Jimmy Page Quotes & Sayings

No. I usually rest in my satin-lined coffin, actually. I'm not allowed out in daylight hours. — Jimmy Page

I can only listen to what I'm working on, at the time. I can't listen to anything else because I don't want to copy it. — Jimmy Page

We were never a band that did 96 takes of the same thing. I had heard of groups that were into that kind of excess around that time. They'd work on the same track for three or four days and then work on it some more, but that's clearly not the way to record an album. If the track isn't happening and it creates some sort of psychological barrier, even after an hour or two, then you should stop and do something else. Go out: go to the pub, or a restaurant or something. Or play another song. — Jimmy Page

There's so much that can be done on the guitar. And that's what is so good about the guitar - everyone can really enjoy themselves on it and have a good time, which is what it's all about. — Jimmy Page

I'm trying to photosynthesize like a plant. I'm off eating. Although I am making a lot of banana daiquiries in my room in the blender I've got, with lots of powdered vitamins in them. This tour I'm going to get some Afghani hangings and put them in my room, so that my hotel rooms look like mosques. — Jimmy Page

The blues appealed to me, but so did rock. The early rockabilly guitarists like Cliff Gallup and Scotty Moore were just as important to me as the blues guitarists ... — Jimmy Page

There is no way I would play guitar like a tour de force like I did in Led Zeppelin. John Bonham, phenomenal drummer, young man with his technique, but do you think he would ever have the opportunity to play like that in another band? Of course he hadn't. — Jimmy Page

From the classical guitar right through to the furthest electrical experiments and everything in-between, it's amazing what the guitar can actually do. I mean, when one thinks about sounds. — Jimmy Page

Music can always be a life-changing experience, for musicians and fans, or at least life-affecting, but it depends on to what degree. — Jimmy Page

You absorb so much from whatever your environment is, as an artist, and you learn to take from it what can help you create. — Jimmy Page

But if you want me to knock Kingdom Come, all I will say is that I heard the guitarist said he'd never heard my playing, and I'd defy any guitarist in American not to have heard Led Zeppelin. — Jimmy Page

I don't like to tell people what format they can get things in, or say, "I'm only going to release this on vinyl and nothing else. You have to come to my world." I don't like to say that to people either. But, I do think there's a loss of romance. — Jimmy Page

Once I got a guitar that was relatively user-friendly, but not super-duper easy, I really came on as a guitarist, at that point. It helped. It was a super-expensive guitar either, but something needs to steer you a bit, if you're playing an instrument that is really hard. — Jimmy Page

Just because you play bass, doesn't mean you have no presence. — Jimmy Page

I don't deal in technique. I deal in emotions. — Jimmy Page

Actually, I'm getting one made up with eight necks and I'm going to get a wheelwright to make a big rim around it and then I can do cartwheels off the stage. — Jimmy Page

My guitar style was developed during that 10-year period. That's me. That's the way I play, and I don't wish to play any other way. Our own individual identities are firmly stamped on this album. — Jimmy Page

I'm pretty optimistic about the future of rock ... it will be back to composition as in classical music or jazz. — Jimmy Page

There's always music that moves me. It doesn't necessarily mean that it's within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It's usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres. — Jimmy Page

I may not believe in myself, but I believe in what I'm doing. — Jimmy Page

The guitar to me, from the classical/gut-string guitar right through to Hendrix, et cetera, has all the range [of sound]. Within those six strings it is incredible what one can get sound-wise. It's just down to imagination, really. — Jimmy Page

My finger picking is sort of a cross between Pete Seeger, Earl Scruggs, and total incompetence. — Jimmy Page

Everything that came later ... the roots are all there in the first album. — Jimmy Page

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. — Jimmy Page

I do really believe that all guitarists have a different character that comes through, that's a strong character, the stronger the person is. — Jimmy Page

A lot of people can't be on their own. They get frightened. Isolation doesn't bother me at all. It gives me a sense of security. — Jimmy Page

I really wasn't needed ... Just straightening up riffs, that's all. Just two guitarists doing it instead of one. — Jimmy Page

Led Zeppelin didn't get that kind of Beatles screaming. We had a more sort of macho crowd. But I remember once in the early days of The Yardbirds, we were playing on an ice rink, and the stage was mobbed by screaming girls. I had my clothes torn off me. That's a really uncomfortable experience, let me tell you. — Jimmy Page

