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Do you consider Led Zeppelin a METAL band?

#281
58kites said:
I've never heard that.
Everything I've ever read about all four of them was that they all liked each other and thought the others were great musicians and bandmates.
If you ever see any video of them together (not onstage playing) they look comfortable with each other.
It's usually pretty easy to see when bandmates are together (off stage) and they don't like each other, the camera seems to always give them away.
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that's right. I do think some "insecurity" was between Pagey and Plant. Because it was two duos that belonged to each others before. JPJ said he wanted to join Pagey in whatever proejct he pursued, because he was fed up with all muzak sessions. Pageys initial choice was TERRY REID (that's a voice you should check out, it's soooooooo proto-Zeppelin it's scary) who already had 2 solo albums behind him. He said no since it was - sort of- starting all over again if he'd go into a band again.

Terry Reid - Wikipedia

When Pagey - knowing very well who was who in da' business - first heard Plant (on recommendation from Terry, no less), he couldn't believe that he wasn't already known and famous. Pagey couldn't believe that he was the one who got that first talent spotting. So he automatically thought "he maybe is hard to work with, and too eccentric to let managers or record companies guide him" and sort of subconciously waited for him to "there-must-be-some-catch-with-this-guy" during the first albums, but found out that they never needed to change him out. Pagey had a relief of sigh, when they toured relentlessly in the US. He felt lucky to have caught him "first" so to speak. Plant wanted Bonham in to go along otherwise he would bail out. JPJ always wanted to pair up with Page and Pagey needed to have some - at least someone - with musical education to arrange things.
 
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#282
Max Blasto said:
Sorry to quibble, but:
In 1968 Rolling Stone Magazine described Humble Pie as heavy metal. This beats your time line by a year and shows not only how much the perceived sound has changed but how old the concept is.

I'm convinced that no one under age 45 knows what heavy metal is or where it comes from. They only know what they heard in high school.

As for Zep, there is not and never was a metal band with as much versatility as Zep, so while some of their songs fit the bill, their body of work could never be described as something so limited as Heavy Metal.
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Okay, let's quibble some more. HP wasn't formed until '69 as a supergroup to showcase Steve Marriott whom I'm sure you know had just been replaced in the small faces by rod stewart who had just left Jeff Beck. I'm not sure what you're getting at about the 45 year old. If it matters. I'll be sixty this year. I can't define Metal but I know it when I hear it.
No worries. It's all just words on the internet. Go Aztecs!

Mugre
 
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#283
Mugre said:
Okay, let's quibble some more. Humble Pie wasn't formed until '69 as a supergroup to showcase Steve Marriott whom I'm sure you know had just been replaced in the Small Faces by Rod Stewart who had just left Jeff Beck.
I'm not sure what you're getting at about the 45 year old. If it matters. I'll be sixty this year.
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According to Wiki...The Rolling Stone magazine reference to Humble Pie as Heavy Metal was in 1970.
 
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#287
Beat. Dead. Horse.

No I don't consider Zep heavy metal, largely because it hadn't really taken form yet. Heavy metal would not have come about without Zep. I don't consider Steppenwolf heavy metal in any sense of the word, despite the lyrical connections. If we absolutely have to categorize, I would put Black Sabbath as being the first to truly meet the definition of heavy metal. Riffs, lyrics, vocals, themes, etc...
 
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#288
The music was there before it was given a name. The name having been assigned, a vacuum was thereby created that needed filling. Given the vacuum, the nonsense battle embodied in this thread began. Nearly no band accepts the cubby holes we insist on putting them into yet we refuse to give them the respect they've earned. [Sigh.]
 
#290
BlueAliceOasis said:
What bass did John Paul Jones use to play metal?
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This one
stashbass.png
 
#295
As a matter of fact, the heavy metal bands that stole from Led Zep just as much as they stole from old blues stalwarts and folkies, didn't get it anyway. They tried to, but missed a lot of it, well, most of it.

When Led Zep played anything remotely heavy or high intensity stuff, they grooved as well. Not much of the later heavy metal bands grooved a lot, or not even the tiniest bit. Straight 8th or 16th played fast and stiff and on ONE (downbeat) and marching band tempo. And boring with no variation and/or interplay between musicians. Shuffle? No way! Even Sabbath swung at times... but it was rarely, but they sure did, when they did!;)
 
#300
This is actually a pretty cool thread, because it displays how the genre of Heavy Metal has evolved, and how many opinions there are based on when the poster became aware of music. The OP may have realized that metal then and metal now aren't very similar.

The earliest use of the term "Heavy Metal" was just another step in the description of "Rock & Roll", which became "Rock", then "Hard Rock", then "Heavy Metal". Heavy Metal = Hard Rock for a pretty long period of time before evolving apart. Some would say a decade or more.

I am surprised some bands haven't been mentioned much if at all. Blue Cheer, Cream, Scorpions, Kinks, Iron Butterfly, Amboy Dukes, Nazereth, Vanilla Fudge, Hendrix, etc. all predated Sabbath and are the bands that made DJ's come up with a "Heavier" description, especially Scorpions. They predate the term and then evolved into the genre in their more recent decades.

Ever look at the soundtrack for the movie "Heavy Metal". Sabbath is on there, but so are 14 other songs by metal masters like Journey & Stevie Nicks.

I guess it's difficult to get past the Metalica / Megadeath mindset, which makes many dismiss LZ as ever having been HM, but they were definitely in the dead middle of many bands that DJ's of a certain era called HM.

My thought is that the band "Led Zeppelin" and the genre "Heavy Metal" just crossed paths while both were evolving, but many others bands crossed into and out of the genre at different times while they and the genre continued to evolve.
 
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