Jimmy Page says he formed Led Zeppelin to change music history

Legendary guitarist Jimmy Page talked with the American Academy of Achievement about how Led Zeppelin changed music history.

Read what he said:

“When I formed Led Zeppelin, I formed it with the idea and ethos that it was going to change music. That’s what I wanted to do. And it clearly did. And it brought to the forefront these master craftsmen that were involved in that band.

“The interesting part of it all is that here I am now. It’s 24 when I formed that band and I’m 74 now. And the lifetime achievement of it is the fact that even from the time that that first album came out… Even though I’ve been a studio musician and played on countless records and albums, the amount of people that I’ve met throughout my life since the age of 24 said that Led Zeppelin music has meant so much to their lives. And that’s a wonderful thing, a remarkable thing, to know that you’ve made a difference in people’s lives.

“But not only that. In parallel with that are young musicians who have been impressed by the production techniques, by the guitar playing and the very styles of guitar playing, by the songwriting, and they have been inspired to be musicians themselves. And that’s a wonderful legacy to have, to know that you’ve been able to do something which has made a change. Something which was your hobby, something which was your passion, something which you believed in all the way through and you wouldn’t deviate from it. But the thing that you believe that you had to do was keep making an improvement on your own personal performance and what you could do and expanding the whole horizons of everyting.

“And that’s very difficult to actually convey it. Because I think mucis is something that you actually feel on the emotional level as much as an intellectual level. But it’s good to actually hear the music, to be able to give examples. But I know, I know instinctively that the various construction that was used in the music of Led Zeppelin is sort of… The example is the song like a ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You,’ ‘Ramble On,’ it has got like the acoustic guitar and then comes into a full-on song with chorus which people would reffer to as a power chorus. Well, I know that all bands in the 1980s were using that technique. I think just the whole approach to it, the whole taste that was employed, had a lot of appreciation.”