Jimmy Page’s first real break came when he joined the Yardbirds. The Yardbirds were known for their incredible guitarists. Legendary alumni of the group include both Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. At first, Page was a replacement for bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, but for a short time he shared some of the guitar duties with Beck. When the Yardbirds became victims of their own excesses, Page was left with the name but none of the original members. It was then that he recruited the musicians who would form Led Zeppelin and pave the way for the future of heavy metal. The New Yardbirds included Robert Plant on vocals, John “Bonzo” Bonham on drums, Page on guitar, and master musician and arranger John Paul Jones on bass and keyboards. It was during the fulfillment of the Yardbirds’ final concert contracts that the Who’s drummer, Keith Moon, informed Page that his new band would go over like a “fucking lead balloon.” This inspired happenstance resulted in giving the band a fresh name that would undoubtedly reflect their creative energies. John Entwistle has always argued that he was the first to come up with the name Led Zeppelin, and that Keith Moon and Richard Cole, Zeppelin’s future road manager, had taken his idea. He has also suggested that he formulated the concept of a blazing, crashing zeppelin for the album’s cover design. Entwistle exclaimed that his band name was a takeoff on a British band joke. When one band asked another how they went over, the other band would state, “Cor, we went down like a lead zeppelin!”3 The only seriously negative reaction to the name came from the Zeppelin family in Germany, the descendants of the creator of the zeppelin airship. It was touchy playing in Germany under the constant threat of a lawsuit.
The first Led Zeppelin album was released on January 12, 1968, three days before Page’s twenty-fifth birthday. The Beatles owned the number-one spot with The Beatles (“The White Album”), but the Led Zeppelin LP, bolstered with 50,000 advance sales, started on Billboard’s charts at number ninety-nine and soared as high as number ten by May 17, 1968. The album would stay on the charts for an incredible seventy-three straight weeks.4 The first American tour was remarkable. At times Zeppelin was only billed as “supporting act,” but they blew more-established rock bands off the stage. No one wanted to follow the powerful aftermath of Led Zeppelin! The thunderous sounds of heavy British blues enthralled their audiences and helped establish Zeppelin as the future heirs to the mythical throne of rock and roll.
Following that, on October 22, 1969, Led Zeppelin struck gold again with the release of Led Zeppelin II. This album was certified gold on the day of its release, and probably more amazing, the first Led Zeppelin LP was still on the charts at number eighteen. Both albums were now certified million sellers, and with Led Zeppelin II, the band managed to replace the Beatles’ Abbey Road as Billboard’s number-one bestselling LP. Surprisingly, Zeppelin fought against a single release of “Whole Lotta Love” due to the exclusion of the middle section for more conservative radio airplay. The band remained loyal to their music and fought against radio and market exploitation. Led Zeppelin had now arrived, and rock and roll would never be the same. Many rock superstars really didn’t know how to explain the Zeppelin sound. Eric Clapton once stated, “I don’t know about them. I’ve heard their records and I saw them play in Milwaukee—we were on the same bill. They were very loud—I thought it was unnecessarily loud. I liked some of it; I really did like some of it. But a lot of it was just too much. They overemphasized whatever point they were making, I thought.”5 This “overemphasis” would lead Zeppelin to experiment with different textured sounds, and on their third album they would depart from their established thunder to explore a light acoustic feel. For this many rock critics hammered the band for leaving their established roots. Led Zeppelin, however, was a constantly changing entity, filled with creative power.
