The COVID-19 global pandemic and its ongoing effects on the concert industry and global society at large have made Jimmy Page re-assess his own career heading into the twilight years of his life. The former Led Zeppelin guitarist spoke about how the past eight months have affected his creative aspirations in a new interview to be featured in the December issue of GQ.
“When we first went into lockdown I thought, ‘Right, now’s the time to start thinking about coming back at some point and being able to perform,’” Page says in the print interview. “It’s such a very sad and desperate time and what this virus has done internationally to families, to the arts, and everything we love and hold dear and the whole concert situation, it does worry me. I will never be one of those people who’ll record alone and send someone a file. I never went into music in the first place to do that, it was for playing together and this is what it means.”
Related: Just How Much Of Led Zeppelin’s Music Was Stolen?
The 76-year-old musician continued, “We need to play with people, we need gigs and we need community. Because without that, music means nothing. Playing live is so important for young musicians. When we were young, we all had these little gigs, hoping to play somewhere bigger and it’s such an important part of that communion of musicians playing together.”
The report didn’t specify whether Page is still planning to return to the stage in the future, but fans should be optimistic that he’ll at least play live again in some capacity while he’s still young enough to perform at a high level. Next month, it will have been 13 years since Zeppelin reunited at London’s O2 Arena for their now-famous Celebration Day concert in December 2007.
After recognizing the band’s 50th anniversary in 2019 with a mix of new celebratory projects and releases, the surviving members of Led Zeppelin returned to news headlines when the copyright lawsuit surrounding “Stairway To Heaven” was dismissed by California’s Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals after nearly six years of litigation.
[H/T NME]
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