2: for the employees to read, they'd read about themselves. They
Speaker 2: have stories about what's happening in this store that store.
Speaker 2: And it was a good business. And he did the
Speaker 2: whole thing himself.
Speaker 1: And how many kids in the family just too other
Speaker 1: and myself, your brother older or younger, what's he up to.
Speaker 2: He's a little younger. And he was a violinist, very
Speaker 2: serious violinist, so also a musician, and now he's writing
Speaker 2: for television. He's writing US series for MGM. Plus if
Speaker 2: you've ever seen The Godfather of Harlem, he's a writer
Speaker 2: on that.
Speaker 1: Okay. So if he's a serious violinist and you're a musician,
Speaker 1: was there music in the house. There must have been
Speaker 1: some driving force if you're both into music.
Speaker 2: There was music all the time. I mean, my mother
Speaker 2: was a pianist, but not any professional, but she wasn't bad,
Speaker 2: you know, she was pretty good. And my dad loved
Speaker 2: music but didn't play anything. He played stuff for us,
Speaker 2: like there was a lot of classical music mostly that
Speaker 2: they liked. They did not like rock and roll. I
Speaker 2: was on my own with that. But the one thing
Speaker 2: that my dad played for me from when I was
Speaker 2: a wee little child was Django Reinhart from as long
Speaker 2: as I can remember. He loved Jango Reinhart, and I
Speaker 2: grew up listening to that, and I still think he's
Speaker 2: the greatest guitarist who ever lived.
Speaker 1: So what point do you start playing an instrument?
Speaker 2: Well, I asked for a guitar at five and got
Speaker 2: it for my sixth birthday. So I played it a
Speaker 2: little bit, and then I put it under the piano,
Speaker 2: and then I took it back out from under the
Speaker 2: piano at about eight years old and learned a few
Speaker 2: chords and I was off. That was it?
Speaker 1: Well, a little bit slower. What do you you know?
Speaker 1: Did you take lessons? What was the music you were
Speaker 1: listening to? How'd you learn how to play?
Speaker 2: All by ear? No lessons?
Speaker 1: So if you're eight years old, what are you playing?
Speaker 2: Oh? I was playing folky music like James Taylor. I
Speaker 2: was getting into finger picking and beatle songs and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. I was interested in. Yeah, and it was
Speaker 2: fairly easy for me, you know, so, so I wasn't
Speaker 2: frustrated with it, which is why I kept doing it.
Speaker 2: And at some point, when I was a tween, I
Speaker 2: guess they called them a tween, I did go for
Speaker 2: the summer, I went for two summers to this place
Speaker 2: called the Guitar Workshop, which was out on Long Island,
Speaker 2: and it was kind of this hippie commune of guitar players.
Speaker 2: No real rock and roll, but a lot of classical,
Speaker 2: a lot of finger picking, a lot of blues. And
Speaker 2: there was one guy there who played jazz. And the
Speaker 2: second I went for just the summer, it was kind
Speaker 2: of like you know, the Guitar Institute. It was just
Speaker 2: a cram eight hour day of playing different classes and
Speaker 2: technique and ear training and stuff. And when I heard
Speaker 2: this guy play jazz, that was it. I just signed
Speaker 2: up for the whole jazz program and that's what I studied.
Speaker 2: So I did that for two summers.
Speaker 1: And you were how old when you do that?
Speaker 2: I would say, thirteen fourteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's the summer. You come back home. What are
Speaker 1: you playing at home? Are you interested in forming beans?
Speaker 1: What's going on?
Speaker 2: I'm just trying to I'm just trying to be Joe passed.
Speaker 2: I was like, I wasn't forming bands really well. I
Speaker 2: played in the high school jazz band. I was doing that.
Speaker 2: I played with a few kids who were into jazz,
Speaker 2: but I was not playing rock, and I was not
Speaker 2: doing that. I was a real jazz head, which is
Speaker 2: funny but actually turned out to be really helpful later on,
Speaker 2: I think with playing led Zeppelin actually, But yeah, it
Speaker 2: wasn't until I got to college that I started getting
Speaker 2: into bands.
Speaker 1: Okay, you ended up going to Brown in Rhode Island,
Speaker 1: so one would assume you were a good student.
Speaker 2: I guess you could assume that, although you know, I
Speaker 2: wasn't the greatest student in the world, but I was
Speaker 2: good enough, and I had a lot of, as they say,
Speaker 2: other things on my resume, as it were. I'd worked
Speaker 2: on the hill on Capitol Hill for two summers for congressman,
Speaker 2: which nobody did in high school. And I did that
Speaker 2: in high school. And I was a writer, so I
Speaker 2: could I still actually writing is the other thing I do.
Speaker 2: So I could write my application pretty well. And I
Speaker 2: just had these and then I had jet you know,
Speaker 2: I had the guitar play. I just had a lot
Speaker 2: of different things, and it appealed to that to schools,
Speaker 2: as it were. But yeah, I was all right, My
Speaker 2: grades were all right.
Speaker 1: How'd you end up working on Capitol Hill?
Speaker 2: Well, there was a congressman in our town that my
Speaker 2: parents had helped write some of his campaign speeches. It's
Speaker 2: a Democrat from New York called Lester Wolfe, and we
Speaker 2: met one day. I mean I got introduced to him,
Speaker 2: actually at a temple. He went to the same temple,
Speaker 2: and I just asked him and he said, yeah, your
Speaker 2: send me a letter. And I did. I sent him
Speaker 2: a letter and I got in and then I loved it.
Speaker 2: They loved me. So I went back the next summer.
Speaker 1: Okay, today, are you disillusioned with politics or you think
Speaker 1: there's a future?
Speaker 2: Oh boy, I'll tell you. I just kind of stopped
Speaker 2: reading newspapers or listening to anything for a good long while.
Speaker 2: But now I'm like a political junkie again. I just can't.
Speaker 2: I can't not check in with it every hour or something.
Speaker 2: But it's a good question. I think it's a really
Speaker 2: dark time. But one thing I will never forget. When
Speaker 2: I was an intern on the Hill, sometimes the interns
Speaker 2: got to go to these presentations or speakers would come.
Speaker 2: And one of the speakers who came to speak to us,
Speaker 2: he was already quite sick and was fairly old at
Speaker 2: that point, was Hubert Humphrey. So I'm dating myself a little,
Speaker 2: but Hubert Humphrey came and talked to all the interns,
Speaker 2: and I'll never forget it because he said, sort of,
Speaker 2: this thing goes. Don't lose hope in this country or
Speaker 2: in this system. It's going to seem like at times
Speaker 2: when it's beyond help, but you've got to believe in it.
Speaker 2: It is a good system, it does work. Don't lose
Speaker 2: hope in it. And I remember that. I'll never forget
Speaker 2: it because I thought, Wow, that's a guy that could
Speaker 2: have easily lost hope in it, because you know, he
Speaker 2: lost a bunch of time. It was very frustrating career
Speaker 2: for him. So I have to believe that it'll come
Speaker 2: back around.
Speaker 1: Okay, So you go to college. Do you have any
Speaker 1: idea you want to make your living in music? What
Speaker 1: are you thinking when you go?
Speaker 2: Well, I was sort of I was kind of hedge
Speaker 2: in my bets a little like I majored in international
Speaker 2: relations because I was interested in all that stuff. But really,
Speaker 2: deep down, I just wanted to be a rock star.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'll just say it, that's what I wanted.
Speaker 2: It sounds childish, but that's was my dream, you know.
Speaker 2: So at the so I sort of set off to
Speaker 2: do it after I graduated.
Speaker 1: Before you graduated, you say you started playing in bands
Speaker 1: in college. Tell us about that.
Speaker 2: Well, I played. I played in a sort of new
Speaker 2: wave band. It wasn't very good, but we thought we
Speaker 2: were good. And you know, we wrote all the music.
Speaker 2: We did some covers like I don't know Joe Jackson
Speaker 2: covers or what else did we do? Even Born to
Speaker 2: Be Wild. We had a weird mix of things. But
Speaker 2: we looked amazing. We really looked great, Like we had
Speaker 2: the coolest looking people on the campus, without doubt. But
Speaker 2: you know, black leather pants and spiked heels and I
Speaker 2: was the only girl that one of our players had
Speaker 2: a bouffontaire do I mean? We really look good. We
Speaker 2: sounded eh. But all those guys went off to law
Speaker 2: school after I wanted, you know, let's let's try it,
Speaker 2: let's try it, but they just they all went to
Speaker 2: law school. So that's when I graduated. I went to England.
Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit slower. You're a girl.
