by Richard Cole
When I’d hear cuts like that, I didn’t know how I could ever seriously consider leaving Zeppelin. “Nobody’s any better than they are,” I told Marilyn. Those were sentiments I had felt for years.
“Follow your heart,” she told me. “But if you have the opportunity to expand your own horizons, don’t dismiss it without giving it some thought.”
In May, with Zeppelin still at work on Physical Graffiti, that opportunity finally materialized. I was talking to Jack Calmes, a friend from Showco. As I described my personal conflict—the sense that I might benefit from getting away from Zeppelin for a while—he said, “Robert Stigwood [Eric Clapton’s manager] is looking for a U.S. tour manager for Eric. Robert and Atlantic think that Eric’s going to hit the comeback trail with a bang. You’d be perfect for the job.”
Jack helped get the word back to Stigwood that I was available. Stigwood was a bit wary about hiring me, concerned about my reputation for creating chaos and worried that he might anger Zeppelin if he “stole” me away. But he invited me to a party at his house, apparently to size me up. Near the end of the evening, he finally approached me and began discussing his need for a tour manager for Clapton.
“Well, if we can work out the numbers, let’s give it a try,” he said. There was a bit of trepidation in his voice.
The next day, we talked by phone. We agreed on a salary of $15,000 plus bonuses for six weeks of work. When I told Peter and Led Zeppelin about my new gig, none of them had much of a reaction at all.
I had been a fan of Eric’s for a long time, so it was a thrill to be invited to work with him. It felt like a new beginning, and I was eager to get started. My first assignment: Arrange the details for the upcoming tour, from making flight and hotel plans to selecting the venues themselves. Upon arriving for work each morning, I’d pour myself a brandy and ginger ale—and then another, and still another. Somehow, the job got done, despite my chronic state of drunkenness. As with Zeppelin, it seemed as though I could somehow override the intoxication and get the work finished without any major mistakes. Looking back, I don’t know quite how I managed.
Eric worked on a guarantee against a percentage, so once we were out on the tour itself, I would do the calculations at each venue, making sure the local promoters’ math agreed with my own. Repeatedly, I found mistakes in the way they had computed the bottom line.
Eric and his entourage traveled in a customized, twenty-seat private jet and included his five-man band, backup singers, and his girlfriend (and later wife) Patti Harrison. Mick Turner (who had worked with Eric during the Cream days) provided security, although I brought in Bill Dautrich for some advance planning, arranging for police escorts as well as on-site protection at each concert.
Throughout the tour, Eric’s guitar work was consistently brilliant, expressing all the joy, all the despair, all the achievements, and all the trials that had been part of his life in recent years. Having watched Pagey for so many years, I was used to guitarists using “super-slinky” strings on their instruments that easily bend. But Eric used ordinary gauge strings that had been traditional with the black blues guitarists. They’re murder on the fingers, but Eric had built up incredible strength in those fingers over the years. He had also developed calluses that showed just how long he had been in the business.
His musicianship was particularly astonishing because he was suffering from a bad case of conjunctivitis throughout most of that ’74 tour. He simply couldn’t see where his fingers were moving. He would stumble around the stage, probably looking as though he were inebriated. Near the end of the tour, the antibiotics finally began to work, and he got back his 20/20 vision and his equilibrium.
The medication, however, did not inhibit Eric from indulging in large amounts of alcohol during the tour. Jack Daniels is sweet and powerful, and Eric would sometimes drink to excess, although it never seemed to affect his ability to perform.
I found touring with Eric to be refreshing, even exhilarating at times. I rarely felt the pressures I had experienced with Led Zeppelin. Maybe that was because I didn’t know Eric as well as the boys of Zeppelin, and I knew that any mistakes wouldn’t be like letting down my best friend. A lot of responsibility was put on my lap with Clapton, yet I didn’t really feel the strain—except for the very first show we did at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.
