Jimmy Page has talked down the chances of a Led Zeppelin reunion in the strongest terms to date.
He maintains the band made the right decision to split after the death of John Bonham in 1980 – and hopes the same decision would have been made if tragedy had struck himself instead.
The guitarist has described the re-release of Zep’s final three albums as a form of closure on the band’s history, and aims to turn his attention to creating new music.
Page tells the Daily Beast: “Led Zeppelin was a creative force that you can’t just snap your fingers and create. It was a blend of four master musicians and each of us were important to the sum total of what the band was.”
He adds: “I like to think that if it had been me that wasn’t there, the others would have made the same decision not to carry on.
“We couldn’t just get somebody in there and say, ‘Do this, this way.’ That wouldn’t have been honest, or the same creative nature that we’d always striven for. It’s why we’ve only done it properly once.”
Page is referring to their one-off London show in 2007, later released as the concert movie Celebration Day, featuring Bonham’s son Jason on drums.
“We rehearsed loads so that Jason felt he was part of the band and not some novelty,” he recalls. “We all needed it to be that way.”
The performance led to years of speculation about a larger-scale reunion, which frontman Robert Plant often shut down. Page last year appeared to accept it wasn’t going to happen.
Now he says: “I can’t foresee doing it again, because we all have to agree – and agree for the right reasons.”
