Random Infamous Stories From Led Zeppelin's Heyday Most Fans Don't Talk About (16 items)

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  (#1) Jimmy Page Donned A Nazi Uniform While Doing Drugs With Drag Queens

  Jimmy Page is a weird guy. To some extent, he has the right to be - he's one of the best guitarists of all time. So when you read a story about him dressing up in full Nazi SS gear, you kind of shrug your shoulders for a second before doing a double-take on the words "full Nazi SS gear."

  According to Pamela Des Barres, the band's favorite groupie, in each city the band visited in the mid-'70s, Jimmy Page allegedly donned full SS regalia and found the nearest drag club, where he did heroin with the performers in the bathroom. 
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  (#2) Kenneth Anger Cursed Jimmy Page After A Falling Out Over 'Lucifer Rising'

  In 1973, iconoclastic filmmaker and alleged magus, Kenneth Anger met Jimmy Page at a Sotheby's auction. They were both bidding on an Aleister Crowley manuscript, and immediately bonded over their love of the writer's work. 

  At the time of their meeting, Anger had been working on the short film Lucifer Rising since 1966 and was in need of music. He asked Page to compose some, and Page agreed. Anger then moved into Page's Boleskine House in Scotland (formerly owned by Crowley), and by some accounts, Page lent Anger editing equipment for use on the film. 

  Page wrote 20 or so minutes of (extremely far out, kind of mind-blowing) music for the film, but Anger wanted 40 minutes worth. Before Page could deliver more, the two had a major falling out over the score and because, according to Anger, Page's girlfriend, Charlotte Martin, kicked him out of the basement of Page's house after an argument. 

  Years later, Anger recalled:

  So Jimmy Page did some music instead. He's a miser, which is a horrible thing. He wouldn't even pay for lunch. So I said: "Isn't it preposterous that you're so cheap?" And that of course insulted him. He was on heroin all the time – I hate all those druggies because their eyes get glazed and what they say is meaningless because they don't follow through. I said: 'OK, Jimmy, I need exactly 40 minutes.' But he only gave me 20. I said: "What am I supposed to do, play it twice? I need 40 minutes! I need a climax! Like, [the film] is the end and the beginning of the world – you've gotta give me that big music!"

  After the falling out, Anger publicly cursed Page and Martin. Some attribute the string of bad luck that befell Robert Plant in the mid-1970s to this curse. According to Anger:

  He’s a multi-millionaire miser. He and Charlotte, that horrible vampire girl... They had so many servants, yet they would never offer me a cup of tea or a sandwich. Which is such a mistake on their part because I put the curse of king Midas on them. If you’re greedy and just amass gold you’ll get an illness. So I did turn her and Jimmy Page into statues of gold because they’ve both lost their minds. He can’t write songs anymore.
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  (#3) Page Was So Obsessed With Aleister Crowley, He Bought His House in Scotland - Then Got Freaked Out And Stopped Going

  Jimmy Page's fascination with British mystic and occult legend Aleister Crowley, once called "the wickedest man in the world," is apparent in the symbols used on Zeppelin's album artwork, and manifests itself in Page's spending habits. He collected countless books and manuscripts by Crowley, including unpublished works and those inscribed by Crowley himself. 

  In 1970, Page bought Boleskine House, a remote manor in the Scottish highlands once owned by Crowley, which was at one point dubbed “the most notorious home in the Highlands.” Crowley is said to have performed all kinds of black magic and occult rituals at the home, which he bought specifically for that purpose. One of these rites was disrupted, which supposedly caused serious unrest in the area. 

  ...the spirits he summoned got out of hand, causing one housemaid to leave, and a workman to go mad. He also insinuates he was indirectly responsible for a local butcher accidentally severing an artery and bleeding to death. Crowley had written the names of some demons on a bill from the butcher’s shop.

  After a few trips to Boleskine in the early '70s, Page stopped going to the house. He spoke of "bad vibes," and claimed to have heard the severed head of a ghost - perhaps Simon Fraser, 11th Lord Lovat - rolling around the floors at night. Page asked childhood friend Malcolm Dent to look after the house for him; Dent did, living there with his wife, raising his children in the home until Page sold it in the 1990s. 

  Dent claimed to have experienced strange goings on, as well:

  Doors would be slamming all night, you’d go into a room and carpets and rugs would be piled up. We just used to say that was Aleister doing his thing.

  In 2015, most of the manor was destroyed by a massive fire. 
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  (#4) The Band Once Used Pieces Of Shark In A Sex Act

  One of the most infamous tales of depravity in the annals of rock and roll involves Led Zeppelin, a shark, and a groupie. As legend has it, after a performance at the Seattle Pop Festival in July 1969, the band retired to the Edgewater Inn - a hotel that sits above Seattle's Puget Sound. The Inn's scenic placement allows guests to fish right off their rooms' balconies, which the band did, reeling in a mud shark.

  Later that same evening, the room was besieged with groupies (as was usually the case), and the band thought they'd try something... adventurous. Allegedly, one young woman was tied down while pieces of shark were put inside of her in an unusual sexual act.