Speaker 2: There's a lot, there's a lot, Bob, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're a girl. You say in this band, you know,
Speaker 1: we hear all about sexism, opportunities. You're a guitar player.
Speaker 1: Did you find you know, obstacles in your way or
Speaker 1: you just another guitar player and you found opportunities.
Speaker 2: I have to say that in that environment, certainly, at
Speaker 2: a school like that, there wasn't sexism, not overtly, not
Speaker 2: from my bandmate. I was the lead guitarist. There was
Speaker 2: another guitar player, so no, and I was the guitar
Speaker 2: player in this stage band. That was just an audition.
Speaker 2: It was later and before it's certainly in high school.
Speaker 2: I had to prove myself and you know, everyone assumed
Speaker 2: I couldn't play. And there was tryouts for the stage
Speaker 2: band in high school, and some snotty kid was, hey,
Speaker 2: you could play rhythm and I'll play lead, and I
Speaker 2: just sort of looked at him like, well, all right,
Speaker 2: we'll see. And sure enough, you know, the audition came
Speaker 2: and came around and he took his solo and it
Speaker 2: was all blues and not even good blues over jazz changes.
Speaker 2: And then I just sort of, you know, laughed to
Speaker 2: myself in my seat because when it came to me,
Speaker 2: I knew how to play jazz, so I was, you know,
Speaker 2: da nadauata and his face was just so things that
Speaker 2: happened a lot, but not at school a little later.
Speaker 2: Even in England, you know, there were some of it,
Speaker 2: but it didn't stop me. I mean I figured out
Speaker 2: just they'll hear me play and that'll be that end
Speaker 2: of conversation. So I wasn't deeply affected by it.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from college, you see, my goal is
Speaker 1: to be a rock star. Yes, so tell us about
Speaker 1: why you went to England, what the path was, what
Speaker 1: was in your head and what actually happened.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, so much to my parents' chagrin to take
Speaker 2: that beautiful degree and go to England to be a
Speaker 2: rock star. Fine, you know, but they were very look,
Speaker 2: they didn't like the idea, but they supported it once
Speaker 2: I was determined and they knew they weren't going to
Speaker 2: stop me. So I came over all by myself with
Speaker 2: a Les Paul in a hardcover case, schlepping it around
Speaker 2: because it was heavies and a suitcase. And I had
Speaker 2: a friend who was here because I had done a
Speaker 2: semester abroad in political science with a program with the
Speaker 2: London School of Economics. So I did make a friend.
Speaker 2: I stayed with her for a while and then I
Speaker 2: found a cold water flat somewhere and started auditioning for bands,
Speaker 2: and I also had a few letters of introduction so
Speaker 2: that I ended up working for a literary agent part time,
Speaker 2: so there was a little money coming in, so that's
Speaker 2: what I did. I joined a band and it was
Speaker 2: a super progressive, crazy intricate band with two scotsmen and
Speaker 2: I think it was called The Death's Heads Piano Players
Speaker 2: or something, but it was in German. Why I joined
Speaker 2: this band, I don't know, but it was very challenging
Speaker 2: and it got nowhere. So eventually, on that along that path,
Speaker 2: after about a year or so, I did start it's
Speaker 2: a story, but I did start writing for the music
Speaker 2: press and I became a rock journalist quite seriously, and
Speaker 2: that kind of became my second track for a good
Speaker 2: long while. So I was running for the enemy as
Speaker 2: a freelancer. And what year we in, Well we're in
Speaker 2: the eighties.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we're in the eighties. You're writing for the memy.
Speaker 1: What's happening with your goal to become a rock star?
Speaker 2: Well, that band fizzled out, That was no good. So
Speaker 2: I ended up in you know, another band or that
Speaker 2: had promise but was again it's one of these stories.
Speaker 2: Where it implodes because the people are so nuts. We
Speaker 2: actually had some sort of publishing deal with CBS, but
Speaker 2: we went to make a record and that the singer
Speaker 2: showed up and he was so drunk he could I mean,
Speaker 2: he just couldn't sing. And the producer, who was Bruce
Speaker 2: Thomas from Elvis Costello's band, Yeah, he walked out on
Speaker 2: the session because this guy was such a clown. Got
Speaker 2: we got him back, but it took some doing. But
Speaker 2: that just you know, that didn't We played a few
Speaker 2: big gigs and opened for some people, but that also
Speaker 2: went puff. And then what happened is I was writing
Speaker 2: a lot, but I needed a work permit and the
Speaker 2: nmy said that they would get one for me. So
Speaker 2: I left the country because they had to stay out
Speaker 2: of the country for a while, you know, And at
Speaker 2: that time it was tough in England. You know, they
Speaker 2: were really crunching down on people coming over and taking
Speaker 2: jobs and it was I was a little paranoid about that,
Speaker 2: so it was hard to get in. People were questioning
Speaker 2: you all of that. So I stayed in the States
Speaker 2: for a while waiting for this work permit, and basically
Speaker 2: it never came through. So I stayed in New York
Speaker 2: City doing what writing, Mostly writing. I played in a
Speaker 2: few bands here and there. I started to play myself
Speaker 2: as a singer songwriter. I was kind of sick of band,
Speaker 2: so I went out kind of Billy Bragg style, you know,
Speaker 2: just with a guitar, guitar and my vocal and I
Speaker 2: wrote a bunch of songs, a whole bunch of songs,
Speaker 2: and I kind of played around New York City, mostly
Speaker 2: to very few people. And I had, you know, promises
Speaker 2: from this guy and promises from that. You know. It
Speaker 2: was that kind of thing. And didn't you know, I
Speaker 2: had my own band, I had other bands, and I
Speaker 2: just did that for years. But then there got to
Speaker 2: be a point when I kind of got sick of
Speaker 2: I really I burned out on it. It was too
Speaker 2: much rejection. I had too much energy. The other band
Speaker 2: people were too unreliable, and I just kind of stopped
Speaker 2: for a couple of years. I put my guitars in
Speaker 2: the closet and I stopped, and I started on a novel,
Speaker 2: which I wrote. But then I saved by Joey Ramone
Speaker 2: who called me up. And I hadn't played the guitar
Speaker 2: in a long time. And Joey liked my playing because
Speaker 2: he had seen me with that all girl band I
Speaker 2: mentioned before, and he was looking for a guitar player
Speaker 2: to join Ronnie Spector's band because he was working with her,
Speaker 2: and he thought I'd be good because he wanted youth
Speaker 2: energy in her band rather than just side musicians. So
Speaker 2: I flew to Yeah, I flew in, and I was
Speaker 2: living in California at the time, actually in San Francisco
Speaker 2: with my boyfriend who then became my husband, and I
Speaker 2: played with Ronnie for a couple of years. It was
Speaker 2: fantastic and I was so happy playing. It's like it
Speaker 2: was like a gift. I had been given this gift
Speaker 2: of music again that I could play and be happy
Speaker 2: and not worry about if I was going to get
Speaker 2: a record deal, and not worry about this, and just
Speaker 2: have fun on stage. And it was really fantastic. And
Speaker 2: I think that that whole experience sort of fed this
Speaker 2: les Zeppelin thing because I just wanted to do it
Speaker 2: out of pure joy and love with the music. That's it,
Speaker 2: that's all. I had no other agenda and no other plans,
Speaker 2: and I think that's why it worked.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from college, you want to become a
Speaker 1: rock star.
Speaker 2: Ultimately, that sounds so cliched, Bob oh no no.
Speaker 1: No headline, no no, no. People don't understand it. Most
Speaker 1: talent is fifty percent the raw desire, you know, and
Speaker 1: especially someone who's educated. Whatever. I mean, it's a dream.
Speaker 1: But my question ultimately is when you decide to put
Speaker 1: the guitar back in the case, how how hard was
Speaker 1: it to give up the dream?
Speaker 2: Impossible? Nearly impossible. That's why I wrote a novel. I
Speaker 2: had to funnel it into something else that I did
Speaker 2: that was creative that I loved. And I hadn't written
Speaker 2: a novel before. I'd written lots of stories and some
Speaker 2: short stories and stuff, but I just dove into that.
Speaker 2: It was like trying to get over a death. I
Speaker 2: know that sounds really sort of hyperbolic, but it was
Speaker 2: like something died and I just didn't know what to do.
Speaker 2: So I wrote, and that was the tonic. It was
Speaker 2: the only tonic for me. Really.
Speaker 1: How old were you at that point and what ended
Speaker 1: up happening with the novel?
Speaker 2: Oh, I can't tell you how old I was, but
Speaker 2: you can guess, but you know old enough the novel.
Speaker 2: I had an age four it's a pretty good novel.