There is far more sensitivity in acoustic guitar players than could ever be compared to any synthesizer. That's a personal point of view but that's the way I see it. I think that's what it's all about. The drive, the fire, the passion - it all comes out on the guitar. — Jimmy Page

The beauty of the band was you never knew what was going to come out next. — Jimmy Page

I always thought the good thing about the guitar was that they didn't teach it in school. — Jimmy Page

The idea of a hypnotic riff as the prime mover of a piece of music has been around for a long time, whether you're talking about the Delta blues or music from Middle Eastern and African cultures. — Jimmy Page

I love playing. If it was down to just that, it would be utopia. — Jimmy Page

I suggested back in 1980 to do a chronological live album, but there wasn't that much enthusiasm for it. — Jimmy Page

We went in and recorded exactly where we were at that point in time. I think because of the quality of musicianship of the band has given it the longevity. I thought the music would endure, I didn't think I would ... I always thought I'd be dead by 30, then dead by 40 and on and on. Now I'm 55 so I didn't even die at 50. — Jimmy Page

That's the music that I play at home all the time, Joni Mitchell. Court and Spark I love because I'd always hoped that she'd work with a band. But the main thing with Joni is that she's able to look at something that's happened to her, draw back and crystallize the whole situation, then write about it. She brings tears to my eyes, what more can I say? It's bloody eerie. I can relate so much to what she says. Now old friends are acting strange/They shake their heads/They say I've changed. — Jimmy Page

I bet you can't play slide piano. — Jimmy Page

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. — Jimmy Page

I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it. — Jimmy Page

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

I'm obsessed - not just interested, obsessed - with folk music, street music, the parallels between a country's street music and its so-called classical and intellectual music, the way certain scales have travelled right across the globe. All this ethnological and musical interaction fascinates me. Have you heard any trance music? That's the thing. — Jimmy Page

If you are on to something creative, school can also inhibit you. The wrong teacher, man, can really mess you up. — Jimmy Page

You never knew what was going to happen in concert. It was a really exciting prospect to go onstage, and you can hear that in the live recordings ... wherever we were and whatever year it was, we always went onstage determined to do our best ... — Jimmy Page

I guess the solo from 'Achilles Last Stand' is in the same tradition as the solo from 'Stairway to Heaven' ... it is on that level to me. — Jimmy Page

If you wanted to chart new territories and head off over the horizon, you had to make sure you weren't overly influenced by what others were doing ... so it didn't matter what other bands were doing ... we did what we were doing ... — Jimmy Page

I don't think the critics could understand what we were doing. — Jimmy Page

There's a very old recording maxim that goes, 'Distance makes depth.' I've used that a hell of a lot-whether it's tracking guitars or the whole band. People are used to close-miking amps, but I'd have a mic out around the back, as well, and then balance the two. Also, you shouldn't have to use EQ in the studio if the instruments sound right. You should be able to get the right tones simply with the science of microphone placement. — Jimmy Page

Live Aid did feel like one hour's rehearsal after several years, but to be part of Live Aid was wonderful. It reall was. — Jimmy Page

I can communicate far better on a guitar than I can through my mouth. — Jimmy Page

Many people think of me as just a riff guitarist, but I think of myself in broader terms. As a musician I think my greatest achievement has been to create unexpected melodies and harmonies within a rock and roll framework. And as a producer I would like to be remembered as someone who was able to sustain a band of unquestionable individual talent, and push it to the forefront during its working career. I think I really captured the best of our output, growth, change and maturity on tape - the multifaceted gem that is Led Zeppelin. — Jimmy Page

Crowley didn't have a very high opinion of women, and I don't think he was wrong. — Jimmy Page

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. — Jimmy Page

I'm at my best when I'm exhausted and under pressure. — Jimmy Page

Music is the one thing that has been consistently there for me. It hasn't let me down. — Jimmy Page

(The Song Remains The Same) is not a great film, but there's no point in making excuses. It's just a reasonably honest statement of where we were at that particular time. It's very difficult for me to watch it now, but I'd like to see it in a year's time just to see how it stands up. — Jimmy Page

