“You’ll Hurt Yourself, Man”: John Paul Jones’ Hilarious Memory of Led Zeppelin’s First Jam Sesh

Hearing Led Zeppelin for the first time is a formative experience for most rock ‘n’ roll lovers, and as John Paul Jones’ hilarious memory of Led Zeppelin’s first jam session shows, the same went for the musicians who comprised the iconic band. Indeed, all it took was one rehearsal in a Gerrard Street basement in London for Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, and John Bonham to know they had something very special on their hands.

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In the Sony documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, bassist Jones recounts his surprise upon first hearing his soon-to-be bandmate and frontman.

John Paul Jones Recalls First Led Zeppelin Rehearsal

The 2025 film Becoming Led Zeppelin outlines how a group of strangers became one of the most influential and iconic heavy rock bands of all time, featuring interviews and performances that illustrate their meteoric rise to rock stardom. That rise, of course, includes the band’s first jam sesh in an unassuming basement rehearsal space. Jimmy Page, the man who coordinated the whole thing, suggested they start with “Train Kept A-Rollin.”

Bassist John Paul Jones recalls Jimmy Page asking him if he knew the song, which he didn’t. Page explained the 12-bar format, and Jones invited him to count the band in. “That was it,” Jones said, adding how powerful it was to hear Robert Plant’s vocals up close for the first time. “The room just exploded. I had never heard anything like it. I was expecting some cool soul singer. And it’s this screaming maniac with this fantastic voice and fantastic range, you know. I was like, ‘What are you doing up there? You’ll hurt yourself, man.’”

“At the end of it, we knew that it was really happening, really electrifying,” Page told Rolling Stone in 1990. “Exciting is the word. We went on from there to start rehearsing for the album.”

From Shy Strangers To Bona Fide Rock Stars

As is often the case with rock ‘n’ roll legends, a lot of stars had to align just right for the creation of Led Zeppelin to come to be. Jimmy Page’s tenure with the Yardbirds had to end. The Who drummer Keith Moon had to feel alienated enough from his band to come sit in with Page, during which Moon came up with the future band name, saying, “It can only go down like a lead balloon.” (But if you ask bassist John Entwistle, he’d argue he came up with the balloon quip.) John Paul Jones had to see Page’s call for a new bassist, and Jones’ wife had to successfully convince him to follow up on the potential lead.

Without Robert Plant, the voice that raised John Paul Jones’ eyebrows that fateful day in the late 1960s, Led Zeppelin undoubtedly wouldn’t have had the same lasting impact on the rock ‘n’ roll soundscape. Around the time Page became aware of the staggeringly agile vocalist from the Midlands, Plant was fronting a different band named Hobstweedle. So, Page went to a show.

“[They] were playing at a teacher’s training college outside of Birmingham to an audience of about twelve people,” Page recalled in Trampled Underfoot (via Rolling Stone). “Robert was fantastic and having heard him that night and having listened to a demo he had given me, I realized that without a doubt his voice had a very exceptional and very distinctive quality.” We’re sure Jones agreed with that “very distinctive” descriptor—so distinctive, one might wonder if that curly-haired singer was about to pop something soaring up to hit his wailing high notes.

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