Speaker 2: I mean I did get a very you know, fairly
Speaker 2: good literary agent and she helped me head it edited
Speaker 2: a little, and she sent it out. She didn't send
Speaker 2: it out a lot. She sent it out maybe two
Speaker 2: eight to ten publishers and they liked it, but no
Speaker 2: one bit. So the novel is still waiting to be read,
Speaker 2: and I will. I will get it out there at
Speaker 2: some point, but I'm working on another novel now, so
Speaker 2: I'm focused on that.
Speaker 1: Okay. At this distance, do you still feel as positive
Speaker 1: about the novel or you say, now there was some distance, Well,
Speaker 1: it really wasn't that great.
Speaker 2: So I'm very, very very hard on myself with everything
Speaker 2: I do. I mean writing less so, but I was
Speaker 2: very hard on myself with my guitar playing hard. I
Speaker 2: still am. I think it's a good novel. I let
Speaker 2: someone read it recently and she really loved it, so
Speaker 2: I think it's I think it. My mother thought it
Speaker 2: was a great novel, so I'll take.
Speaker 1: That, okay. And what was it about?
Speaker 2: It was about it was kind of a dual story
Speaker 2: of well, it's a first novel, right, so there's a
Speaker 2: little bit of you know, life experience in there. But
Speaker 2: it's about a girl who finds that who's in a
Speaker 2: mental institution because she's driven crazy by her pursuit of
Speaker 2: being in the music business. Yeah, it comes in, It
Speaker 2: comes in big time. But it's also about one of
Speaker 2: the nurses in the mental hospital and her whole life,
Speaker 2: and the two of them interact and the nurse in
Speaker 2: a nuts. The nurse is bereft of any intense, beautiful,
Speaker 2: adventurous experience, and she starts to feed off this patient
Speaker 2: who tells her all these stories and she gets very
Speaker 2: into it.
Speaker 1: Okay, we're in this story. Do you meet the gentleman
Speaker 1: that becomes your husband? And how hard was it to
Speaker 1: move to San Francisco And what was that like?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I met him. You will laugh at this.
Speaker 2: I will meet him. While I was writing for the Enemy,
Speaker 2: and I was in New York and I was sent
Speaker 2: to review or I pitched it one or the other.
Speaker 2: I was set to review a gig by the Dead Kennedys,
Speaker 2: who were playing in New York City. Okay, so I
Speaker 2: went to this show which was at this place called
Speaker 2: the World, and it was crumbling. It was like a
Speaker 2: crumbling ballroom and I was standing at the back and
Speaker 2: coming up the steps and the banister. It wasn't me
Speaker 2: who did it, but the banister behind me at some
Speaker 2: point fell off the wall like and just like half
Speaker 2: the wall fell down, and this was one of the
Speaker 2: guys that went to rush and help with it. I
Speaker 2: saw him. He looked like someone I knew, so I
Speaker 2: was kind of looking at him, and he looked back
Speaker 2: at me and we just started talking. You bought me
Speaker 2: a ginger ale.
Speaker 1: So how did you end up moving to San Francisco?
Speaker 2: Well, so this guy, you know, we were friendly. He
Speaker 2: was very easy going at the time, and it was
Speaker 2: it was nice and we'd go to gigs and stuff
Speaker 2: like that. So we were compatible in that way eventually.
Speaker 2: And I have to say this, it's when you live
Speaker 2: in New York. A lot of relationship decisions are made
Speaker 2: because of apartments, like who can afford an apartment by
Speaker 2: themselves and who needs a roommate? And if you happen
Speaker 2: to be seeing somebody and you need an apartment, which
Speaker 2: is what happened, you are then thrust into this mega
Speaker 2: decision do I move in with this person? And you know,
Speaker 2: everyone knows once you move in with someone, it's pretty
Speaker 2: hard to move out, So that's kind of what happened
Speaker 2: to us, and we just stayed together and we didn't
Speaker 2: get married or anything. But he was a union organizer
Speaker 2: or would be, and he did that for a while,
Speaker 2: and then he went back to college to finish his degree.
Speaker 2: He never had his degree. Smart guy, but never So
Speaker 2: he went to Columbia, got his degree, did so well
Speaker 2: that he got into law school. And the law school
Speaker 2: he got into was Stanford, and I thought he should
Speaker 2: go to Stanford rather than Chicago. I don't know if
Speaker 2: that was a good choice, but San Francisco was nicer
Speaker 2: weather than Chicago. I think I was more interested in
Speaker 2: being there, and he let you know, so we went there.
Speaker 2: That's how I ended up in California and stayed there
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 1: Okay, when you're playing in Ronnie Spector's band, are you
Speaker 1: living in California or do you move back to New York.
Speaker 1: I was.
Speaker 2: I was going living in both places. I would fly in.
Speaker 2: My parents had an apartment that they in the village,
Speaker 2: and I could stay there. So I had a way
Speaker 2: to do it. And I wasn't making any money because
Speaker 2: you know, he was not going to be her manager,
Speaker 2: was not going to pay my airfare, and I didn't
Speaker 2: want to make it seem it was too hard for
Speaker 2: me to do the show because I was having so
Speaker 2: much fun and it was such a gift that I
Speaker 2: just wanted to play. So I'd fly myself back and
Speaker 2: forth and basically break even, but it was super fun.
Speaker 2: So I was kind of by coastal.
Speaker 1: How long did you play for Ronnie Specter and what
Speaker 1: did you learn there?
Speaker 2: I played with her for a couple of years and
Speaker 2: we had a couple of amazing shows. We played at
Speaker 2: a G eight conference for like the leaders of the
Speaker 2: Western world. That was amazing. You know, Bill Clinton clapping
Speaker 2: to be my baby. It was just something to behold.
Speaker 2: We went to Japan, just a lot of fun stuff.
Speaker 2: I learned a lot from her. We had some gigs
Speaker 2: here and there where they were small clubs, and you know, Bob,
Speaker 2: you know how big a star she was. She was huge.
Speaker 2: The ronettes were huge, And there she was in some
Speaker 2: club where she had a change behind a screen or something,
Speaker 2: and it could not have been fun for her to
Speaker 2: do that, but I'm telling you, when she got out there,
Speaker 2: no matter where she was, she gave it everything and
Speaker 2: she was amazing. Her voice was still amazing. She gave
Speaker 2: it people a show and she turned up and I
Speaker 2: just thought, damn, you know, that's that's a big lesson.
Speaker 2: Doesn't matter who's it out there, you just that's your
Speaker 2: job and you do it. And she was a real
Speaker 2: show person, you know, she was great. So I learned
Speaker 2: about that too, how to work a stage a little,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 1: So how did that end?
Speaker 2: Well, we went to Japan, and after that I kind
Speaker 2: of was getting the feeling that they were sick of
Speaker 2: being uncertain and flying, you know, worrying whether I could
Speaker 2: fly from here or from there because I had a
Speaker 2: fly you know. So they wanted a more New York
Speaker 2: based band, and they probably wanted to pay somebody less,
Speaker 2: to be honest with you whatever. And coincidentally, I was
Speaker 2: pregnant the first time, so it all worked out. I
Speaker 2: was done with it anyway.
Speaker 1: So how'd you end up back in New York?
Speaker 2: Well, I thought it would be better to be in
Speaker 2: New York to be because I had this amazing little kid,
Speaker 2: and my parents had no grandchildren, and I missed New York.
Speaker 2: San Francisco was you know, not doing it for me.
Speaker 2: I was done. I was over. It wasn't mine.
Speaker 1: Yet yes, but you're involved with this man who's going
Speaker 1: to Stanford law school. As he moved back to New York.
Speaker 2: Oh, he was done. He was done with law. With
Speaker 2: law school. He was working in a firm, and he
Speaker 2: got a job at a big New York firm, which
Speaker 2: didn't last long. But that's what happened. So he was willing,
Speaker 2: although I think he didn't. I think he didn't really
Speaker 2: want to leave. And I think that that and I
Speaker 2: kept asking him because I could tell, but he consisted
Speaker 2: he was fine. But I think that was one of
Speaker 2: the reasons our relationship sort of went a different way.
Speaker 2: He should have stayed.
Speaker 1: Who blew the whistle? Ultimately him? Were you?
Speaker 2: I think you know.
Speaker 1: It was no, never mutual.
Speaker 2: No, but we grew apart. We grew apart. I probably
Speaker 2: realized at first. He realized it pretty quickly and even
Speaker 2: said it to me. So I don't know how to
Speaker 2: answer that question.
Speaker 1: It was important. Yeah, yeah, So are you having this
Speaker 1: child sitting steering in four a wall saying God, I
Speaker 1: got to do something. What is the genesis of the thought?
