The year is 1981, and Jimmy Page has had the wind taken out of his sails. It truly felt like a band like Led Zeppelin could have gone on forever, but with the death of John Bonham casting a dark shadow over them, everything came to a halt, but Page was never one to sit around moping for the rest of his days.
Then again, it was never going to be easy for him to move on. Aside from being a dear friend of Bonzo, Zeppelin was Page’s baby, and whatever he did next was bound to be compared to it in one way or another. And given how much storied history had been tied to Zeppelin for all those years, it made sense that someone like Robert Plant wanted to move as far away from his legacy as possible.
After all, no one could think of topping Zeppelin, and even when some of the copycat bands came pretty damn close to the big time, it wasn’t like they were doing anything that Page hadn’t done before. But after spending time in a funk wondering what the hell to do, he figured the next best thing was to form a new group. Zeppelin was already a supergroup in many respects, so why not build an entirely different supergroup around him?
He already had the perfect singer in mind for it as well: Paul Rodgers. Bad Company had already been proteges of Zeppelin when they first signed with their label, Swan Song, and given how Rodgers had been a colleague of Page’s thanks to his work with Free, both of them being free agents left it wide open for them to work together. But after working with him on a few live shows, Page was shellshocked listening to him in the studio.
Rodgers was already a powerful belter, but Page remembered that nearly every single note he sang went miles above what he ever imagined, saying, “At the end of the tour, I asked if he fancied carrying on and doing something else, because I really love his singing. He’s such a brilliant singer. If I do a guitar solo, I have to warm up and do three takes. He does it in one take – note perfect. No problem! He’s an amazing man.”
But the most important part about Rodgers’s voice is that it’s not trying to be Plant’s for a second. Whereas Page’s eventual team-up with David Coverdale did have some fans wondering if the Whitesnake frontman was doing a Plant impression, Rodgers’s gritty lower register is what gave him his own unique sound, especially when singing tracks like ‘Radioactive’.
The band’s debut album was a lot of fun, and even Mean Business had its fair share of highlights, but it was understood that they were never meant to last. Page never envisioned making a group that could replace Zeppelin, and after a few years performing together, he figured that it was best for him to roll over and make music as a free agent, either putting out the odd solo album or find himself working with Plant all over again.
Because as much as The Firm was a great outfit, Rodgers’s presence was about more than being a great singer. Page was still in recovery through a lot of those sessions, and it was important for him to have a friend that he could look towards rather than feel like he was starting back at square one every time the red light came on.