Stairway To Heaven (11 page)

Maybe so. But Robert once joked, “There's no way I could keep my dick hard around those fat chicks.”

I had known the Plaster Casters from my days with the Yardbirds. And they were still as hefty and as homely as ever. I think that Zeppelin would have chosen celibacy if the Casters were the only alternative. I know I would have.

One afternoon at the Marmont, we were sunning ourselves by the pool. The Casters were there, too, and they really began to torment us. They wanted to make some plaster casts; we wouldn't even entertain the idea. They wanted to make small talk; we wanted them to shut up.

Finally, Bonzo had had enough. “The only way you bitches are going to clam up is to fill your mouths with water!”

He got up from his chaise lounge, walked toward Cynthia, and pushed her toward the edge of the pool. When she was just a step away, he shoved her with the full force of his body. Cynthia became airborne and plunged into the water with the force of a pregnant whale. The resulting tsunami drenched half of the surrounding patio.

Instead of sinking to the bottom of the pool like dead weight, however, Cynthia's multiple layers of clothing—including a black velvet dress with obnoxiously gaudy frills—came to her rescue. The air trapped within her clothes kept her bobbing at the surface, providing enough support so she was able to keep her head above water, although not without a struggle and a lot of splashing.

“Get me out of here, you assholes,” she gurgled, barely loud enough to be heard over our laughter.

I leaped into the pool and towed her to the ladder, where she made a rather unladylike exit from the water.

 

Despite such zaniness, we never lost sight of why we were really in America. “We're here to make music—that's number one,” Bonzo would proclaim, often half drunk. Alcohol continued to cause some embarrassing situations, at one time or another affecting every member of the band.

Because of booze, we often became a nightmare to be with on an airplane, particularly when the crew made no efforts to limit the alcohol they served us. During that second tour, on a commercial flight from Athens, Ohio, to Minneapolis, Robert had devoured a few drinks and was feeling much too giddy for the confining quarters of an airplane. So he got up from his seat and began prancing up and down the aisle, looking like a cross between the Pied Piper and a Spanish matador. He was letting loose, allowing himself some temporary liberation from the demands of our touring schedule. He peered in one direction, then another, fluttered his arms and began singing an uncommon refrain:

“Toilets! Toilets! Toilets for Robert!”

He was so loud that the entire planeload of seventy passengers could hear him, and they stared dumbfounded at this bizarre man bounding through the plane like a raving lunatic.

“Where are the toilets? Robert needs a toilet! Toilets!”

Many of the passengers were noticeably disturbed, wondering just what might happen next. I wondered, too, but was more interested in waiting for my next drink than in helping Robert to the bathroom. Fortunately, a flight attendant took Robert by the hand and led him toward the bathroom. After he banged on the door and finally barged his way in, his “concert” came to an abrupt end.

At one point during the tour, as incidents like that began to multiply, I recognized that perhaps we all needed some R&R. I suggested that we unwind for a few days in Honolulu, where we already had a show scheduled. The vote in favor was unanimous.

 

There were two elegant mansions on Diamond Head, with breathtaking views of the Pacific and Waikiki Beach, that many rock bands rented from time to time. Peter was able to get us into one of them, a multimillion-dollar Spanish villa that might have made William Randolph Hearst jealous. During our four days there, we got burned to a crisp in the tropical sun and were treated to sailing expeditions and a luau. I remember relaxing on the beach, listening to Bob Dylan's
Lay Lady Lay
, which had just climbed to the top of the charts. Perhaps inspired by Dylan, we spent part of our Hawaiian visit leied with flowers and laid with female bodies.

In a sense, we found ourselves in a no-win situation. When our schedule kept us running nonstop, we yearned for a halt in the action, but during that Hawaiian stay, when there was finally time to relax, we soon found ourselves bored out of our minds. “It's hard to figure,” Bonzo observed one day, popping the cap on a bottle of beer. “Either we're running so fast that we're ready to collapse, or we have so little to do that we're going crazy.”

