by Chris Welch
“There was a guy who pulled a knife on John Bonham once in a men’s room. I happened to be there at the same time and I saw that he’d got the knife half out of the sheath. I smashed his head against the porcelain. Split his head open. The band wouldn’t see all that because most of the time they were oblivious to trouble. I was watching them all the time. Somebody once said I had the fastest reactions they’d ever seen. If somebody got within 18 inches of my head, I’d most likely head-butt them or if they were three feet away I’d give ‘em a karate kick under the chin. You’d have to stand well away to avoid those lethal blows.”
Whatever charges the righteous might level at Richard, he cannot be accused of being pompous or hypocritical. His first priority was always to protect Peter Grant and the band, and he remained doggedly loyal to his employers whatever the circumstances.
However, when Bill Graham’s posthumous account of the Oakland incident was first published, Peter Grant rang his friend Ed Bicknell, the manager of Dire Straits, at his office in some distress.
Bicknell: “He was in tears on the telephone. He was really crying. I thought something tragic had happened. He said, ‘It’s terrible, this book has come out and it tells the full story.’ He gave me the details and I said to Peter, ‘This sounds pretty bad, is it true?’ And he said, ‘Yes, it is, but I don’t want to be thought of as a bad person.’ Towards the end of his life he had his regrets. If one says he wanted to ‘make things right’ that sounds too simplistic. But he really didn’t want to be thought of in that way, and he was very upset. The only thing I could offer was the thought that it was ‘tomorrow’s fish’n’chip paper’ and that’s where we left the matter. But Oakland was a source of great regret.”
A grim fate awaited most of those involved in the backstage beating. In November 1979 the former actor and security man John Bindon was in the news again when he walked free from the Old Bailey, acquitted of murdering a man during a frenzied knife fight and brawl at the Ranelagh Yacht Club, in Fulham, London, the previous year.
It was alleged he had gone to the club to carry out a contract killing, a claim that he always denied. He said that he had gone to the club for a drink armed with a hunting knife, because he was told an 18-stone man he referred to only as Mr X might be there and that he would need to protect himself. He said that Mr X had told him ‘his days were numbered’. Friends of Bindon, however, assert that he was ‘absolutely fearless’ and would ‘never have been afraid of anyone’.
At the club Bindon became involved in a fight with one John Darke, a known police informer. The latter was left dying with nine stab wounds while Bindon had his face slashed and throat cut. He managed to crawl away and was taken to a friend’s house, where he was bandaged and patched up before being taken to Heathrow and put on a plane to Dublin. Despite bleeding from his wounds he managed to get through passport control and onto a flight to Ireland. Once in Dublin he hid for three days before being treated at St Vincent’s Hospital, where a priest gave him the last rites. He later gave himself up to the police and in court denied that he had gone to the club specifically to kill Darke.
In 1993 John Bindon died from cancer at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital. He was 48. Asked about his death, Peter Grant replied: “I didn’t know anything about it until the Evening Standard rang me for some quotes. I was very surprised, but I hadn’t seen him in years.”
Bill Graham, who had instigated the arrest of the Zep men, died in a helicopter crash on October 25, 1991. The promoter was on his way home after a concert by Huey Lewis & The News when the helicopter in which he was a passenger collided with an electrical tower just after take-off.
Like his adversaries Peter Grant and John Bindon, Bill Graham had led an extraordinary life. Born in Germany in 1931, his real name was Wolfgang Grajonca and he had fled the Nazi persecution of Jews by walking to France at the age of seven. He was smuggled out to Lisbon, and placed on board the Serpa Pinto, a refugee ship bound for America. He arrived in New York in September, 1941, and was adopted by an American family, who gave him the name William Graham. His first job was waiting tables but when he arrived in San Francisco in 1966 he became involved in the burgeoning music scene and began managing bands and promoting concerts. Although he closed his famous Fillmore venues in 1971, he continued working as a promoter, working with Bob Dylan and The Rolling Stones. He also helped organise the American Live Aid concert in 1985. After his death a memorial concert was held in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco attended by 500,000 and featuring Santana, Jackson Browne, CSN&Y and the Grateful Dead.
In the aftermath of Oakland, nothing more was heard from Led Zeppelin for many months. It was assumed in most quarters that this was the end and they had broken up. Then, in October 1977, probably at Peter Grant’s urging, Jimmy Page issued a statement, explaining that Robert Plant needed time to be alone with his family. He insisted there was no question of the band splitting up.
In February 1978 the case against Grant, Bonham, Cole and Bindon was heard in California. All four men pleaded nolo contendere through their representatives. This meant they would be liable to conviction in the criminal case without having to appear but would still be able to deny charges brought in any civil action by Bill Graham’s men. They were given suspended prison sentences and fines ranging from $500 to $750. It meant they could not now be presented with the civil lawsuits and Bill Graham could not get them to court.