Because it was my first concert of the tour, I was feeling tense, and those anxieties intensified when it began raining the afternoon of the show. “We may have to cancel this gig,” I told Eric a couple of hours beforehand, although I promised to do everything possible to get it underway. We had set up large tents in which a preconcert party was held for record company executives and the press, and I just couldn’t see going through the stress of the day all over again.
As the rain continued, I also tried to calm down two city officials who were throwing tantrums backstage, claiming that our equipment trucks had caused $10,000 worth of damage to the grounds when they drove on the rain-soaked grass.
“We’re gonna sue!” one of them roared. “You’ve made a damn shambles of this place!”
“So now it fits in with the rest of New Haven!” I muttered under my breath.
Despite the threat of lawsuits and the continuing intermittent rains, the show went on as scheduled.
When I was in Memphis with Eric, I called Jerry Schilling, one of Elvis’s assistants whom I had met in Los Angeles earlier in the year. “Eric would love to meet Elvis,” I told Jerry. “Is there any chance we could come by Graceland and see him?”
Jerry said he would check with Elvis, and later that day he called back: “Elvis said, ‘Yeah, come and visit.’ But he’s going to the movies tonight at the Orpheum Theatre. He wants you guys to stop by and join him at the theater.”
Then Jerry began to laugh. “Oh, one other thing. Elvis said to me, ‘I know who Richard Cole is, but who the hell is Eric Clapton?’”
That night, Eric and I, along with Patti and my wife, Marilyn, arrived at the Orpheum at about 10 P.M. From the front row to the popcorn machine, Elvis had rented the entire theater. When we walked in, the King hadn’t yet arrived. The theater manager told us, “Elvis rents the theater a couple nights a month. It’s the only way he can get out to see a movie without being mobbed. Oh, once he arrives, no smoking will be permitted.”
About ten minutes later, Elvis showed up. He strutted down the aisle of the dimly lit theater surrounded by a retinue of aides and security men. He nodded to us and sat down two rows in front of us. During the evening, we didn’t exchange more than a dozen words with one another. Even so, with Elvis there, the screening of the movie—Murder on the Orient Express—had the feeling of a command performance.
I finished working for Clapton in August and decided to take a couple of months off. When I had been in New Orleans with Eric and had dinner with Ahmet Ertegun and Earl McGrath of Atlantic Records, Ahmet told me that he hoped I’d be returning to Led Zeppelin for the band’s next tour. “You’ve got to go back and sort out whatever’s been left hanging,” he said. “You’re the only guy who can work with them.”
More than anything, however, I was just interested in some time off, although that may have been a big mistake. Marilyn and I had more time to spend with one another, and our marriage began hitting hard times. Some friends gave me some heroin, and I started snorting it about once a week, sometimes less frequently. It was relatively inexpensive in those days, perhaps one-third the price of cocaine, and Marilyn didn’t seem to mind that I was using it.
But then I began using heroin more regularly, even daily, and it started driving a wedge between us. Marilyn was much more enamored of alcohol; I was becoming hooked on heroin. We stopped communicating as we once had. And we began to drift apart.
As I sunk deeper into my use of drugs, the gradual deterioration of our relationship didn’t disturb me as much as it should have. I had found a new lover of sorts, a new drug that could get me high in seconds.
43
&nbs
p; ZEPPELIN REVISITED
In October 1974, I got a call from Peter Grant.
“We’re planning a new Led Zeppelin tour,” he said. “We’re heading to America in January. I’d like to talk about you coming back on the team if you’re interested.”
I hadn’t been looking to return to Led Zeppelin. I had enjoyed the tour with Eric Clapton and realized that I could fit in just about anywhere. Nevertheless, my personal problems—my drug and marital difficulties—were becoming more intrusive, and it was actually nice to hear what sounded like a friendly voice on the other end of the line.