Surprisingly, to some onlookers, Led Zeppelin’s meteoric rise in prominence defied popular convention. Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones were both highly respected session musicians. Robert Plant and John Bonham, however, were relatively unknown performers. When Zeppelin went on tour, their offstage escapades became legendary. The many groupies flocked to the band as if some supernatural force drew them. There were tales of television sets being cast from hotel windows, drinking binges, fights, and strangely enough, sexual assault with a shark (though Richard Cole in his Stairway to Heaven: Led Zeppelin Uncensored denies that a shark was used—he claimed it was only a red snapper!). The seemingly magical power of fast success and adoring women seemed to emulate the very legend of Robert Johnson. Robert Plant and Jimmy Page were devoted to Johnson’s music. Some of the blues great’s lyrics were actually “borrowed” and placed in Zeppelin’s songs. For example, the lyric “squeeze my lemon till the juice runs down my leg” found in “The Lemon Song” is drawn from Robert Johnson’s “Traveling Riverside Blues.” Plant eerily tries to imitate Johnson’s voice on “Bring It On Home.” In at least one interview there has been a suggestion that Robert Plant has a glass container filled with the dirt from the very crossroads where Robert Johnson sold his soul to the devil. This mojo vial was said to have been given to Plant by an American Led Zeppelin fan.
This juxtaposition of seasoned professional musicians mixed with the pure, raw energy of youthful enthusiasm gave birth to the Zeppelin sound. Hearsay spread throughout certain groups that this newfound fame may have had as its origin the peculiar fascination and hobby of the band’s founder, Jimmy Page. Some fans who dabbled with the occult noticed Led Zeppelin’s uncanny rise in popularity and hinted that the band members, perhaps following in the prominent footsteps of Robert Johnson, might have well struck their own bargain with Lucifer. In some ways, this theory may have been very close to the truth. One of the greatest legends concerning Led Zeppelin has to do with a mythical pact with the devil. This contract was said to have been drawn up in early 1968; in it, the band members pledged to follow the left-hand path in exchange for musical success. Three of the members readily signed; however, one refused. John Paul Jones was said to be the member who declined the invitation. For that reason, he seemed to be untouched by the so-called Zeppelin curse that seemed to follow the band in the mid-seventies. As one strange coincidence, when I asked a friend to name the members of Led Zeppelin, he replied, “Page, Plant, Bonham, and the other guy.” Of course his take on this after hearing about the legend was to rationalize that he couldn’t remember Jones’s name because he hadn’t signed the pact and therefore fame had eluded him! Whatever!! In this case, superstitious fans, like my friend, could understand how Zeppelin exploded onto the music scene, very much like the reemergence of a young Robert Johnson, filled with sinking despair, and spinning haunting pentatonic riffs that hypnotically transfixed their audiences. Richard Cole recalled: “The most ominous rumor was elevated to mythological status. It proclaimed that in their earliest days, the band members—except for John Paul, who refused to participate—had made a secret pact among themselves, selling their souls to the devil in exchange for the band’s enormous success. It was a blood ritual, so the story went, that placed a demonic curse upon the band that would ultimately lead to the deflating of the Zeppelin. And perhaps the death of the band members themselves. To my knowledge, no such pact ever existed. Jimmy was a great one for spinning yarns, especially with young ladies who were fascinated with the ‘dark’ side of the band, so maybe that’s how the story got started. But despite Jimmy’s preoccupation with the supernatural, he rarely discussed his dabbling in the occult with the rest of the band. One of the roadies once said to me, ‘I tried to broach the subject once, and Jimmy went into a rage. I’d never raise the issue again.’”6
The seventeenth-century concept of a pact with Satan followed guidelines much like these agreed to by Louis Gaufridi and the devil:
“I, Louis, a priest, renounce each and every one of the spiritual and corporal gifts which may accrue to me from God, from the Virgin, and from all the saints, and especially from my patron John the Baptist, and the apostles Peter and Paul and St. Francis. And to you, Lucifer, now before me, I give myself and
all the good I may accomplish, except the returns from the sacrament in the cases where I may administer it; all of which I sign and attest.”
On his side, Lucifer made the following agreement with Louis Gaufridi:
“I, Lucifer, bind myself to give you, Louis Gaufridi, priest, the faculty and power of bewitching by blowing with the mouth, all and any of the women and girls you may desire; in proof of all which I sign myself Lucifer.”7 This contract alludes to the fact that Lucifer actually appeared before the priest and signed the covenant. In the twentieth century any agreement would be symbolic and perhaps used only as a parlor trick, but the image of conjuring up the devil was very dark and frightening.