Said Graham later: “I can’t believe that anyone can go into a trailer and kick the shit out of someone and then the judge says, ‘Tut, tut, just be good boys from now on.’ The real issue in the long run is that the only thing it cost them is something they have plenty of. So they’ll never learn. They should have had to appear publicly to be charged, just like other mortals.” Graham complained that they hadn’t been made to face up to charges in a court of law which might have made them “think twice about beating people up.” He added, “They didn’t have to give up anything that mattered to them. At worst, in the next couple of years, they’ll just be careful that they’re not seen.”
Graham wasn’t to know it but Led Zeppelin was never to be seen as a band in America again, and it wasn’t until May 1978 that they even began working again, rehearsing at Clearwell Castle in the Forest of Dean, near Wales. It was the first time they had played together for ten months and it was mainly a symbolic gesture, designed to draw the team together again. There is a curious, perhaps apocryphal, tale that explains how Robert Plant came to rejoin the band. During the intervening period Jimmy Page and his friend Roy Harper had worked on music together. The singer/ songwriter lived on a farm and had acquired some pedigree sheep. Roy gave an interview to a farming magazine about the sheep, and when the interviewer turned to Harper’s musical career Harper hinted that perhaps he might become the singer in Led Zeppelin – or at least in a group with Page – since Robert Plant was apparently no longer interested in the band and Page wanted to work again. Plant, who also lived on a farm, subscribed to the same farming magazine and read the interview. Horrified that Harper might be taking his place, he contacted Page for the first time in many months. Their friendship was renewed and Zeppelin effectively reformed.
Peter Grant, meanwhile, had retreated to his palatial home in East Sussex to lick his wounds and contemplate the disturbing events of the previous year. He was under pressure from all sides. He had the burden of trying to run Swan Song and he had to deal with the public relations disaster in America. He also had to face the likelihood that his chief source of income was about to be cut off. Added to that was a custody battle for his children and the worsening state of his health. It was perhaps not surprising that in the midst of all this he suffered a mild heart attack. He was ordered to lose 151 pounds in weight and was told not to drink spirits or take sugar, which would in any case exacerbate his diabetes.
Peter: “It was in early 1978 that I had a heart scare and that really did worry me, but after a period of recuperation, it got better. It was all down to pressure. My
divorce really did knock me for six.” Grant had plenty on his mind. He was aware that his failure to be at Robert Plant’s side during his bereavement was a source of distress to the band’s sensitive and emotional singer. He explained later: “We were still in New Orleans when Robert phoned me from Scotland, just after the funeral. I couldn’t get back as I was trying to sort out the cancellations of the 1977 US tour dates. In New Orleans the radio stations were playing Led Zeppelin records 24 hours of the day, which was meant to be a tribute to Robert’s loss.
“When Robert phoned me I just said, ‘Let me know the situation when you’re ready.’ He obviously needed a break. I didn’t think it was the end of the group at the time. And I didn’t think Robert would say he didn’t want to sing ‘Stairway To Heaven’ again, which is what he kept saying at rehearsals. After that I knew it would take a while for him to recover after the tragedy. But I also knew he would eventually come back to the fold.
“Even so it was a long, uphill battle to get Robert to work again and go to the rehearsals at Clearwell. Robert kept saying he’d do it and then back down again. But Bonzo was a tower of strength. We had a meeting in the Royal Garden Hotel and they started talking about Bad Company and Maggie Bell and all that, with their Swan Song hats on and I said, ‘What the fuck are you talking about? You should worry about your own careers.’ I suggested going to Clearwell Castle because Bad Company had just been there. Robert said he’d just like to do some jamming, so that’s what they did. And it was okay. I went down there and things were looking up.”
Robert also began sitting in with friends and local bands and he sang with Swan Song artist Dave Edmunds during a show in Birmingham in September 1978. John Paul Jones and John Bonham took part in a ‘super session’ organised by Paul McCartney at Abbey Studios. They played on two tracks that appeared on the Wings album Back To The Egg. It was all part of the healing process.
In November Led Zeppelin reconvened and began six weeks of serious rehearsals and writing sessions for their ninth album In Through The Out Door. For tax purposes it would have to be recorded outside the UK. In December they went to Stockholm to begin work on the album at the newly opened state-of-the-art Polar Studios, owned by legendary Swedish pop group Abba.
Said Grant: “Abba came to us and offered the use of the studio. It was actually a slog to do the album. We used to get the noon flight out on Monday and then return on Friday for the weekend. It was cold and dark all the time in Sweden. They were difficult conditions but Jonesy was great. He put in so much effort. But that was Led Zeppelin as four people, bonding together to lift each other up.”
John Paul Jones admits that although life with Zeppelin was becoming very fraught, especially during its last tour of the States, he remained committed to their music. “We had started to play bigger places and I must admit they weren’t that much fun,” he says. “When we played at the Pontiac Superbowl everyone said it was like playing a soundcheck in the dark. Presumably the crowd were having a good time but we couldn’t see them. Even the crush barriers were sixty feet away, so I never saw anybody. There was no vibe in the place and you begin to think, ‘What are we doing this for?’ As it became bigger and bigger, so it became less fun. The core of the band started to break down a bit as well. We began to see the other members of the band a bit less.
