by Richard Cole
Those kinds of riots made national and even international headlines (“The war of the teenage misfits”). One newspaper columnist warned, “The social fabric of England itself is disintegrating.” But the more attention the Mods and the Rockers got, the more committed we became to a life-style—and to the rock music—that millions in Britain found repugnant.
About this same time, while the musicians who would eventually become Led Zeppelin were finding their niches in the music industry, I was finally getting my own initiation into the business. In 1964, I had just returned from a summer-long vacation in Spain—my first real exposure to what life was like beyond working-class London. And I came back feeling restless and hungry to find an escape from the hard, dirty life on the scaffold.
That opportunity finally presented itself at a club called the Flamingo in Soho, which was actually quite out of step with the times. While other clubs were preoccupied with the latest rock and pop music trends, the Flamingo was addicted to a soul and jazz sound. While its competitors were partial to the Beatles and the Dave Clark Five, the Flamingo embraced the music of Ray Charles and Marvin Gaye.
One of the Flamingo’s regular bands was Ronnie Jones and the Nighttimers. The Nighttimers played a host of Otis Redding and Bobby “Blue” Bland tunes—“Respect,” “Mr. Pitiful,” “That’s the Way Love Is,” “Call on Me”—and other songs that reflected a rhythm and blues influence. I enjoyed their music, would hang around them before and after their gigs, and occasionally would talk to their road manager. I never really understood everything that he did, but his life seemed glamorous—certainly more exciting than my seven days a week on the scaffold.
One evening, I noticed that the Nighttimers themselves were packing their equipment into their van, a task that had always been taken care of by their road manager. I walked over to Mick Eve, a tall, thin saxophonist who was the Nighttimers’ leader. Mick had once played with Georgie Fame and the Blue Flames, but just about the time Georgie started making big money—400 pounds a night as a headliner—Mick decided that the music had become too pop-oriented for his taste, and he broke away to start his own band.
“What happened to your roadie?” I asked.
“He’s gone on to something else,” Mick said.
“I’m looking for a job as a road manager,” I told him.
“Do you know anything about it?”
Of course, I knew almost nothing. But I was desperate not to let this opportunity slip away. “Well, I can drive the van,” I said, groping for some way to peak his interest. “I’ve traveled and I certainly know how to get around.”
Then I remembered that for four weeks, I had once worked at a job soldering transistors. “And I know a lot about electronics, too,” I added.
Mick gave me one of those looks that said, “Can’t you do any better than that?” Then he said, “Well, I really don’t feel that we need a road manager any longer.”
“But you must need someone,” I pleaded. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had a road manager in the first place.”
“But we never could pay him very much, Richard. He got one pound a night, and two pounds on the nights we did two shows. He averaged about seven pounds a week. The guy was always broke.”
It wasn’t a very appealing picture, particularly for someone like me who was already making thirty pounds a week on the scaffold. Even so, I had this seductive image of a road manager’s life brimming with travel, heavy drinking, and lots of beautiful girls. And at the time, I couldn’t think of a more perfect way to live.
“I’ll take the job, Mick,” I exclaimed, reaching to shake his hand before he could say a word. He nodded, although I’m not sure he was certain what he was agreeing to. But I couldn’t have been more excited; I was finally in the music business.
The first show I did with the Nighttimers was on Boxing Day 1964, at the Carlton Ballroom on Kilburn High Road. We were one of the few rock bands that had ever been booked there, since the facilities were usually rented for Jamaican weddings or bar mitzvahs. In that initial gig, I told Mick, “I don’t know whether we should be wearing dreadlocks or yarmulkes!” I don’t think he ever got the joke.
Within those first few days, I discovered that the job as the Nighttimers’ road manager wasn’t that difficult for someone with a good head on his shoulders. There were hundreds of little clubs throughout England, and in my six months with the Nighttimers, we played a lot of them. I drove the band to and from their gigs in a small van, then set up their equipment and collected their box-office receipts, which were enough to pay expenses and not much more. Nevertheless, the job seemed to have much more potential for glamour than the scaffold.
After just two weeks with the Nighttimers, I was thoroughly won over by the music business—but I also knew that I wanted something more than to work for a small band. A friend of mine played with a group called the Chevelles, and one Sunday night, I went to see them open at the London Palladium for the Rolling Stones. That was the first time I had seen the Stones live, my first exposure to the fury, the frenzy, and the power of truly great performers. Girls in the audience were absolutely hysterical—screaming, crying, moaning, lunging toward the stage. Some even peed in their knickers, actually creating streams of water that, like the tributaries to the Mississippi, converged into a single river where the sloping seats joined the front of the stage. I had heard about bands making a splash, but this was unbelievable.
As I walked out of the Palladium that night, I muttered to myself, over and over, “Shit, that is some fucking band.” I promised myself to reach higher than the Nighttimers. Even the Beatles need road managers, I reasoned, so I set my goals at the top.
Before long, I had moved on to other bands, first Unit 4 + 2, a bunch of middle-class kids who had turned a recording contract into a number one record, “Concrete and Clay,” in 1965, followed by another hit, “I’ve Never Been in Love Like This Before,” that reached number eight. They weren’t the Stones, but it was definitely a move up for me.
