LED ZEPPELIN's Jimmy Page Talks About New Catalog Reissues - We Were All "All Just Flying, Absolutely Flying At An Altitude… There Was No Other Group At The Time That Were Doing That"

May 20, 2014, 10 years ago

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Legendary Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page spoke with Brian Ives from Radio.com about the upcoming reissues of Led Zeppelin, Led Zeppelin II and Led Zeppelin III which hits retailers on June 3.

Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

Radio.com: Is this project the last word on the Led Zeppelin studio catalog? Are these the definitive version of the albums?

Jimmy Page: "I’d like to think so, because I’ve mastered and remastered right across the board. I didn’t actually master for mp3 files, but (I did for) everything else! In actual fact, there’s even files that are super-duper hi-res for whatever format may come along."

Radio.com: What goes through your mind when you’re working on this kind of project? This sort of started when you began work on the Celebration Day live album.

Jimmy Page: "Well, it sort of started because I wanted to archive all of the material that I had that was in analog form. So, I even had tapes of my own material, early songs that I did when I was still living with my parents. As it went through chronologically, it went through to the Yardbirds things, and it got to the point where the Led Zeppelin thing started to pop up. Around the time of the Led Zeppelin DVD (released in 2003), I had an idea, I won’t tell you exactly what it was, but it did involve these things, but nobody could understand it. Nobody could understand what it was that I was saying, that includes (my) management at the time. The idea sort of resuscitated for this project. I don’t know whether everyone does (their entire catalog) all at once. I don’t care. What I do know is, the companion discs to each of the albums give all this sort of insight to the recording, or at least the atmospherics, it shows the work that went into the studio masters as you know them. The alternative versions and different songs that have never been heard, it’s a wonderful portal, it’s a great window in. I knew it was a hefty task to do, but knew the fans would love it when it came out, and now it is out, so great!"

Radio.com: Did you enjoy it – did you enjoy listening to stuff that you hadn’t heard in a long time?

Jimmy Page: "It was really enjoyable. It was really good to hear the musicians, John Bonham, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant, and even Jimmy Page. All just flying, absolutely flying at an altitude… there was no other group at the time that were doing that. Or could. They just couldn’t. Yeah, it’s always wonderful to hear it.

Read more at Radio.com.

On June 3rd, Led Zeppelin will launch an extensive reissue program of all nine of its studio albums in chronological order, each remastered by guitarist and producer Jimmy Page. Led Zeppelin will also open its vaults to share dozens of unheard studio and live recordings, with each album featuring a second disc of companion audio comprised entirely of unreleased music related to that album. Check out more details here.

To pre-order, visit Amazon at this location.



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