Why Jimmy Page doesn’t like the cover of “Led Zeppelin III”

Released in 1970, the album “Led Zeppelin III” is one of the most important albums from the band’s discography. It has important tracks like “Immigrant Song”, “Celebration Day”, “Since I’ve Been Loving You”, “Gallows Pole” and “Tangerine”.

However, Jimmy Page is not a big fan of the cover of the album which is really a mix of many things. There are butterflies, planes, birds, fruits and the faces of the four band members.

Why Jimmy Page doesn’t like the cover of “Led Zeppelin III”

Jimmy Page said that that album cover is a disappointment and that he takes full responsibility for that. Because the band explained to the artist Zacron (Richard Drew) their idea but according to Page, Zacron got very personal with the artwork.

“A disappointment. I will take responsibility for that one. I knew the artist and described what we wanted with this wheel that made things appear and change. But he got very personal with this artwork and disappeared off with it. We kept saying, ‘Can we take a look at it? Can we see where it is going?'”

“Finally, the album was actually finished and we still did not have the art. It got to the point where I had to say, ‘Look, I have got to have this thing.’ I was not happy with the final result — I thought it looked teeny-bopperish. But we were on top of a deadline. So of course, there was no way to make any radical changes to it.”

He continued:

“There are some silly bits—little chunks of corn and nonsense like that. But it is no worse than my first meeting with an artist from Hipgnosis, who were the people that designed Pink Floyd covers. We had commissioned them to design Houses of the Holy, and this guy Storm came in carrying this picture of an electric green tennis court with a tennis racquet on it.”

“I said, ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’ And he said, ‘Racket — don’t you get it?’ I said, ‘Are you trying to imply that our music is a racket?? Get out!!’We never saw him again. We ended up dealing with one of the other artists [laughs]. That was a total insult — racket. He had some balls!! Imagine. On a first meeting with a client!” Jimmy Page said in an interview with Guitar World in 1993.

The album peaked at number 1 in several countries like Australia, Canada, Italy, United Kingdom and United States. More than 6 million copies were sold only in the United States.