Has any of this kind of material been lost over the years?
Yes. I had a home demo of The Rain Song (from Houses Of The Holy). but unfortunately the tapes have been lost. Which is a real bastard.
**Was this a fully formed version of the song?**
Yes. I literally had the full piece from beginning to end. I had the Mellotron idea and everything on it. But the version of The Rain Song on the new companion disk is a really cool one. It's got less piano on it, so you get more of the guitar textures. I really like the version that we did on (1976 live album) The Song Remains The Same. I thought we were working it really well. These songs, you see, they're recorded and they come out on an album, and then they were included in the live set, and they would start to mutate. That was what was so good about it. So the live version on The Song Remains The Same is quite different to how it is on the studio version.
**Does that explain why Led Zeppelin was a one-band bootleg industry?**
At one point I think it was (laughs). But that's the thing with doing concerts differently every night, you see.
Have you discovered any new recordings since completing the box-sets project?
I recently found a really early [personal demo] tape that had been missing for a long while, but it's got the full orchestration of "Rain Song." It goes all through to the very end, the same way that you know it, even with the bit in the middle where it goes a bit heavier, before it goes back the the light and caressing parts. It's all in there, the Mellotron and everything. And it's not played as well, like the John Paul Jones version, because I knew he could do a really good job on it. But it''s there, every part of it, every phrase is there, slightly different. And then you hear things that didn't get used.
Having listened to this remarkable Rain Song demo a bunch of times now, I'm curious about the Mellotron part. As he states in the above post "‘The Seasons’ was a memo to myself as a reminder of the sequence of the song and various ideas I’d had for it in its embryonic stage. I’d worked on it over one evening at home." The demo sounds like at least 4 guitar overdubs plus Mellotron and appears similar as we would come to know the final version. It just seems a bit out of place compared to other rough guitar demos and things we've heard in the past?
Curious if Jimmy ever mentioned having a Mellotron at home in 1972 or playing any keyboards back then, other than the above interview? As he says, "not played as well, like JPJ version" but it sounds competent for a quick demo one night at home for someone who didn't play keyboards. I know there's some rough dabbling on Mellotron on the Lucifer Rising soundtrack a bit later around 1974 and the Arp synthesizer.
Houses of the Holy 50th anniversary, JP Posts rare Rain Song demo
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Having listened to this remarkable Rain Song demo a bunch of times now, I'm curious about the Mellotron part. As he states in the above post "‘The Seasons’ was a memo to myself as a reminder of the sequence of the song and various ideas I’d had for it in its embryonic stage. I’d worked on it over one evening at home." The demo sounds like at least 4 guitar overdubs plus Mellotron and appears similar as we would come to know the final version. It just seems a bit out of place compared to other rough guitar demos and things we've heard in the past?
Curious if Jimmy ever mentioned having a Mellotron at home in 1972 or playing any keyboards back then, other than the above interview? As he says, "not played as well, like JPJ version" but it sounds competent for a quick demo one night at home for someone who didn't play keyboards. I know there's some rough dabbling on Mellotron on the Lucifer Rising soundtrack a bit later around 1974 and the Arp synthesizer.