Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant Talks about Living in Texas

you you spend some time in Austin Texas

now for transparency I'm a Texan of

fifth or sixth generation Texas born and

raised there but I'm interested in your

experience you moved to Austin and lived

there for quite a while what was that

like and what did you learn from it well

I thought I knew America I thought I'd

been around it for 40 yard years and I

knew many Americas and I was impressed

and when my kid the kid that followed

carak when he was young he used to come

on tour with me with his skateboard and

I used to buy a big Rand mcnali map of

the United States which every year has

New Roads and I got a bigger one all the

time now I'm nearly blind and I I used

to uh hit the road in a rental car and I

used to plan my touring based on places

I hadn't yet explored so I could go from

nor Virginia across the Blue Ridge

Mountains and then go uh you know the

Smoky Mountains and down into Tennessee

it was brilliant all that stuff and

Texas I played there and then I thought

well Austin surely that's where uh Jimmy

vaugh comes from that's where uh all

these guys have gone to all these

musicians and I went there and I met all

these guys and I went wow there's more

musicians per square mile there than

anywhere else on the planet even

Nashville and also they had more

attitude I think than the Nashville it

was more of a kind of Tex Mex type of

rock and roll element to it to do as the

Continental Club which is a brilliant

hang right so I went down there and

without further Ado moved in but you

eventually left you liked it you liked a

lot of things about it but you

eventually left well yeah many reasons

but

um I guess really I was

probably I used to go home quite a lot

back to

England and the relief of opening the

door of the airplane when we got back to

a temperate climate was like whoa you

know although I'm a drifter in many

respects with a silver spoon I must say

that maybe because I already lost my boy

and my my family have achd ever since I

think I was missing

family even though I have been transient

for for the last 5 three or four years

you know so there was something about

going back but there was also the

feeling of defeat because I really

didn't want to go back but I was just

drawn and and so there are a lot of

factors behind it when you're not

singing when you're not consumed by

music and I recognize you are much of

the time what do you like to do you said

you like to travel you'd like to drive

around what else do you like to do well

I'm a terrible sort of

hack tennis player I love playing tennis

I mean doubles these days of course

let's running around but I mean uh yeah

that and I play five aside soccer on a

Wednesday night in the village where I

live and um yeah well I try and find my

family you know and you look after the

kids and then you got to find them

later um because I live sort of maybe 8

n miles from where I went to school I I

mean there's a very comfortable

and humorous rapport with my all my

neighbors and friends it's a it's a good

life I notice that you always referred

to England or Great Britain and when you

spoke of going home before you're

talking about going to Wales right the

Welsh borders yeah what is there about

Wales I mean obviously there's always

the magnet of home there's the Drone of

home but what particularly about Wales

you talked about Austin and your

experience in America what is I could

never have been a Texan it was too late

I was it was too late down the line and

I can't be well sure maybe even English

really I'm just a guy who lives in in

those islands but when I was a kid as my

father hauled us out of that

gray we spent a lot of time he had a car

that was held together by wire and

welding and we used to always go out

into the Welsh Hills exploring castles

and church churches and I was completely

enamored by this fact that 500 years

earlier than these days in the in the

1950s there were Welsh princes there was

a culture that not only still has its

own language but it had its entirely its

own culture and its own history and its

own stories and its own links and its

own Legends and

its determination to be independ

dependent from the German English you

know they're still at hangover because

the

English were an invading force in

Britain and as a sort

of sort of I guess um amate a historian

I was always very interested in the way

that it

worked the fact that it's still not in

that

song uh about a wall and not a fence it

talks about the English and the Scottish

and the Irish and the Welsh it's I mean

really you know there's no distance in

between people there's never any

distance but there's a million miles of

distance and it's inherent it's a shame

but it's a fact and so Wales is always

intrigued me because it's a it is a

definitely a land of of mystery which

has been dwarfed really by contemporary

travel and by every single communication

and every single chain of

stores restaurants supermarkets the

whole thing has now become one great big

you know blob oh but it does have

this Mystic past if you

will maybe this too far a stretch I want

to ask you that some of Leed Zeppelin's

music and some of your own music has

been suggested to me has some mysticism

about it is that connected to what

you're talking about with the history

and the if you will magical stories

about

the Wales have fast yeah I think so not

that I know anything particularly

specific about anything but that it's

there and it's still there in the spirit

of the people too that the knowing that

it's that they're different and that

it's a different story I can't put my

finger on it and as you can if you were

to ever troll these songs I touch on it

I talk about Seasons I talk about

landscape I think if you're

if you're the 15th generation of people

from the same place there are certain

places that you would go which are

really special and you don't even know

why I think that's

beautiful I agree and now we're getting

down to something where where I hoped

we'd

be when you talk about Wales and Welch

history your eyes get a far away look

it's don't know what the soldiers call a

500 or th000 yard stair

that leades the question Robert I mean

everybody knows who you are publicly who

are you as a person as a man who are

you uh how many weeks have I got to try

and figure out how to begin to say I

can't analyze or or summarize myself

really I think I'm first of all I'm a

I'm a very fortunate character who's

been I've been given a lot of gifts none

of all of them are

evident but to inquire to have Avid

interest in the time and space in which

you live and to cherish

it and maybe that's because I lost my

boy maybe that was the kind of the

Gateway into manhood because then I had

to have real

shoulders there was no more you know the

kind of tea dance finished really and um

so who I am I suppose I'm a bunch of

reson

resonances from all the things that have

happened to me and at the back of it all

the kind of buffer that keeps me

okay is all that

abstract stuff that makes my songs come

to life and makes my life like it is I

mean I don't make these songs up as if I

don't know who I'm singing about you

know and they're not prolific and

profound really they're just meanderings

from a guy who's got his eyes open