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Led Zeppelin legend Robert Plant has spoken about how the death of his son Karac in 1977 changed his perspective on the band.
Karac Plant passed away on on July 26, 1977, aged five, after contracting an acute gastrointestinal infection, which spread rapidly. His father learned of his death while touring Led Zeppelin’s seventh album Presence, and the tour was immediately cancelled, with seven dates still on the docket.. Led Zeppelin would never tour America again, although they would release two further albums, 1979’s In Through The Out Door, and Coda, which emerged in 1982, two years after their break-up following drummer John Bonham’s death.
Speaking about his tragic loss in a new interview with The SundayTimes, Plant says, “there was no map, no instructions to Led Zeppelin, and we just carried on.”
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“But I didn’t need the group after losing my boy. These musical romances are great when everything is great. When things go left of centre, who wants to sit backstage for hours and hours with people you’ve been stuck with since 1968? You’re not playing cards, you’re not going to the movies, you’re just waiting. I was always looking to get away.”
The comment echoes what Plant told Rolling Stone magazine in 2007.
“I lost my boy,” he said. “I didn’t want to be in Led Zeppelin. I wanted to be with my family.”
Plant now lives in Shatterford, in Worcestershire, a quiet English village where there is none of the mania which surrounded Led Zeppelin at their peak.
“I’ve been a quasi big shot for so long that in Worcestershire nobody gives a fuck” he admits. “The most they say is: ‘All right, Bob? Still doing a bit?’ Well, I won five Grammys with Alison Krauss… ‘What’s a Grammy?’”
Not that his life now is not without its own glamour and excitement.
“Tuesday night is bingo night” he reveals. “You might win 25 quid.”
