At my age (41 years young), it’s fun to look back on the music that I love so much and remember just how I got into some of my favorite bands. Some of my favorite bands such as Zeppelin, Floyd, Iron Maiden, etc are bands that I’ve listened to for so long that I fear sometimes that I may forget just how it all started for me. This just very well may become a series of sorts as I think it’s important and interesting (to me at least) to remember where it all began with some of my favorite bands.
Finding Led Zeppelin was something most kids my age in the 80’s did the same way. Usually it was thanks to AOR radio. Back in 1983 when I first started listening to metal music, I also found that changing the radio dial to rock radio was more to my liking. As a pre-metal kid growing up in New Orleans I was listening to the radio stations like B97 who were feeding me the latest garbage from bands like Duran Duran, Prince, and The Dazz Band. Once I discovered metal music, the radio changed over to WRNO (We’re the Rock of New Orleans) and there was a whole new world awaiting me that I never knew existed.
Most metal fans will proudly attest to the fact that they don’t just love metal music and that even in the beginning that it wasn’t just metal that moved them and piqued their interest. As I listened to WRNO, this was where I would hear modern rock stuff at the time such as Van Halen, Sammy Hagar, and whatever other rock hits were around. Hearing shit like “I Can’t Drive 55” and “Panama” were so much more cooler than hearing the latest ditty from Bryan Adams or Culture Club. In addition to these modern songs, a nice healthy dose of the “classics” were being played by bands like Aerosmith, Boston, and Led Zeppelin.
The first time I ever heard “Stairway to Heaven” was an amazing time. I was maybe 11 years old, sitting in my bedroom listening to WRNO and they had this show called “Get the Led Out” which was where they would play like an hour of Zeppelin songs or something. Maybe 30 min? Anyone remember? Well, that night I tuned in to hear Led Zeppelin. I popped my Maxell XLII cassette and hit “record” so I could capture it in all its glory and when I heard “Stairway” I was immediately whisked away. I was floored by just how mellow and heavy and mellow it was. I really liked this song a lot and I even went to a record store and bought a 45 of it so I could have it. I’m not quite sure why I wasn’t ready to commit to buying the album just yet but all I knew was that I loved this song. I was a fledgling guitarist and I was told that this was pretty much the holy grail of guitar playing. If you can play Stairway to Heaven you can play anything.
It wasn’t long after this that I remember buying the debut W.A.S.P album. I know. You’re probably thinking, “What the fuck does W.A.S.P have to do with this?” Well, more so than you’d ever believe. Anyways, to make a long story short, I bought the debut W.A.S.P album and my dad thought it was absolute dogshit. My parents were totally fine with me listening to metal music and my dad normally couldn’t give a rat’s ass but he thought that W.A.S.P was so terrible that he made me bring the album back.
We got to the record store and he tells the long haired burnout dude behind the counter, “My kid needs to exchange this album for something else. This band is terrible.” The guy behind the counter laughed and said, “Yeah, these guys do suck.” Well, there was an album playing in the store and my dad goes, “This music that’s playing right now. This sounds good. What is this?” The kid tells my dad, “This is Led Zeppelin IV, man.” My dad then said, “This is good. Give him this one instead.” We walked out of Warehouse Records and Tapes that day and I was the proud owner of Led Zeppelin IV. I took that album home and I played it front to back and it changed my life forever. For some reason, hearing that album, in order, front to back just did something to me that hearing random Zeppelin songs on the radio didn’t do for me. Maybe it was the magic of the sequencing. Maybe it was the fact that I was so focused on the music but whatever it was, I didn’t really need to understand it. I just knew that it was something really unique and really special and unlike anything I had ever heard before it.
Listening to Led Zeppelin IV changed my life and it changed how I listened to music forever. Through that album I got a true taste of musical diversity. You be heavy as fuck with “Black Dog”, you could be beautifully mellow with acoustic instruments on “Going to California”, you could downright gritty and dirty like on “Four Sticks” and you could cover all the bases in one song: “Stairway to Heaven.” From there I went on to pick up everything Zeppelin ever made and they became a huge part of my life and a huge part of my music listening life.
At 41 years old, I still listen to Zeppelin on a pretty regular basis and sometimes I just take it for granted that they’ve just always been a part of my life. When I listen to Zeppelin I still hear all of those elements and those layers of music that made me fall in love with them in the first place. It was fun to retrace my steps and go back to where it all began to the best of my knowledge and memory. I’m sure some steps were missed along the way but the importance of Led Zeppelin in my life has not gone unappreciated and as of now has been documented. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go listen to Led Zeppelin IV again.
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