HIS ROCK BAND sold 300 million records, generating billions of dollars in revenue, all while scoffing at convention and critics. In a rare interview with Forbes ahead of receiving an honorary doctorate at Berklee College of Music in May, Led Zeppelin founder and guitarist Jimmy Page shared some of his insights on building one of the best-known brands in music.
Survey, than vanquish foreign markets
Led Zeppelin achieved superstardom after conquering the all-important U.S. music market starting in 1969. “I had been over here with the Yardbirds and I could see a whole changing face of how things were working in the singles market, AM radio,” Page says. “I sort of had an idea of how to shape a band – before I had a band this is. I had the material for it and I knew exactly where I was going.”
Time your arrival and come out charging
“It was definitely the time. When Led Zeppelin came together, when I formed that band, it was definitely the right climate for it.”
“There was a master plan to all of it.”
Buck Convention
“At that time we didn’t do singles. We were purposely not doing a singles market and that was really important. It would almost be like a ball and chain dragging around when you did you next album because the rock companies they would want to say ‘where is the such and such, where is the ‘Whole Lotta Love’ on Album 3?”
“We didn’t have to do it because we didn’t go into the record company and ask for an advance. We went to the record company with the album.”
Create Mystique
Page said little during his career, and portrayed himself as an aged hermit in a fantasy sequence in the 1976 film “The Song Remains the Same.” “If you don’t do too many interviews I suppose, people might think you were quite mysterious,” he says. With his flowing white hair tied into an American-colonial style bun and a preference for black clothes and scarves, he still casts an exotic image today.
Delegate when others are more capable
“I’ve always been the worst at business….I must admit that wasn’t my forte. My forte was on the artistic side but you need it to be running in parallel.”
But during Led Zeppelin “we had a really good manager.”
Do the job yourself when you know best
Page personally spent more than two years re-mastering Led Zeppelin’s first three albums and searching out rare outtakes for a new release on Tuesday, June 3. No one else could do the same job, he says, since he knows the music better than anyone else.
Let demand for a hot product grow on its own
In 2010, Page sold a limited 2,500 copy edition of his photo autobiography for about $750 each. Others have to wait until later this year for a cheaper version. Fans who missed Zeppelin’s 2007 reunion concert in London were shut out for five years until the movie version premiered. “You have to take into account that there is sort of normal time, and then there is sort of sidereal time where time can stretch, and then there is Led Zeppelin time which stretches even more maybe,” he says. “I think the pacing of the Led Zeppelin albums has been really good for the legacy.”
