Lita Ford recalls Robert Plant invited her to be Zeppelin’s bassist

Led Zeppelin was formed in London, England back in 1968 by Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and John Bonham. In the following years they would become one of the biggest bands of all time, changing the course of Hard Rock music.

But after their five really successful albums, the bassist John Paul Jones decided that he wanted to leave the group to spend more time with his family. Not being able to convince him to continue at the time, Plant and Page started to think about other bass player to replace him. Although Jones eventually stayed in the band, the Runaways guitarist Lita Ford recalled in an interview with Guitar World that they asked her to be Zeppelin’s bassist.

Lita Ford recalls Robert Plant invited her to be Zeppelin’s bassist

The Runaways was formed in 1975 in Los Angeles, California and were one of the first all-female Hard Rock bands. According to Lita, Page and Plant came to see one of their shows. That’s when some famous pictures of the girls were taken with both of them.

Lita was still 17 and she recalled that Plant told her they were looking for a new bassist. “Robert Plant said, ‘We’re looking to replace our bass player, John Paul Jones,’ and I thought, ‘I’m not hearing this. I refuse to believe that this is really coming out of his mouth.’ And I thought, ‘He’s got to be joking.’ Because John Paul Jones is God on bass, as far as I’m concerned.”

“But that’s what he said. And I walked away just thinking, ‘Oh, that was nice. That was nice of him to look at me like that. Because, in those days, a lot of people didn’t look at us as musicians because we were female, and we were young. They never took us seriously as musicians. For me, guitar playing was always my main priority; I didn’t really care about much else. I just wanted to play guitar,” Lita Ford said.

The Runaways were together for only four years until they split-up in 1979, one year before Led Zeppelin came to an end due to John Bonham’s tragic death at the age of 32. The guitarists Joan Jett and Lita Ford were the former Runaways members who managed to have a really successful solo career. Ford released 9 studio albums, the most recent one being “Time Capsule” (2016). Some of her biggest hits are “Close My Eyes Forever (Featuring Ozzy)”, “Kiss Me Deadly” and “Shot of Poison”.