JIMMY PAGE Plans On Surprising Fans With New Project

According to The Pulse Of Radio, Jimmy Page met with the press for a question-and-answer session yesterday (February 3) at London's famed Olympic Studios, as he unveiled the tracks to the new LED ZEPPELIN reissue of 1975's "Physical Graffiti", coming on February 24. During the presentation he shed some light on his upcoming unnamed solo project, revealing, "How it starts off is, you have to play guitar and get match-fit first. So currently I'm in the process of doing that — but I'm also in the process of doing this [reissue series] too. It'll be closer to the end of the year rather than next month. I'm definitely warming up on the touchlines! What I'm doing is something that's going to be quite different. It wouldn't be anything that hopefully you'd imagine I would do."

He said that he was pleased with the fan and critical reaction from the expanded reissued of the band's first five albums so far — all of which have been curated and remastered under his direction. "The response has been phenomenal," he said. "I knew all of the material was really great, but it was really important to set the scene right from the beginning and explain the fact that they were companion discs. It's been a real fun project to do because I know what's coming — and there's some great surprises."

Page remembered the "Physical Graffiti" sessions as being a particular high point for ZEPPELIN. "Everyone was really shining. It's so good to be able to present this, because you can see the bare bones of it, but you also know what it becomes. It's a really good illustration of why this whole companion disc series is so good."

Jimmy Page explained that his commitment to ZEPPELIN's studio work during their time together was an all encompassing affair for him. "I was the producer, so I was in the studio more than everybody else, and doing the mixing, as well," he said. "And so there would be cases, like when I was working with, say, Eddie Kramer here in New York; there wouldn't just be the two hands on the desk, there may well be a third hand from me — or even, as there were more tracks — like, say, the second album had eight-track recording, but when you get to 16, there would be more channels and more effects channels. And during the mixing stages, it'd be organic mixing, it wouldn't be sort of programmed. You'd have like four hands sometimes on these mixing consoles doing these things."

There's been no release date announced for the upcoming Page album, which will be his first true solo set since "Outrider", which was released on June 19th, 1988 and peaked at No. 26 on The Billboard 200 album chart.

"Outrider" featured Robert Plant co-writing and contributing vocals on the track "The Only One", and Jason Bonham drumming on both the majority of the album and Page's subsequent tour.