Jimmy Page says he “reconnected with guitar” during lockdown

The coronavirus pandemic may have temporarily stopped musicians from getting out and gigging, but it hasn’t prevented Jimmy Page from playing guitar.

In a brand-new interview, the Led Zeppelin legend told Classic Rock, “One of the things I was complaining about before we all had to lock down was that I wasn’t having enough time to play guitar.

“I was able to actually say: ‘Well, this is it. You can do it every day now.’ So, it’s given me an opportunity to reconnect properly with the guitar.”

Given that statement, the interview also goes on to discuss what new projects Page might have in the works. 

He responded, somewhat enigmatically: “I’m never not doing something, and I’m never not doing something that’s going to surprise people. It’s like when I did a spoken word project with my girlfriend [2019’s Catalyst, with poet Scarlett Sabet]. Nobody was expecting me to do that, because nobody had done that before. It was really wonderful to do.

“But I’ve always got ideas, and the day that I wake up and haven’t got any ideas of what to do and how to do it, that for me will be a very sad day. And that day looks like it’s some way off yet.”

Page was also asked about whether there would have been more music from Led Zeppelin had the band not broken up in the wake of drummer John Bonham’s death in 1980. To which he replied with a resounding yes.

“John Bonham and I discussed what sort of shape the next album should be, because each album was different to the last,” he said. “It just so happened that Presence was basically a guitar album, so as John Paul Jones had his Dream Machine [a Yamaha GX-1 synthesizer, used extensively on In Through the Out Door], it was only right to do a keyboard album. 

"So we had been discussing what we’d do for the next one, and there were definite ideas of what we could do.”

To read the incredibly in-depth interview in full, keep your eyes peeled for the new issue of Classic Rock magazine.