Ben Sisario from NYTimes.com spoke with LED ZEPPELIN guitar legend Jimmy Page recently about Jimmy Page By Jimmy Page, a 500-page collection of images that Page selected to represent his career, due out on September 27th via Genesis Publications. Here are a few excerpts from the chat:

NYTimes.com: Why did you decide to do this book, as opposed to a more traditional autobiography?

Page: "I’ve been approached to do an autobiography, but I thought that was the least attractive way of doing a book. So I thought it would be quite interesting to do a photographic autobiography. It’s the story of a kid who’s involved with music, but really the music involved itself with him. It’s this conjoining of music and a teenager, and off it goes.

I thought that a career in pictures was really the best way to do it at this stage, but I wouldn’t discount the idea of an autobiography. This is usually my defense: When publishing people say, 'How about writing a book?,' I say, 'Yes, I’ve thought about it, but I’d like a book that came out posthumously.' That’s probably as good as it’s going to get: this visual documentary, and then possibly, if I ever get around to it, doing a book that comes out posthumously.

NYTimes.com: Was your aim here to correct the record, to present your own version of the story of Led Zeppelin?

Page: "No, I didn’t think that was necessary. Everyone wants to know what happened here and there, and you’ve got so many people that come forward with explanations - people who give authoritative accounts who were never anywhere near the place. But there’s only one thing as far as I’m concerned that remains constant and true, and that’s the music. So if you want to use your imagination, please apply it to the music rather than things that maybe surrounded it.

As far as a pictorial record, you can certainly see a little bit behind the music, and you can make your own mind up. I’m not really coloring it too much with what annotations I’ve made. I didn’t want to laden it with controversies. I just wanted the pictures to speak in a way that the music does."

NYTimes.com: The tour itineraries make clear how hard the YARDBIRDS and Led Zeppelin worked. And the photos show that you looked very good doing it. Your wardrobe really plays a starring role.

Page: "I was very keen to show what the workload was with these bands. With the Yardbirds, our tour itineraries were pretty dense. But I particularly wanted to show what Led Zeppelin was doing in 1969, just how much work we were doing. We were recording “Led Zeppelin II” during that tour of America, at studios in the states, and I wanted to show the way it was approached as a work-in-progress album while we were on the road."

Read the entire interview here.

For more info and to order the book click here.