Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, Jimmy Page, and John Bonham created powerful and incredible music as Led Zeppelin, but they also borrowed a lot from old Blues artists throughout their careers, which even resulted in some lawsuits.
They became one of the most successful bands of all time and, of course, were a huge inspiration for other artists, which led to their style being heard in many other bands. There are two specific ones that Robert Plant considered, in the past, to be copies of Led Zeppelin.
2 bands Robert Plant considered to be Led Zeppelin copies
Whitesnake
The first one is Whitesnake, which, for Robert Plant, sounded a lot like Led Zeppelin on their more commercially successful albums in the late 80s. His opinion became even harsher after David Coverdale teamed up with Jimmy Page to record “Coverdale-Page” (1993), leading Plant to even call him “David Cover-Version”. “Well, he’s old enough to have been influenced by the same music that influenced me, but I guess it didn’t sink in, somehow.”
“Incidentally, he says he talks to me all the time, but I haven’t spoken to him in about three years. He could be the next Glen Campbell, I guess. His makeup’s real good, though. One thing he’s not is Howlin’ Wolf. (…) “David Geffen’s (Record executive) probably real pleased with himself about that one, but just wait and see what happens to Whitesnake when Zeppelin gets back together,” Robert Plant said in an interview with Creem magazine in 1988.
So Plant didn’t believe they were influenced by the same artists, he thought that David Coverdale was actually copying someone who had originally been influenced by those artists. That was confirmed by the interviewer Chuck Eddy, who said: “I ask Robert if he was Howlin’ Wolf, kinda taking him aback, it seems, but he says no. What we decided is that Plant sounds like somebody who’s listened to Howlin’ Wolf (or Muddy Waters or somebody – you get the idea), and Coverdale sounds like somebody who’s listened to guys who’ve listened to guys who’ve listened to Howlin’ Wolf.” Speaking with Details magazine that same year, he was also quite harsh on David Coverdale and Whitesnake.
Plant said:
“He and I are very good friends. We go back so far we even left the womb at about the same time. I think it’s wonderful and I’m really pleased that some old farts who weren’t going to get on anywhere in the world have found some kind of niche. And I know he’s furious that I say these things. I mean, a lot of these bands are much younger, and that’s okay, but when the guy is the same age and from the same stable, then I think discretion has to be called to order.”
Robert Plant reportedly wasn’t happy with a fan who intentionally pretended to mistake him for David Coverdale in the 80s
After the mid-80s, Whitesnake changed their sound and were accused by critics of copying Led Zeppelin, especially in songs like “Slow An’ Easy”, “Still of the Night” and “Judgement Day”. The comparison extended beyond their sound to David Coverdale’s look as well. The band’s former bassist Neil Murray once said that they were pushed to become the “Led Zeppelin of the 80s”. Because after the band broke up, there was a huge gap in the market.
Curiously, according to J.D. Crowe, an editorial cartoonist for the Alabama Media Group, when he had the chance to meet Robert Plant in a hotel bar in the late 80s, the Led Zeppelin frontman reportedly “head-butted” him after he intentionally called him David Coverdale as a joke. “I said. ‘Can’t believe I’m sitting in a Milwaukee bar having a beer with my favorite singer, David Coverdale.’ (…) His face burned fire red.”
“He nudged the dude next to him and mumbled, ‘Watch this.’ He leaned into me, got right up in my face. In the Stairway to Heaven voice he asked, ‘Does your mother sew?’ ‘What … my mother, sew? Sure, she can sew’. He launched his big ol’ head square into mine, knocking me off the stool. ‘Have her stitch that one up, motherf****r!’ he sneered, in a Trampled Underfoot snarl,” he said. J.D. Crowe later said that Robert Plant ended up buying him a beer afterward, and they even took a photo together.
He praised Coverdale a few times and jammed with Whitesnake during their early days
Although Robert Plant said some harsh things about David Coverdale and Whitesnake, especially during their most successful period following the release of the self-titled album “Whitesnake” (1987) and “Slip of the Tongue” (1989), he has praised David on a few occasions. “I think David and I go back a long, long way in separate camps. Maybe we just listened to the same thing so many times that we just started interpreting it the same way. I think he’s alright, I look forward to the night we can have a good game of squash together. Or brag, a game of cards. He’s alright, a good bloke, good singer,” he said in an interview with MTV in 1988.
In the early 80s, when Whitesnake was formed by David Coverdale, Micky Moody, Bernie Marsden, Neil Murray, Ian Paice and Jon Lord, Plant had the chance to join them in the Midlands in England and jam. “We played one show in the Midlands where Robert Plant came to jam with us. The audience response was so amazing. I forgot to invite him on stage. There are astonishing emotional memories of those times. But the reality was there wasn’t the financial rewards coming in,” David Coverdale told Classic Rock in 2011.
Kingdom Come
The second band that was widely criticized for “copying” Led Zeppelin and with whom Robert Plant agreed on a few occasions, was the German band Kingdom Come. “(…) The point is, if you’re Kingdom Come, or whoever is having their year this year, are you pushing forward the frontiers of music when you steal ‘Kashmir’? Take another field, like science. Because Pasteur found penicillin (Actually was Alexander Fleming), other scientist can carry on with it and earn lots of money. They steal bits from the work of others and build on it. They don’t have to reinvent penicillin,” Plant told Musician magazine in 1990.
During the same conversation, he was asked why, given Led Zeppelin’s own history of being accused of ripping off Blues artists and later having to pay royalties and give them credit on many of their songs, he didn’t think it was acceptable for Kingdom Come, for example, to do the same.
He said:
“Well, it’s perfectly all right. Everyone can nick everyone else. We’re all fair game, and that’s reasonable. There are so many songs within songs on this album (‘Manic Nirvana’), I don’t know where they all came from. After all my life in rock ’n’ roll and all the music I’ve heard, some imitation hasn’t been intentional, and some has.”
In 1988, after the German band Kingdom Come released their self-titled debut album and the hit “Get It On” appeared on the charts, the track was often compared with Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”, due to similarities in parts of both songs. The band’s vocalist, Lenny Wolf, who also co-produced that record, said in an interview in 2011 that they actually had a good time meeting Robert Plant. “Like I said, we took it as a compliment (to be compared with Zeppelin) and were excited. We were playing in London the night before Robert Plant was playing and we went down to see him.”
Lenny Wolf continued:
“He was goofing with us, having fun and he was so relaxed. Robert Plant is like above all. He’s really above everything. He was joking with us and it was really great. It really made me sad when I noticed Jimmy Page, who was one of my heroes, starting to whine about little Kingdom Come who was never really a threat at all. I’m very happy and very grateful that whatever happened happened. Because I could be driving a truck here in Germany delivering washing machines or whatever. So who am I to complain (laughs)?” he said.
Lenny Wolf was part of the band from 1987 until 2016. The band remains active with longtime members Danny Stag (guitar), Rick Steier (guitar, keyboards), and Johnny B. Frank (bass). They have released 13 studio albums, the most recent one being “Outlier” in 2013.
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