Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page were musical contemporaries. However, Clapton politely disagreed with the taste and style of Led Zeppelin. There was never any bad blood between Clapton and Zeppelin, although, Clapton didn’t hold back when talking about his perspective on the band. And given Clapton’s musical stature, you have to respect where he is coming from to a certain extent. After all, the man knows what he’s talking about.
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After Cream’s success was over and done with by the mid-60s, Eric Clapton believed Led Zeppelin was the band that was carrying the torch of blues rock ‘n’ roll. He respected their ambition and vision, but he seemingly couldn’t see eye-to-eye with how they were executing it. So, he didn’t water down his thoughts and spoke very candidly about their music and how they played it.
Eric Clapton Thought Led Zeppelin Was Musically Verbose
In a 2012 interview with Uncut, Eric Clapton praised Led Zeppelin for continuing the tradition Cream had started. He told the publication, “Led Zeppelin took up our legacy.” However, he followed up the comment by stating, “But then they took it somewhere else that I didn’t really have a great deal of admiration for.”
In addition to his interview with Uncut, Clapton was very specific with his comments in the 1993 biography, Led Zeppelin: The Definitive Biography by Ritchie York. In the book, Clapton divulged, “I’ve heard their records and I saw them play in Milwaukee — we were on the same bill.” “They were very loud — I thought it was unnecessarily loud. I liked some of it, I really did like some of it. But a lot of it was just too much. They over-emphasized whatever point they were making, I thought,” Clapton continued.
Clapton was cordial with his comments and did give a fairly fleshed-out reason as to why he wasn’t the biggest fan of the group. However, his former bandmate, Ginger Baker did not, as he raked Zeppelin over the coals. Baker told Forbes, “I don’t think Led Zeppelin filled the void that Cream left, but they made a lot of money. I probably like about 5% of what they did – a couple of things were really cool.” “What I don’t like is the heavy bish-bash, jing-bap, jing-bash bulls—,” added Baker.
Again, no bad blood seemingly stemmed from these comments. Rather, it was just a disagreement in taste, and in the business of being creative, that’s always bound to happen.
Photo by Phil Dent/Redferns
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