The surviving members of LED ZEPPELIN appeared last night (Monday, December 3) on CBS' "The Late Show With David Letterman". The three — Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones — who, along with Letterman, were awarded the Kennedy Center Honor on Saturday night (December 1) in Washington, D.C. —chatted with Letterman — but did not perform.

Asked if they had considered carrying on following the 1980 death of their drummer, John Bonham, Page said, "No. The fact was that we had the records out and then we'd put the songs into the set; it was almost like another beginning, a second wind for the songs, because they were changing every night with the improvisation we were putting in. There was no way with the amount of work and mutation that had gone on with those songs that we could say to another drummer, 'Well, can you learn this bit and learn that bit?'; it just wouldn't work."

The Kennedy Center Honors will air on CBS on December 26. Check your local listings for stations and times.

The bandmembers are promoting their new live collection, "Celebration Day", which features ZEPPELIN's entire 2007 London reunion concert.

Plant has been the lone holdout for another LED ZEPPELIN reunion. Despite promoters essentially offering the band a blank check for a series of concerts, Plant remains committed to his new musical direction in the "Americana" field. "I hate to say it, but it felt young," he said. "It felt like I didn't know what was going to happen next, and it didn't really matter — and that was the great thing. I know the songs that I like and the songs that I always attach myself to have been of a certain genre, if they're not self-penned. And I was in very good company with people who had a very familiar lean in the same direction."