Led Zeppelin Talk Kennedy Center Honors, Shirtless Aviation on ‘Letterman’
Although Led Zeppelin didn’t perform last night on the Late Show With David Letterman, Robert Plant, Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones did shake things up: the show had to find a third guest chair, for one thing. Thus properly seated, the trio chatted with Letterman about their influences, the Kennedy Center Honors that both host and band had received Sunday night and the good old days of shirtless aviation, prompted by Letterman holding up a picture of Zeppelin outside their “Starship” jet in 1973.
“You’ve got your own airplane, and you don’t need to button your shirts for takeoff,” Letterman joked. In response, Plant cracked, “Some would say, ‘What went wrong?'”
As the conversation turned to the Kennedy Center Honors, where a collection of all-star musicians including Jeff Beck, Lenny Kravitz, Kid Rock and Heart paid tribute to Zeppelin, Jimmy Page said, “It was quite exhilarating to hear the different approaches that people had to the songs.”
The musicians also talked about their music (which Jack Black described as songs about “love, Vikings, Vikings making love and The Lord of the Rings“) and meeting Elvis Presley in the early Seventies.