Even so, no one was better at creating something to do than Bonzo—and there was no better target for his practical jokes than Plant. Bonham played an occasional prank on John Paul, like the time he flooded Jonesy's room in Hawaii by sneaking a garden hose through the sliding glass door. But John Paul was so easygoing that even when he awoke to find his room turned into a wading pool, he just took it in stride. Those kinds of low-key responses made him a much less attractive guinea pig for the tomfoolery that the rest of us savored. It was much more fun to harass someone like Robert, who would often have hysterical reactions to the pranks aimed in his direction.

 

From Hawaii, we flew into Detroit for a performance at the Grande Ballroom, a former mattress-manufacturing plant that had been transformed into the city's premiere rock club. Our plane landed in the predawn hours, and it was barely daybreak when we checked into the Congress Hotel on the morning of the concert. We had flown through the night and had been drinking heavily while in the air. We were dead tired, irritable, and just wanted to check into our rooms and get some sleep.

But as we dragged ourselves and our luggage through the hotel lobby, something else besides the need for sleep captured our attention. “There's blood all over the fuckin' carpet,” John Paul exclaimed, tiptoeing his way around the still damp patches of blood.

“Ahh, come on, Jonesy,” I said. “America's a tough place, but don't be ridiculous.”

Then I took a closer look. He wasn't being ridiculous at all.

Less than half an hour before we arrived, there had been an attempted robbery at the hotel. The bellhop had confronted the robber with a loaded pistol, and the lobby had turned into something resembling the showdown in
High Noon
.

“That motherfucker tried to come in and rob us,” the bellhop told us, his voice still quivering and his hand still trembling. “I shot the bastard, and he died right here at my feet. They just took the body away.”

Robert looked down at the carpet—we swore we could see some steam rising from the fresh bloodstains. “I think I'm going to throw up,” Robert moaned. “I really do.”

“Get hold of yourself, Robert,” I said. “These things happen.”

Then Robert exploded. “Jesus Christ, why are we staying in this hotel anyway, Richard? We're working like maniacs, and you put us in a hotel that's like a battlefield.”

“Do you think everything that happens is my fault?” I shouted. “I didn't shoot the bastard!”

“Sometimes I wonder!” he muttered.

 

That night at the Grande Ballroom, things didn't improve much. As the band performed, they had to cope with blown fuses and power outages. Each time they had to stop playing—once right in the middle of “I Can't Quit You Baby,” then just as they were launching into “Black Mountain Side”—the overflow crowd grew progressively agitated. Before long, rowdiness bordered on mutiny. Perhaps only the mellowing aroma of marijuana, wafting through the hall and settling upon the audience, kept them from rioting.

“What a fucked-up night!” Bonzo complained as we drove back to the hotel after the performance. “Tell Detroit we're not coming back.”

I wondered for the first time whether this chaos was worth it.

 

As the tour wound down, the hectic pace was affecting all of us. The band began sleeping a little more and partying a little less. On airplane flights, we became more interested in being left alone than nagging the stewardesses for just one more drink. Each night, however, the music itself seemed to revitalize the band, along with an occasional second wind for some more revelry.

Even when our level of exhaustion had peaked, the Steve Paul Scene was a club that Led Zeppelin couldn't resist. Located in the heart of Manhattan at West 46th Street and Eighth Avenue, it was a place where the Young Rascals and other pop groups had found enthusiastic audiences in the mid to late sixties and where Jimi Hendrix would drop in unannounced to jam with whomever was courageous enough to join him onstage.

When Zeppelin began frequenting the Steve Paul Scene, Page and Bonham would order a row of porch climbers, potent drinks that could leave you staggering, although the bartender would never reveal exactly what was in them. And if the drinks didn't take care of you, there were plenty of girls to help while away the night.

One evening at the bar, a tall redhead approached Robert and within sixty seconds was sitting on his lap. Before Robert knew it, she was French-kissing him—with an unexpected bonus. As they kissed, she passed a Seconal from her mouth to his.