Speaker 1: And then why is it led Zeppelin?
Speaker 2: Okay, this is the great, great, great question. So without
Speaker 2: trying to be too wordy. I have a problem with
Speaker 2: that sometimes. I never wanted children, ever, not interested. In fact,
Speaker 2: I kind of thought it was a feminist thing, like
Speaker 2: women were destroyed by children they'd have. I had friends
Speaker 2: that went to medical school and business school and then
Speaker 2: they had a kid and threw it all out the window.
Speaker 2: So I was frightened of that whole thing. I thought,
Speaker 2: you become some sort of zombie, a kid zombie, and
Speaker 2: that's it. Everything is, all your interests are gone, your
Speaker 2: life is over all you can about is this toddler
Speaker 2: or something. So it never interested me. But at the
Speaker 2: end of the day, I think I felt, do I
Speaker 2: really want to go through life without any kids at all?
Speaker 2: And I wasn't sure. So not being sure was the sticker.
Speaker 2: The fact that I wasn't sure meant I either had
Speaker 2: a move or it be made. This is the decision
Speaker 2: would be made for me. So I said, all right,
Speaker 2: we'll see what happens. Let's just see, and bingo, that's
Speaker 2: what happened pretty fast. So I was frightened to death
Speaker 2: when I you know, when I realized I was going
Speaker 2: to have this kid, I was scared because I thought
Speaker 2: this was going to happen to me zombie land. Well,
Speaker 2: guess what I have this little guy, and I have
Speaker 2: to say he was a great zen baby. He was amazing.
Speaker 2: But I did not feel trapped. In fact, lo and behold,
Speaker 2: the exact opposite happened. I felt empowered by this thing,
Speaker 2: totally more empowered than I'd ever felt. So I would
Speaker 2: have to say that just to cut to your question. No,
Speaker 2: I I was thoroughly enjoying my kids, but also empowered
Speaker 2: to do things that I wanted to do, and I
Speaker 2: felt I could do them both. It was a lot
Speaker 2: of entery, it was difficult, but I did do them both.
Speaker 2: So No, I wasn't staring at four walls. I was
Speaker 2: totally engaged. It's just that this thing was still there.
Speaker 2: I wanted to do it, and I felt good about
Speaker 2: everything I fell. Oh, I'll cut a bunch of things out,
Speaker 2: like spending time with people who don't interest me, and
Speaker 2: I'll form a band. You know, it's like you sort
Speaker 2: of have to give and take a little.
Speaker 1: Okay, how long from that thought until you settle on
Speaker 1: the concept of leeds Zeppelin.
Speaker 2: Well, let's see, my first was about three and we
Speaker 2: were in New York, so he was two and a
Speaker 2: half two and a half ish three, so we were
Speaker 2: pretty settled in you know that we had some help.
Speaker 2: So it seemed like I could go play a gig.
Speaker 2: Why not play a gig on a weekend. And you know,
Speaker 2: my partner was very he was supportive. He wasn't threatened
Speaker 2: by it or anything. He thought why not. It was
Speaker 2: so it was supposed to be some little, you know,
Speaker 2: fifty buck a week, you know thing or fifty buck
Speaker 2: a month, little escapade where I'd have to work really
Speaker 2: hard to practice, but it would be fun. And then
Speaker 2: it turned into something more. And then you know, I
Speaker 2: had to decide whether I was going to keep doing
Speaker 2: it or bow out because I had kids. But I
Speaker 2: didn't bow out. I thought, why bow out, I'll just
Speaker 2: take them with me, or I'll work around it, or
Speaker 2: I'll go weekends. It didn't occur to me that I
Speaker 2: couldn't do it all, I guess, and I think a
Speaker 2: lot of people make that assumption. They think, oh, I
Speaker 2: can't do that because I have kids. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: sure you can. You just you know, you have to
Speaker 2: have the energy to do it, but sure you can.
Speaker 2: So that's kind of how it was. Really.
Speaker 1: So you decide you want to do something. Do you
Speaker 1: decide on other things or is it immediately less Zeppelin?
Speaker 2: Well, this was the thing that was. I just wanted
Speaker 2: to play. I had the itch to play, so that's
Speaker 2: why I went in that direction. I wanted to not
Speaker 2: at that point be Jimmy Page that came later, but
Speaker 2: I was enamored of his let's just say genius and
Speaker 2: I wanted to get those riffs. I wanted to dig
Speaker 2: into what he was doing, which was so encompassing of
Speaker 2: so many things. That's all I just wanted to play.
Speaker 1: Okay, you decide you want to play. It could have
Speaker 1: been a Beatles cover band, could have been an e
Speaker 1: Loo cover band. How long and what was the process
Speaker 1: signing no, it's going to be led Zeppelin or was
Speaker 1: that a very.
Speaker 2: First Okay, so no, it couldn't have been any of
Speaker 2: those others, because I know this is going to sound weird.
Speaker 2: I had no idea what a tribute band was. I'd
Speaker 2: never been in one. I didn't know they existed. To
Speaker 2: be honest, I know that it's only after I started
Speaker 2: this band that another tribute band wrote I don't consider
Speaker 2: us a tribute band, which we can get into in
Speaker 2: a minute, but wrote to us saying, hey, welcome to
Speaker 2: the world of tribute bands or whatever it was. And
Speaker 2: I was horrified because this was not what I had
Speaker 2: in mind. I did not decide, oh, I'm going to
Speaker 2: play someone's music and go out there and maybe make money.
Speaker 2: What music can I play? It was totally the reverse.
Speaker 2: It was like, I just want to be in led Zeppelin.
Speaker 1: That's it. Okay, okay, so you were a led Zeppelin fan. Yeah,
Speaker 1: how did you become a led Zeppelin fan?
Speaker 2: Well, honestly, it wasn't until a little later, or I
Speaker 2: was not. I had some of their albums growing up,
Speaker 2: but I wasn't a huge fan until I don't know,
Speaker 2: I guess maybe thirty in my thirties or something, when
Speaker 2: I was starting to get more exposed to their music
Speaker 2: through some band members, and I just couldn't believe. And
Speaker 2: then and then I started listening to it, and my
Speaker 2: mother in law bought me the box set for Christmas,
Speaker 2: and that was it for me. You know, all the albums.
Speaker 2: That was the rabbit hole. I just I just fell
Speaker 2: into the rabbit hole and I just thought, you know,
Speaker 2: this music is kind of a lot better than everything
Speaker 2: else I've been listening to I've been playing, it's just
Speaker 2: a lot better. And I just was absolutely hooked. And
Speaker 2: that's what and I became more obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you get these other three girls together. LED's
Speaker 1: up when not all their music sounds the same? How
Speaker 1: do you decide what you're gonna play?
Speaker 2: Ah? Good question. Well, some of some of it was,
Speaker 2: you know, let's start with the basics, let's let's let's
Speaker 2: take the canon and do this sort of necessary songs,
Speaker 2: and then you had to look at them and see
Speaker 2: if it was possible to do now. Luckily, and this
Speaker 2: was a bit of magic just when I was starting
Speaker 2: this band, that How the West was one CD and
Speaker 2: DVD came out. It was like a godsend because the
Speaker 2: DVD was like a playbook literally to how they were
Speaker 2: handled it as four people. So I I could see
Speaker 2: what lines Jimmy picked to play out of the ten
Speaker 2: guitar layers. We could see how they finished songs that
Speaker 2: trailed out on a record, what do they do? We
Speaker 2: had this whole guy set before us, like you know,
Speaker 2: the Book of Mormon or something, so that was really handy.
Speaker 2: So a lot of the songs we started with were
Speaker 2: those songs that we could sort of have a guide too,
Speaker 2: but it was a pretty basic setlist and if we
Speaker 2: found stuff was too hardly, you know, like we didn't
Speaker 2: start off playing four sticks or Achilles Last Stand or something.
Speaker 2: We got to that eventually, but much later.
Speaker 1: Okay, As you say, you're a four piece and always
Speaker 1: have been without extra players, how hard and how long
Speaker 1: did it take you to learn to play those parts?
Speaker 1: You know, you're carrying almost a complete band. It's essentially
Speaker 1: a trio with a lead singer.
Speaker 2: That's right, and I've always loved that. You know, Cream
Speaker 2: was my other favorite band. It is it's basically a
Speaker 2: power trio, which means the guitar it's totally naked. I
Speaker 2: mean you're playing solos over just bass and drums most
Speaker 2: of the time. There's no rhythm guitar, there's nothing, there's
Speaker 2: no safety net man, nothing just out there and it's formidable.
