Peter Grant: The Man Who Led Zeppelin

by Chris Welch

  During June the band played six nights at Madison Square Garden, New York and a further six shows at the Los Angeles Forum, always a Zeppelin stronghold. Once again audiences went wild and thousands were left still begging for tickets. The following month they began the last leg of the tour at the Kingdome, Seattle, on July 17, followed by a somewhat disjointed performance at the A.S.U Activities Center, Tempe, Arizona, which was disrupted by blasts of yet more firecrackers thrown by a noisy audience.

  Afterwards the band headed back to California to play two dates for Bill Graham at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum near San Francisco on July 23 and 24. Within a few days, what had been a successful and generally good-humoured tour would come to an abrupt halt amid violence and tragedy. It started when a minor backstage incident escalated into something much worse. Peter’s son, now aged eleven, was enjoying the adventure of going on tour with the band.

  Says Warren: “I went on the 1977 tour for quite a few weeks and travelled on the Starship. It had Led Zeppelin painted on the side and I remember sitting in huge seats and seeing the bar – of course. At the back there were circular beds with curtains around them, where they could kip – or whatever. I’m sure they weren’t just there for kipping! I flew on it quite a few times.”

  He was allowed to roam freely around the backstage area at Oakland, which was ringed by security men. He then spotted the small wooden identity plaques hung on the doors of the large trailers or caravans, called Winnebagos, which were used as dressing rooms at big outdoor events. A row was sparked when Jim Matzorkis, one of Bill Graham’s security men, spotted Warren attempting to take down the ‘Led Zeppelin’ sign from one of the trailers as a souvenir. Unfortunately the guard allegedly slapped the child on the back of the head while remonstrating with him. (He later denied having hit Warren.) John Bonham, who was taking a break from his drums during the show, saw the incident, came across and kicked the guard in the balls. He then returned to the stage to carry on playing. Later versions of the story suggested that both Grant and Bonham had carried out the attack simultaneously. Certainly when Peter Grant heard what had happened to Warren, he became incandescent with fury. Someone had dared hit his son? He wouldn’t allow anyone to get away with such a liberty.

  He confronted Bill Graham and demanded to see Matzorkis, promising Bill he wouldn’t ‘get physical’ with him. As it turned out, he had no such intentions. He and bodyguard John Bindon lured the guard into showing his face and, while Richard Cole kept watch outside, the Londoners beat the man up. All hell broke loose backstage when it became known what had happened but the band was still expected to complete the next day’s show. Led Zeppelin would perform only if Graham promised not to take legal action against the perpetrators, but as soon as the last show on July 24 was finished, the four culprits, Grant, Bonham, Bindon and Cole were arrested and charged with assault and battery. As well as the charges of battery a civil suit was filed against Led Zeppelin seeking $2 million in punitive damages. Three employees of Bill Graham brought the suit and charges on July 25. Zeppelin’s lawyer Jeffry Hoffman confirmed that all four men would plead innocent.

  In the bitter aftermath the rock press delivered its verdicts. Rolling Stone led with a coldly factual story headed simply ‘The wrong goodbye: Led Zeppelin leaves America’. More details began to emerge of the Oakland Incident. It seemed that bad vibes had been building up between Grant and Graham’s rival security men all afternoon.

  Said Graham: “There were really two incidents, both of which happened after the Saturday concert was over. The first involved Peter Grant and his security man John Bindon. As they left the stage, Jim Downey (one of Graham’s road crew) said to Grant, who looked very tired, something like, ‘Do you need any help?’ From what I can tell offence was taken to that statement. Bindon struck the stage crewman and his head was bashed against concrete. The second incident involved Jim Matzorkis, a stage security man. He was taking a wooden plaque with Led Zeppelin’s name on it off their dressing room door to put away for the next show. A young boy asked him for the sign and Jim said, ‘No, we need it for the next day.’ It turned out the young boy was Peter Grant’s son.