“What the hell was that?” he exclaimed.

“Swallow it, and then I'll tell you,” she said. He was foolish enough to follow her instructions. Every time we went back to Steve Paul's, Plant asked if the redhead was there.

For years thereafter, if we were within striking distance of New York, Robert, Jimmy, and I insisted that we somehow find a way to get to the Steve Paul Scene—even if it meant some last-minute restructuring of the concerts themselves. We were driven to fulfill whatever crazy need was there to blow off steam. One Saturday night, the band was booked into the Philadelphia Spectrum, with Jethro Tull performing on the same bill before us. I did a little arithmetic, and the figures weren't encouraging. “By the time we finish the show and drive the ninety-three miles to New York City, we won't have much drinking time left before the bars close,” I complained to Robert.

“Well, then, do something about it,” he insisted.

This was one of the few instances in the band's history where merriment took precedence over music. I might have felt a little guilty about it, except that I was as interested in getting to the New York bars as anyone. So I ap
proached Larry Spivak, the promoter at the Spectrum, with a story guaranteed to tug at his heartstrings.

“Larry, we've got a real problem here,” I told him, just minutes before Jethro Tull was set to open the show. “Jimmy Page is very sick, some kind of intestinal problem. I don't think he's going to last the night. I've phoned our doctor, I've talked to the band, and for Jimmy's sake, the boys have agreed to go on before Jethro Tull so we can get Jimmy out of here and into bed for the night.”

Spivak was stunned. “What the hell are you talking about? A lot more people came here to see Led Zeppelin. I can't switch the bill around.”

I wasn't about to give in.

“Larry, go into the dressing room and look at Jimmy for yourself. The poor bastard looks so anemic he may collapse at any moment. We've gotta go on first. It's not even open to discussion.”

Spivak was irate. Yet he finally began to believe he had no choice but to comply. At eight o'clock, we opened the show.

Meanwhile, Ian Anderson of Jethro Tull was upset that he had been bumped to a later time. He must have known the futility of trying to succeed Led Zeppelin on the stage. After the same type of incident with Iron Butterfly earlier in the year, no one wanted to even try it. It was virtually suicidal.

Jimmy didn't feel much sympathy for Anderson. “Jethro Tull is an over-rated band,” he said. “They get a lot more attention than they deserve.” The next year when we were in Los Angeles, on hearing a radio advertisement for a Tull concert at the Forum, Jimmy created his own parody of the commercial. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “tonight only, Jethro Dull bores 'em at the Forum.”

That night at the Spectrum, after performing ahead of Jethro Tull, we were in the car by nine-thirty, breaking the sound barrier on a reckless ride to New York City. We pulled up in front of the Steve Paul Scene a little after eleven o'clock and drank and flirted for three delicious hours.

 

The second American tour closed with two raucous nights at the Fillmore East. The band came away feeling that each member was defining a place for himself in the group. When Led Zeppelin had been formed the previous year, it was known primarily as Jimmy Page's Supergroup. But by the time the band headed back to London on June 1, barely more than five months after making its American debut, rock fans were beginning to perceive Robert Plant as an equal to Page, a powerful force in his own right within the band. Bonham and Jones, too, were becoming more relaxed and more confident.

On the flight home, John Paul told me, “This group could become one of the biggest bands in history. We've got a really good thing going. I hope we don't blow it.”

B
ack in London, Led Zeppelin continued to operate in overdrive. We had barely unpacked our bags after the second U.S. tour when Peter Grant already began talking about a third one.

“I can feel the momentum building,” Peter told me in his office in early June 1969, only three days following our return. “We could keep this band on the road year-round and never run out of bookings.” Then he added, “This is the time to take advantage of all the interest that's been created.”

