Jimmy Page says he wouldn’t change a thing about how Led Zeppelin recorded their greatest works.
The guitar icon has finished his massive Led Zep back catalogue remastering project and says he’s ready to start playing the guitar again.
And while he respects modern studio techniques, he insists the most important thing for him is capturing the performance rather than chasing perfection.
Asked if he’d have done anything differently with Led Zep’s recording methods if he’d had today’s technology available, Page tells UCR: “My approach would still be to capture the performance of an artist. That’s what all of this stuff is – the Led Zeppelin music and the music of the 60s and 70s of other artists – it’s capturing the essence of why you’re doing that particular track, the character of that track and the collective performance of the musicians and of their overdubs.
“In those days, if you were doing vocal overdubs, you’d go for it and you might maybe make it up with a couple of drop-ins, but that’s it. You go for the full performance, not compiling it word by word. So, what it is is that you had to be direct, you had to make your mind up and be positive and deliver.”
He continues: “You didn’t have the option of having 50 different options of what you could do and take it easy. Don’t take for a moment what I’m saying is that I don’t really appreciate all of the stuff that goes on with computer mixing, because I think it’s brilliant. But as far as performance, it’s a different thing altogether.”
As for what he plans to do next, Page adds: “I’m going to work on the guitar or guitars plural, because I’m known to play in so many different styles and that’s what I am, so I just want to get there and just reconnect with all of these things and see what happens.
“Now that all of the Zeppelin stuff has come out, I have the freedom to be able to make new music, manifest new music and be seen to be playing, as opposed to just rumoured to be playing. I’ll have the time now to be able to put that passion and energy and focus into playing the guitar.”
