Stairway To Heaven (14 page)

“My God,” John Paul suddenly exclaimed. “That's the room where we had the party last night.”

I could immediately see a bill for damages flashing through my brain. In unison, we turned and sprinted up the stairs. I fumbled through my pants pocket, desperately groping for the key to the room. When I finally located it, I jammed it into the lock, shoved the door open, and stormed inside. Within the first couple of steps, we were up to our ankles in water.

“Oh, shit!” I exclaimed. “It's a fucking swimming pool in here.”

I splashed into the bathroom, looking for the source of the San Francisco flood. The culprit was the bathtub, overflowing with a tidal wave of water that had probably been spewing out for seven or eight hours by then. I turned the faucet off, quickly surveyed the scene, and shook my head in disbelief. “Who in the fuck left the damn water on?”

Jimmy peered into the bathtub and saw the source of the problem. “Look at this,” he sighed. “One of those fucking doves got sucked into the drain. That's what clogged it up.”

I reached in and picked up the remains of the little bird. He had flown his last suicide mission. The water in the tub began to drain.

“This carpeting is a total loss,” Jimmy said, sloshing through the water damage in the room. “Do you think the hotel has dove insurance?”

“This one could be costly,” John Paul chimed in. “We may have to sign over the royalties from the new album to pay for this.”

“I wouldn't worry about it,” I told them. And, in fact, I felt confident that we had absolutely no reason for concern. After all, when we checked into the Villa Roma, I registered the band under someone else's name. My reasoning: To avoid being bothered by fans and also to minimize the paper trail if we accumulated additional charges.

A couple of days later, I told the story to Bonham, who burst into hysterics over what I had done. “That's spectacular,” he said. “I can't believe you can get away with something like that.” Then he asked, “Whose name was that room registered under?”

“Frank Barsalona,” I said. Frank was the agent with Premier Talent who handled the band's U.S. bookings. “He should be getting the bill any day. I hope he has a sense of humor.”

“If he doesn't,” said Bonzo, “maybe he's good at laying new carpeting.”

 

As the new album sales became astronomical, and with the increasing popularity of Zeppelin seeming all but inevitable, the band members would occasionally chat with Peter during their idle hours about how to protect their individual nest eggs. They were also receiving advice from the home office in London, where our accountants were offering recommendations designed to turn them into instant tax experts.

During a short break in the tour, everyone in the band made a quick exit off the U.S. mainland on the advice of our tax attorneys, who had added up the numbers on the band's likely earnings for 1969 and arrived at a figure of about $1 million. Because the band had worked in the States for a cumulative total of nearly six months, we were on the brink of having to pay both U.S. and British taxes—not an appealing thought for a band earning a seven-figure income.

Jonesy, Bonzo, and Peter decided to fly directly to London to be with their families during the break. The rest of us convened in San Juan, Puerto Rico. For tax purposes, Puerto Rico was not considered part of the States, yet it was still within striking distance of the mainland.

Jimmy, Robert, and I stayed at the Caribe Hilton Hotel in San Juan. We
squeezed in as much midday sunbathing, early-evening piña coladas, and late-night revelry as possible.

One evening, I convinced Robert and Jimmy to accompany me into Old San Juan, a seven-square-block area that was the original city, with buildings dating back to the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. A bellhop at our hotel had warned us, “Señors, Old San Juan is fine during the day. But don't go there at night. It's too dangerous for the tourists. Too much crime.”

I dragged Robert and Jimmy there anyway, although you could see the anxiety etched into their furrowed brows and tight lips. I began looking for a bar where we could find some good Mexican beer and maybe relieve some of their tension. We walked into the first club we approached on Calle San Sebastián—but it wasn't what I had expected. In fact, I had the feeling that we had entered the Twilight Zone. The bar was so dark that I could barely see my companions, much less anyone else who might be in the place. As we edged our way across the bar, I could feel dozens of eyes staring at us. Then, a few seconds later, someone turned all the lights on in the club.

Clearly, we looked different from the rest of the patrons. They looked as if they had just disembarked from a pirate ship after a hard day of plundering and torture. We wore flowery shirts and earrings and had long hair—a bit too much on the effeminate side for this crowd.

“We're getting out of here,” Robert announced, turning toward the door.

“Naw, Percy,” I said, grabbing his arm. “Let's order some drinks.”

“You're mad, Cole,” Jimmy said. “I don't think they want to be our friends.” He was starting to tremble.

