Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page on the story behind the Led Zeppelin Remasters.
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00:00Hello there, this is Jimmy Page and you're watching Classic Rock.
00:14Well, it's interesting that you said, is there an archive that's carefully annotated?
00:22That's exactly how it started up.
00:24I started annotating my own archive, listing everything that went back to like the very earliest.
00:31It was all analogue tape that I was doing and it went back to like the early little sort of three and a quarter inch reels
00:39that were done at home when I did my parents and it goes to a five inch reel and home demos.
00:46And I was going all the way through and it got through all the material that I had.
00:51I was logging it and collating it and making notes all through the yard birds.
00:55And then of course it gets to Led Zeppelin.
00:58And I'd started to do some of that, but I must say that I'd had an idea that was along the lines of the project
01:09that we were all now familiar with the re-releases, but somehow these sort of gems that were sitting around could come out.
01:18I had another little, you know, another plan, but this was far more ambitious and much lengthier.
01:24And far more relevant, I think, to the whole picture of what was needed to be sort of presented,
01:31an audible picture of what went on in the studio.
01:35Where it comes to the Led Zeppelin aspect of it, it was hundreds of hours, literally hundreds of hours of listening to tape.
01:43Because you've got to listen to it in real time.
01:45And then, you know, say you've selected a title and you're going and listening to everything you've got around that title.
01:51And there's copious notes being made and, you know, it's a thank you project.
01:57But, I knew it was worthwhile.
02:02Yeah, I had a good idea of like the sunset sound mixes, things like that.
02:06Alternate version of When the Levee Breaks, etc.
02:10Different versions of In the Light.
02:12I knew there was a wonderful version on the Led Zeppelin III of,
02:16or what I had was an early version of Since I've Been Loving You.
02:23The track of Whole Lot Of Love.
02:25I mean, they're just total gems.
02:28So, to actually be able to put them out in context with the release of the studio albums is great.
02:36You know, it's quite a good way to do it.
02:38There was one surprise that came up because I thought we might have a gap.
02:50And it would be a bit of a nail-biting gap for Presence.
02:56And I thought there'd been something that had been mixed down at the time.
03:03Rough mixes and some songs that didn't make it on Presence.
03:08And I was relieved to find it.
03:10It actually wasn't labelled, the box.
03:12I had to go through all manner of things.
03:14You know, whatever was on tape.
03:17I had to listen to it if it didn't have a proper...
03:19Even if it did, I had to check it was in the right box.
03:22Anyway, the material for Presence turned up.
03:25So that was like breathing a sigh of relief and wiping the forehead.
03:30It was like, oh, thank you, God.
03:32Because without the material for Presence, it would have been tricky.
03:39As was the first album, we had to use a live performance
03:44because there just wasn't the material left over to make up a companion disc.
03:48But now there was for everything, so it was cool.
03:54I'd always intended to make Physical Graffiti's companion disc a single disc
03:59because the pure nature of why the studio album of Physical Graffiti
04:05was a double disc or two vinyls or whatever
04:09was a simple reason that that's what it was.
04:12And this is what it is as far as the companion disc.
04:17There was no point in trying to just put things on there
04:20because it was too close to something that was already on there.
04:26You know, like ten years gone, there was no point.
04:28Sometimes there just wasn't another version to actually pull out.
04:32So with whatever there was, I made the best compilation I felt,
04:37showing, you know, the band really at work and at play
04:41and these sort of passionate performances
04:43from each of the individuals and collectively and, you know, it's cool.
04:47Yeah, it's cool.
04:48Yeah, it's cool.
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