ROBERT PLANT: New Audio Interview Available

National Public Radio's (NPR) Ashley Kahn recently conducted an interview with former LED ZEPPELIN frontman Robert Plant about the challenge of going solo after being so identified as the voice of what Rolling Stone magazine recently dubbed "the heaviest band of all time."

Plant's first concert as a solo artist took place in 1982, but the singer remembers his nervousness like it was yesterday.

"In the afternoon of that day in Peoria, Ill., I was really emotional," he said. "Hopping up and down and pacing around. I mean, in those days, LED ZEPPELIN was legendary. It was still alive.

"I thought, maybe I should just quit now [because] nothing could be like that. But on the other hand the great challenge was, what's it going to be like?"

In 2005, Plant released the album "Mighty Rearranger", and his journey seemed to come full circle, back to that familiar blend of hard rock, folk music of the Near East and a heavy dose of the blues.

"It's big and strong and powerful," he said. "That's its relationship with LED ZEPPELIN. That's what my music has become, even more so now with 'Mighty Rearranger'. One part is beckoning you towards the Sahara, while another part is taking you into San Francisco in '67."

Robert Plant, 58, is still more at home on the road, or in the studio, than he is on his Saxon country estate. He describes a recent encounter with another rock veteran — the guitarist from PINK FLOYD — at a hotel in Paris.

"I was talking to Dave Gilmour. I said, 'How long are you out for?'" Plant recalled. "He said, 'Three weeks, and you?' I said, 'Well it's 128 shows in and I can't see it ending.' So, I mean, it depends on whether you actually just do a few gigs to please the record company and go back to the fortress. Or you find that your home is everything, everywhere and everyone."

Listen to National Public Radio's interview with Robert Plant at this location.