Speaker 2: But you know, that's what got me, That's what intrigued me.
Speaker 2: I wanted to be that kind of play. I wanted
Speaker 2: to do that. It was. It was hard, though, it
Speaker 2: took me just I don't know if I could put
Speaker 2: a time on it, because I think I'm still learning
Speaker 2: to be honest with you. But I think about five
Speaker 2: or six months before I felt I could really step
Speaker 2: on a stage and deliver something with integrity. I didn't
Speaker 2: want to just play it. It had to have integrity
Speaker 2: in its other dimensions. So maybe six months and then
Speaker 2: it took a few years of really digging down to
Speaker 2: keep getting better and better and better. But I've watched,
Speaker 2: you know, my own playing change, and you know, it
Speaker 2: would stay at a certain level and then leap up
Speaker 2: a little, and then leap up a little. So it's
Speaker 2: just kind of like that. That's the way it is.
Speaker 2: And I still think I can get better, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm hoping.
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, today we have the internet that goes
Speaker 1: deep into how they made all these records, but you're
Speaker 1: starting before that becomes a really big thing. I mean
Speaker 1: you're listening to the records. Yeah, to a degree, you
Speaker 1: have how the West was won, and you could see
Speaker 1: what guitar is playing, But how do you figure out
Speaker 1: how to actually replicate those sounds with the guitar, with
Speaker 1: the effect, with the amps, with all the other elements
Speaker 1: that go in.
Speaker 2: Ah that honestly, by ear, I sat there like an
Speaker 2: bloodite with the CD or the record or there was Spotify. Well,
Speaker 2: I don't even know what it was on. I could
Speaker 2: get it somewhere. I don't remember how I kept repeating it,
Speaker 2: but I would literally sit and repeat it and play
Speaker 2: it and backwind and replay it, and you know, just
Speaker 2: over and over and over, and then I'd start to
Speaker 2: hear something different in it, so I'd realize, Aha, there's that,
Speaker 2: and aha, there's that, and he's wiggling the note here
Speaker 2: not there. Like it was all just literally by ear
Speaker 2: and a little bit by watching. But you know those
Speaker 2: videos that they're not all on his fingers. You can't
Speaker 2: learn it by it's all over the place. So and
Speaker 2: I used a little bit of tablature to get me oriented.
Speaker 2: But a lot of the time the tablature is wrong,
Speaker 2: so you listen to it and it's like, no, that's
Speaker 2: not it, you know. But that's how I play by ear,
Speaker 2: And it's very old fashioned, but I think it's the
Speaker 2: way that Jimmy Page learned to play or and Eric
Speaker 2: Clapton and all those guys. So it was kind of
Speaker 2: in the style of what they did. It was really
Speaker 2: not very technical technically, going.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're learning by ear since you went to this
Speaker 1: summer camp for two years. Did you learn how to
Speaker 1: read music?
Speaker 2: Well? Not really. No, I can't really read music. I
Speaker 2: can read a little piano music on the right hand,
Speaker 2: because I took some piano lessons when I was little.
Speaker 2: But maybe if I really tried to get it back,
Speaker 2: I could read a little. But music on the guitar,
Speaker 2: like if it's not tab, it's just insanely hard because
Speaker 2: there are so many positions for the same notes, and
Speaker 2: that would be useless to me, absolutely useless. The TAB
Speaker 2: I could get through a little bit, but I don't
Speaker 2: read it that well either.
Speaker 1: Okay, how much equipment do you need to replicate Jimmy
Speaker 1: Page's sound? I mean he had the last ball, he
Speaker 1: had the Gibson with the two necks. How much did
Speaker 1: you need and how much do you have?
Speaker 2: So this is kind of a trick question. As I said,
Speaker 2: I had the basic thing. I did not have all
Speaker 2: of his stacks. I had one martial amp. It was
Speaker 2: a JCM eight hundred because I could overdrive it. And
Speaker 2: I do have a Plexi as well, but it's it
Speaker 2: doesn't have a master volume, and it's just way too loud.
Speaker 2: And to get Jimmy sound, it has to be way
Speaker 2: too loud. I mean, it's got to be up at eight.
Speaker 2: I know what his settings are, and it's just and
Speaker 2: his amp was more beefed up, so you're not really
Speaker 2: going to get that tone he's going to get unless
Speaker 2: you can do that. So you have to just sort
Speaker 2: of get as close as you can by overdriving it.
Speaker 2: But you can't overdrive it that much because he didn't
Speaker 2: play like modern guitars. He didn't play with all that
Speaker 2: dirt and overdrive, which basically means you can play with
Speaker 2: your left hand and you don't even have to pick
Speaker 2: the note. You know, most modern guitarists are so in
Speaker 2: this sound sort of whirlwind that it's just a very
Speaker 2: different tech style. I mean, Jimmy was playing all of it.
Speaker 2: It's super hard. So you've got the amp, and I
Speaker 2: just copied what he had, which was not much. It's
Speaker 2: basically a wah it's I had like this Kate. I
Speaker 2: had this Klon type pedal to push it a little,
Speaker 2: a Phase ninety, an mx R a Phase ninety, and
Speaker 2: I did have one other. What did I have that's
Speaker 2: really I mean, that's mostly it and an echoplex, sorry,
Speaker 2: an echoplex, and I had the old echoplex, the tape
Speaker 2: echoplex and a theremin. Yeah, I did his whole thing.
Speaker 2: But that is basically what you have to work with.
Speaker 2: If you want to sound like Jimmy Page, you have
Speaker 2: to you have to learn to play the notes like
Speaker 2: he played them, and that is how you sound like him.
Speaker 2: No equipment's going to make you sound like it.
Speaker 1: So how'd you end up working with Eddie Kramer?
Speaker 2: Again? It was another like crazy balls out steph moment
Speaker 2: where I said to our manager we were going to
Speaker 2: make a record, and we were making lists of producers,
Speaker 2: and I just said, you know, I always used to
Speaker 2: joke with the girls about Eddie Kramer. Why don't you
Speaker 2: know Eddie Kramer Shoot's going to come and produce a record?
Speaker 2: And they'd laugh at me. So I said to Alan,
Speaker 2: who was our manager, go, I don't know, should you
Speaker 2: ask him? He goes, I'll ask him. Couldn't hurt to ask, right,
Speaker 2: So he called him up and he asked him, and
Speaker 2: Eddie checked out our stuff and he thought, I guess
Speaker 2: we were good enough. So I'm sitting in my office
Speaker 2: one day with a guitar and the phone rings as
Speaker 2: they did then, and I picked it up and he goes, oh, hello,
Speaker 2: it's Eddie Kramer, and you know, I nearly fell off
Speaker 2: my chair because bingo, that was it. I just said
Speaker 2: skin and he did it. So he came to New York.
Speaker 2: We put him up and he produced this record, this
Speaker 2: first record.
Speaker 1: What was it like? Would you learn working with Eddie Kreamer?
Speaker 2: I'll say there were some surreal moments, you know how
Speaker 2: on Physical Graffiti, which we have had discussed where in
Speaker 2: a Black Country Woman before that track, there's the you
Speaker 2: know Robert going, oh, there's Eddie. You got to get
Speaker 2: the those planes off right? He says this thing right,
Speaker 2: So we would joke about that. But do you know
Speaker 2: what it felt like to have that voice in the
Speaker 2: control room saying rolling I mean like literally rolling nuts?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: It was just like I'd entered some other dimension of
Speaker 2: notting a crazy Zeppelin vortex. The one thing I will
Speaker 2: tell you, And he was great. He was very nice
Speaker 2: to us. Maybe not so nice to some of the
Speaker 2: other people in the studio, but he was nice to us.
Speaker 2: That's all I'll say about that. But there was one
Speaker 2: day when and this was a devil death day, when
Speaker 2: I realized it was the guitar solo day, that I
Speaker 2: was going to go in just me and Eddie and
Speaker 2: I was going to play all the solos, and I'm
Speaker 2: telling you, Bob, I nearly threw up. I mean I
Speaker 2: was like, am I out of my mind? I was like,
Speaker 2: what am I thinking? This guy sat with Jimmy Hendricks
Speaker 2: for his old career, this guy sat with Jimmy Page
Speaker 2: and whoever else, And I'm going to go in and
Speaker 2: I'm going to play the solos. I was like, I'm
Speaker 2: out forget about. This is crazy. And I don't know
Speaker 2: what I did push ups or something, and I had
Speaker 2: no choice. I had to go and do it. So
Speaker 2: I went in, you know, scared to death, and it
Speaker 2: was just me and him. We spent an hour or
Speaker 2: two finding the right amp because Jimmy didn't use the
Speaker 2: Marshall to play the solos, you know, the supro maybe
Speaker 2: some other stuff. But we found this crazy little amp
Speaker 2: which was a vox Nova, which is not a guitar
Speaker 2: amp at all. It's actually an amp for horns, if
Speaker 2: that makes any sense. It's a weird little amp, but
Speaker 2: it sounded great. You turn it all the way up
Speaker 2: and it just had the right crunch and something about
Speaker 2: the tone. So I basically we chose that, and I
Speaker 2: think the first song I tried to play was Communication Breakdown.
