Led Zeppelin was formed back in 1968 in London by guitarist Jimmy Page after The Yardbirds came to an end. Alongside John Paul Jones, Robert Plant and John Bonham, the band created classic albums that made them become one of the best-selling bands of all time. They influenced countless generations of musicians in the following decades, especially from Hard Rock bands. One of them was the Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, that revealed in in an radio interview back in 2019, made available by Raised On Radio (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), which was the Zeppelin track that influenced him the most.
The Led Zeppelin song that Slash said influenced him the most
“There is a song that even before the ‘Rocks’, Aerosmith record came along that definitely had a big influence (on me). I mean, I didn’t had any aspirations to be a musician. But I really loved music all my entire childhood. So I was really drawn to it and loved pulling out records, putting them on, listening to them. I think I can name classic records that (I used to like) when I was a kid. But one that really had an impact on me was the ‘Zeppelin II’ record. The song that means the most to me because it had such an impact on me would be ‘Whole Lotta Love'”.
“I think that sort of speaks to a subliminal thing that later on when I started to play guitar (was) what I was drawn to. So a lot of the music I was really into as a kid, without ever having thought playing guitar turned up later as having a really big influence on me.”
“So ‘Whole Lotta Love’ was just this really sexy, slezy, guitar driven thing that I just loved. That actually ended up being sort of the catalyst for my first experimentation with distortion, Les Paul’s and that kind of thing. Oh god, it was so cool. It was just such a great introduction to the 70s, where 70s was going to go,” Slash said.
The album
In an interview with Signed Media back in 2010 (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), Slash listed three albums that inspired him the most and one of them was “Led Zeppelin II”.
“An important record for me was ‘Led Zeppelin II‘, their second record. Because when I was a kid growing up, my parents had that record. My parentes had the best Rock and Roll record collection of anybody I ever met. But I remember loving that record when I was a kid. Then when I started playing guitar that record still had a huge influence one me as a guitar player. So that was an important record for me,” Slash said.
The second Led Zeppelin album was released in 1969, only 8 months after their first one. It also has classics like “Heartbreaker”, “Ramble On” and “Moby Dick”. It was again produced by Jimmy Page.