JIMMY PAGE Talks Candidly About ROBERT PLANT And Drugs

According to The Pulse Of Radio, Jimmy Page spoke candidly about his relationship with Robert Plant and the long rumors of his 1970s drug use in the current issue of GQ. In the magazine's new "Man of The Year" piece spotlighting him, Page was asked about Plant's often fierce refusal to ever perform or record as part of LED ZEPPELIN again, to which Page responded, "Sometimes I raise my eyebrows at the things he says, but that's all I can say about it. I don't make a point to read what he says about ZEPPELIN. But people will read me things he has said, and I will usually say, 'Are you sure you're quoting him correctly?' It's always a little surprising. But I can't answer for him. I have a respect for the work of everyone in the band. I can't be dismissive of the work we did together. I sort of know what he's doing. But I don't fully understand it."

When pressed about LED ZEPPELIN's fabled drug use during their years together, Page said: "I couldn't comment on that, just like I wouldn't comment on the relationship between ZEPPELIN's audience and drugs. But of course you wouldn't ask me that. You wouldn't ask me what the climate was like at the time. The climate in the 1970's was different than it is now. Now it's a drinking culture. It wasn't so much like that then."

Page was asked by the magazine as to whether he ever went into rehab to cure his rumored heroin problem, to which Page snapped: "How do you know I had a heroin problem? You don’t know what I had or what I didn’t have. All I will say is this: My responsibilities to the music did not change. I didn’t drop out or quit working. I was there, just as much as anyone else was."

When reminded about the reports that he was absent from portions of ZEPPELIN's final album, 1979's "In Though The Out Door" — with Plant and John Paul Jones taking over the reins of the band — Page insisted: "The second thing to take on board is the fact that I am the producer of 'In Through the Out Door'. That’s what I did. It’s right there in black and white. If there were controversy over this, if John Paul Jones or Robert Plant had done what you’re implying, wouldn’t they have wanted to be listed as the producers of the album? So let’s just forget all that."

Jimmy Page explained that he pulled out all the stops to make sure his bandmates were happy with his revamp of the band's catalogue: "It took hundreds of hours of listening, as a safety measure on this, I wasn't going to do all of this project and find out the other two guys weren't, y'know, behind it. What I did was put together the 'Led Zeppelin III' companion disc wit all the various material that's on that; all the different mixes and different versions. And also 'Presence', which was the one where there was something that turned up on 'Presence', which I knew that would be totally fresh to their ears — as was pretty much all of the 'Led Zeppelin III'. I played it to them individually, and they were just knocked out at just what was being down and the they just said, yeah, go ahead."