Jimmy Page “reconnects” with the guitar
The Led Zep guitarist talks lockdown inspiration and a possible return to the stage
Lockdown has encouraged many of us to reach for our guitars more regularly, and Jimmy Page is no exception. “Well, under the circumstances of having a lockdown and isolating, I picked up the guitar and made a point of playing the guitar every day,” Page revealed to Total Guitar in an interview promoting his new book, Jimmy Page: The Anthology, a “companion volume” to 2010’s Jimmy Page By Jimmy Page. “Whereas before the lockdown,” Page continued,“it had gotten to the point where I was always complaining that I didn’t have enough time to play the guitar because there was all this other stuff that was going on. It’s surprising how many things there are, even with Led Zeppelin, so I was not finding enough time to play the guitar as much as I would like. It was there but not being played. I thought,‘That’s not going to be the case. I’m now going to play it.’
“I don’t want to make it sound like I’d locked the guitars away,” Page added. “That wasn’t the case. But there were so many things that kept getting in the way of playing – or playing the way that you need to if you’re exploring the instrument still.”
“[Lockdown] has given me an opportunity to reconnect properly with the guitar”
As for what could come next, Page is keeping it to himself for now, and lockdown has obviously posed its own obstacles. The hope is we will see him onstage again in the future… after some more playing at home. “I did think about it,” Page admitted when told the guitar world would like to hear more from him. “But I thought I’d better do some serious practising first [laughs], because it’s been a long time since the O2.” [RL]
Jimmy Page: The Anthology Mass Edition, published by Genesis Publications, is out now. Look out for a full feature next issue jimmypageanthology.com