No one gets out of a band breakup completely unscathed. Even if there are moments where things seem to be working after everything implodes, there are still going to be times when the last thing someone wants to do is relive their past and figure out why they no longer want to talk to their old bandmates again. Although Led Zeppelin was pretty much ready to fall apart the minute that John Bonham passed away, Robert Plant knew that there was one relationship that started to fall apart more gradually.
Then again, was anyone questioning why Zeppelin had to call it a day after Bonham’s passing? Sure, they could have kept going if they wanted to, but asking someone to find the greatest drummer on the planet twice was like asking someone to reform a band bigger than The Beatles at that point. Bonham was one of a kind, and there was bound to be a void when he shuffled off this mortal coil.
But there was no doubt that every member would do fairly well as a solo artist. ‘Percy’ was already known as ‘The Golden God’ by so many people, and even if Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones weren’t the most vocal musicians in the world, their experience in the session music scene made them mainstays of any band who wanted to work with them.
If there was one thing Plant wanted to do in the 1980s, though, it was run as far away from Zeppelin’s original sound as possible. He had already done that part of his career, and asking him to be the same lumbering rock and roll overlord seen in The Song Remains the Same wasn’t realistic. If he was leaving Zeppelin, that also meant putting his collaboration with Page to bed.
“Our relationship deteriorated, but this is what we’ve got now.” -Robert Plant
Although Page was more than happy to carry on Zeppelinesque licks in The Firm, he and Plant had been on slightly different creative pages at the time Bonham died. In Through the Out Door had already started implementing synths and having less of an emphasis on guitars, so it wasn’t like the frontman and guitarist were working together in the same way that John Lennon and Paul McCartney were towards the end.
While the 1980s did bring pieces of the group back together for Live Aid, Plant said it was only an excuse for them to mend the fences between him and Page after so long apart, saying, “Every time I play with Jimmy, it’s great. Jimmy and I, to be perfectly honest, we’ve played together for various reasons over the last two years, but we haven’t really gotten together. We don’t go out together, we don’t sit around together. Our relationship deteriorated, but this is what we’ve got now. Live Aid was like having the umbilical cord there for me to see again.”
That doesn’t mean that Plant hasn’t found the time to get back together with Page for the right reasons. Unledded was a great way for them to flex their muscles again, and regardless of how Plant felt about their final performances in 2007 as Led Zeppelin, they still had the same fire when they got the ball rolling back in the late 1960s.
But Plant’s relationship with Page deteriorating might have been a case of him being practical. Not everyone is meant to play in the same group forever, and even if Page is more than happy to write whatever riff he can, Plant knew that it was better to find something a bit more adventurous than becoming stagnant.