  The story has never been outright denied, and it's sometimes attributed to the band Vanilla Fudge. The form of the fish occasionally changes to a swordfish or red snapper, meanwhile, and whether the groupie consented has never been clear.
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  (#5) Jimmy Page Supposedly Worshipped The Devil

  Long before the Satanic Panic was tied to heavy metal in the late '70s and early '80s, Led Zeppelin's Jimmy Page was deeply into the world of the Dark Lord during Led Zeppelin's meteoric rise in the late '60s.

  While Page never explicitly came out as a Satanist, telling Rolling Stone, "I don't really want to go on about my personal beliefs or my involvement in magic," (well, that clears things up), he did have an obsession with Aleister Crowley, an English occultist who called himself “the Great Beast 666."
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  (#6) Jimmy Page Dated A 14-Year-Old Girl - Who David Bowie Was Already Involved With

  In Los Angeles in the early 1970s, Jimmy Page apparently became quite taken with a young groupie named Lori Maddox. While staying at the famed Hyatt House (nicknamed the "Riot House" for the legendary rock star parties it held) in Hollywood, Page sent one of the band's roadies to escort Maddox to his room. She was just 14 years old. 

  That fateful evening kicked off an affair that lasted several years, and - being he was a huge celebrity and it was the '70s - Page didn't really face any legal repercussions for statutory rape. What's more, Maddox was allegedly dating David Bowie at the time, implicating him in the scandal, as well.
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  (#7) The Nightmare 1977 US Tour Featured Riots And Beatings

  Led Zeppelin's 1977 tour was many things - a watershed moment in over-the-top stadium tours; a huge financial success; a statement of Zeppelin's overwhelming commercial might and dominance of rock music; and a violent and tumultuous nightmare. 

  The tour was the band's first since vocalist Robert Plant broke a number of bones in a car accident while on holiday after the release of Physical Graffiti. It all went wrong from the get-go; Plant came down with laryngitis, postponing the start of the tour. And the band had already shipped its instruments to the US, leaving them without equipment for over a month - Jimmy Page didn't play guitar at all in that time. 

  In April 1977, violence erupted at Cincinnati Riverfront Coliseum, where fans without tickets rushed the gate and threw bottles and rocks through windows to crash the show. In June, at a show in Tampa, FL, a thunderstorm cut short a show, leading to rioting fans, 19 arrests, and more than 50 injuries. During a show in Chicago, Jimmy Page became violently ill.

  The paramount instance of insanity went down in Oakland, CA, and was exacerbated by Zeppelin manager Peter Grant's decision to hire criminals as security. The story goes something like this: a guy named Jim Matzorkis, who worked security for concert promoter Bill Graham, smacked around Peter Grant's 11-year-old son. Grant and another security guard/criminal, John Bindon, then went to a security trailer, found Matzorkis, and beat the crap out of him. 

  According to Zep tour manager Richard Cole:

  When the band came off the stage, Peter went after the guy with Johnny Bindon. I was outside the caravan with an iron bar, making sure no one could get in and get hold of them, because people were after Granty and Bindon then.
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  (#8) Robert Plant's Son Died Extremely Suddenly While Zeppelin Was In The US

  In July 1977, immediately following a violent incident involving the band's manager and security in Oakland, CA, Led Zeppelin made its way to New Orleans. There, vocalist Robert Plant received two phone calls about his 5-year-old son, Karac, who was suddenly stricken with a grave stomach infection. 

  As tour manager Richard Cole recalled, “The first phone call said his son was sick. And the second phone call, unfortunately, Karac had died in that time.”

  The band immediately canceled the remainder of the tour, and Plant returned to England to be with his wife, Maureen, and their daughter, Carmen. As Plant's father said when interviewed in 1977, "Karac was the apple of Robert's eye. They idolized one another."

  Plant retreated from the band to deal with the tragedy. He later said, “After the death of my son Karac in 1977, I received a lot of support from [Bonham], and I went through the mill because the media turned on the whole thing and made it even worse." 

  Upon Karac's death, Plant quit all substances cold turkey and considered retiring from music to focus on a career in education. He eventually returned to Zeppelin. 
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  (#9) They Ripped Off A Journalist's Clothes

  The members of Led Zeppelin were, in their heyday, huge rock stars. With that in mind, it's not hard to imagine the wealth of willing groupies they had around them. And yet, the band has a really problematic reputation when it comes to their interactions with women.

  One infamous tale of this abusive behavior involves a reporter from Life magazine who had been sent to profile the band. The boys - possibly soaring on an absurd amounts of drugs - started to harass the woman and allegedly tore off her clothes. The woman began to sob, understandably in fear for her own safety. Luckily, the band's manager, Peter Grant, reportedly came to her aide and pulled the band off her. 
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  (#10) John Bonham Had 40 Shots Of Vodka On The Night Of His Death

  Like the legendarily debauched drummer Keith Moon before him, John Bonham really, really enjoyed drinking. Also like Keith Moon, Bonham died early thanks to his drinking, passing away on September 25th, 1980, at the age of just 32. 

