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Why Led Zeppelin auditioned for new singers after meeting them at the O2


When Airship staged A resounding reunion show at the O2 Arena in London in December. On Sept. 10, 2007, it completed the decades-long redemption arc for The Golden Gods, who gritted their teeth through a handful of ill-fated mini-reunions in the years since. the death From the original drummer John Bonham in 1980

It also, finally, brought an end to Led Zeppelin's amazing saga, as Robert plant Outright refusal to participate in the entire reunion trip with Jimmy's pageAnd the John Paul Jones And Jason Bonham has squashed all the rumors to the contrary. Blunt said in a statement the following year. "I hope Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones and Jason Bonham have nothing but success in any future projects."

Older Blunt groups were less willing to abandon the project, however, and in 2008, they began holding low-key auditions for singers to see if they could sustain some Led Zeppelin repetition.

He was the most popular candidate Aerosmith Singer Stephen Tyler, whose band tensions at the time are well documented. Tyler - who messed with Led Zeppelin and got them in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame In 1995 alongside Joe Perry — he reportedly traveled to England in the summer of 2008 to play a slew of Zep's classics and see if it was worth pursuing a few more mega-gigs.

Watch Led Zeppelin play "Kashmir" at the O2 Arena in 2007

"I went and played with Jimmy and the rest [in summer 2008],” said Tyler Classic rock. "It wasn't an audition to be in Zeppelin, it was an audition to play with Zeppelin. We were going to do a few pitches. And then while I was there, Jimmy talked to me about maybe doing an album. I went home and thought about it for a few days, and I went back to him and said, "Look, Jimmy, you're in an iconic band and so am I. I couldn't, in good faith, leave my band and be in yours. "

Tyler said he had Zeppelin "all day for a week," and eventually Page floated an offer to play a few shows together. "They let me sing every song I wanted - 'Black Dog', 'Stairway to Heaven'. But it was only a week." And yes, Jimmy asked me to do some things with him. But I didn't want to Coverdale/page. Plus I figured in the time it would take me to do that, I could muster my own band together."

However, Perry heard a much different version of the test, which he said Page had called "shameful". "Jamie also said he didn't even want to audition for Steven, but did because his manager and old roadie Henry Smith had hounded him," Perry recalled in his 2014 memoir. The Rocks: My Life On and Off Aerosmith. When I spoke with Henry, he in turn said Stephen was the one chasing after him to get Jimmy's approval for the test. Henry wasn't happy about being put in the middle. Nor was he happy that Stephen had missed the first day of the test or that, when he finally showed up, he didn't. He was embarrassingly prepared.”

Watch Aerosmith and Led Zeppelin perform at the 1995 Rock Hall Induction

Tyler eventually returned to Aerosmith, though their unresolved issues came to a head in 2009 when the singer I fell off stage at one show, forcing the band to cancel the rest of their summer tour, after which they were checked into rehab. Rumors of a replacement Aerosmith singer, Seasons 2 Tyler, abounded American Idol It did little to assuage his bandmates' frustrations. The singer eventually got his act together, and in 2012 Aerosmith released a new album, Music from another dimension!

Another singer visited Valhalla in June 2008 for a well-reported audition with Led Zeppelin: Ultrabridge frontman Miles Kennedy, who met rock legends on the eve of his band's performance at England's Download Festival. Kennedy was invited by Jason Bonham, with whom he appeared in the 2001 film rock star - fittingly about a singer of a tribute band who gets a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to front his favorite band.

A nervous Kennedy met Page, Jones, and Bonham and ran into several classics including "Kashmir," "The Rain Song," and "La Quarter." Then the veteran musicians posted some new, unreleased material, which Kennedy scattered about. After the session, Page and Jones drove Kennedy to the train station and laid their cards on the table.

"While driving, Jimmy and John Paul told me what they were thinking," Kennedy said. Classic rock. "It was a new project, wouldn't it be Led Zeppelin, and I'd be interested in maybe singing with them? My answer—and this is the stupidest answer ever—was, 'Well, yeah, you guys pretty much shit. '" I can't believe I said that."

Kennedy met Page, Jones, and Bonham again in September 2008, but nothing came of the sessions. "They were just trying to figure out what's going on with all the stuff that's going on at Led Zeppelin, and trying to figure out if the whole situation is appropriate," he explained. "I heard back from their managers a few months later, and they decided not to."

He wasn't hard at work: he contributed vocals to two songs scale downHe made his eponymous solo debut in 2010 and soon became the full-time vocalist for the band's solo guitarist.

Watch Slash and Myles Kennedy cover 'The Immigration Song'

Led Zeppelin have always been very silent about the inner workings of the band, so it's unclear how many singers auditioned to fill Plant's shoes after their O2 reunion. There was at least one powerful singer whose queries went unanswered: heart The first woman Ann Wilson. Wilson: "Zeppelin has always been a boys' club" Tell UK radio station Planet Rock in 2022. “I know because there was a minute when it was rumored that they were auditioning for singers and I threw my hat in the ring. And I went, ‘Here I am!’” "The crickets were."

"Who knows what happened there?" Wilson thought about the testing process. "But anyway, who wants to hire someone who can sing just like Blunt? I don't think that's what they were into, you know? I don't think they want him to be a caricature of Led Zeppelin."

If Wilson had any ill will over the lack of response, it seemed to have been over it by 2012, when Hart and Jason Bonham performed "Stairway to Heaven" at Kennedy Center Honors He was famous for moving him to tears. And you would do it again in a heartbeat. "Hypothetically, if they ever needed a lead singer and Hart wasn't active at the moment, I would definitely do it," he said. He said in 2014. "I'd go and play with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones any day of the week."

Watch Heart and Jason Bonham cover "Stairway to Heaven."

Still, Wilson - and countless millions of Zeppelin fans around the world - are better off celebrating what was than pining for what never should. "Led Zeppelin is over!" said the page's manager, Peter Mensch MusicRadar in 2009. "If you didn't see them in 2007, you missed them. It's over. I couldn't be any clearer than that." As for the singer's short-lived experiments, Mensch added, "They tried out a few singers, but none worked out. That was it. It's all over now. There are absolutely no plans for them to continue. Zero. Honestly, I wish I'd Everyone stops talking about it."

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