As one of the greatest rock and roll bands of all time, Led Zeppelin's history has been
well documented.
But no matter how big of a fan you might be, there's still probably a lot you may not know
about the undisputed gods of '70s rock.
By 1969, Led Zeppelin was already blowing audiences away with their explosive and dynamic
live performances, and guitarist Jimmy Page wanted to keep record label meddling to a
minimum on the band's records.
So, he financed their epic self-titled debut album himself.
Whereas bands typically received a cash advance to record an LP, Zeppelin showed up at Atlantic
Records with master tapes in tow, leaving the label no say in the actual artistic process.
There were other advantages to self-financing.
Because Page planned ahead and knew exactly what he wanted the band to be, recording costs
were kept to a minimum.
In fact, the whole recording process only took 30 hours.
While vacationing in Greece in 1975, Robert Plant and his family were in a car accident.
The singer sustained a broken ankle and elbow, which left him in a wheelchair and on crutches
for almost two years, forcing the band to cancel the remainder of their North American
tour.
Plant's injuries also hampered the recording process of the group's seventh studio album,
Presence.
Forced to stand and sing on crutches, the vocalist once even caught his crutch on a
studio cable and took a painful tumble.
He was taken to the hospital, but luckily his ankle proved to be okay.
He was reportedly so stoked at the diagnosis that he wheeled himself right back into the
studio.
Then he recorded the vocals for the band's masterpiece, "Achilles Last Stand," and wheeled
himself out like a boss.
"Stairway to Heaven" is probably the most well-known track in Led Zeppelin's catalog
and one of the most famous rock songs ever, so it's shocking to hear that anybody hates
it.
But apparently you can count Robert Plant, of all people, as one of those who would like
to never, ever hear "Stairway" ever again.
Jimmy Page, however, absolutely adored the song, considering it the peak of the band's
artistic output.
Plant, meanwhile, saw virtually nothing special about it at all, believing it wouldn't be
nearly as popular if its lyrics weren't so ambiguous.
In 1988, he said,
"It was a nice, pleasant, well-meaning, naive little song."
He's apparently barely played it at all since Zeppelin's 1980 break-up, saying,
"I'd break out in hives if I had to sing 'Stairway to Heaven' in every show."
"Hey!"
"No 'Stairway'?
Denied!"
"Going To California" is a gentle ballad about a beautiful, lonely woman, but there's also
something about drowning in the gods' giant nosebleed, so who knows what Plant was getting
at.
It turns out that he wrote the song to document his love for singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell.
The two weren't an item, but he had a massive crush on her and wanted to express it.
As he put it,
"When you're in love with Joni Mitchell, you've really got to write about it now and again."
Plant also had earthquakes on the brain.
The other part of the song, about mountains shaking and gods getting punched in the nose,
was inspired by the pains of working in California right on a fault line.
In fact, when Jimmy Page was mixing the album in Los Angeles, a minor earthquake shook up
the studio.
Technically, in their native England, Led Zeppelin is a one-hit wonder.
That's mainly because they were an album-oriented band that, for the most part, hated releasing
singles.
At the time, most radio singles were under three minutes, and Zeppelin rarely went that
short.
When Atlantic wanted to release "Whole Lotta Love" as a single in the United States, many
radio stations were very nervous about playing a six-minute song with a bridge consisting
of weird sounds and moans of ecstasy.
So the label edited the bridge out, enraging Zep, who cared about the art remaining intact
way more than any calculated business decisions.
In response, the band refused to release a U.K. version of the single, which remained
a practice for their entire career and beyond.
No Zeppelin songs were released in England as singles until a remastered version of "Whole
Lotta Love" appeared on the Billboard charts in 1997.
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