#LED ZEPLIN PHOTOS MOVIE#

'It was a band, yet I was taking all the responsibility, and I never enjoyed that. The pressures of the road are what you want initially, but when you’re the frontman everyone is relying on you to deliver. I once woke up backstage with the roadies throwing water over me because they thought I was dying. The LSD was always good stuff, but I was in danger of joining the dead-before-30 club. “Downers and alcohol weren’t a great combination. “I’d been in Hamburg just after The Beatles, with the gangsters and prostitutes, and I had the run of the Reeperbahn as a teenager, so I wasn’t naïve when it came to sex, drugs or rock’n’roll.”īy the early 70s, too much fun was becoming dangerous. “It was all good for the creative juices,” he said. While Lee’s blond good looks and well-built physique threw a naïve press off-guard, Ten Years After were actually smoking, tripping and boozing for Britain. But the writers glossed over it all – how terribly British.”Ĭricklewood Green seemed to have an innocuous title, but it referred to a local dope dealer’s smoking requisites. We were taking a lot of hallucinogenics and made weird albums, and I was all for that. The press didn’t seem to notice that the cover had pictures of hookahs, pipes and smoke on it. Stonedhenge slipped under the radar, despite its title. They’d go off stage and leave their instruments against the amps, feeding back. “We played with the Grateful Dead in Phoenix and they had a very interesting attitude. “I took LSD in San Francisco in 1968 and found it very illuminating,” said Lee. Luckily, stimulus was at hand when they delivered the Stonedhenge, Ssssh, Cricklewood Green and Watt albums to their label, Deram. If the first two albums came easily to Alvin, who’d been a graduate of the Hamburg Star Club scene in 1962 as a member of The Jaybirds, the constant pressure to deliver became a chore. ‘So write on the road!’ That was impossible.” Then we’d get home and management would tell us: ‘We’ve booked you in the studio and they hope the songs are ready.’ They weren’t. “We did 27 American tours in seven years – a record. Ten Years After capitalised on their success – at a cost. L-R Leo Lyons, Chick Churchill, Alvin Lee and Ric Lee of Ten Years After outside Alvin's home and recording studio at Hookend Manor, Oxfordshire, July 1978 (Image credit: Brian Cooke/Redferns) Probably wisely, Lee blocked this period out of his memory. Food fights became fistfights as the roadies took turns stripping the musicians and leaving them tied up and stark bollock naked by the speakers. Three English groups at the same place have to add up to trouble.”įrom then on, every time Ten Years After, Jeff Beck and Led Zeppelin shared a stage, there was trouble. “I threw a mug of orange and it stuck all over his guitar. Some say it was Bonham who chucked the juice at Alvin. The cops pulled him off, while I ran away. I finished the whole thing off by shoving a mic stand up Bonham’s arse and he got arrested. According to Rod Stewart, “it was fuckin’ incredible. Someone threw a glass of orange juice at Lee, while the Led Zep drummer removed all his clothes. At New York’s Singer Bowl in July 1969, Lee, Beck, Page and Ron Wood were joined by John Bonham, Tony Newman, Glenn Cornick, Robert Plant and Rod Stewart for a riotous nine-man jam version of Jailhouse Rock that descended into an orgiastic version of The Stripper. It felt like we were taking over,” Lee recalls.Īs the Brit boys drank, pilled and whored their way across the USA, high jinks were inevitable. “There was competition because of Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page, but there was room for everyone. In any case, it was a great time to be British in America. Now, Michael Wadleigh’s film (edited by Martin Scorsese) had their mugs on cinema screens worldwide, performing a boogie blues that rehashed every cliché in the book and seemed to have taken about five minutes to write.

#LED ZEPLIN PHOTOS MOVIE#

When the Woodstock movie of the festival came out a year later, Ten Years After’s showstopper I’m Going Home thrust the band towards superstardom, even though the studio version had flopped when released as a single from the excellent Undead live album.Ī year earlier, Ten Years After were playing that number in little clubs like Klooks Kleek in West London. And though history dictates that they were never considered as cool as Cream, the Jeff Beck Group or Led Zeppelin, Alvin’s monikers (Captain Speed Fingers, The Fastest Guitar In The West) guaranteed him kudos. (Image credit: Brian Cooke/Redferns)Īs part of the British Invasion of hard rock blues groups, Ten Years After were somewhere near the top. Ten Years After on stage at the Rainbow Theatre, London, 14th July 1972.

Led zeplin photos