Musician

Our intent with Led Zeppelin was not to get caught up in the singles' market, but to make albums where you could really flex your muscles - your musical intellect, if you like - and challenge yourself.

Nobody could have predicted the effect of John Bonham's drum introduction on 'Good Times, Bad Times,' because no matter what he'd played in before, he'd never had the chance to flex his muscles and play like John Bonham.

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

You want that - peers respecting what you're doing.

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

'Communication Breakdown' - it was punchy and direct, with a real attitude that was different to other bands going around.

If I'm going to put my image into something, I'll put my image into something that I actually feel like I'd like to do.

When I was still in the Yardbirds, our producer, Mickie Most, would always try to get us to record all these horrible songs. During one session, we recorded 'Ten Little Indians,' an extremely silly song that featured a truly awful brass arrangement.

The fourth album encapsulated some remarkable music that was really groundbreaking. We were able to have something like 'When the Levee Breaks,' which, sonically, was very menacing. But then you had the flip side: something like 'Going to California,' which is really intimate.

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

Here's where it goes with Led Zeppelin. It didn't matter what was going on around us, because the character of Led Zeppelin's music was so strong.

I prefer to hear an artist's work and what they can do, so as far as I'm concerned, I'd get a lot more out of a collection of songs to be able to understand what the musician is doing.

In the 1960s and into the '70s, everyone in their own way was trying to open up the musical horizon. There shouldn't be a wall that you're going toward and bouncing off.

I am very good at remembering music and am absolutely certain that I never heard 'Taurus' until 2014.

I really love playing live - it's such a gas.

I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.

Here's where it goes with Led Zeppelin. It didn't matter what was going on around us, because the character of Led Zeppelin's music was so strong.

The whole thing about 'The Rover' is the whole swagger of it, the whole guitar attitude swagger. I'm afraid I've got to say it, but it's the sort of thing that is so apparent when you hear 'Rumble' by Link Wray - it's just total attitude, isn't it?

My guitar playing touches so many different areas of the form, but the important thing is what it represents across the form.

Every musician wants to do something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with 'Stairway to Heaven.'