Jimmy Page has revealed that observing the devastating impact of Covid-19 upon the arts world has renewed his hunger to get back on stage once again.
In a new interview in the print edition of GQ magazine (reported on NME.com), Led Zeppelin’s guitarist says that being in lockdown inspired him to think about getting back out on the road.
“When we first went into lockdown I thought, ‘Right, now’s the time to start thinking about coming back at some point and being able to perform’,” Page stated.
“It’s such a very sad and desperate time,” he tells GQ, “and what this virus has done internationally to families, to the arts, and everything we love and hold dear and the whole concert situation, it does worry me.”
“I will never be one of those people who’ll record alone and send someone a file. I never went into music in the first place to do that, it was for playing together and this is what it means.”
“We need to play with people, we need gigs and we need community. Because without that, music means nothing,” he continued. “Playing live is so important for young musicians. When we were young, we all had these little gigs, hoping to play somewhere bigger and it’s such an important part of that communion of musicians playing together. For me it’s always been the most important thing.”
In a recent interview with Classic Rock magazine, Page talked about the fact that he’d been playing guitar more at home since the pandemic-enforced global lockdown.
“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,” he said. “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.”
In the same interview, Page offered a cryptic answer when asked what future musical projects he might be working upon.
“I’m never not doing something,” he said, “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.”