“We're okay,” I said, letting my desire for alcohol smother any fear I was feeling. “They won't touch us.” I wasn't at all convinced of the truth of that statement.

The club itself was as sleazy as any I had ever seen—no wonder I wanted to stay. We sat at a table with one leg missing and ordered three beers. A few minutes later, just as Jimmy excused himself to go to the bathroom, a gorgeous brunette wearing about seven pounds of makeup—obviously a hooker—walked over to our table, sat down in Pagey's chair between Plant and me, and tried to get friendly.

Before the conversation had even gotten beyond “Cómo estás?,” she reached down and put her hand on my crotch.

“Oooh,” she sighed. “Grande!”

I smiled and looked over at Plant. I was really beginning to like this place.

Then she placed her other hand on Robert's crotch. “Ooooh,” she moaned. “
Mucho
grande!”

For the first time that evening, Robert laughed.

“This is a very perceptive young lady,” he said “
Very
perceptive.”

When Pagey returned, he refused to submit to her below-the-waist evaluation. “Let's get out of here before we get killed!” he said.

Robert and I had already had our egos stroked for the night, and so we agreed to a quick exit.

 

At the end of the American tour, when we finally flew home to London, we talked about what an amazing year 1969 had been. The band had come out of nowhere and was on the brink of superstardom. We had toured at a merciless pace—160 performances since that very first one in Copenhagen fourteen months earlier. The group was making so much money that we had to do things like evaluate our tax status in the middle of a tour. At times, it was exhausting just to think about how far we had come.

H
ow much did you say?”

“You heard me, Cole. They offered us one million dollars!”

“And you turned it down?”

“It just wasn't right. It would have been a mistake.”

Peter Grant was explaining why he had rejected one of the dozens of concert offers that had poured into the Led Zeppelin office. Because of the enormous record sales of
Led Zeppelin II,
a lot of promoters virtually said, “Name your price.” They wanted the band that bad.

One of the most tempting offers had come from a group of American promoters, who proposed staging a Zeppelin concert in West Germany on New Year's Eve, using a satellite transmission to beam the performance into movie theaters throughout the U.S. and Europe.

“We'll pay the band half a million dollars,” the promoters said in their initial offer. “That should start off your nineteen seventy with a bang!”

Not a big enough bang for Peter, even if it was a phenomenal sum for one night's work. Like Jimmy, Peter was a perfectionist. And the thought of subjecting his band to the satellite transmission made him shudder.

“I've heard the sound quality on those closed-circuit transmissions,” he told the American businessmen. “I've never been impressed. It's just not up to our standards.”

Initially, the Americans figured he was kidding. After all, for $500,000, perhaps a band could be convinced to put up with a little static or a bit more
treble than they'd like. But the more they talked to Peter, the more they realized that he was serious.

“Television just isn't the best medium for a band that's conscientious about quality,” Peter said. “That's why this band has never done TV. When you're talking about a satellite transmission over thousands of miles, it can't be very good.”

The Americans apparently still believed that if the price were right, Peter might change his mind. They called back two days later. They raised their offer to $1 million!

Peter never hesitated. “The answer is still no,” he told them. “You can raise the fee as high as you like. I'm not going to change my mind. Quality is still paramount to this band.”

I had a tremendous amount of respect for Peter for making decisions like that. After all, $1 million was more money that any rock band had ever made on a single night. But he wasn't going to budge from his own artistic principles.

I also think Peter enjoyed hearing the shocked reactions of the Americans when he matter-of-factly rejected their offer, as though $1 million wasn't a significant amount of money. The egos of everyone in the organization were growing—perhaps overgrowing—and by turning down a $1 million offer, that's one way of telling the world just how big and important you are.

Still, the driving force behind his decision was an unwavering set of principles about the quality of the band's music. “There's more to life than money,” he once told me. He knew that other opportunities would present themselves under terms he could live with. So on New Year's Eve, we stayed home.

 

Nevertheless, Led Zeppelin did its celebrating a few days later. On January 9, we eagerly anticipated the band's performance that night at Royal Albert Hall. “England finally belongs to us,” Bonzo said. “After tonight, there's not going to be any doubt in anyone's mind.”

It was also Jimmy Page's twenty-sixth birthday. As the crowd gathered at Royal Albert Hall, some arriving four to five hours before show time, many carried signs wishing Pagey a happy birthday. Others were more generic: “We love you, Jimmy”…“Zeppelin Forever.”