“We just operated at different times of the day. Robert and I moved in the daylight while Bonzo and Page tended to move at night. We got out of synch. When we did In Through The Out Door in Polar Studios, Robert and I tended to operate in the daylight and we’d turn up at the studios and sit there looking at each other, waiting for the others. The band had started to fragment, shall we say. I actually thought we should have gone back to the States to tour, but we never did.”
Richard Cole well understood the reasons for the slow disintegration of the band and the escalating problems faced by their manager. He knew the situation was exacerbated by the insidious spread of drugs. “I would say we became slightly fragmented. I was always close with Bonham but I wasn’t that close with Robert. What happened was Peter started dabbling in heroin. I was as well. I remember going out for dinner with Planty and Jonesy one night and they were reading me the riot act.
“I felt like saying, ‘You should speak to the others, what do you keep talking to me for?’ When you are a heroin addict you don’t depend on one person to get your drugs for you. You need about seven different people around, y’know? It wasn’t as if I was the only one who used to get the drugs for them. They had their own people as well. It was getting pretty disastrous. If they were rehearsing, one of the guys would miss three or four trains to get to the studio. He would have a car waiting at Victoria station to drive him two blocks and the car might be waiting for six hours.
“They would also have to send two Phantom Six Rolls Royces down to Peter’s house because he would say he was gonna leave, but sometimes he never left the house for weeks. They had to have two drivers down there, one asleep and the other one staying awake, in case he decided to leave. The costs were rising and it all started to add up. They’d have a helicopter sitting on the lawn for two days waiting to know if they were going to go somewhere. Peter had a fling with heroin as well, because nobody was doing anything.
“We used to have suites at The Sheraton [in Stockholm]. We’d leave on Monday morning and catch the last flight home at 5 p.m. on a Friday evening. Jimmy would take the master tapes to his home studio and do all the overdubs over the weekend before he’d fly back on Monday morning. There was a lot of argument between them because the only people who turned up at the studio on time were Jonesy and Robert. Jimmy always resented the fact that when the writing credits came out, John Paul Jones was on every credit, because he had been working all the time.
“I think Jimmy kinda thought Jonesy was trying to take over as producer, which he wasn’t. He was just making use of the time until the other two turned up. The truth of the matter was we never turned up until the middle of the night until we had scored. The other two got there when they were supposed to and just messed around doing stuff.”
Cole admits that heroin use within Led Zeppelin’s circle went back to before the incident in San Francisco. “It kind of really started after Robert had the accident in Rhodes,” he says. “Then some of the band went to Malibu colony. I wasn’t with them, but I think some people were doing a bit of heroin out there. I was back at the office in London while they were being tax exiles. Then we went to Munich in November to make Presence and it was freezing cold there. Bonham wouldn’t do his tax exile trip abroad because his wife Pat was having a child. So he said, ‘Fuck the money. I’m going to stay with my wife.’ John and I flew to Munich from London and the others flew in from Los Angeles. When we got there, they’d been there two days before us and it was very cold. But one of the crew was laughing and giggling. I said, ‘You don’t seem worried by the cold.’ And he said, ‘No, we’ve found the solution,’ and he pulled out a bindle of heroin. So I said, ‘That’ll warm us up,’ and off we went.
“It kind of escalated after that. Although on the ‘77 tour we weren’t doing it much. In fact I don’t think we did heroin at all. In my case, I flew back early with John and Robert to the funeral to make sure he was all right. Then somehow or other I started getting into it regularly. Basically there was nothing to do. Peter had a house out in Long Island, which he rented in the summer. It kinda carried on for the next three years.”
In February 1979 Led Zeppelin returned to Stockholm to mix the new album. At the same time they were still winning popularity polls, were voted the World’s Best Group and Jimmy Page was the World’s Best Guitarist. As far as the public was concerned they could do no wrong. Despite the music media’s preoccupation with ‘punk rock’, Led Zeppelin topped the album charts.
In May it was announced the band would play at an open-air concert in August at Knebworth, Hertfordshire. This would be their first live UK date since 1975 and their first gig anywhere since July 1977. The feeli
ng was the band would now put the past behind them and rebuild the trust and faith of their audiences.
Most fans and doubtless their manager felt a sense of relief that Robert Plant was ready to start singing again after all the trauma of the previous years. Freddie Bannister, who had given Zeppelin the headlining slot at the Bath Festival in 1970, promoted the show. When the first date sold out, with 150,000 tickets gone in a matter of hours, a second date was added.
Grant decided the band should get ready for the big one by going back to their roots. Led Zeppelin would play a warm-up date in Copenhagen, which was the scene of the first ever Zeppelin gig back in 1968. They played two shows on July 24 and 25 at a small theatre and included two songs from the new album, ‘Hot Dog’ and ‘In The Evening’, as well as favourites from all the past albums. Eyewitnesses said that the first performance was very poor, but things improved during the second show.