Keith Richards once called Jimmy Page “one of the best guitar players ever known,” but believes his talents were overwhelmed in Led Zeppelin.
The Rolling Stones' linchpin and Page, who started life as a session musician before forming a brief tandem with Jeff Beck in the Yardbirds, rose through the ranks amid the British blue boom of the 1960s. As such, there is a great degree of adoration for one another.
Indeed, Page, speaking to Uncut, called his counterpart a “true devotee of the Chess catalog,” which paved the way for a mutuality that has never broken.
“It was similar to me and Jeff [Beck], where we’d just sort of lock in,” he adds. “Because there’s an automatic sort of mutual respect for each other that’s built up over the years.”
But while Richards has bags of superlatives to throw Page’s way, he says the band often sounded “hollow” as a result of the powerhouse drumming of John Bonham; a rambunctious ingredient to Zeppelin’s larger-than-life sonic boom.
“I love Jimmy Page, but as a band, with John Bonham thundering down the highway in an uncontrolled 18-wheeler, no,” he told Rolling Stone in 2015. “Jimmy is a brilliant player, but I always felt there was something a little hollow about it.”
His comments followed similar remarks made nine years earlier, in a video posted directly onto his website.
“As a band, I felt they were aptly named, but they never took off for me, musically,” he said. “At the same time, Jimmy Page is one of the best guitar players ever known, and Bonham was a hell of a powerhouse drummer. Although I think he was heavy-handed. That's where the 'led' comes in.”
But, he adds, “if you want to cut the story short: Led Zeppelin was Jimmy Page.”
In the wake of Richards' Rolling Stone chat, Page hit back when talking to Classic Rock, but kept his response tactful and diplomatic.
“Keith can say what he wants. He’s Keith Richards,” the guitarist quipped. “I think he’s done some amazing work. I respect his playing.
“[But] I’m not sure what he means by calling Led Zeppelin hollow. I think he’s got his tongue in his cheek. What we did was really cool.”
It's an interesting point of friction. United by their deep-seated love for traditional American blues, the players have followed similar paths and influences. But when it came to the beating hearts of their respective bands, John Bonham and Charlie Watts, who kept the Stones ticking until between 1963 and his death in 2021, were, stylistically speaking, worlds apart.
Richards has gone on record multiple times during his career to say that he and the Stones “needed” Charlie Watts. The way he described Watts' playing to Howard Stern last year shows what he really wanted from his drummer.
“He had feel,” Richards explained with great enthusiasm. “He had intelligence. Rock and roll doesn't necessarily need the whole battery of drums. It's got to do with when not to hit. If you're making music, silence is your canvas.”
The truth of the matter, of course, is that neither band would have succeeded in the manner they did had they swapped drummers. Led Zeppelin’s take on the blues was heavier, more animalistic. The Stones were slinkier, a little more prim and proper, to borrow a well-used British phrase. Which drummer one prefers is a matter of preference.
Meanwhile, Richards has been discussing the differences between the guitar players he shared studios and stages with across the Stones' various eras, and he says one player was the wrong fit. Equally, he once told Guitar Player that Jeff Beck, who almost joined the Stones, Pink Floyd, and the Bluesbreakers in his early days, wouldn't have worked because he was “an individualist.”
He's also revealed how acoustic guitars, alternate tunings, and a cassette recorder saved two stone-cold hits from the cutting room floor, while Harvey Mandel believes he was better suited to the Stones than Ronnie Wood, the man he lost the gig to in 1976.