  “Matzorkis was putting the sign in a storage trailer when Grant, Bonham, Bindon and Cole approached him. ‘You don’t talk to a kid like that,’ said Grant. ‘Apologise or I’ll have your job.’ Bonham also told him to apologise and then kicked the guard in the groin. Matzorkis fled and hid in a trailer.”

  Graham then told how Grant’s men then went looking for Matzorkis. During the search Richard Cole allegedly hit Bob Barsotti, the promoter’s production manager, on the back with a four-inch aluminium pipe. Graham went to speak to Grant in his trailer to try to clear the air and stop a dangerous situation from getting worse. “I said, ‘I don’t know what went on, but if there are any apologies due, I extend them on behalf of my company.’ Peter just said, ‘I want to speak to this man.’ I said, ‘Peter you are a very big person, give me your word – nothing physical.’ He said, ‘Bill, I give you my word.’ I went over to the trailer where Jim was hiding. I said, ‘Jim, it’s okay, it’s me. This is Mr Peter Grant the boy’s father …’ Before I could finish the sentence, Peter blasted Jim in the face. I tried to stand between them but Grant forced me to the door of the trailer and this other man came in and then Grant forced me out and locked the door. I tried to open the door, but their people came over and guarded the door. Matzorkis worked his way to the door while they were hitting him and he was able to get out. His face was a bloody mess.”

  Matzorkis was taken to East Bay hospital for treatment for cuts, bruises to his face and lips and a broken tooth. During the assault the American security staff employed by Graham became so enraged they threatened to get handguns locked in the trunks of their cars and use them. Bill Graham restrained them by promising he’d take proper legal action, then waited until after the second show was over the following day before making his move. This was regarded later as a sign that he was only interested in making money out of the band. But Graham insisted he was more worried about the idea of 60,000 fans turning up and rioting if there was ‘no show’. Indeed, the second concert went ahead only after Graham signed ‘a letter of indemnification’ which promised he wouldn’t take any action against Zeppelin. The band’s lawyer presented the document to him only half an hour before show time, while the band was waiting at their hotel. They didn’t actually say they wouldn’t play but the inference was plain. No signature, no show. Graham was advised the letter was not binding, as the promoter had no legal right to act on behalf of his security man and in any case it could be shown he was acting under ‘duress’. So he signed it anyway and asked his production team to cool down. At one stage plans were hatched for Graham to sign with his left hand, to prove he was under duress and his men even planned to steal the document to prevent it being delivered. But these ideas were abandoned when it was realised that the letter was ‘not worth the paper it was written on’.

  The show on Sunday was a very low-key affair. Uncharacteristically, Jimmy Page sat down for most of the performance and Robert Plant made a point of thanking Bill Graham “for everything he has done for the musical events.”

  The following day armed police from the Sheriff’s department arrested Grant, Bonham, Bindon and Cole. All four were questioned, charged with battery and released on $250 bail. The criminal charges were followed by the civil action, which dragged on for months.

  “I could never in good conscience book them again,” said Bill Graham. “For these people to assume that might makes right takes me back to Nazi Germany and I’ve blocked pretty much of my childhood out.* I cannot help but wonder how much of this in fact went on in the past with these people.”

  At the time the Zeppelin crew understandably tried to play down the incident. Jimmy referred to it as ‘a few whacks backstage’ and their Swan Song press officer said it was all ‘bullshit’. Whatever the truth about what had gone on inside the trailer, it left a nasty taste in the mouths of
the American public. Certainly the media was not impressed and there was a genuine feeling of shock that a member of the band could have been involved in quite such an over the top assault.

  The story made headline news around the world. It was later confirmed that Grant had also punched stagehand James Downey after the concert and that John Bonham had been involved in a fight with the production man Robert Barsotti. There were rumours that Zeppelin’s men had actually murdered someone, something that even people who had been close to the band believed for years afterwards. It was of course simply malicious gossip.