During my tenure with Unit 4 + 2, I continued to keep in contact with the Nighttimers, who had acquired a new keyboard player named John Paul Jones. John Paul was the first future Zeppelin member who I got to know, although at the time our relationship consisted of little more than “hellos” and small talk. Even back then, Jonesy was quiet, never had much to say, never wasted words. But his talent and intuitive skills on the Hammond organ were impressive. “You’re too good for this band,” I told him. “One of these days, you’re going to hook up with a group where you can really show off your talents.” At the time, neither of us realized how prophetic that statement would be.
On my nights off, I went back to club-hopping in the West End. One night at the Scene, I caught a band called the High Numbers. The drummer, Keith Moon, attacked his drums like a madman. The guitarist, Peter Townshend, had arms as animated as a windmill, whipping, wheeling, and then leaning into C chords with the energy of a hurricane. He would strike the guitar strings so forcefully and wildly that his fingertips were worn ragged, occasionally even oozing with blood. It was a hemophiliac’s nightmare.
Before long, the High Numbers became the rage among the Mods. Later, they would change their name to the Who and help write an important chapter in rock history. When I began working for them in 1965 and 1966, it was like going from junk food to caviar.
I never really got tired of watching the Who perform. In the course of a ninety-minute performance, they could electrify crowds with their music and shock audiences with their antics, while sending critics scouring their thesauruses looking for just the right adjective, just the right verb to describe what was taking place. Just when you thought the Who was the most disciplined, masterful band you had ever seen and heard, the musicians had a chameleon’s gift for instantly transforming themselves into raving, deranged lunatics. All in a night’s work.
At times, the anarchy that accompanied the music often became frightening. Consider the night in 1965 when the Who was performing at
a London club called the Railway Tavern, not far from the tube station at Harrow & Wealdstone. As a couple hundred fans jammed into the tiny hall, tempers in the audience flared and there was pushing and shoving throughout the show. Since I was responsible for the safety of the band, the unrest in the crowd had me pacing backstage, nervous that a full-blown riot might erupt.
Near the end of the performance, Peter whirled his guitar and accidentally struck its neck on a very low ceiling above the stage. It happened with such force that the neck fractured. Peter stood stunned for just a moment, surveying the damage. Then he shouted, “Goddamn it!,” gritted his teeth, and erupted in wild anger, suddenly flailing the guitar furiously and recklessly. Like a ballplayer armed with a Louisville Slugger, he swung it first in one direction, then in another, striking it on the ground, then smashing it on the amplifiers, banging the floor once more, then using the guitar as a battering ram against the amps, pummeling them again and again, progressively obliterating both the guitar and the sound system. As the demolition continued, the crowd—already on the brink of hysteria—roared its approval.
After that initial outburst, Townshend never looked back. In the closing number of subsequent shows—as the final chords of “My Generation” or “Anyway, Anyhow, Anywhere” were reverberating—audiences began to expect Peter to decimate his high-voltage, high-priced guitars, hammering them into the amplifiers, splintering them onto the floor, pulverizing them with the subtlety of a 747 slamming into the Empire State Building. Peter came to get a real kick out of it, amused that he could incite the crowd, work them up, and push them over the edge, just for the price of a guitar or two.
On occasion, Moonie would escalate the frenzy for the fun of it. He’d heave his drums across the stage, kick holes in the skins, snap drumsticks, stomp on cymbals, and annihilate what was left into toothpicks. It was a scene more appropriate for an insane asylum than a rock club.
Although audiences relished these frenzied episodes of destruction, they weren’t something the Who could really afford to do every night. Perhaps a band like Led Zeppelin, or even the Who after it had achieved more fame, could absorb the costs of those kinds of outbursts. But in 1965 and 1966, when I was on the road with the band, these hurricanes of destruction ran up enormous debts. It wasn’t like replacing a few guitar strings a week; Townshend and Moonie were mutilating expensive instruments and, in the process, the band’s balance sheet, too. In those days, the Who was earning about 300 to 500 pounds a night, but that could be eaten up quickly by the replacement of a guitar (200 pounds), a kit of drums (100 pounds), and new amps (350 to 400 pounds). At one point, the Who was nearly 60,000 pounds in debt. You don’t have to be Einstein to figure out that the band was committing fiscal suicide. And it created enormous tension within the band.
Particularly in the beginning, John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey were horrified at the destructive onslaughts and what they were costing the band. “This is absolutely ridiculous,” John shouted at Peter one evening. “We lose money every night we play! We’d come out ahead just by not showing up!”
Peter couldn’t be bothered with that kind of logic. “Fuck off!” he yelled back at Entwistle. “This is something we do! It’s part of the show. The fans love it. So accept it!”
I stayed out of those battles. I knew Entwistle was right, but I was in no position to intervene. The dissension within the band, however, concerned me. How long can a band last, I asked myself, when everyone is at each other’s throat?
Eventually, Entwistle stopped complaining, figuring that he was wasting his energy and that he’d never be able to control Townshend anyway. Fortunately, as the band began to earn more money, the destruction became a more tolerable business expense and little stood in the way of the Who’s success.