During that phone conversation, Peter made me an attractive offer. It included a company car—a BMW or a Jaguar. And my salary would be about 2½ times what he had previously paid me. At that moment, my bitterness from earlier in the year seemed to have softened. “I’m not going to let the old hard feelings get to me this time,” I told myself. I also was already starting to calculate how the increased salary could help keep me supplied with heroin. I accepted the job.
Later that day, Peter, Robert, and Jimmy drove to my house to celebrate, and the four of us went to Ringo Starr’s home in Surrey where Maggie Bell was recording a new album. Later, we moved the party to a club called Tramps for some libations.
It didn’t take long for me to get back into the Zeppelin way of life. The following week, upon the release of Swan Song’s first album in the U.K.—the Pretty Things’ Silk Torpedo—Zeppelin hosted a Halloween party at Chislehurst Caves. There was enough food and booze (mostly wine) to meet the needs of the entire British army. Even so, the overflowing buffet tables took a backseat to the entertainment. Live music was provided by a jazz combo, while a couple of magicians and a fire-eater performed.
Much more eye-catching were the topless and, in some cases, fully naked women who mingled among the guests and rolled around in vats of cherry Jell-O. Other nude women played the parts of virgins being sacrificed at makeshift altars. Strippers arrived dressed as nuns and peeled off their habits in an act that, if the Vatican were making the decisions, would have doomed us to an eternity in hell.
I could see that nothing much had changed with Led Zeppelin, at least in terms of their delight in shocking people. They made their surroundings as offensive and titillating as possible. It wasn’t an act. It was the kind of environment they relished.
Near the end of November, Led Zeppelin began congregating at a converted theater called Liveware, rehearsing for the upcoming American tour, which would be preceded by two European shows—one in Rotterdam, the other in Brussels. These would be the band’s first live performances in eighteen months, and they wanted to get out the kinks as quickly as possible. John Paul, however, was surprised at just how few imperfections there were. Peter agreed, telling the band, “You guys sound as though the hiatus was eighteen hours, not eighteen months.”
Meanwhile, my marriage had moved closer to disintegration. In December, Marilyn found out I had had a brief affair. We fought, we made up, but the arguments flared up again and again. One evening, in the heat of battle, she hurled two of my Zeppelin gold records into a roaring fireplace, turning them to ashes. I was incensed.
In the first week of January, it was a relief to get on a plane to Holland. That concert would be the first warm-up for the American tour and the first live performances of songs from the yet-to-be-released Physical Graffiti album. The set was scheduled to include “Kashmir,” as well as “Trampled Under Foot” and “In My Time of Dying.”
It was a joy knowing that I would be hearing Led Zeppelin play again. I was determined that, despite my growing fixation with heroin, I was going to prove myself to Peter and the others that there was no better tour manager around. My spirits were incredibly high—at least until I got my first look at the Rotterdam concert hall, just hours before the performance was scheduled to begin. As soon as I saw it, I realized I had made a mistake in not inspecting it days or weeks earlier. The ceiling was so low that if Robert had leaped into the air during the excitement of performing, he might have self-inflicted a head wound. To make matters worse, there were floor-to-ceiling pillars throughout the building, which would obstruct the view of dozens of fans. I knew the band would make the best of it that night, but I also realized that the shortcomings of the venue would detract from their own enthusiasm.
When I returned to the hotel that afternoon, a local TV news crew was beginning an interview with Led Zeppelin in my suite. A fellow named Van, who was the promoter of the concert, was being interviewed in Dutch. With the cameras rolling, he picked up his Samsonite briefcase and began to open it. Inside, there were 20,000 pounds worth of guldens in cash—the money that he would pay Zeppelin that night. Perhaps the New York robbery was still too fresh in my mind, but I panicked at the thought of publicizing the fact that the band had so much cash in its possession. As Van tilted the briefcase so the TV camera could get a better view, I instinctively leaned over and struck the open lid of the briefcase with a karate chop, which slammed it shut—crushing the index finger of Van’s right hand. He began screaming, then cursing in Dutch, which was all captured for posterity by the news camera.