  Most of the band were completely unaware of the fighting backstage, but word soon began to reach them. Their natural reaction was to believe that it was all the promoter’s fault for allowing a security man to hit Warren. John Paul Jones was concerned by events backstage, but his main priority was to protect his own family who had accompanied him on the tour. “It was basically a fight between their security and our security. I saw cops running and Cole running across a few tables, but he was often doing that. I thought, ‘What’s he up to now?’ It was only later in the day when the police arrived at the hotel that I heard what had happened. In fact I had a motorhome booked, which was parked in the street outside. I was going to drive my family up to Seattle for a few nights.

  “Suddenly there were sirens wailing and police zooming through the hotel lobby. Me and my family got into the service elevator, went down to the street and jumped into this motorhome, which I had never driven before. I just headed for the freeway. We snuck out the back, so I didn’t get arrested! We were already packed and ready to go when the police arrived. In fact I had no idea what it was all about at that time. I think they sent the Highway Patrol looking out for us. But we were heading up to Oregon. After a couple of days holiday I called in and they told me what had happened. It was one of those things. The security guys get bored at these gigs and somebody took offence at something. I seem to remember that ‘Bill Graham never forgave us’ but I don’t remember Bill Graham ever being a huge, close buddy of Led Zeppelin. I always thought he was weird. He never spoke to me. The first time we turned up at the Fillmore I remember him just screaming and shouting at everybody. He was quite an unpleasant person. I remember saying, ‘Oh, who’s that?’ ‘Oh, that’s Bill Graham.’”

  Bill Graham’s own his account of the story made it clear that as far as he was concerned Grant and Bindon were the main instigators of the attack. Grant himself remained tight-lipped on the subject for years and would only say: “Oakland was a nightmare and very heavy. It was a flashpoint situation that got out of hand. It could have got a lot worse. It was just a very regrettable incident. But we were up against Bill Graham’s security guys with their gloves filled with sand. We didn’t want to get into that. There were wives with us and we had brought our kids with us for that part of the tour.”

  Richard Cole admits that he was involved in the violence but not in the direct assault on Matzorkis. “I wasn’t in the caravan, I was standing outside, whacking people who were trying to get in with a bit of tubing. The four of us got arrested. We were lucky really because they sent a SWAT team round and each of us had an armed guard on our door and an armed cop. And of course each of us had bindles of coke. The dangerous part was that somebody could have been seriously hurt. If somebody had knocked on the door and said, ‘Police, open up,’ they would have been told to fuck off, because we’d have thought it was someone joking with us. We didn’t know that because of Bill Graham’s power in San Francisco, he had been able to speak to the police department and he took the armed guards off our doors.

  “But a guy called Greg Bettler, who was one of our security guys and is now a police commissioner in Cleveland, happened to be in the lobby when the SWAT team came in and he knew one of them. He said, ‘Hey what are you doing here?’ And the guy said, ‘We’re going up to get those mother fuckers Led Zeppelin.’ Greg said, ‘Just a second, I work for those guys, what’s going on?’ and so they got talking and our man said, ‘Do me a favour, don’t do anything stupid. I don’t know what you’ve been told, but these guys are fine.’ So they had a meeting and instead of coming up to the room they called us on the phone and said, ‘We’ve got a problem. We’ve come to arrest Richard Cole, Johnny Bindon, John Bonham and Peter Grant.’ Lawyers were called in and we were held in an open jail. Bill Graham was rubbing his hands that he’d got us locked up. We were due to fly out and normally all the limousine drivers were billed, but they said they’d been asked to take cash only. We could have been nasty about it, but that’s how they make their living and it wasn’t their fault. We just paid the cash and how they dealt with their boss was their business.”