  On the day of his death, Bonham was rehearsing with the band at guitarist Jimmy Page's home in Windsor Berkshire, England, allegedly drinking quadruple vodkas. At some point, Bonham passed out and was unable to wake up when his body began throwing up the alcohol in his system; he passed from choking on his own bile. An autopsy later revealed that, though he had no drugs in his system, he had consumed the equivalent of 40 shots of vodka.
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  (#11) Jimmy Page Greeted Groupies Wearing Nothing But Whipped Cream

  Ever the enterprising lothario, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page has no shortage of crazy sexual tales attached to his name. An instance of him greeting some groupies, however, gets some extra points for creativity. While out on tour - and apparently bored stiff at a hotel - Page and drummer John Bonham were struck with an idea for how to present the in-demand guitarist to a small horde of female fans.

  Page reportedly stripped completely naked and laid down on a room service cart; Bonham then covered him in whipped cream, and assuming the role of bell hop, wheeled him into a room of young women. Whatever happened next was probably really unsanitary.  
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  (#12) Bonham Motorcycled Down The Halls Of The Chateau Marmont

  In what is one of the more memorable scenes in Cameron Crowe's 2000 film Almost Famous (a film based on the exploits of '70s rock hedonists, including Led Zeppelin), a rowdy rock and roller rides a motorcycle through a hotel hallway. While the image evokes an exaggerated idea of rock star excess, it was based on a real event. 

  Drummer and wild man John Bonham is responsible for one of the most famous events in the history of Hollywood's storied hotel, Chateau Marmont. Bonham, as the story goes, rode a motorcycle right through the lobby of the hotel in an insanely bold stunt he would repeat two more times, giving the same treatment to the Continental Hyatt House Hotel and the Andaz West Hollywood. Odds are, the room deposit was a non-issue.
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  (#13) Jimmy Page Had To Be Chained To A Toilet So He Wouldn't Trash His Hotel Room

  Led Zeppelin pretty much invented the whole "rock stars destroying hotel rooms" cliché. They made great music, and were great at vandalism. Like any vice or bad behavior, you can find yourself committing such misdeeds habitually, and apparently Jimmy Page got really into breaking things. Fred Durst would be proud. 

  Page's virtuosic vandalism got to the point where the band's management allegedly had to step in (imagine how far it had to go to get that point), and as the story goes, at one hotel, he had be chained to a toilet so he wouldn't break anything. Page was also supposedly chained to toilets, sometimes with a groupie to keep him company, when he was unable to control his urge to dress as a Nazi and do heroin with drag queens in transvestite bars. 
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  (#14) Robert Plant's 1975 Car Accident Stopped The Physical Graffiti Tour Dead

  In August 1975, while vacationing on the Greek island Rhodes, Robert Plant's wife Maureen lost control of a car, which smashed into a tree. Plant shattered his right leg and broke his elbow and ankle on the same side. Recovery took months, which ended the world tour for Zeppelin's recently released, critical- and fan-favorite Physical Graffiti. and heralded the end of peak Zeppelin. 

  The band's follow up to Physical Graffiti, Presence, suffered delays on account of Plant's accident. The wreck was the first in a series of misfortunes for Plant that ended with the death of his son. 
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  (#15) One TV Out The Window? Try Five If You're Led Zeppelin

  Eight years after the infamous shark incident at Seattle's Edgewater Inn, the band returned to the hotel, somehow skirting their lifetime ban. The hotel's manager, James Blum, hesitantly welcomed the rockers back, but demanded (naively) they be on their best behavior. Obviously, that's not what happened.

  Legend has it, that night the band threw not one television set into the Puget Sound, but five, racking up an obscene amount of room damages. Mr. Blum was rightly furious and charged the band $2,500 for the cost of the TVs, which tour manager Richard Cole gleefully paid. When checking out, Cole was asked by a young hotel clerk: "I’ve heard that Led Zeppelin has a reputation for throwing TVs. But I thought it was BS. Can you tell me, what does it feel like to just toss a TV out of your window?"

  Cole replied, coolly, "Kid, there are some things in life that you’ve got to experience for yourself," as he slid the clerk $500. "Here you go, mate. Go toss a TV courtesy of Led Zeppelin."
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  (#16) Zep Security Man John Bindon Enjoyed Waving His Notoriously Large Drum Stick About

  For its 1977 US tour, Zeppelin brought London underworld figure John Bindon and his brother along as security guards. Jack Calmes, who revolutionized concert sound and lighting systems and worked with Zeppelin frequently, recalled the following: 

  The Bindon brothers were thugs who were friends of Peter Grant’s and were on this whole tour as security guards. And they brought an element of darkness into this thing. The only thing I remember about John Bindon is that we were in The Roxy [in Los Angeles, prior to the Oakland shows] and he was in the back corner with Zeppelin, and he had his d*ck out, swinging it for a crowd of about 50 people that could see it [Bindon was famously well-endowed]. And John Bindon later stabbed this guy through the heart [he was acquitted of murder in ’79]; it sounds like something out of a blues song.

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