Speaker 2: So I went into this. I wed in and there's
Speaker 2: Eddie Kramer and there's Roland, you know, and I just
Speaker 2: played the solo and I actually played it okay, and
Speaker 2: he stopped after it. He goes, come in here. I
Speaker 2: think that's it. I'm like, you don't want me to
Speaker 2: do it again. He's like, come out here, and he
Speaker 2: played it. He goes, you did it, that's it. One take.
Speaker 2: He goes, I'll tell you something. He said. I wasn't
Speaker 2: sure you could do this. He goes, but you can
Speaker 2: do it. So after that we were good.
Speaker 1: Okay, tell me about meeting Jimmy Page.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, this could be a whole podcast and of itself.
Speaker 2: So it took ten years before I actually met Jimmy,
Speaker 2: which is probably good actually, because I was so in
Speaker 2: Jimmy world that, you know, it's probably good. It took
Speaker 2: ten years, but I met him at the when I
Speaker 2: didn't know I was really going to meet him. It
Speaker 2: was the last minute. My friend had an extra ticket.
Speaker 2: My friend who knows Jimmy and who's worked with him
Speaker 2: and is a con vintage guitar dealer. He had an
Speaker 2: extra ticket to the premiere of Celebration Day in New
Speaker 2: York at the zig Field Theater. Did I want to go? Damn? Yeah,
Speaker 2: this is a half an hour before the show or something.
Speaker 2: I didn't even you know, and I realized I might
Speaker 2: actually meet Jimmy, who knows. I don't know, but I
Speaker 2: had to get dressed, throw something on race down there
Speaker 2: we saw the thing, you know, Jimmy and Robert, they
Speaker 2: all came in the room, and just then being in
Speaker 2: the room was amazing. But then we got to go
Speaker 2: to the after party and I thought, okay, you'll probably
Speaker 2: walk in. I'll get a chance finally to meet him.
Speaker 2: So Jimmy finally comes in after about an hour. I've
Speaker 2: been hanging out with Joan Jet at the bar, talking
Speaker 2: about women in music, which is very interesting, and about
Speaker 2: you know, being a girl guitar player. So Jimmy comes
Speaker 2: in and this friend of mine grab me and says,
Speaker 2: we got to get him before he gets lost in
Speaker 2: this crowd. So we pulls me up, shoves me in
Speaker 2: front of him and says, Jimmy, this is Steph from
Speaker 2: Les Zeppelin, and Jimmy stops and he turns and he
Speaker 2: looks at me and he's like, oh wow, great to
Speaker 2: finally meet you, like, oh my god, thank god, like
Speaker 2: he actually knows the band and is big hug, right,
Speaker 2: big hug. And we stand back and I say, Jimmy,
Speaker 2: you know, I got to tell you, and I don't
Speaker 2: know how I thought of this. He said, it's really
Speaker 2: hard being you and he just laughed and he goes,
Speaker 2: it is. I said, yeah it is. He goes, yeah,
Speaker 2: I know it is. And we had this crazy life
Speaker 2: because it was he knew I meant more than just
Speaker 2: playing the guitar and all this stuff. It was everything about,
Speaker 2: you know, being the Jimmy person. And then he said
Speaker 2: to me, you know what you're doing out there is
Speaker 2: really great. It's stunning, especially the first album, and I was,
Speaker 2: oh my god, he knows the albums like this is.
Speaker 2: And then I got to say to him how much
Speaker 2: his music meant to me and how much love it's
Speaker 2: brought into my life, and we just stared at each
Speaker 2: other like love birds. I was fuck because we both
Speaker 2: have the same love, you know, led Zeppelin, and it
Speaker 2: was just an instant. Yeah, we were soulmate, we're friends.
Speaker 2: This is it. So then he came around the room.
Speaker 2: I was like done, I didn't need anything after that,
Speaker 2: but he did come around the room and someone else
Speaker 2: dragged me over and said, Jimmy, you got to see
Speaker 2: her band, and we both I was like, no, he knows,
Speaker 2: it's fine, it's fine. But then we talked for like
Speaker 2: fifteen twenty minutes and it was it was great. It
Speaker 2: was really just he was so friendly and it was
Speaker 2: clearly we liked each other. And I told him, I said, Jimmy,
Speaker 2: you know we we got you got to see us.
Speaker 2: We have to come to England. Goes yeah, I know,
Speaker 2: you guys. Last time you were here, I wasn't there.
Speaker 2: I wasn't in town. I said, well, we'll come again.
Speaker 2: So after that night, first thing I did is I
Speaker 2: called this guy in England who was trying to book
Speaker 2: us a tour who wildly underpaid. I mean, I couldn't
Speaker 2: even do it because it was no money in it.
Speaker 2: But I called him and I said, look, we got
Speaker 2: to come to England. You know, we got to do it.
Speaker 2: Can you can you arrange it? And he came back
Speaker 2: the next day with a small tour which which started
Speaker 2: off with the Isle of Wight. We played at the
Speaker 2: Isle of Wight. It was it was like I'm telling you,
Speaker 2: it was nuts. And the next day this is a
Speaker 2: whole funny story, but you know, I've been I've been
Speaker 2: sending Jimmy messages or his office telling him when we
Speaker 2: were going to be there, and he didn't respond to
Speaker 2: me at that point, so I didn't know if he
Speaker 2: even knew. But we were coming back from the Isle
Speaker 2: of Wight and we were in the van on the
Speaker 2: way to London where we played at this place called
Speaker 2: the Garage or the Garage, and I open up my
Speaker 2: little flip phone, you know how it used to be
Speaker 2: where when you're overseas you have to get one of
Speaker 2: those Motorola flip phones where you poke at the at
Speaker 2: the anyway. And I see a message and the message
Speaker 2: says love Jimmy XOXO. And I look at it and
Speaker 2: I'm exhausted, right, and I say love Jimmy, and my
Speaker 2: drummer Lisa, looks over at me and says, steph Jimmy,
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh oh, and I like go
Speaker 2: into the messages, and sure enough there was this whole
Speaker 2: other message and he forgot to sign his name, so
Speaker 2: the one message said love Jimmy. But then there was
Speaker 2: a whole other message and it was going on and
Speaker 2: on about how he was me, Oh, I hope it's
Speaker 2: going well and blah blah blah, like to try to
Speaker 2: come and I'm reading it and I'm freaking out. And
Speaker 2: then I try to start messaging him back. And as
Speaker 2: I'm poking away at this phone ABC D housing and
Speaker 2: my hands are sort of shaking, the phone rings. The
Speaker 2: phone rings in my hand, so I look at it
Speaker 2: and Lisa again, my goes, Steph, answer the phone. It's like,
Speaker 2: this is so funny and so silly, it's very Monty
Speaker 2: Python it. So I answered the phone, and of course
Speaker 2: it's it's him. Hey, Hello, is this step It's it's
Speaker 2: Jimmy Page right. I'm like, oh hi, and the whole van,
Speaker 2: the whole crew silence. And he's a little bit ticked
Speaker 2: off that I didn't answer him. You know, it's like
Speaker 2: I didn't know he texted me, because you know, I
Speaker 2: called you or I texted you, but I said.
Speaker 1: Oh, I know I did.
Speaker 2: I didn't see it, and blah blah blah blah. So anyway,
Speaker 2: he's talking and he's telling me about how he's in
Speaker 2: the studio he was working on those big three three
Speaker 2: set reissues that you know, was one, two, and three,
Speaker 2: and he was in the studio mastering all that stuff.