I was off to a rather inauspicious start in my return to the Zeppelin trenches.
Before long, Van wasn’t the only one nursing a wounded hand. After the European gigs, we returned to England for three days before flying to the States. During that brief stopover, Jimmy had exited a train at Victoria Station and tried to hold the door open for the passenger behind him. However, the door forced its way shut, with the ring finger of Pagey’s left hand bearing most of the brunt. He was in terrible pain, and as soon as he got home he applied ice to the injury. But as the hours passed, the pain didn’t subside. Finally, he went to a doctor late that same day. X rays showed he had broken a bone in the tip of the finger.
Jimmy was furious at himself and terribly frustrated. “If it was going to happen, couldn’t it have happened sometime during the eighteen months when we weren’t performing?” he said.
Immediately, Jimmy began planning how to work around the injury. Having lost the use of a finger, he decided he would try playing with what he called a “three-and-a-half-finger technique.” He also realized that certain Zeppelin standards, such as “Since I’ve Been Loving You” and “Dazed and Confused,” would have to be dropped from the act until his finger healed.
Despite the anger and the disappointment, Jimmy’s self-confidence wasn’t bruised. He told himself that even with the handicap of a broken finger, he could play better than most guitarists at full strength.
“Most fans won’t even notice any difference,” he proclaimed on the British Airways flight to America.
Although Jimmy was subdued on that long trip from London to New York, his seriousness didn’t keep the rest of us from creating commotion and attracting attention. The first-class stewardesses frequently replenished our liquor supply, and as one hour passed into the next the band became increasingly loud and rowdy, caught up in the excitement of the upcoming tour and the fatigue of the lengthy journey. Robert and Bonzo especially were raising their voices loud enough to be heard halfway to Manhattan, and some passengers were looking at one another with expressions that said, “Who the hell are those fellows?” Because Zeppelin made no TV appearances, their faces were still unfamiliar to most people over the age of thirty.
When we finally landed at JFK airport and the plane pulled to a stop at the terminal, we began grabbing our carry-on bags. Just then, the pilot approached us. At a moment when the cabin was relatively quiet, he said, “Your own pilot just radioed a message that he can’t get any closer than this.” He pointed out the window to the Starship. It had been used for a recent Elton John tour and was freshly repainted with stars, stripes, and bright red letters spelling out “Led Zeppelin” on its fuselage. What a sight!
There were stunned looks on the faces of the passengers near us. As we approached the exit doors, Peter told the British Airways cockpit crew and the first-class stewardesses, “Why
don’t you come over to our jet and have some cocktails and hors d’oeuvres with us.”
We had special customs clearance, and so within just a few steps we were inside the Starship, where the band proceeded to drain our liquor supply over the next hour and a half until we took off. “So this is what the life of a rock star is like!” one of the crew exclaimed.
The tour helped hype the Physical Graffiti double album, which was released while the band was in the States with more than one million advance orders. As record buyers raided music stores to buy the new album, sales of the previous five Zeppelin records also soared. By late March, all six Zeppelin albums were on Billboard’s Top 200, making Zeppelin the first rock performers ever to score that achievement.
Even some of the critics seemed to be coming around. When Rolling Stone reviewed Physical Graffiti, Jim Miller actually offered some praise. But the record sales were what really mattered. That was the kind of validation that counted on this renewal of the touring wars. John Paul said that the fan acceptance inspired them to play with more fury, more intensity, more passion.
During the next few months, Zeppelin proved that they also were still the industry’s Number 1 live attraction—and the world’s highest-paid band. For that thirty-nine-concert North American tour, more than 700,000 tickets had been sold within hours after they went on sale—and the shows themselves were bigger than ever. At every concert, the music was channeled through an incredible 70,000-watt speaker system and an intricate lighting network that generated 310,000 watts of power. No one ever asked for his money back. Most of them would have paid to see more.