How Robert Plant’s Singing And Jimmy Page’s Playing Got Worse In Time, Twisted Sister’s Jay Jay French Explains

In an interview with The Cassius Morris Show, Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French talked about the change that Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant and Jimmy Page went through overtime and explained the reason why they ‘deteriorated.’

As you may know, Led Zeppelin was founded by former Yardbirds member Jimmy Page who recruited the Band of Joy singer Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. The band’s bassist and keyboardist John Paul Jones was later joined them and they released their debut solo album, ‘Led Zeppelin,’ in 1969.

Unfortunately, Led Zeppelin’s iconic drummer passed away on September 25, 1980, while he was only 32 years old. Following the sudden death of their bandmate, Led Zeppelin members decided to break up and pursue their own careers.

Recently, Twisted Sister guitarist Jay Jay French looked back to the Led Zeppelin performances he watched during an interview with The Cassius Morris Show. Jay Jay stated that he saw the band’s shows many times, however, they got worse as time went on. According to French, the reason why Jimmy Page’s guitar playing got worse was his drug and alcohol usage.

Jay Jay also stated that between the years 1969 and 1973, Led Zeppelin was one of the greatest bands one would ever want to see live, particularly referring to John Bonham’s drum playing. However, he mentioned that after 1975, Robert Plant’s voice and Page’s guitar playing started deteriorating. He even suggested that they couldn’t find anyone to give free tickets to a Led Zeppelin show since nobody wanted to see them around 1977.

Here is what Jay Jay French stated about Robert Plant and Jimmy Page:

“I saw Zeppelin many, many, many times, and they got worse as time went on. That was the real story about Zeppelin – drugs and alcohol had their effect on Jimmy, so as the years went by, they deteriorated.

’69, ’70, ’71, ’72, ’73, they were amongst the greatest bands you would ever want to see live – your mouth would fall open. You’d watch John Bonham play drums, you just – your jaws are dropped. Come ’75, Robert’s voice starts deteriorating a bit, and Jimmy’s playing starts to deteriorate. There’s plenty of stuff online to prove it, and I’m not saying this with any glee, trust me.

By ’77, on their last tour – here we are in 1977, Twisted is one of the biggest bar bands in the Tri-State Area, and a friend of ours is a ticket broker, and he gave us four tickets to give away for one of our shows.

We couldn’t give tickets away to Zeppelin in 1977 because nobody wanted to see them. If you were a kid in Long Island and you wanted to hear Zeppelin, you’d go see Zebra, this band Zebra, because they did Zep better than Zep, and they were phenomenal.

And you go, ‘Why would I waste my time seeing this band that can’t play Zeppelin songs?‘ So we couldn’t give tickets away. I had four tickets to see Zep at the Garden, I couldn’t give them away, but I went, I went with some friends, and we’re all sitting there bored to death. I swear to god, I spent three hours watching John Bonham play drums because I couldn’t listen to this, but this is a byproduct of my age.”

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