Speaker 2: So well, finally, after about ten minutes of a conversation,
Speaker 2: because well, I'd like to try to come, and uh so,
Speaker 2: maybe just put put me on the guest list, and
Speaker 2: he gave me his friend's name goes put us put
Speaker 2: me under this name plus. So I did that. Okay, great, Well,
Speaker 2: I hope you see you later. I said, come anyway,
Speaker 2: even if it's you know, halfway done. Great, bye, hang
Speaker 2: up the phone, and they all look at me, and
Speaker 2: then there's this like, you know, eruption of So that
Speaker 2: was I don't know if you even asked me this question,
Speaker 2: but I'm telling you the whole thing. But then I
Speaker 2: you know, then I have the problem of knowing he
Speaker 2: might show up and having to play for him. Finally,
Speaker 2: so that was that was formidable. Well did he show up, Yes,
Speaker 2: he showed up. I knew he'd show up. I kind
Speaker 2: of knew, and so I was again, it was kind
Speaker 2: of like going into the studio with Eddie Kramer, right,
Speaker 2: I was, Okay, Jimmy is going to be in the audience,
Speaker 2: and I have to play his solos in front of him.
Speaker 2: And you know, Bob, I took this all very seriously.
Speaker 2: This is not just oh, let's play he led Zeppel.
Speaker 2: I mean I was hook line and sinker. I was in.
Speaker 2: I was a lifer in this stuff. I was so
Speaker 2: serious about getting it all right, kind of like him.
Speaker 2: You know, it's not easy being Jimmy how to be right.
Speaker 2: So I realized I had two choices. I could freak
Speaker 2: out and not be able to go on stage and
Speaker 2: totally fuck it up right. Or I could just tell myself,
Speaker 2: you know, I play as if he's in the audience
Speaker 2: every night, so what difference does it make if he's
Speaker 2: out there? And that is the little lie that I
Speaker 2: told myself, and I gave the band a big pep talk,
Speaker 2: and we were all nervous and we were all freaking out.
Speaker 2: We didn't know if he had come. So we go
Speaker 2: out and we're playing this show and we're all hyped up.
Speaker 2: It is super energetic, and I think, excuse me, I
Speaker 2: think it was during days and confused when he actually
Speaker 2: walked in. So I'm up there with the bow, right,
Speaker 2: you just have to imagine this. I'm doing a bo
Speaker 2: solo and Jimmy is in the back and I did
Speaker 2: not know this, but the other girls did. They told
Speaker 2: me later. Everyone else did, and they're like, oh my god,
Speaker 2: he's out because they saw his white hair. You know
Speaker 2: he's out there. Oh shit, don't tell Steph. That was like,
Speaker 2: just don't tell her. So I'm doing the bow solo
Speaker 2: and we get through days crowd loves it. We play
Speaker 2: the rest of the show, and at some point toward
Speaker 2: the end, I did see him in the back, but
Speaker 2: I'd already been playing, so whatever. So after the show,
Speaker 2: I was in such a state of hyped up crazy,
Speaker 2: you know, show spirit. We go backstage and he makes
Speaker 2: a beat line for the for the State for the
Speaker 2: green room, at which point security everyone else got cleared out.
Speaker 2: He got let in and the door closed and that
Speaker 2: was it. No one else was coming in. And I
Speaker 2: got to tell you, Bob, when he came in, he
Speaker 2: was he was kind of beside himself. He was, I mean,
Speaker 2: I was on mars. I couldn't even really hear any
Speaker 2: of it. I was so done. I was so spent.
Speaker 2: Everything I had went into that. But he said, that
Speaker 2: is how it should be done. That's the way this
Speaker 2: music should be played. Each and every one of you
Speaker 2: are great, but that is that's it, that's what this
Speaker 2: is about. And I got to tell you that, you know,
Speaker 2: it was amazing. We've done our job, and you know
Speaker 2: he has since he stayed with us for an hour
Speaker 2: and we just hung out and then he suggested that
Speaker 2: we take a picture. He suggested it, and you got
Speaker 2: to know that he knew what that meant. So we
Speaker 2: took a pick pictures. I had this this woman who
Speaker 2: was doing pr for us and she was a great
Speaker 2: photographer also, and her name is Judy Totten. I don't
Speaker 2: know if you know who she is, but she used
Speaker 2: to do a lot of PR in the UK and
Speaker 2: I hired her for this little run and she took
Speaker 2: some pictures of us that were fantastic. So it was
Speaker 2: really thank god. I don't know, thank god because if
Speaker 2: he didn't like it, I don't I'm not sure what
Speaker 2: I would have done.
Speaker 1: Okay, the band's going on the road for the fiftieth
Speaker 1: the anniversary. You're playing Physical Graffiti start to finish. Tell
Speaker 1: me about that.
Speaker 2: Yes, it's not our fiftieth anniversary, but we'll talk again
Speaker 2: when that happened. But yes, fiftieth anniversary of Physical Graffiti.
Speaker 2: You know, for some reason, Physical Graffiti was my dream
Speaker 2: to play it the whole album. Really from the beginning,
Speaker 2: I just thought, God, that would be so cool and
Speaker 2: so fun because it's so it's kind of got all
Speaker 2: the elements of what Led Zeppelin were, I think in
Speaker 2: that one double album. It sort of runs the spectrum
Speaker 2: of the genres that they touched on, and there's some crazy,
Speaker 2: weird stuff in it, but there are some amazing things
Speaker 2: in it, like you know, ten years Gone, which is
Speaker 2: probably if I were pigeonholed would have to say, is
Speaker 2: my favorite led Zeppelin song. But in my time of
Speaker 2: dying Cashmir there's just a whole bunch of things that
Speaker 2: are really sick again, it's cool, you know, there's just
Speaker 2: some some cool stuff. So we got to the point
Speaker 2: where our promoter, who's our agent, he's started as our promoter,
Speaker 2: suggested it, and this is a couple of years ago.
Speaker 2: He said, what about Physical Graffiti? You know, can I
Speaker 2: ever get that from you? And I thought, you know what,
Speaker 2: We're ready to do it. We're ready, let's do it.
Speaker 2: Because so we just started working on it and there
Speaker 2: are a couple of songs that are really hard to do,
Speaker 2: Like in the Light near impossible because you just need
Speaker 2: too many people. With four people, it's almost impossible. But
Speaker 2: we figured it out and we got a whole multimedia
Speaker 2: show and it's really I love it, you know, in
Speaker 2: the Light, I mean I cry, you know, ten years gone.
Speaker 2: I cry. I'm just like I'm up there unless I'm
Speaker 2: really screwing it up and I'm crying for another reason.
Speaker 2: But yeah, we're going to play it all year twenty
Speaker 2: twenty five. We have a lot of shows booked, mostly
Speaker 2: you know theaters, and it's an amazing shows. It's just
Speaker 2: and then we throw in a couple of rocker numbers
Speaker 2: after that. But it's it really is so satisfying, but
Speaker 2: it's not easy to do.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to learn it? And
Speaker 1: how long did it take for the band to learn it?
Speaker 2: It took a while to figure out a couple of things,
Speaker 2: like in the Light took a while. We had to
Speaker 2: go through different experiments of how to get this sound
Speaker 2: on the keys, how to get the drone, how to
Speaker 2: turn the drone off. I mean I hit a few things.
Speaker 2: Joan switches keyboards, so that it took a while. I
Speaker 2: don't know I would say it took us a couple
Speaker 2: of months to maybe we really get it so that
Speaker 2: we could play each song pretty well, even down by
Speaker 2: the seaside.
Speaker 1: How often do you play the guitar and how often
Speaker 1: do you play these songs?
Speaker 2: I don't practice nearly enough. I admit it. I'm bad.
Speaker 2: I'm a bad I just I just don't. I should.
Speaker 2: I go through spells of practicing, but I don't play enough,
Speaker 2: and I think if I did, I'd be a lot better. Then.
Speaker 2: I'm not bad or anything, it's just I think I
Speaker 2: could be even better. But I play when we learn
Speaker 2: something new, I'm constantly playing, and we're always trying to
Speaker 2: add to our repertoire. And then we rehearse, and you know,
Speaker 2: the girls are really We all learn it on our
Speaker 2: own and then we come together, so we're pretty prepared
Speaker 2: by the time we actually attempt it. And like I said,
Speaker 2: these girls are amazing musicians, so it's not like we're
Speaker 2: starting from square one. We're already in the feel of
Speaker 2: what we have to do and how we have to play,
Speaker 2: you know, which is a big thing.
Speaker 1: Okay, so what's your favorite Lids Up One album?
Speaker 2: H have we done this before? I'm not sure we have.
Speaker 2: It's not really a fair question. It's another trick question, Bob.
Speaker 2: I don't know if I could really say what's my
Speaker 2: favorite that they're all sort of have. I have favorite things,
Speaker 2: I mean one or two or physical graffiti. Maybe would
Speaker 2: have to narrow it down. But I don't know if
Speaker 2: you really had a you know what is it a
Speaker 2: knife over my head? And I had to decide probably
Speaker 2: physical graffiti because of the aforementioned things. I mean, one
Speaker 2: is amazing because it is you know, I think they
Speaker 2: were at the height of their playing powers. It's just insane,
Speaker 2: as are their first gigs. I mean, it's that level
Speaker 2: of playing is amazing. And two is very well crafted.
