Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant shared a story on how he convinced rocker and songwriter Dave Edmunds to sign with his record label over a competing one – Rocket Rockets which was owned by Elton John during a recent edition of his Digging Deep podcast. During the battle with John’s label in which a rejection was made, Plant made an offensive remark on the phone that was so bad his podcast censored it! Plant also revealed how he rejected a Led Zeppelin reunion drummer. Alternative Nation transcribed Plant’s comments.
Plant: So this is part one of the tracks from my first solo album entitled Pictures At Eleven. I recorded this at Rockfield Studios in Monmouth in Wales. I went there because it was and still is a residential studio built in a farm down there right around a quadrangle of a farm. The proprietors were suitably crazy to make it a great atmosphere. Kingsley and Charles Ward had been in rock and roll groups in the late fifties and stuff like that, they were also farmers. So they got this part of the farm and somehow or another they managed to get some great equipment in there and that’s where Queen did Bohemian Rhapsody, so many, I went down there with when The Damned were recording. Simply stunning stuff that Nick Lowe did down there with The Damned.
Plant also revealed an awful Led Zeppelin secret on the show, and he continued:
Plant: Dave Edmunds – I went to sign Dave Edmunds to convince him that his future would be better on Led Zeppelin’s Swan Song label than with Rocket Records because Elton [John] was trying to sign him then. Dave came with us and he used to ring me at four every morning asking me: “Where is Peter Grant? I want to speak to somebody in management!” I said: [bleeped out explicit remark]. We’ve been friends ever since, another great project that went somewhere west.
Plant concludes:
Plant: So I knew the studio really well, I knew the people there, they were charming people, the engineer as well, really great guy.