Jimmy Page was a serious collector of Aleister Crowley artifacts, and through his hobby he developed a deep appreciation for the practice of magic. Page once owned an occult bookstore, The Equinox, that dealt in Crowley memorabilia (the name was taken from Crowley’s magazine that detailed his teachings, which was first published in 1909). It was also rumored that Page had financed the reprintings of Crowley’s works. Richard Cole remembers driving Page from place to place on his Crowley shopping sprees: “‘Richard, I’m in the mood to go shopping for some Crowley artifacts.’ We’d drive from auction house to rare-book showrooms, where Jimmy would buy Crowley manuscripts or other belongings (hats, paintings, clothes). ‘What is it about this chap Crowley that fascinates you?’ I asked Jimmy on one of our outings. ‘This guy was really quite remarkable,’ Jimmy said. ‘Someday we’ll talk about it, Richard.’ But we never did.”8 Pamela Des Barres, a former Page groupie, had once purchased an annotated Crowley manuscript for Page in Gilbert’s Bookstore on Hollywood Boulevard in California. She remembers, “He was really into that stuff. I believe Jimmy was very into black magic and probably did a lot of rituals, candles, bat’s blood, the whole thing. I believe he did that stuff. And of course the rumor that I’ve heard forever is that they all made a pact with the devil, Satan, the black powers, whatever, so that Zeppelin would be such a huge success. And the only one who didn’t do it was John Paul Jones. He wouldn’t do it. Who knows where the rumor came from? But that was the rumor.”9
Pamela Des Barres’s future husband, Michael Des Barres, also recounted his impressions of Jimmy Page’s occult collection: “Jimmy was incredible because he was the classic rock star with the moated castle, the velvet clothes, the fabulous cars that he couldn’t drive (Page never bothered to get a driver’s license) and the eighty thousand rare guitars. And, like an idiot, I was dabbling with the Aleister Crowley thing at the time. I used to go down and see Jimmy at Plumpton Place and he’d pull out Crowley’s robes, Crowley’s tarot deck, all the Crowley gear that he’d collected. I thought, ‘This is great!’ It was so twisted and debauched, their whole thing. That’s what Jimmy represented to me. I don’t know what I represented to Jimmy. I always thought that Jimmy liked me because I happened to say ‘Rimbaud’ at the right time.”10
During the late sixties, Jimmy Page met Kenneth Anger and listened intently as Anger told tales about the magical prowess of Aleister Crowley. Kenneth Anger first became aware of Jimmy Page when the guitarist outbid him for an original Crowley manuscript, The Scented Garden, at Sotheby’s. When Anger first met with Page in Sussex, Page was delighted to bring out his Crowley memorabilia: the books, the canes, and especially the ceremonial robes of the black magician. Though Page was the consummate collector, there was one important piece missing from his collection—Aleister Crowley’s manor at Boleskine, Scotland, on the dark shores of Loch Ness. (Anger had actually lived at Boleskine for a summer before Jimmy Page had acquired the residence.) The frightening legends that surrounded the estate scared off many would-be buyers, but Jimmy Page thought that the estate was perfect for his needs. Kenneth Anger told of a heavy painting that seemed to just float from one of the walls and sit silently on the floor. Anger turned to the other visitors in the house and asked if they had all witnessed this strange event. The spirits were now very restless.
Publicly, Jimmy Page prefers to keep quiet about what he rightfully considers his very private life, but one time Page spoke of his strange fascination with Aleister Crowley and his most unusual home. In a January 1975 interview with Rolling Stone magazine the interviewer asked, “You live in Aleister Crowley’s home. Crowley was a poet and magician at the turn of the century and was notorious for his black magic rites.” Page had this to say about his dark abode: “Yes, it was owned by Aleister Crowley. But there were two or three owners before Crowley moved into it. It was also a church that was burned to the ground with the congregation in it. And that’s the site of the house. Strange things have happened in that house that had nothing to do with Crowley. The bad vibes were already there. A man was beheaded there and sometimes you can hear his head rolling down. I haven’t actually heard it, but a friend of mine, who is extremely straight and doesn’t know anything about anything like that at all, heard it. He thought it was the cats bungling about. I wasn’t there at the time, but he told the help, ‘Why don’t you let the cats out at night? They make a terrible racket, rolling about in the halls.’ And they said, ‘The cats are locked in a room every night.’ Then they told him the story of the house. So that sort of thing was there before Crowley got there. Of course, after Crowley there have been suicides, people carted off to mental hospitals….”
