Breakdown. A criticism of these songs? They were both too short! Today, I would have to say my favourite is How Many More Times. I didn’t notice it before you asked me to listen to Led Zeppelin before the interview but I found How Many More Times really pointed to Zeppelin’s future, while the blues-based songs pointed to the past. That really became clear as I listened this latest time.
REDDON:
You’ve heard a lot of “first albums” over the years. What is it about Led Zeppelin that makes it so enduring?
ANGEL:
To me, it’s because the album broke new ground. And it was raw; almost like a live recording. I think they did that first album almost “live”, when they were recording it. They didn’t spend that much time.
REDDON: Reportedly about thirty hours to record Led Zeppelin.
ANGEL:
Yeah, there you go, that’s almost a live recording, compared to time spent on later recordings. But they had done some pretty good rehearsing because they had played this material on the Scandinavian Tour. I don’t remember if they played all the songs from it when they performed here as The New Yardbirds in September 1968.
I assume they were very familiar with what they were going to do when it came time to record the Led Zeppelin album. I think that’s one of the strong things about the Led Zeppelin record - it’s the rawness, the purity. Like earlier in the ’60s, just to show an example, you may have had four hours to do a side of a single, including the mixing. And it was all recorded on four tracks in the early ’60s or something similar. Maybe Led Zeppelin was recorded on more tracks…I’m not familiar with the details.
REDDON: Do you think Led Zeppelin invented “heavy metal” and influenced other musicians?
ANGEL:
I think so. I read somewhere that after hearing Zeppelin, Ritchie Blackmore, guitarist for Deep Purple, said something like, “That’s the way we should go.” But Jon Lord, the keyboardist for Deep Purple, told me an interesting story.
REDDON:
I love Deep Purple. It’s one of my “top five” favourite bands. Blackmore’s style is something else and I find close parallels to Page’s. Please continue!
ANGEL:
Last year in Stockholm [2006], the British Ambassador to Sweden gave a reception in the residence for Led Zeppelin and others. Again, this is the same occasion I mentioned earlier. It was the Polar Music Prize awards. Anyway, Jon Lord was also at this afternoon reception before the next evening’s awards ceremony where he was to read the tribute to Led Zeppelin.
So, at this reception, Jon Lord and I had a chat. I told him what I had read about Blackmore saying Deep Purple should go the same direction as Led Zeppelin. Lord said he didn’t share that viewpoint. We had just started discussing it when the conversation took another turn and we didn’t get into details. That’s a shame, because I probably could have given you an insightful answer, if Jon Lord had elaborated on that. As I recall it, Deep Purple in Rock came out a year or so after Led Zeppelin, didn’t it?
REDDON:
Yeah, that’s the album, Deep Purple in Rock with the members’ faces carved into Mount Rushmore in the U.S. It was officially released in 1970, I think.
ANGEL:
Yeah, do you know why it was called Deep Purple in Rock? This ties in with your “heavy metal” question and Led Zeppelin’s possible influence on other artists.
REDDON: No, why was that?
ANGEL:
I had never heard that story before Jon Lord told it to me. He said because the albums before Deep Purple in Rock were more symphonic and the album right before Deep Purple in Rock was called Deep Purple in Concert the appropriate name for the new album would be “in Rock” as they were changing in that direction. Then someone came up with the clever idea of carving the faces of the members of Deep Purple into Mount Rushmore, where the faces of several U.S. presidents actually are carved.
I guess you could say Led Zeppelin developed a “heavy metal” aspect to their music that did, at least partially, influence bands like Deep Purple and others that went on to do great things in rock music as well.
REDDON:
Those are great recollections. Through your remembrances of Ritchie Blackmore, it appears that Led Zeppelin has influenced bands like Deep Purple in the connotation of at least some of the traits of heavy metal. I find Ritchie Blackmore’s playing in many respects, eclipses Page’s style quite strikingly at times. I know Jimmy Page and Led Zeppelin always hated being called a heavy metal band because there’s so much more to their music. And that’s true. But there are elements of the heavy metal genre in Zeppelin’s music, too.
I’ve heard people make a lot of diverse connections, time and time again, in the more than forty interviews I’ve conducted for this book. That’s a fascinating story Jon Lord told you about how Deep Purple in Rock received its name. It was too bad the conversation between you and Lord changed direction at that reception. It would have been great to get his take on whether or not Deep Purple took the heavy metal cue from Led Zeppelin or elsewhere in his opinion. Very interesting ideas here you’ve put forth.
Here’s an unrelated question. With all this great rock music in Denmark, was there an underground radio station, as in North America, to play all this new music at the time in the late 1960s?
ANGEL:
You see, there was really only one radio station. It was the official Danish Radio and it did play music for young people. They had one DJ who loved Cliff Richard and that sort of music. And the others played more serious artists, like The Grateful Dead. As I recall, Zeppelin was too heavy for the Cliff-Richard guy and Zeppelin wasn’t “serious” enough to be played by the other DJs. You know, the good music wasn’t really played that much! It’s a shame because you’ve got so many great classic rock stations in America. Of course, from time to time, you can hear rock music here in Denmark but it’s very rare. And when they do play Led Zeppelin, it’s usually not the heavy numbers.
REDDON:
Did you find Led Zeppelin to be any louder than the other rock groups that played at the Gladsaxe Teen Club around the same time?
ANGEL:
Not that I recall because we had bands like Ten Years After and Deep Purple. I’m sure they were pretty loud, too
REDDON:
Of all the people I’ve interviewed for my Led Zeppelin research, you’re one of three people who had the privilege of seeing The New Yardbirds on Saturday, September 7, 1968. The other two people were the manager of The Yardbirds’, 1968 Scandinavian Tour, Jerry Ritz, and his wife Annie. You also saw Led Zeppelin in the 1970s. Would you say the group underwent significant musical evolution from the first time you saw them in September 1968, until you saw them again, touring with Country Joe and The Fish in March of 1969? How about into the 1970s? Did you notice Zeppelin kept its musical evolution going as the years advanced?
ANGEL:
