by There are only ever a few artists like Robert Plant that seem born to be at the lip of the stage.
Whereas most people can point to everyone from Freddie Mercury to David Bowie as people with natural charisma, what Plant tapped into was a more primal sense of excitement whenever he sang with Led Zeppelin, whether it was the tenderness of their acoustic material or their all-out rockers. But while the life of a singer might be interesting, it’s not like it was the most stable time for him, either.
If anything, joining Led Zeppelin was bound to be a bit of a gamble before Plant even signed on with Jimmy Page. He would have gladly worked with other legends like Jeff Beck if he had the chance, and while he clearly made the right choice in finding a perfect writing partner, there were a few moments where he wasn’t exactly proud of the legacy he left behind.
Despite their debut being absolutely massive, Plant always felt a little bit embarrassed by his performance on the record. The whole thing may have singlehandedly kick-started genres like hard rock and heavy metal, but a lot of Plant’s grievances later in the band’s career had more to do with the constant cycle that they were on every single time they were on tour. It’s a lucrative business to be in, but it doesn’t exactly have the best effect on someone’s mental health.
It’s one thing to live one’s life with a suitcase in their hand all the time, but Plant knew that he would be missing out on huge chunks of his life if he went away for too long. And while there were bound to be fantastic shows playing to the best crowds that anyone could think of, there’s a chance that Plant would have traded in his ‘Percy’ moniker for good if it meant having his son, Karac, back again.
Even before losing his child, though, the idea of not staying on the road was already starting to weigh on other members of the group. John Paul Jones had considered leaving it all behind and asking them to get another bassist, but Plant knew that there was at least an option for him if he figured that the job was too much for him to take.
Whereas Page was determined to see Zeppelin through any experiment they could, Plant felt that it might not be a bad idea for him to walk away from the music industry to become a teacher, saying, “Our family had always been close to the Rudolf Steiner Waldorf education in the West Midlands, and I just liked the way it all worked. I thought I should be rid of it. Yeah, I thought it was not a bad idea.”
And while the idea of ‘Professor Percy’ does have a nice ring to it, there was no way that Zeppelin was simply going to stop for anyone to go to school. If nothing else, the band was Page’s baby in many respects, and even if they wanted to go their separate ways, there would always be the spirit of Zeppelin in nearly everything that he played.
But even if John Bonham’s death brought Zeppelin to an early grave in the 1980s, it’s not like Plant suddenly got the bug to don a suit and become a teacher outside of rock and roll. He was always going to be an all-star frontman, no matter what he did, and while there’s no doubt that he could probably whip up a mean lesson plan if he wanted to, it was better for him to listen to him tear through a track like ‘The Battle of Evermore’ instead.