Robert was feeling on top of the world. The extraordinary record sales were abstractions in his mind; it was hard to relate to sales figures in six and even seven figures. But when he could look out on an audience, stare into individual faces, and bring them to an orgasmic pitch within minutes, numbers became meaningless. We knew that the critics were wrong. If the press didn't
like Led Zeppelin, it was their problem. Yes, those negative reviews—which still outnumbered the positive ones—angered Robert. But he knew that this band touched people's lives. He witnessed it from a vantage point that no one else had.

Royal Albert Hall was the third stop on a short, seven-concert tour of the U.K. And the band held nothing back. They planned a two-hour set, but it ran at least thirty minutes longer than that. They had added songs like “Since I've Been Loving You” and “Thank You” to the act, but more than that, the audience reaction was so overwhelming that the band spontaneously changed the show several times in midstream. During “Bring It on Home,” Pagey and Bonham began dueling one another with their respective instruments—first one, then the other, in a stirring showdown that no one, neither the band nor the audience, wanted to end. The applause was so strong for some songs that even as the band would begin to wind them down, the crowd reaction inspired them to extend them even further. For instance, as they were drawing “How Many More Times” to a close, the audience hysteria became so intense that the band couldn't move on to its next number, “The Lemon Song.” So instead, they began another riff of “How Many More Times” and carried on with it for another eight minutes.

There were moments of irony, too. As popular as the original Zeppelin material was, the music that really brought down the house was a medley of old rock 'n' roll songs, including “Long Tall Sally,” and “Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On.”

Roger Daltrey was backstage with a drink in his hand, watching the show with an astonished look on his face. “I know why no one wants to play with these guys,” he said at one point. “They're just too good.”

Daltrey was accompanied by his girlfriend, Heather, who had brought Jimmy a rather unique birthday present—a beautiful, successful French model named Charlotte Martin. Heather was convinced that Jimmy and Charlotte would hit it off.

I had met Charlotte in the south of France in 1966 and run into her again two years later when she was dating Eric Clapton. Charlotte was the type of girl who you couldn't look at just once. Tall. Thin. Blond. Perfect features. You had to glance a second time.

But I also knew a different side of Charlotte. At least in her relationship with me, she was aloof, unfriendly, and indifferent. It was my feeling that unless she really liked you, she had a “take it or leave it” attitude. Frankly, I wasn't impressed.

Nevertheless, Jimmy and Charlotte instantly became an item. After the concert that evening, Jimmy chatted with her for several minutes and then
took me aside. “Can you drive Charlotte and me to her apartment? It's not that far out of your way.” I gave them a ride, and that was the beginning of a relationship that continued for years.

During that entire time, Charlotte and I never really got along. She continued to act coolly toward me, as though we hadn't known one another from those days in France. Eventually, however, I guess she realized that I was a permanent fixture with Led Zeppelin, and she seemed to have decided that if she was going to spend time with Jimmy, she'd have to be reasonably pleasant with me, too. So our relationship became a polite one. Even so, I never found her easy to be around.

It often became a nightmare when Charlotte traveled with the band. Unlike the wives of the other band members—Maureen Plant, Pat Bonham, and Mo Jones—who were always very cooperative, Charlotte created constant problems for me, which only magnified the friction between us. As tour manager, one of my responsibilities was to oversee the band's safety, and when the wives and girlfriends attended concerts, that meant watching over eight people, not just four.

Still, I tried to keep things running as smoothly as possible. When the band went on for its encores, I would tell the girls, “Move into the limos; we're going to be departing soon.” They all followed my directions—except Charlotte.

“I want to stay and watch until the show's over,” Charlotte would complain.

“Like hell you will!” I'd shout at her.

“You can't tell me what to do,” she'd yell back.

“You bet I fucking can! Get the hell into the limo!”

Eventually, she'd cooperate, but not until we were at each other's throats.

 

Back in London, I was delighted to hear that Charlotte wouldn't be part of the traveling entourage on a European tour scheduled to begin in late February, with stops in Copenhagen, Helsinki, Stockholm, Amsterdam, Cologne, Vienna, Hamburg, and Montreux. During that seven-country European tour, I had arranged for a five-ton truck to travel with us. Not only would we need it to transport Led Zeppelin's equipment from one city to the next, but I sensed that the band would be accumulating new belongings along the way. That's what new money does for you.