When Rolling Stone asked Page whether he had any contact with spirits, he simply stated, “I didn’t say that. I just said I didn’t hear the head roll.” Curiously, the magazine asked about what Page’s attraction would be to this house. Page answered that he loved the unknown and that he took the necessary precautions so that he wouldn’t walk into things blind and unaware. Then the interviewer asked Page if he felt “safe in the house?” To that question Page replied, “Yeah. Well, all my houses are isolated. Many is the time I just stay home alone. I spend a lot of time near water. Crowley’s house is in Loch Ness, Scotland. I have another house in Sussex, where I spend most of my time. It’s quite near London. It’s moated and terraces off into lakes. I mean, I could tell you things, but it might give people ideas. A few things have happened that would freak some people out, but I was surprised actually at how composed I was. I don’t really want to go on about my personal beliefs or my involvement in magic. I’m not trying to do a Harrison or a Townshend. I’m not interested in turning anybody on to anybody that I’m turned on to … if people find things, they find them themselves. I’m a firm believer in that.”
After purchasing Boleskine, Page had Satanist Charles Pierce redecorate the home with mystical symbols in the proper manner for the new Laird of Boleskine. The house obviously held many secrets. It was claimed that Crowley had misplaced his Book of the Law and that the work lay hidden for years in one of the darkened rooms. In the residence Crowley was said to have summoned forth demons such as Thoth and Horus. The house was constantly engulfed in dark shadowy shapes. Crowley once mentioned that the rooms became so dark in Boleskine House during the middle of a sunny day that he had to use artificial light to aid him in the drawing of his magical symbols. At this time, according to legend, the lodge keeper went insane and tried to murder his family. Of course today this would sound like the scene in the film adaptation of Stephen King’s The Shining when Jack Torrance tries to kill his family when he becomes the overseer of the Overlook Hotel, only to find it to be a lodging filled with ghastly apparitions and the secret sins of excess and murder (or should I say redrum?). One of Boleskine’s caretakers mentioned that Page would never spend the night in the dark house. On one occasion while the caretaker was sleeping in one of the rooms he heard a sound at his door. The heavy breathing on the other side of his bedroom door sounded like a large dog that wanted into the room. First, there was a sound like claws scraping at the door and then a thunderous impact rocked the door and reverberated throughout the house. The terrified caretaker stayed in bed and eagerly awaited the morning sunlight and the quietness that signaled the end of the supernatural attack. One thing was f
or sure. This was not the sound of cats playing in the antiquated hallway.
Obviously, Jimmy Page was well aware of the exploits of the past master of Boleskine. The shadows reflected along the walls may have represented the dark forces conjured up from the protection of the magic circle. In his journals, Crowley mentioned summoning demons to do his bidding. In one episode a powerful demon was invoked in the desert. When summoned the demon took control of Crowley’s body and changed shape into that of a beautiful girl. When the demon started to speak of mystical secrets, Crowley’s disciple, protected by the magic circle, took his eyes off the demon and started to write down the information. At this the demon threw sand across the circle and attacked the disciple with fangs and claws. It was only with the aid of a magic knife that the follower was able to drive back the entity and restore the circle.”11 When Crowley became conscious he claimed that his powers had been strengthened a thousand-fold. This was to be yet another of the continuing legends of Boleskine. When Led Zeppelin III was released, the first hint of Jimmy Page’s eccentric pastime became known.
Take a Walk on the Dark Side Page 11