Whole lotta facts
IT’S 40 years today since rock legends Led Zeppelin broke up – having set the bar for hell- raising behaviour. The band officially called it a day on December 4, 1980, just a few months after drummer John Bonham, 32, had died suddenly following a drinking binge. But they left us with timeless tracks like Stairway to Heaven and some classic tales of musical debauchery. Here JAMES MOORE reveals all about the group by numbers…
1… amazingly they never had a UK No1. Their most famous hit, Stairway to Heaven, wasn’t initially released as a single, but has been voted the third best rock song of all time and charted at 37 in 2007.
2… guitarist Jimmy Page, above left, would sometimes play the tricky song on stage using a double- necked guitar.
4… number of band members. Ex- Yardbirds star Page put the group together with singer Robert Plant, bass player John Paul Jones and John Bonham on drums.
5… marriages the Whole Lotta Love rockers notched up, along with countless romances. An under- age groupie claimed to have dated Page. Plant says he even attended a sex club with ABBA’S Benny and Björn.
6… floors. How much of an LA hotel they once rented so Bonham, nicknamed Bonzo, could ride a motorbike down its corridors. The group were notorious for trashing hotels, throwing TVS out of windows, hosting drug- fuelled orgies – once allegedly “entertaining” a fan with a dead shark.
8… No1 UK albums, out of nine. Led Zep defined hard rock during the 1970s when they were dubbed “the biggest band in the world”.
20… minutes. How long Bonham’s Moby Dick drum solo would often last at gigs.
30… feet. The length of the sofa in their private airliner, The Starship.
36… hours. How long it took to record their debut Led Zeppelin album, which featured songs like Dazed and Confused and was famous for its cover, right, featuring the doomed Zeppelin airship The Hindenburg, which crashed in flames in 1937.
40… the number of units of vodka Bonham drank in rehearsals before he died on September 25, 1980, having inhaled his own vomit.
666… Page owned an occult bookshop and bought the Loch Ness house of notorious occultist Aleister Crowley, saying it was haunted. It has been claimed that if you play
Stairway to Heaven backwards wards it contains secret Satanic tanic messages.
1968… the year the band played ayed their first gig. They became e Led Zeppelin after the famous s airships, airr as a joke over the fear that they might go down like a “lead balloon” with the audience. e.
2007… the last time the band played together for a one- e- off concert at London’s O2. Bonham’s son Jason played d the drums.
37million… how many copies ies of their 1971 album, known as s Led Zeppelin IV, sold. It featured tu ured Stairway to Heaven. Four u ur of their other albums sold m more than 10 million copies.
£ 125million… how much Jimmy mmy Page, 76, is now worth. Robert obert Plant, 72, boasts a £ 105m fortune while Jones, 74, has banked around £ 40m.
£ 300m… the number of records, ords, including Houses Of The Holy, right, the band have sold.
£ 500m… the money Virgin boss Richard Branson offered them to reform for 35 dates, but Plant, pictured above, said no.