Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page on the story behind the Led Zeppelin Remasters.
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00:00Hello there, this is Jimmy Page and you're watching Classic Rock.
00:15Well, it's interesting that you said, is there an archive that's carefully annotated?
00:22That's exactly how it started out.
00:24I started annotating my own archive, listing everything that went back to the very earliest.
00:31It was all analogue tape that I was doing, and it went back to the early little sort
00:36of three and a quarter inch reels that were done at home when I did my parents, and it
00:41goes to a five inch reel, and did home demos, and I was going all the way through and it
00:47got through all the material that I had.
00:51I was logging it and collating it and making notes all through the yard birds, and then
00:55of course it gets to Led Zeppelin, and I'd started to do some of that, but I must say
01:03that I'd had an idea that was along the lines of the project that we were all now familiar
01:10with the re-releases, but somehow these sort of gems that were sitting around could come
01:17out.
01:18I had another plan, but this was far more ambitious and much lengthier, and far more
01:24relevant I think to the whole picture of what was needed to be sort of presented, an audible
01:32picture of what went on in the studio.
01:35Where it comes to the Led Zeppelin aspect of it, it was hundreds of hours, literally
01:41hundreds of hours of listening to tape, because you've got to listen to it in real time, and
01:45then say you've selected a title, and you're going and listening to everything you've got
01:49around that title, and there's copious notes being made, and it's a lengthy project, but
01:57I knew it was worthwhile.
02:02Yeah, I had a good idea of the sunset sound mixes, things like that, alternate versions
02:07of When the Levee Breaks, different versions of In the Light, I knew there was a wonderful
02:13version on the Led Zeppelin 3, or what I had was an early version of Since I've Been
02:21Loving You, the track of Whole Lotta Love, I mean they're just total gems, so to actually
02:28be able to put them out in context with the release of the studio albums is great, it's
02:36a good way to do it.
02:39There was one surprise that came up, because I thought we might have a gap, and it would
02:51be a bit of a nail-biting gap for Presence, and I thought there'd been something that
02:59had been mixed down at the time, rough mixes, and some songs that didn't make it on Presence,
03:08and I was relieved to find it, it actually wasn't labelled, the box, I had to go through
03:13all manner of things, whatever was on tape, I had to listen to it if it didn't have a
03:19proper, even if it did, I had to check it was in the right box. Anyway, the material
03:24for Presence turned up, so that was like a breathing a sigh of relief, and wiping the
03:29floor with it, it was like, oh thank you God, because without the material for Presence
03:36it would have been tricky, as was the first album, we had to use a live performance because
03:44there just wasn't the material left over to make up a companion disc, but now there was
03:49for everything, so it was cool.
03:53I'd always intended to make Physical Graffiti's companion disc a single disc, because the
04:01pure nature of why the studio album of Physical Graffiti was a double disc, or two vinyls
04:08or whatever, was a simple reason that that's what it was, and this is what it is, as far
04:15as a companion disc, there was no point in trying to just put things on there because
04:21it was too close to something that was already on there, you know, like ten years gone, there
04:27was no point. Sometimes there just wasn't another version to actually pull out, so with
04:33whatever there was, I made the best compilation I felt, showing the band really at work and
04:40at play, and these sort of passionate performances from each of the individuals and collectively,
04:45and you know, it's cool.
04:57Physical Graffiti