I was worried, however, and warned Peter about the fatigue factor. “The band was starting to wilt near the end of the last tour,” I told him. “If we're not careful, Led Zeppelin's not going to die from the ego conflicts that kill other bands; it's going to just collapse from exhaustion.”

Even back in England, the band kept moving at a hyperkinetic pace. The second album,
Led Zeppelin II,
still wasn't completed, and unlike the debut album—which was recorded in just hours—it seemed like we would never wrap this one up.

Jimmy would have liked a couple of weeks just to step back and put the whole project in perspective. He had been running so fast in the States, dashing from one studio to the next in between concert dates, coping with bloodshot eyes late into the night in one recording studio after another, that he felt he desperately needed more planning time for the album.

Back in London, because I had a stack of paperwork and other matters to
take care of in Peter's office, I spent very little time in the Olympic Studios with the band. But when I would drop in, even for just half an hour or so, I could see the battle fatigue taking its toll on Jimmy. His face seemed drawn. The circles under his eyes were getting darker. He started smoking more cigarettes than usual.

 

One night, Jimmy was facing several more hours in the studio to complete “Living Loving Maid (She's Just a Woman).” The song wasn't anyone's favorite—it was never played in any live concert. In the studio, Jimmy's work on that cut never quite produced anything that really excited the band. At one point, as his own frustration level grew, Jimmy moaned, “Don't we get any time to enjoy our success? Don't we ever get any time off?” He paced the floor, lit up another cigarette, and somehow talked himself into getting back to work.

To add to the pressures on the band, there were sixteen performances already scheduled in England for the month of June, at places like Free Trade Hall in Manchester…Colston Hall in Bristol…Guildhall in Plymouth…Birmingham Town Hall…Newcastle City Hall. On balance, the band could rejoice about a recent surge of interest in their music in the U.K. Back in February, we had returned home from the first American tour to a thoroughly apathetic Britain. But this time, after the second U.S. tour had ended, the response was completely different in England.
Led Zeppelin
was at the top of the charts at home. Peter began turning down many more offers throughout the U.K. than he accepted.

Still, Peter saw the end of the Yellow Brick Road leading not to London, but to cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles. “I want to get back to the States as soon as possible,” he said. “Now is the time to do it.”

 

By the time the band touched down in Atlanta for the July 5 launching of the new tour, I sensed that Zeppelin was, more than ever before, a band of equals. Perhaps Pagey and John Paul were the senior partners in terms of musical experience, but they never pulled rank. Everyone respected one another's talents. Rarely did they verbally express their admiration for one another, but you could see it in the appreciative glances they offered one another onstage or the subconscious nods of their heads that seemed to communicate some regard for what each of them was contributing.

At this point, Led Zeppelin also had become close enough where they could tease and joke with one another, knowing that they probably wouldn't permanently ruffle any feathers. One night, for instance, we were sipping some wine and laughing over some of the boring shows on British TV.

“What about that bloke,
Percy Thrower?!
” John Paul said. “You know, the guy who does the gardening show. It's a whole program of watching plants grow! How exciting can you get?!”

“Hey,” Jimmy interjected. “We do the same thing. We watch Plant grow, too!”

“What a perfect name!” laughed John Paul. “Percy.”

From that day on, we rarely called him Robert again. Henceforth, it was always Percy. Robert never complained.

With some other nicknames, however, we showed a little more caution. Peter and I used to call Jimmy “the old girl”—but never to his face. The name grew out of a good laugh we got one night watching him in the hours prior to a concert. In Los Angeles during that summer tour, Jimmy was admiring himself in front of his hotel mirror at the Château Marmont, like a beauty contestant about to strut down the runway. He was attired in a Prince Charming–type outfit, rich in velvet and velours. He had curlers in his hair, and after he removed them he spent fifteen minutes brushing his locks. It was quite a performance.

Although Jimmy deserved some razzing for primping that was more befitting a teenage girl on prom night, Peter and I were too cowardly to poke fun directly. There were certain things Jimmy might be sensitive about on a particular day, and there didn't seem much point in risking a volcanic eruption.

