Music “Fine by me”: The vocalist John Paul Jones almost picked over Robert Plant
There’s no sense in replacing anyone in Led Zeppelin. From the minute they stepped out onstage, they were the culmination of everything a supergroup could be, and even when the band did various one-off performances after John Bonham’s death, it was clear that it was done out of reverence for the material rather than carrying on as a new band with someone else behind the skins. Every member did his job the best way he knew how, but John Paul Jones saw some merit in working with some other people with his old bandmates.
Granted, one of the biggest hurdles that comes with any chance of a Zeppelin reunion tends to come from Robert Plant. ‘Percy’ is always the voice that people hear in their heads when they listen to all of those old tunes, and without him behind the microphone, the band would be a shadow of themselves if they ever tried to make music together again.
And it’s not like Plant doesn’t have a point in wanting to keep the legacy where it is. He’s more than happy to be making folksy music later down the line, and that normally involves him putting his shrieking side on the back burner a lot, which is all someone could ask for from a man who spent most of his early years shouting his brains out every single time he stepped up to the microphone.
While all Jonesy needed to worry about was keeping his chops up, it’s not like he and Jimmy Page weren’t still looking for people. After all, they loved playing together as well, and if Page and Plant got together without him, it made sense that the bassist and guitarist could put something together if they had the right voice. But what they needed was someone original who wouldn’t have to stand in Plant’s shadow.
And despite Steven Tyler auditioning and having a blast singing with some of his idols, there was no way that he would commit to doing justice to Plant’s voice. This had to be someone new, and the minute that Myles Kennedy entered the room, Jones’s eyes lit up. He wasn’t trying to emulate Plant, but the searing quality of his voice and his time with Alter Bridge and Slash’s solo band made him a virtual workhorse when it came to preserving his higher register.
Kennedy had done justice to Axl Rose on many occasions, but Jonesy thought it might be time for him to try his hand at some Zeppelin tunes, saying, “I quite liked Myles Kennedy. He’s got the range, but his voice is completely different than Robert’s. Which was fine by me, because it was going to be a completely different band. But it didn’t work out, and we all moved on.”
Even though plans fell through, Kennedy certainly had the chops to pull it off as well. A lot of what he contributes to Alter Bridge revolves around him making a few unorthodox riffs in strange time signatures from time to time, so he wouldn’t feel that out of place if Page threw something a bit more off-the-wall at him when putting together a tune.
It could have made for an interesting project for Jones the same way that he made Them Crooked Vultures with Dave Grohl and Josh Homme, but the idea of them covering any Zeppelin material would have felt wrong. Kennedy certainly had the range for it and could shout when he wanted to, but any band trying to have the same power as Zeppelin was going to have pieces thrown at them if they dared to take on ‘Kashmir’.