“It’s such a great thrill to play that music in a live setting,” Naylor says, “because normally you just hear it at home. To get to play it loud and intimate with no inhibitions is quite exhilarating.”
Joining Naylor on stage will be drummer Danny Leo, bass player Stephen Hadley, keyboardist Bruce Haymes and a rotating cast of vocalists, including Vika Bull, Dallas Frasca and Pat Carmody. Naylor and Leo have participated in a series of Led Zeppelin tribute shows over the last few years, but they sure ain’t tiring of the songs.
“It’s like a steam train and once you’re on you can’t get off,” Naylor says. “Certain songs are immortal. You do feel like you’re on a freight train. You’ve just got to make sure that you keep an eye on where the stations are so you don’t get off at the wrong stop. There’s lots of bits to these songs – you can’t coast.”
This weekend’s gig will take specific direction from Led Zeppelin’s 1973 appearance at Madison Square Garden. That performance was captured on tape and released as a feature length movie and live album, The Song Remains the Same. Naylor wasn’t old enough to know much about anything in 1973, but he’s had a relationship with Led Zeppelin since an early age.
“I was a big KISS fan when I was a youngster and they’d always refer to Led Zeppelin. Then I finally heard [Zeppelin] and there was no turning back.
“Once I’d done a little bit of back-tracking as I got older, I realised there’s a lot of bands that could have turned into Zeppelin, but it’s just lucky that those four guys managed to do it. The blueprint was laid with other groups, but the thing with Zeppelin that sets them apart from a lot of other bands at that time, it was four virtuosos. Each member was a master of their craft.”
Indeed, prior to banding together in 1968, the unique ability of each of Led Zeppelin’s four members – guitarist Jimmy Page, vocalist Robert Plant, keys/bass player John Paul Jones and drummer John Bonham – was already well-known within the talent-packed London music scene. So, it’s no surprise that soon after uniting as Led Zeppelin, they became a global phenomenon.
“It could have been too many cooks spoiling the broth,” says Naylor. “They got lucky, but they grew into their own skin once they started writing their own material.”
Led Zeppelin didn’t just passively impress the young Ashley Naylor. In fact, Jimmy Page’s guitar work played a huge role in the development of his own fret board personality.
“After KISS I started trying to learn Led Zeppelin songs and even to this day it’s like trying to master a second language. You know some words, you know some sentences, but there’s certain parts of his phrasing and his dialect that I’ll never be able to approximate. That’s OK because I’m not really in the business of imitation. You’ve got to tread that fine line between copying and acknowledging.”
This ethos is key when it comes to one’s own art – and Naylor’s band Even can hardly be deemed ‘Zeppelin rip-offs’ – but that’s not what this Friday’s gig is about. The Zeptember super-band promises a most authentic Led Zeppelin experience, which goes beyond learning the songs note-for-note.
“We want to deliver it in the spirit that it was intended,” Naylor says. “It’s not meant to be like a master class. It’s more of a representation. If you know it well enough you can play it as accurately as humanly possible, but with a bit of fire in there as well, hopefully.”
Something that makes the live recordings on The Song Remains the Same so damn enthralling is Led Zeppelin’s improvised instrumental departures. There’s no doubt that the band was an arresting force on record, but on stage they could really showcase the extent of their unsurpassed chemistry. Rather than trying to mimic someone else’s spontaneity, Naylor and company plan to conduct their own unrehearsed instrumentals.
“Freedom is the key to great music and Zeppelin had it in bucket loads,” he says. “Obviously, you don’t want to copy their improvisations. You want to play something in the spirit of what they have achieved in the past. That’s part of the excitement of it – having the chance to do that as well.”
Yes, beyond straight-up reprisal, what’s set to make Zeptember a particularly worthwhile occasion is the band’s endeavour to tap into a genuine expressive energy. That said, Naylor acknowledges it won’t be a walk in the park.
“There’s many different people who appreciate shows like this. A lot of people want note-for-note execution, a lot of people want an interpretation. To find a balance is the key – to find some kind of balance within the realms of your own skill. There’s certain things I’ll never be able to play of Page’s but other things I can, relatively, play quite comfortably.”
BY AUGUSTUS WELBY
