Musician

If you listen to our work, from 'Led Zeppelin I' to 'Coda,' it's just a fantastic textbook.

I wasn't a very good draughtsman.

Having the facility to have this multitrack at home, I could try experiments with sort of all of the instruments, giving them different treatments so they didn't actually sound, necessarily, like the instrument itself.

It was an extraordinary connection, the synergy within the band. There was an area of ESP between Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, John Bonham, and myself.

That's one of the problems with the Zeppelin stuff. It sounds ridiculous on MP3. You can't hear what's there properly.

The benchmark of quality I go for is pretty high.

Led Zeppelin was a band that would change things around substantially each time it played... We were becoming tighter and tighter, to the point of telepathy.

I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.

There's such a currency to Led Zeppelin, or the members of Led Zeppelin. If I put it to you this way, on the run-up to the O2 concert, the only music that we played was music of Led Zeppelin - the past catalog stuff; that's what we played on the way towards shaping up the set list for that. But we played really, really well.

The thing about Led Zeppelin was that it was always four musicians at the top of their game, but they could play like a band.

I always want to do my very best, and it's frustrating to have something hold me back.

You shouldn't really have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound good. It should all be done with microphones and microphone placement.

I really don't listen to Led Zeppelin that much.

I don't really know anything about sales figures, to be honest with you.

The passing of John Bonham... Let's just put it... Before we say, 'the passing of John Bonham,' the introduction of John Bonham on the first album and 'Good Times Bad Times,' it changes drumming overnight.

Isolation doesn't bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security.

That's one of the problems with the Zeppelin stuff. It sounds ridiculous on MP3. You can't hear what's there properly.

Because somebody plays guitar, why does it mean they need a singer? Because people already have this image of things? No, I'll put my music together, then think about whether I need to embellish it with a singer.

Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was - there's no doubt about it. There's never been anybody since. He's one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.

From meeting Robert Plant, John Bonham, and John Paul Jones, teaming up, rehearsing, playing selected gigs outside of Britain, coming back into Olympic Studios to record the first album, and then going to America, which we crack open like a nut with the debut record - all that happened, literally, within months.