But among ourselves, Peter and I rollicked over our inside joke. We'd say things like, “Tell the old girl that the limos are waiting downstairs…. Isn't it time for the old girl to get dolled up for the concert?” In some odd way, it was actually an affectionate term, but unless he were in an unusually good mood, I think Jimmy would have been incensed had he known about it.

 

During that summer tour, Zeppelin performed in nine outdoor festivals, from the Newport Pop Festival to the Woodinville Festival in Seattle to Central Park in New York. Those outdoor, multiact gigs also gave the band the opportunity to size up other bands, too, some of whom—from the Doors to the Byrds—were billed above us in those days.

“It's just a matter of time until we're the headline act, until we blow these guys right off the stage,” Bonzo said on a couple of occasions.

Early in that tour, we spent one of our days off watching other rock musicians perform at an outdoor festival at the Singer Bowl on the New York World's Fair site in Flushing Meadows. Vanilla Fudge, Jeff Beck, and Ten Years After topped the bill. We viewed the concert from backstage, never straying too far from a buffet table brimming with beer, wine, and chips and mingling with a menagerie of musician friends.

Alvin Lee, the guitarist for Ten Years After, was a terrific performer, and I
remember how amazed we were watching him—the lighting speed of his fingers as he cradled and nursed the guitar from one song to the next, bathing the audience with heavy rock sounds that had made him one of the most respected musicians of the late sixties.

“He's just great,” Jimmy said, with his eyes spellbound by Lee's fingers. Not too many musicians could captivate Jimmy that way, and I found it almost as interesting to watch his reactions to Lee as to observe Lee himself.

As Ten Years After played, however, Bonham seemed to grow restless. He had been drinking all afternoon and was eager to leave. “Hang in there, Bonzo,” I told him. “We'll be outta here in an hour or so.” Finally, Bonham was almost jumping out of his skin, moving from one location to another, scratching his arms, draining still another bottle of beer.

Then, in an instant, he became like Mr. Hyde, with a devilish gleam in his eye that virtually transformed him into the mischievous Bonzo. I could see trouble on the horizon.

“Oh, no, Bonzo,” I muttered. Although I had no idea what he had in mind, I knew it probably wouldn't earn him a Boy Scouts merit badge.

“I'll fucking fix him!” Bonham shouted, pointing at Lee. “Watch this!”

Bonham grabbed a carton of orange juice from the buffet table and walked just far enough onstage to get within striking distance.

“It's time for a juice break!” he screamed. “Alvin, do you want some juice?”

Without waiting for an answer, Bonham heaved the juice carton and its contents toward Lee. In an instant, the juice splashed on the guitarist and his instrument.

As the crowd roared, Lee gasped as he was bathed in the cold liquid. “What the hell's going on?” he shouted, glaring at Bonham. “You motherfucker!”

Lee had fury in his eyes. He continued to play, but kept eye contact with Bonham. Maybe it was the alcohol, but Bonham didn't seem intimidated. He shook his index finger at Lee, as if cautioning him to keep his cool.

“Don't let a little thing like this bother you,” Bonham yelled. “Orange juice is good for you. Vitamin C, you know.”

As Lee continued to play, he raised and pointed his guitar toward Bonham, as if it were a sword or perhaps a machine gun. I sensed that their confrontation was going to get a lot more interesting before it finally cooled down.

In fact, on that hot, 100-degree afternoon, the situation only got worse for Lee. The orange juice quickly dried and his hands and the guitar became sticky. His fingers just couldn't maneuver properly from fret to fret. He was forced to slow his pace. He struggled through the group's remaining songs.

By the time Lee left the stage, he was outraged. He steamed past us toward his dressing room.

“You're an asshole, Bonham,” he mumbled. “A real asshole.”

Bonzo, however, was overjoyed. He began laughing uncontrollably about the chaos he had created.

