Collaborations
 Thoughts

 

On Down by the Seaside

"Obviously, working with Robert was a hoot. I almost wore my confirmation dress just for old times sake."

"It's very different. We do it kind of like Riders on the Storm. It was a jam, so it's eight minutes. He played guitar, I played piano, and two of the guys that are now in the band that he's in with Jimmy Page, this is the project they're doing together, the bass player and the drummer, who have been with Robert, I think, for a little while. Anyway, it was just kind of neato. I showed up, and we kind of rehearsed, and I threw in a section and he threw in a section that hadn't been in before. I kind of went, 'God, I really want to do this part.' I thought the melody was different from what it was. In the shower, I always sang this different melody. But I was so married to it that I just made it my part. They rolled tape, and we were finished, and we all went and listened and said, 'Where's the Indian take-out? This is finished.' It was kind of like - it was so neat, because I waited all my life for that. So I stored up 20 years of estrogen."

"Yeah, I did a duet with Robert. On the tribute, can you believe that? He sang on his own tribute. That's a hoot. He just decided "Look, this is a tribute to the Zeppelin songs, and I think I know how to do it." I said "Okay, I'm with you, no arguments"."
On Finn/Paradiso Perduto
"I didn't enjoy doing Great Expectations in the end because it got politically weird and people weren't forthright anymore and, you have to understand something, having a studio tell me what to do after we'd made an agreement isn't what I considered having integrity. So, in my world, we have a team of people and we talk about things and we make decisions based on the creativity. And we sometimes have our hiccups and stuff, but musicians are sometimes just extraneous for film people and I don't see writing songs as extraneous. Obviously, it's not the center of the film, but there needs to be a level of respect and some film people forget that. When I remind them of that, they seemed quite shocked. When in actuality, I call it just bad manners."
On Party Man
"Probably everybody gets approached at a certain point, because, as you said, it's an obvious thing to do. I think you have to be kind of careful and you can't get drawn into the fact that just because you're successful and they're successful, that doesn't mean it's a wise thing to do. Sometimes it works, and sometimes you do it for a laugh. Sometimes it's just... I don't know... there's just chemistry there, where you've always wanted to work with that person and you really don't care whether people like it or not, you just really wanted to do it. I think a lot of the times, the reason bands work and musicians work is because it's a chemistry. There's an internal chemistry, you see what I mean? It's not based on what the public's fantasy is, but it's based on real relationships with people. Just because you're well-known and they're well-known doesn't mean it has the magic. You've got to stay objective. Sometimes it just works. I've worked with a lot of really wonderful people. It's not like I haven't collaborated. I've worked with Robert Plant. I've worked with Peter Gabriel. I've worked with Michael Stipe and Trent. It's not like I haven't done it, but I'd like to think that we did it for the right reasons."