Speaker 2: It's got some great stuff, you know. I guess I'll
Speaker 2: just say PG just because I have to. You're making
Speaker 2: me say it.
Speaker 1: Okay, what about you? I always used to say the
Speaker 1: first album, Now I say physical graffiti. In terms of
Speaker 1: the second album was way overplayed. I bought it the
Speaker 1: day came out. You have no idea what it was like.
Speaker 1: Third album. I saw the band live on that tour.
Speaker 1: They punched the clock in the Haven. But third album
Speaker 1: the renaissance of criticism. I believe is unfounded. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like on Dennis Wilson solo, Wow, these are things
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with, but they were not that great. Fourth album,
Speaker 1: you know, Steerway to have we never have to hear,
Speaker 1: but Battle of Evermore, you know, going to California rock
Speaker 1: and roll Black Dog don't really mean that much to me.
Speaker 1: But when the levee breaks Houses of the Holy, a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that's the best. I don't think so,
Speaker 1: and I certainly believe the two albums after Physical Graffiti
Speaker 1: presence is not as good as in Through the Outdoor.
Speaker 1: But they were kind of spent, so they're all listenable.
Speaker 1: But if I play them, I'll play the first, I'll
Speaker 1: play Physical Graffiti, I'll play stuff off the fourth.
Speaker 2: Okay, so we pretty much agree. I would put presents
Speaker 2: way before in Through the Outdoor. But we can have
Speaker 2: this discussion on the ski slopes because as it yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a long discussion, but yeah, I basically agree with you.
Speaker 2: And you know, we did not play Stairway for years. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the first four or five years at least, we did
Speaker 2: not play Stairway out of choice.
Speaker 1: So what works live? What does the audience react to
Speaker 1: most in terms of songs.
Speaker 2: Black Dog, rock and roll, whole lot of love.
Speaker 1: So the classic hits, they want to hear those absolutely.
Speaker 2: And our sound guy night Bob is always slamming us, saying,
Speaker 2: you gotta play the hits you just got, you know,
Speaker 2: and this is this is how the set should be.
Speaker 2: And we're just stubborn, you know, We're just like, oh
Speaker 2: but we love four sticks and oh but we love
Speaker 2: you know, you know, no quarter, I mean no quarter.
Speaker 2: You know you can play that for twenty minutes and
Speaker 2: we have done.
Speaker 1: If we've done that, the low quarter is long to
Speaker 1: begin with. Did everybody go to the bathroom?
Speaker 2: Then? Right? No, they go to the bathroom during the
Speaker 2: acoustic set.
Speaker 1: Really, yeah, why do you think that is?
Speaker 2: I just think it gets less loud and they all
Speaker 2: think it's okay to leave. I don't know it's it,
Speaker 2: but yeah, that's that's when they go so to speak.
Speaker 1: And are these people out for a casual night or
Speaker 1: how many of these people are die hard led Zeppelin fans?
Speaker 2: Ah, it's it's a mix. Well, at first, let's put
Speaker 2: it this way. The band is called led Zeppelin, right,
Speaker 2: so you got half the guys coming because they think
Speaker 2: we're going to kiss each other or maybe we will, so, hey,
Speaker 2: I want to do that. The music can't be very good,
Speaker 2: but they might kiss each other. So we got crowds
Speaker 2: for that, and then of course they would leave saying,
Speaker 2: oh my god, I can't believe they actually played like that.
Speaker 2: So we got a lot of really hardcore led Zeppelin fans.
Speaker 2: A lot of them are you know guys from I
Speaker 2: would say fifty to seventy maybe, and they are serious,
Speaker 2: but they love the band they do, and I was
Speaker 2: worried about those guys, mostly guys. There were girls too,
Speaker 2: a lot of more girls than you think. But I
Speaker 2: needn't have worried because they are some of our biggest supporters.
Speaker 2: But now in the last ten years, the audience is kids.
Speaker 2: To the guys that saw them twelve times, little kids
Speaker 2: in the front, and it is the most beautiful thing
Speaker 2: to see little girls. You know, their earplugs are in,
Speaker 2: they're with their parents, and they're staring up at four
Speaker 2: female musicians, never in their a million years having a
Speaker 2: thought I cannot do this, this is not what I
Speaker 2: can do, which was the thought I had when I
Speaker 2: was that age and I wanted to be a rock star. Whatever.
Speaker 2: Eric Clapton or whoever. I thought, I can't do this.
Speaker 2: I'm a girl, literally, that's what I thought. But I
Speaker 2: did it anyway, as you can see my personality. But
Speaker 2: those little girls and those little boys, all of them,
Speaker 2: they just have it. It's great. And there are a
Speaker 2: lot of young people. Sometimes it looks like the seventies.
Speaker 2: I'm like staring out there and there are these kids
Speaker 2: with long hair and jumping up. You know, they're teenagers
Speaker 2: or twenty. It's like, is this is it nineteen seventy two?
Speaker 2: I don't know, could be?
Speaker 1: Do these little girls and boys come up to you
Speaker 1: after the show and ask you questions, et cetera.
Speaker 2: They are some of those kids that are even too
Speaker 2: young or shy, but yes they do. Or like I
Speaker 2: hand them a pick or something and they're, oh my god,
Speaker 2: they're so enthralled, they really are. They love it. It's amazing.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: So you've gone on. You said some great things about
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page. Jimmy doesn't play live much at this point,
Speaker 1: if at all, but there are a lot of other
Speaker 1: inter acts of that vintage. We're going out and playing
Speaker 1: the same songs that they've been playing for fifty years. However,
Speaker 1: they were the original artists. To what degree do you
Speaker 1: feel stifled having to do this music all the time?
Speaker 2: You know, I don't feel stifled at all. I mean,
Speaker 2: there are times I don't want to go on stage
Speaker 2: and play the Ocean. I'll give you that. I'm not
Speaker 2: in the mood. I'm not in the mood to start
Speaker 2: into a whole lot of Love with all of its antics,
Speaker 2: because it ends up being this intense, crazy show. We
Speaker 2: do it a whole show, you know, with the theerremen
Speaker 2: and lots of improvisation. But once I get into it,
Speaker 2: I'm there and I still love it. I you know,
Speaker 2: I even if it's a road worn set, you know,
Speaker 2: like all the hits which we play or we'll do,
Speaker 2: the song remains the same concert and most of that
Speaker 2: is all the hits, you know, it's the most including Stairway.
Speaker 2: You gotta play that. But I don't know, I'm always
Speaker 2: finding something new in it, and I'm always finding something
Speaker 2: I didn't catch. So it's fun. It's fun because I'm
Speaker 2: communicating with the band and I don't know what they're
Speaker 2: gonna do all the time, and they don't know what
Speaker 2: I'm gonna do, and they have to respond, and that's
Speaker 2: what keeps it interesting. And I dare say that's what
Speaker 2: Jimmy loved.
Speaker 1: And you said earlier, led Zeppelin is not a tribute band.
Speaker 1: Experanid that well.
Speaker 2: I think partially for the reason I just said, we
Speaker 2: do not impersonate led Zeppelin. I would have no interest
Speaker 2: in that whatsoever. And I also don't really have an
Speaker 2: interest in playing every single note that they played that
Speaker 2: I would get bored with. If I had to do that,
Speaker 2: I would feel stifled. Like you said, right, but this
Speaker 2: music breathes. It's not that, and I feel like what
Speaker 2: we have to offer is more of The only word
Speaker 2: I could coin was she incarnation of the band, meaning
Speaker 2: we are a real band. This is our canon of music.
Speaker 2: We've studied our parts the way the composers wanted us
Speaker 2: to play them, but we still are musicians in our
Speaker 2: own right, and we go out there and once we
Speaker 2: take hold of this material, something of us comes through.
Speaker 2: And you know, we're not scared of that, because if
Speaker 2: you're looking for exactly the same notes or whatever, you're
Speaker 2: not going to have that all the time. When it
Speaker 2: comes to see you're going to have something else, something
Speaker 2: being created. And for that reason, We are not a
Speaker 2: tribute band. That's a real band, and you're.
Speaker 1: A real person, Steph. I want to thank you so
Speaker 1: much for telling your story and sharing your thoughts with
Speaker 1: my audience.
Speaker 2: It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me on, Bob, really,
Speaker 2: it's an honor. I love your columns. You're very important
Speaker 2: to our stream of discussion these days, so thank you.
Speaker 1: Till next time, This is Bob left Stand