  It was extraordinary that Grant had picked a fight with Bill Graham’s employees, or rather just steamed in without thinking of the consequences. As the man who had set up America’s best-known rock venues, The Fillmore East in New York and the Fillmore in San Francisco, Graham was a powerful and influential figure, arguably the most powerful rock promoter in America. He was also feared for his temper and no nonsense approach to dealing with adversaries. At the same time he had been responsible for helping many British acts achieve success in America by showcasing them at well-organised gigs. Richard Cole understood the need to keep on the right side of his organisation. “I’d known Bill Graham since The Yardbirds days and he ran the best shows in the world. I did a lot of Fillmore shows with different bands and he was one of the first promoters that actually took care of bands. He always put food and drinks in the dressing rooms and he always had the best sound systems and light shows. He was a professional promoter.

  “Sure, obviously there was always arguments between Peter and Bill about money – because one is the promoter and the other is the manager. But there was never an ongoing battle from the first day we met Bill Graham. It was just this one particular show where it all went off because the guy slapped Warren, Peter’s son, on the back of the head. Then Peter Grant heard about it and that’s what set it all off. Apart from that, we’d never had a problem with Bill Graham. He and Peter would shout and scream at each other and he’d say things like, ‘I hope you fall into your moat and the crocodiles eat you alive.’ But it wasn’t real venom – it was just vocal venom! It wasn’t malicious. The guy who was beaten up survived and the offence was knocked down to a misdemeanour and the record was scrubbed. Once we got out of jail we rounded all the troops up, jumped on the plane and got the hell out of town. We went to New Orleans – where we were gonna be given the keys to the city! Led Zeppelin was going to be the first band to play at their new stadium.”

  Nevertheless, Bill Graham’s crew were still seething long after the second show and planned to pursue the band to New Orleans, where a 25-man posse armed with guns would extract a bloody revenge. If it had happened, it would have been the worst disaster in rock’n’roll history. Mercifully their action proved unnecessary.

  However, the band’s run of bad luck was not over. “We had just gone into the hotel and there was a message at the desk for Robert Plant to call his wife,” says Cole. “Robert then told me he’d heard his son was ill.”

  Robert was informed that five-year-old Karac had been taken ill with a stomach infection back home in England. He was driven to hospital for treatment. Then came worse news. Remembers Cole: “It couldn’t have been much more than two hours later that his son had died.” Karac had died of complications resulting from a virus infection. Plant immediately quit the tour and returned home

  “Robert asked that John Bonham and me fly back to England with him to take care of him. And so at the funeral there was only the three of us sitting on the grass outside afterwards. Jimmy was in Egypt and couldn’t get there and Peter was out at Long Island with his kids. John Paul Jones had already arranged a holiday with his wife. When John Paul Jones went on holiday I was the only person he’d give his phone number to, which drove Peter mad. I couldn’t reach him because he was travelling in a hired camper van, and so we had no way of reach
ing him. The instructions were not to disturb him unless it was an emergency. Robert was very hurt about it.”

  Robert’s father later made a poignant comment about the death of Robert’s son: “All this success and fame … what is it worth? It doesn’t mean very much when you compare it to the love of a family.”

  With the 1977 tour now cancelled the Oakland show on July 24 was Led Zeppelin’s last ever appearance on American soil. Indeed it wasn’t until 1979 that the band would play in public again.

  The Oakland outburst is perhaps better understood in the context of Peter Grant’s own personal crisis. If as Richard Cole says, the use of cocaine was rife, then it would have had the effect of inflating the user’s ego, making him feel agitated, aggressive and all-powerful. The presence of a real London thug, the notorious John Bindon, only added to this dangerous cocktail of emotions. With Grant still seething over his divorce and surrounded by ‘heavies’ goading him to present a show of force, it took only a gesture or some imagined slight from some entirely innocent party to provide the spark. He wanted a fight. He needed to give someone a good hiding. The victim who presented himself as an unwitting target for this pent-up frustration and anger had simply tried to stop his son from taking a souvenir that was needed the following day. Such violence might have escaped unnoticed or unremarked if they had been two Teddy Boys in a coffee bar in Soho in the Fifties. Instead Grant and his cohorts were in America under the glare of the media and at the mercy of gun toting US cops. They were also disrespecting the American music industry that had welcomed them to their country and made them rich. Altogether, it was not a wise move.