In the early months of 1966, drugs and alcohol were becoming as important as anything else in my life. As exhilarating as the Who’s music was, it was taking a backseat to the next handful of pills, which were an easy source of pleasure. In the process, however, the drugs were starting to seriously affect Moonie and me in particular, with both of us experiencing frequent and frightening blackouts. At that point, I began to feel that my days with the Who were numbered.
In August 1966, I was driving through London at high speeds, swerving past everyone else on the road—except for a policeman whose siren and flashing red light convinced me to pull over to the curb. It was my third speeding ticket, and two days later in court, my driver’s license was revoked. Because so much of my job with the Who consisted of driving the van and transporting the band from one gig to another, they had to find someone to replace me. I was furious about losing the job, but if anyone was to blame, it was me.
In my last few days with the Who, they performed at a charity event at the 10,000-seat Wembley Empire Pool, sharing the bill with the biggest acts in rock music: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Yardbirds, the Animals, the Walker Brothers, and Lulu. The Who performed just before the Stones, and they were magnificent—from “La La La Lies” to “The Good’s Gone,” from “Much Too Much” to “My Generation.” Even so, when the Stones and the Beatles closed out the show, performing back-to-back, almost everyone forgot that the other bands had shown up at all. As Mick Jagger pranced across the stage, unleashing his high-energy Lucifer of Rock spectacle, I thought to myself, “How can anyone top this?”
Thirty minutes later, the Beatles did. John, Paul, George, and Ringo came onstage, and the roof nearly lifted off the hall. “I Feel Fine”…“Ticket to Ride”…“We Can Work It Out”…“She Loves You”…“A Hard Day’s Night.” Fortunately, they played only a twenty-minute set; if it were any longer, the crowd of 10,000 might have experienced a communal cardiac arrest. It was an exciting, exhilarating, and thoroughly exhausting evening.
Once again, my appetite was whetted for something bigger. I knew I wanted to stay in this business, and felt I was ready for more than the Who. Led Zeppelin was still two years away, and until then, I worked with a number of other artists and bands, including the Yardbirds, the Jeff Beck Group, Vanilla Fudge, the Young Rascals, the Searchers, the New Vaudeville Band, and Terry Reid. But they were all just stepping-stones to Zeppelin. For me—and for millions of fans—Led Zeppelin would ultimately evolve into the best that rock music had to offer.
1
CRASH LANDING
Richard, something bad has happened to one of your Led Zeppelin boys.”
Julio Gradaloni had a grim expression on his face as he nervously shuffled through his briefcase, finally pulling out a newspaper and placing it on the table in front of us.
“What do you mean?” I asked him, feeling some anxiety starting to chill my body. “What’s happened?”
Julio was my attorney, a stocky, no-nonsense lawyer in his middle fifties. He was sitting across from me in the visiting room at Rebibia Prison near Rome. I had been imprisoned there for nearly two months—on suspicion of terrorism, of all things. During those weeks behind bars, I was bewildered and frustrated, desperately and futilely trying to convince the police and prosecutors that my arrest had been some kind of blunder, that I was no more likely to blow up buildings in Italy than would the Pope himself. But on this particular morning in late September 1980, Julio took my mind off my own problems.
“One of your musicians has died,” Julio said, trying to remain as composed as possible.
“Died!” I froze. After nearly twelve years as tour manager of Led Zeppelin, the four members of the band—Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham—had become like brothers to me.
Neither Julio nor I said anything for a few seconds. Then I stammered, “Was it—was it Pagey?” Jimmy is so frail, I thought, so weak. Maybe the cocaine, the heroin had finally taken their toll. Jimmy’s body must have just given out.
Julio wasn’t making eye contact, perusing the Italian newspaper, preparing to translate the article about Led Zeppelin for me.
“No,” he said in a steady tone of voice. “Not Jimmy Page. H
ere’s what the article says. ‘John Bonham, drummer of Led Zeppelin, was found dead yesterday in the home of another member of the world-famous rock band….’”
Julio continued to read. But after that first sentence, I stopped hearing his words. I became numb, braced my hands against the table, and bowed my head. I swallowed hard, and could feel my heart palpitating.
“Bonham is dead,” I began repeating silently to myself. “Shit, I just can’t believe it. Not Bonzo. Why Bonzo?”
I leaned back in my chair. There must be some mistake, I thought. It doesn’t make sense. He’s so strong. What could possibly kill him?
I interrupted Julio in midsentence. “Does the newspaper say what he died of? Was it drugs?”
“Well,” Julio said, “they don’t know yet. But they say he had used a lot of alcohol that day. It sounds like he drank himself to death.”
Julio tried to change the subject. He wanted to talk with me about my own case. But I just couldn’t. “Let’s do it another day, Julio,” I mumbled. “I’m not thinking too clearly right now.”
I barely remember walking back to my cell. I crawled onto my bunk and stared silently at the sixteen-foot-high ceilings. I had this queasy feeling in my gut while pondering life without Bonham…without those high-voltage drum solos, his contagious laugh, and the sense of adventure that propelled us through many long nights of revelry.