Certainly, as a guitarist, I was aware of descending chromatic lines and arpeggios long before 1968.

The Yardbirds sort of disbanded, and I was disappointed because I thought what we were doing was really good. I thought we were really onto something. I thought I was really onto something with these ideas that I had.

I'm not trying to be flippant here, but I just play the guitar, don't I? That is my characteristic, and it's my identity as you hear it.

I always want to do my very best, and it's frustrating to have something hold me back.

I played guitar all my life, all the way through the Yardbirds, but I knew that for me, this was going to be a guitar vehicle, because that's what I wanted it to be. There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin.

How many guitars do I have? I don't know. I don't know! But I think the answer to it is, more than I can play at any one point in time. Even though I do have double necks, so I can try and play more than at one time!

Having the facility to have this multitrack at home, I could try experiments with sort of all of the instruments, giving them different treatments so they didn't actually sound, necessarily, like the instrument itself.

Spirit is a band I really love.

My first guitar was like a campfire guitar. And it was left at a house that my family had moved into... and the guitar was at the house. It was all strung up. It's normally something that would be beyond a bit of rubbish.

Led Zeppelin was an affair of the heart. Each of the members was important to the sum total of what we were.

Led Zeppelin was a band that would change things around substantially each time it played... We were becoming tighter and tighter, to the point of telepathy.

The one person who's disappeared out of the business is the A&R man. Because the listener at home becomes the A&R man. He's the one who chooses what tracks he wants on the album. And that's cool.

Every album that I've attempted, I suppose, has been different - it's bound to be.

If you write a written book, you're gonna get slowed up by lawyers wanting to see what you say about this person, that person - I couldn't be bothered with it.

I was excited about opening for Vanilla Fudge because I was a big fan of theirs.

Every musician wants to do something which will hold up for a long time, and I guess we did it with 'Stairway to Heaven.'

In the 1960s and into the '70s, everyone in their own way was trying to open up the musical horizon. There shouldn't be a wall that you're going toward and bouncing off.

I was always good at hearing complete arrangements in my head.

From the first album, Led Zeppelin was always going to be a totally new approach from what had gone before - whether it was approaching the blues or folk music like 'Babe I'm Gonna Leave You': nothing existed like that.

I wasn't a very good draughtsman.

I play like I play. You hear it on 'Celebration Day.' It's pretty good for a one-night shot.

'Communication Breakdown' - it was punchy and direct, with a real attitude that was different to other bands going around.

I'm involved in all things musical. It's all consuming, even if it doesn't necessarily manifest as a record or a concert.

I consider descending chromatic lines and arpeggiated chords basic skills learned by any student of the guitar.

I do not recall ever seeing Spirit perform live.

When I was still in the Yardbirds, our producer, Mickie Most, would always try to get us to record all these horrible songs. During one session, we recorded 'Ten Little Indians,' an extremely silly song that featured a truly awful brass arrangement.

Right from the first time we went to America in 1968, Led Zeppelin was a word-of-mouth thing. You can't really compare it to how it is today.

I can understand why we got bad reviews. We went right over people's heads. One album would follow another and would have nothing to do with what we'd done before. People didn't know what was going on.

You get a chance like that maybe once in your lifetime, and you are lucky to sustain it over that period of time. It doesn't mean to say that whatever I do in the future has no substance to it - I may present some new material I've got, and there are definitely new angles of doing it - but I'm not looking to recreate another Led Zeppelin.

I would say New York, Chicago, Memphis, and Los Angeles were my favorites.

I really love playing live - it's such a gas.

I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.

But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn't do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs - Early Days - which is what it is - and Latter Days.

Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was - there's no doubt about it. There's never been anybody since. He's one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.

I really don't listen to Led Zeppelin that much.

I do know there's a lot of music where Led Zeppelin has been leant on. We didn't do anything about it. And I wouldn't want to, either.

I seem to have tireless energy when I get involved in things, on an almost OCD basis, which is a good way to do things because if you're gonna do something, you'd better make sure you do it well.

If I'm going to put my image into something, I'll put my image into something that I actually feel like I'd like to do.

Listening to John Bonham is just a sheer celebration of his playing - it can't help but fill you with so much joy.

I prefer to hear an artist's work and what they can do, so as far as I'm concerned, I'd get a lot more out of a collection of songs to be able to understand what the musician is doing.

In the Led Zeppelin shows of the Sixties and Seventies, it was the same numbers every night, but they were constantly in a state of flux. If I played something good, really substantial, I'd stick it in again.

I wanted to emulate music from America - young punks playing rock n' roll is what it was. I read part of Keith Richards' autobiography, and it was totally parallel with me, learning from American records.

I don't really know anything about sales figures, to be honest with you.

I don't think drums had ever sounded so big until Led Zeppelin's first album.

Led Zeppelin isn't done yet, quite clearly, because every year since 1968 there's been new fans.

The re-releases have more than doubled the amount of Led Zeppelin work out there. I wanted it done authoritatively, 'cause I was the one writing the stuff; I was the producer and mixer. I don't think it's any more weird than writing your autobiography.

We were lucky in the days of Led Zeppelin. Each album was different. We didn't have to continue a formula or produce a certain number of singles. Because, in those days, radio was still playing albums. That was really good.

We weren't making money in the Yardbirds.

I was really competitive with myself.

Led Zeppelin wasn't a corporate entity.