I hired a fellow named Manfred Lurch as one of our truck drivers; he could speak several languages, and I figured he could converse with customs officials just about anywhere. As expected, both Manfred and the truck proved indispensable. We loaded up the truck with the spoils of a dozen shopping sprees, cramming the vehicle with blues albums, Ernst Fuchs paintings, Escher lithographs, and pieces of furniture.

 

Nevertheless, the best planning couldn't anticipate what we encountered in Copenhagen during that tour. It should have been a positive, even sentimental performance. After all, seventeen months earlier, Copenhagen was the site of the first Zeppelin concert ever. In fact, when we touched down at the airport at Kastrup on February 19, we all felt excitement and anticipation. “This is where it all started,” Jimmy Page said. “It's almost like coming home.”

But rather than making a trumphant return, the band suddenly found itself in the middle of a bizarre controversy with one of Europe's more famous families. Eva von Zeppelin didn't want the band using “
my
family's name this way.” And overnight, Led Zeppelin's music was over-shadowed by some highly publicized offstage hassles.

“Let this be a warning that these people who claim to be musicians had better not use the name Zeppelin and play their trashy music in Denmark,” Eva von Zeppelin announced to the press. “If they do, I will see them in court.”

Von Zeppelin wasn't kidding. She said she was a direct descendant of Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin, the aeronautical legend. Around the turn of the century, Count Ferdinand had pioneered the lighter-than-air vehicles that eventually carried his name. And Eva wasn't going to let a band that had “stolen” the name Zeppelin play in Denmark without a fight.

The band was incensed by her statements to the press. At this point in their careers, Led Zeppelin was feeling pretty important themselves and weren't used to having people make outrageous demands of them. “Who in the hell is Eva von Zeppelin anyway?” Robert Plant said. “
No one's
ever heard of that woman! A hell of a lot more people have heard of us!”

Maybe so. But Eva was making ridiculous public proclamations in which she labeled Led Zeppelin as a bunch of “screaming monkeys.” As the rhetoric escalated, Jimmy realized the band would have to do something to control the damage.

“Let's invite her to meet with us,” said Jimmy. “Maybe she'll realize that we're not raving maniacs after all.”

In fact, Eva agreed to sit down and talk with the “screaming monkeys” at a rehearsal studio in Copenhagen, the day before our scheduled concert. Before Eva arrived, Peter told the rest of us, “Let's keep our cool and try not to offend her any more than she already is. Maybe we can smooth-talk her into forgetting about this whole thing.”

In fact, the meeting was relatively pleasant. “We're not doing anything to defame your family name,” Jimmy pleaded. “We're just playing music, and it's music that millions of people enjoy.”

All the while, Eva insisted, “All I'm trying to do is protect my family's reputation!”

“Millions of people know us by the name Led Zeppelin,” Jimmy said. “And I don't think any of them think it's offensive to your family.”

The meeting ended in a stalemate. But the band felt they had softened the old lady's heart. The fireworks weren't over, however. As Eva was leaving the studio, her eyes became transfixed on a copy of the album jacket for
Led Zeppelin
—the one with the dirigible plunging into the ground in a horrifying inferno.

Eva von Zeppelin gasped. Her fury erupted all over again. There were epithets bouncing off the walls. There were reckless threats of imminent subpoenas. Eva finally stormed out of the studio.

Peter was exasperated. He didn't know quite what to do, but he knew that he had no interest in ending up in court. “This is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard of,” he said. “But that woman is angry enough to sue us.” For the moment, he put egos aside and said, “Here's my recommendation. Let's go onstage tomorrow night under another name.”

At first, the band resisted. “Let
her
change her damn name,” Bonzo exclaimed. “We have just as much right to it as she does.”

Before long, however, Peter won the band over to his side. He usually did. During that Copenhagen concert, Led Zeppelin performed as the Nobs—in some London circles, a slang term for the male sex organ! Fortunately, Eva von Zeppelin did not claim exclusive rights to
that
, too.

 

Immediately after the Copenhagen concert, the band was still seething. “Why did we give in anyway?” Robert asked as he grabbed a towel backstage and moved quickly toward the limo. “What gives her the right?”

“It's over, Percy,” I told him. “Forget about it. Let's find something else to occupy our minds.”

The driver of our limo that night was a friendly chap named Jann. “Would you like to see some of the sights of Copenhagen?” he asked. “How about Christiansborg Castle? Or the Stroget Mall?”

After the forty-eight hours we had just lived through, we weren't interested in the typical tourist spots. Tivoli Gardens and the
Little Mermaid
statue could wait. As the night wore close to midnight, we had women on our minds.