Retirement isn’t on Robert Plant‘s radar. Along with revealing a North American tour with Alison Krauss during Summer 2024 and another series of UK headlining dates with his band Saving Grace, Plant said he still has more to do and hinted at the possibility of new solo music.
Since releasing Raise the Roof, his second collaborative album with Krauss, in 2021, along with his 11th solo album, Carry Fire, in 2017 Plant said he has been revisiting music he’s had archived away.
“I’ve also been going through all that stuff that I never released and never quite got finished, and getting excited about it, going, ‘Wow. What am I going to do with that?” said Plant. “It’s the idioms, the visitation, the places that I’ve been musically which were not complete are just mind-boggling, and they’re a little bit overwhelming.”
Along with his 2024 touring schedule and sifting through unreleased material, Plant, 75, said retirement isn’t an option for him.
“The camaraderie, the things that you share up there, and the frailties that you know you’re carrying with you quietly, the exposure of yourself to yourself, is something that I would hate to say goodbye to,” said Plant. “I can’t just sit back. Out there in the real world, people say to me, ‘What about the book?’ And I say, ‘Are you kidding? What? This is spectacular. Why think about it twice?'”
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Plant added, “This is today. What happened in Schenectady in 1969 is another story. And for me, the continuum must keep going. Today, I was pulling all my lyric books out and going, ‘Gotta get the groove back. I’ve got something to say.’ So yeah, I’m going to keep going—as long as they’ve got effects machines that make me sound good [laughs]. Well, it worked for Elvis [Presley]. Listen to the compression on his voice on some of those big ballads in ’57.”
[RELATED: Watch: Robert Plant Performs “Stairway to Heaven” for First Time in 16 Years]
In October 2023, Plant performed three Led Zeppelin songs as a guest performer during a benefit concert at the Soho Farmhouse in Oxfordshire, England for The Cancer Platform, an initiative launched by the Cancer Awareness Trust. The show was organized by founding Duran Duran guitarist Andy Taylor, and Plant’s set included “Stairway to Heaven,” which he hadn’t performed in 16 years.
“It was cathartic,” said Plant about performing the 1971 Zeppelin classic. “People go, ‘Oh, that’s good. He never was going to do that.’ But I didn’t really do it. I just blurted it out, ’cause it’s such an important song to me for where I was at the time and where I was with Jimmy [Page] and with John [Paul Jones] and Bonzo. So on that night, it was what it was. It was a trial by fire, but I felt better at the end than at the beginning.”
When asked if he thinks that was his last performance of “Stairway to Heaven” Plant didn’t give a definitive “no.”
“I haven’t got around to doing the ice-skating rinks in Finland yet with a small orchestra,” laughed Plant. “So I don’t think I’ll be doing that, but I don’t know. Who knows? Something could change somewhere. Spirit and heart could come back in the soul. It’s a long song. Who can remember all those words?”
Photo: Kevin Winter/Getty Images
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