“It’s a lost inevitable: if you love rock n’roll music, the roads will point to Led Zeppelin at some point,” Naylor says. “Jimmy Page got lucky but at the same time, he had this talent that was just growing and growing. He started as a session guitarist, and ended up as the auteur of one of the greatest rock bands of all time. Most people do it the other way around: they start in an awesome band and end up being a session hack! But he got it right. Some of it was chance but a lot of it was sheer determination and vision. And you need all of those things to succeed in the music industry. Particularly in the late’ 60s and early ’70s, things were changing on the spot.”
That’s particularly true of the particular musical world Led Zeppelin inhabited, where the album was such an important commodity. This was an era when radio stations would play entire sides of albums. “If anything, I compare albums to films in that era, Naylor says. “Releasing an album was an even in the way releasing a film was an event. I say was, because these days releasing a film is not an event. There are horrible action films coming out every other week and the market is flooded with second-rate entertainment these days.” Gone is the significance, the weight attached to an album or a movie when there was nothing else around to compete with it for the consumer’s attention. “We’re bombarded with choices and technology, and technology is an amazing tool but it’s also killing the experience of music, in certain ways. Not in every way, but back then you had to go to the shop, buy the record, take it home and live with it for the rest of your life.”
The band assembled to play Houses Of The Holy will approach the material with a view to being a synthesis of the live versions played by Led Zeppelin during that era, and the musical personalities of the musicians themselves. “We will be adding keyboards, because I think they’re a pivotal part of that record,” Naylor says. “We will be layering to a point, but on the other hand we will be presenting the songs as they might have been presented live – within my limits, I should say. The other musicians are amazing! But once you start scratching the surface of the parts of these records you realise how sophisticated it all is!” A big part of putting across this vibe is Danny Leo, whose drumming style lends itself particularly well to the playing of John Bonham. “Danny’s incredible, and part of the magic of nailing those songs is having someone who can play them faithfully. Danny’s using a Ludwig Vistalite kit. Stephen Hadley on bass is an amazing musician in his own right and he fits this band because he’s schooled in ’70s rock but he has that pop and jazz background so he’s got that whose arsenal of feels and technique that someone like John Paul Jones had in spades. Bruce Haymes’ work speaks for itself – if you see how many people he’s worked with and the kind of calibre of musician he is and the people he hangs around with… and the singers are Adam Cole from Bugdust, an amazing rock n’roll singer, as is Pat Carmody from My Dynamite, and we’re opening up the playing field by having female artists as well: Talei & Eliza Wolfgramm (The Wolfgramm Sisters) and Fiona Lee Maynard (The Holy Men) singing some songs as well. It won’t be a tribute act as such but it will be played with love and dedication.”
BY PETER HODGSON