“Bonzo's got to get a grip on things,” Jimmy said to me. He seemed genuinely concerned about the mayhem that often occurred when Bonham and alcohol got together. “He's his own worst enemy. Maybe he's
our
own worst enemy, too.”

“He's just blowing off steam,” I said. “If he didn't let it out this way, he might be punching somebody.”

But Bonham wasn't finished for the day. He waited patiently for Jeff Beck to take the stage about an hour later. Beck was one of the most frantic blues guitarists I had ever seen, someone who could rouse an audience into a feverish state within minutes after his performance began. This particular afternoon, he seemed to have Bonham in a trance.

Late in Beck's set, an even more inebriated Bonham stumbled onto the stage. I desperately lunged for him and grabbed him by the shoulder, but he broke away. “Don't worry,” he said. “I'll be just a minute, Richard. I'm coming right back.”

Beck glanced at Bonham, but, with no orange juice in sight, continued to play, styling his way through “Rice Pudding,” seemingly undisturbed by the unannounced walk-on.

Bonham gyrated for a minute or two and then talked Mickey Waller into relinquishing his seat behind the drums. Beck stopped playing as Bonham perched himself on Waller's stool. Bonzo grabbed the drumsticks and immediately began pounding out a stripper's rhythm.

“Oh, no,” I thought to myself. “This is getting out of control.”

The drums thundered. The cymbals vibrated. The crowd started clapping in time to the rhythm. As Bonham's excitement level rose, he egged on the audience to make even more noise. And they did.

Offstage, Plant and I began giggling like schoolboys. “He's a lunatic,” I said. “They should lock him up.”

As the crowd roared even louder, Bonzo leaped from the drummer's chair and ran to center stage. Immediately, he began peeling off his clothes. Layer by layer. Bump after grind.

First, Bonzo's shirt came off. Then his pants. By this time, Plant and I were encouraging him to keep going.

Bonham wasn't about to disappoint us. In moments, he was down to just his undershorts.

“More?” he squealed into the nearest microphone.

“More!” the crowd shouted back.

Bonham slipped off his underpants. The crowd, which had become more
delirious as each piece of clothing was discarded, went absolutely berserk as Bonham stood before them in only his birthday suit. His equipment impressed the audience.

At that moment, Peter sprinted onto the stage like an Olympic runner charging out of the starting blocks. “You son of a bitch!” he shouted as he rushed toward Bonham. At the same moment, a half-dozen uniformed policemen were climbing onto the stage to make an arrest.

Peter reached Bonham before the police did, picked up his naked drummer, and raced backstage. They ducked into an empty dressing room, slammed the door, and locked it.

“You fucking bastard!” Peter roared. “If you aren't dressed by the time the police break down this door, you're out of the band!”

Bonham, suddenly acting quite sober, sheepishly followed orders. He grabbed a pair of pants and a shirt that didn't even belong to him but were sitting on a shelf within arm's reach. The clothes were a couple of sizes too small for Bonham, but Peter didn't care.

“Do you know what you're doing?” Peter fumed. “Do you realize that you're jeopardizing the future of this entire band by the way you behave? What's wrong with you, John? Are you trying to ruin things for everyone?”

Bonham didn't answer. Once he was dressed, he and Peter opened the door and paraded politely past the policemen, neither uttering a word. The rest of the band joined up with them at the rear entrance to the stage, and we headed toward a car that was waiting for us. We hurriedly left, hoping that the entire incident would be forgotten by the time Bonham had sobered up. Fortunately, it was.

 

At the Woodinville Festival, Bonham was on much better behavior. He knew that he'd have to face Peter's wrath if there were other wild outbursts. Also, like the rest of us, he was in awe that day of Chuck Berry, who performed just before us. The bill was crammed with artists—Vanilla Fudge, the Byrds, the Chicago Transit Authority, the Doors. But Berry was the artist who most intrigued us, beginning with his meticulously timed entrance and ending with an exit that lasted not much longer than the blink of an eye.