Many people in the neighborhood liked hip-hop and house music, and I couldn't play that. You can't perform that on guitar or drums, which was what I was playing, at the time. But, I got so much from mariachi bands that were constantly playing in the neighborhood. — Jimmy Page

The element of change has been the thing, really. We put out the first one, then the second ... then a third LP totally different from them. It's the reason we were able to keep it together. — Jimmy Page

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. — Jimmy Page

I have a voracious appetite for all things, worldly and unworldly. — Jimmy Page

I do not worship the devil. But magic does intrigue me. Magic of all kinds. I bought Crowley's house to go up and write in. The thing is, I just never get up that way. Friends live there now. — Jimmy Page

Sometimes, I must admit, I'd like to have a second guitarist onstage with me, but it wouldn't look right. I'd like to play for another 20 years, but I don't know ... I just can't see it happening. I don't know why. It's a certain foreboding ... a funny feeling ... vultures. — Jimmy Page

I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened. — Jimmy Page

The greatest satisfaction is not the decoration. It is knowing that I am able to help someone who needs help. — Jimmy Page

The gut-strung guitar, the classical guitar, that is a whole different world on its own. When you think what the guitar can do and what every individual player does with a guitar, everyone has their own identity coming through the guitar. — Jimmy Page

I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising. — Jimmy Page

When I went over to the States to promote Outrider, everyone was telling me I was a blues guitarist. I'm not a bloody blues guitarist. I'm a guitarist. — Jimmy Page

I feel Aleister Crowley is a misunderstood genius of the 20th century. Because his whole thing was liberation of the person, of the entity, and that restrictions would foul you up, lead to frustration which leads to violence, crime, mental breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further this age we're in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points he's made seem to manifest themselves all down the line. — Jimmy Page

There's music that can affect people in their lives, and they will always relate to the point that they heard it and experienced it, either if you're playing it or you're receptive, as an audience. — Jimmy Page

My vocation is more in composition really than anything else - building up harmonies using the guitar, orchestrating the guitar like an army, a guitar army. — Jimmy Page

I don't want to get too dippy about all this. If you take the view of the scientist and everything is in a state of vibration, then every note is a vibration, which has a certain frequency, and you know that if you put 40 beats into a frequency it's going to be the same note every time. You take that into infrasound and people can be made to be sick, actually killed. Taking it the other way, not to be too depressing, what about euphoria, etc., and what about consciousness being totally ... no, I won't go into that one. Time warps. — Jimmy Page

You've got to capture as much of the room sound as possible. That's the very essence of it. — Jimmy Page

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

Every record is a portrait of the band at that time. — Jimmy Page

I'm just looking for an angel with a broken wing. — Jimmy Page

There will be a Led Zeppelin as long as there's a Jimmy Page, John Bonham, John Paul Jones and Robert Plant. This isn't a nostalgia band playing the hits forever. If anything ever happened and somebody left - which I really can't see happening - I don't think we'd bother to carry on. The magic for me is as it is now. — Jimmy Page

We kept moving forward and didn't try to recreate the past .. the approach to each album was radically different every time. Many bands would have some success and, because they were locked into having a single - something we didn't have to worry about - they had to make sure there was something similar on the next album ... that was never the idea with Led Zeppelin .. the goal was to keep that spark of spontaneity at all times ... — Jimmy Page

Artists say that paintings are never done. I sort of feel the same way about music. I would never say something is perfect. There are performances that can generate a lot of emotion in me when I hear them, but I can't say if anything is perfect. — Jimmy Page

You can't overthink the music. Mood and intensity can't be manufactured. The blues isn't about structure; it's what you bring to it. The spontaneity of capturing a specific moment is what drives it. — Jimmy Page

I really don't like showing people how I play things; it's a little embarrassing because it always looks so simple to me. — Jimmy Page

I'm still terrified of flying. I really have to get drunk to fly. I've found that I've developed fears I never had before ... fears of heights, claustrophobia ... only in cities, though, never in the country. — Jimmy Page

Let me explain something about guitar playing. Everyone's got their own character, and that's the thing that's amazed me about guitar playing since the day I first picked it up. Everyone's approach to what can come out of six strings is different from another person, but it's all valid. — Jimmy Page