Who Is Still Alive From Led Zeppelin & What Are They Doing Now?
Fifty-six years after forming — and 55 years after their breakthrough single, “Whole Lotta Love,” which was released on Nov. 7, 1969 — Led Zeppelin remain one of the most popular bands of all time. Spawned from the ashes of the Yardbirds, Zeppelin are credited with inventing hard rock, creating a sound that built around Robert Plant’s soaring vocals and Jimmy Page’s guitar mastery that would be imitated by almost every heavy band for the next half-century.
Page founded Led Zeppelin after the Yardbirds split up while still contracted to play a number of shows. Page’s attempts to quickly throw together a new band to play those shows connected him with Plant and John Bonham, both former members of the group Band of Joy, as well as session musician John Paul Jones.
Calling themselves called the New Yardbirds, the group found that they had immediate, powerful musical chemistry. Over the course of five quick months, they went from having their first jam session to changing their name and releasing Led Zeppelin I in January 1969. The band had a decade of rock ‘n’ roll dominance before disbanding in 1980, months after the tragic death of drummer John Bonham.
Forty-four years later, all the remaining band members are still alive — and many are still actively making new music. All three surviving members were interviewed extensively for the upcoming documentary Becoming Led Zeppelin, which will be released in North America at an unspecified future date.
So what are Led Zeppelin up to today?
Jimmy Page (80)
In the years immediately following Led Zeppelin’s dissolution, Page played one-off shows, backed up musicians like Roy Harper and wrote the soundtrack to 1982’s Death Wish II. In 1984, he reunited with Plant as part of the Honeydrippers, Plant’s R&B covers supergroup (other members include Nile Rodgers and Jeff Beck).
That same year, he formed the Firm with Paul Rodgers of Free and Bad Company. Planned as a short-term collaboration, the band released albums in 1985 and 1986 and then broke up. Page released his first solo album, Outrider, in 1988, and collaborated with Whitesnake’s David Coverdale for 1993’s Coverdale-Page.
Page and the remaining members of Led Zeppelin had reunited periodically throughout the ’80s and ’90s, primarily for charity or special events. In 1994, Page and Plant more formally reunited for an MTV Unplugged performance, which later made up part of the material included on their album No Quarter. The pair toured to support the album, releasing a second collaborative record, Walking Into Clarksdale, in 1998.
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Page collaborated with a number of younger artists in the late ’90s, including Fred Durst and the Black Crowes, who recorded the 2000 live album Live at the Greek with Page. This would be Page’s final album (aside from a 2012 release of a soundtrack he recorded in the ’70s).
In 2007, Page, Plant and Jones reunited for a charity concert at London’s O2 Arena, with Jason Bonham on drums. The next year, he played “Whole Lotta Love” during the opening ceremony of London’s 2008 Summer Olympics.
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He produced and starred in the 2009 documentary It Might Get Loud, which followed Page, The Edge and Jack White, examining each of their guitar-playing styles. The entire band received the Kennedy Center Honors in 2012.
Today, Page lives in London, with his longtime girlfriend, poet Scarlett Sabet, 34.
Robert Plant (76)
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Plant kicked off his long solo career in 1982 with Pictures at Eleven. Plant released six solo albums between 1982 and 1993, as well as the Honeydrippers album, which reunited him with Page and Jones. After appearing on Page’s 1988 album Outrider, he and Page formally joined forces for Page and Plant, a project that released two albums and toured extensively between 1994 and 1998.
But while the ’80s and ’90s were about solo work or reconnecting with former bandmates, the new millennium revealed that Plant had a new interest: forming bands. Over the course of the first decade of the 21st century, Plant developed three new collaborations, all of which explored his passion for bluegrass, folks and Americana music.
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The first, folk-blues band Strange Sensation, were founded in 2001 and would go on to release two Grammy-nominated albums. In 2006, he would begin his folk/Americana music collaboration with bluegrass singer Alison Krauss, releasing the duets album Raising Sand in 2007. The album was one of the greatest success’s of Plant’s post-Zeppelin career, winning five Grammys including Album of the Year and going platinum.
In 2010, he started a new band with his old band’s name — Band of Joy. But while the first Band of Joy was a London rock band in the swingin’ ’60s, the new Band of Joy was an Americana outfit that included folk singer Patty Griffin (she and Plant went on to date from 2011 to 2014). He recruited bandmates from Strange Sensation to form the Sensational Space Shifters, who backed him on his 2014 solo album Lullaby and … the Ceaseless Roar.
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Plant and the remaining members of Zeppelin reunited for a show honoring Atlantic Records’ Ahmet Ertegun in 2007; afterward, waving off speculation of a Led Zeppelin reunion became nearly a full-time job for Plant. He shot down rumors of a reunion tour repeatedly, sometimes exchanging heated words with Page (who was eager for a reunion) in the press.
In 2021, he and Krauss released another collaborative album, Raise the Roof. He founded the band Saving Grace in 2019 and still plays with them today. He resides in a village in a rural area of Worchestershire, U.K.
John Paul Jones (78)
An accomplished session musician before he joined Zeppelin, Jones returned to the trade after the band broke up, playing on albums from Paul McCartney’s 1984 Give My Regards to Broad Street to 2005’s In Your Honor by the Foo Fighters. He also expanded his studio work, providing orchestral arrangements for R.E.M.’s 1992 album Automatic for the People. In 1995, he began his career as a producer with Heart’s album, The Road Home.
Jones is notable among Led Zeppelin members for his work with bands from the next generations — beyond R.E.M. and the Foo Fighters, he has produced albums for the Datsuns and played in Them Crooked Vultures, a supergroup featuring him alongside Queens of the Stone Age’s Josh Homme and Dave Grohl.
Photo by Jeff Kravitz/FilmMagic, Inc
He is also notable for his interest in avant-garde music, starting in 1994, when he released the collaborative album The Sporting Life with experimental musician Diamanda Galas. In the decades since, he’s periodically worked on “noise” music with bands like Sonic Youth. In 2019, he formed the extremely experimental band Sons of Chipotle, which you can check out here if you dare.
Jones is still married to Maureen Hegarty, whom he wed two years before he joined Led Zeppelin; the couple raised three daughters and live in London today.
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1974 (50 Years Ago)
January 2024
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