Alice Cooper says Led Zeppelin wouldn’t exist without The Yardbirds

Alice Cooper said in an interview with The Mistress Carrie Podcast that Led Zeppelin wouldn’t exist without The Yardbirds. Guitarist Jimmy Page was a respected session musician that later joined the Yardbirds.

Alice Cooper says Led Zeppelin wouldn’t exist without The Yardbirds:

“There are so many good bands out there that don’t get their time, but you couldn’t have Led Zeppelin without The Yardbirds. I play as many Yardbirds [on radio] as I do Led Zeppelin. And people go, ‘Wow, I love that Zeppelin song.’ I go, ‘That was the Yardbirds,’ and you can see where Led Zeppelin came from – The Yardbirds. And so I do a little education on it, I let them know who’s who and why.”

You have to love it, to be on the radio with rock music, it has to be part of your soul.

“If I was driving down the street and I heard ‘Happening Ten Years Time Ago’ by The Yardbirds, I’d go, ‘What? Are you kidding me?’ Or if I heard ‘Stephanie Knows Who’ by Love, or ‘Seven Plus Seven,’ or any of those – right next to AC/DC and these great radio bands.”

“I would go, ‘Man, I’m listening to that radio station because they’re gonna give me a surprise every once in a while,’ maybe a little bit of Frank Zappa here, and a little bit of this here. And I find that since I’ve been doing this, the stations that were on around the world, their ratings go like that because we’re unique to a computer picking what’s going to be played.”