kenog Posted February 10, 2012 Share Posted February 10, 2012 Why The Yes And Led Zeppelin Supergroup Did Not Happen by Paul Cashmere on February 10, 2012 The shortlived Yes and Led Zeppelin supergroup XYZ never got off the ground because it was the wrong timing for Robert Plant. XYZ stood for ex-Yes and Zeppelin. The band featured Yes’ Chris Squire on bass and Alan White on drums as well as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page on guitar. The three recorded the demo tracks for a possible album in the early 80s. All they needed next was to lay down the vocals from Robert Plant. “Robert Plant was going to come in and join with us and do the singing at some point but it was really a bit too soon after John Bonham departed this world for Robert to get back into it. That is why it didn’t come together,” Chris Squire told Noise11.com. Over the years some of the demo tracks have been leaked and some have made their way online. “You can find them on YouTube,” Chris says. “They were only demos. Nothing was ever finished but somehow they got snuck out of the studio by some engineer or somebody at some point. They are not finished demos if you track them down. They are quite exciting. It is worth having a look for them if you are interested”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rock Historian Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Why The Yes And Led Zeppelin Supergroup Did Not Happen by Paul Cashmere on February 10, 2012 The shortlived Yes and Led Zeppelin supergroup XYZ never got off the ground because it was the wrong timing for Robert Plant. XYZ stood for ex-Yes and Zeppelin. The band featured Yes’ Chris Squire on bass and Alan White on drums as well as Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page on guitar. The three recorded the demo tracks for a possible album in the early 80s. All they needed next was to lay down the vocals from Robert Plant. “Robert Plant was going to come in and join with us and do the singing at some point but it was really a bit too soon after John Bonham departed this world for Robert to get back into it. That is why it didn’t come together,” Chris Squire told Noise11.com. Over the years some of the demo tracks have been leaked and some have made their way online. “You can find them on YouTube,” Chris says. “They were only demos. Nothing was ever finished but somehow they got snuck out of the studio by some engineer or somebody at some point. They are not finished demos if you track them down. They are quite exciting. It is worth having a look for them if you are interested”. I've got this "collection" of songs on a disk released from Midas Touch along with some Robert Plant rehearsals from 1985-included. The XYZ stuff is interesting, and I really like to listen to it from time to time. It's got a very mysterious and dark sound to it. Maybe it's just the thought of what it could have been. I read in an interview with Squire, where he mentioned that Plant wasn't too keen on the whole progressive rock thing, and felt some of the songs were too complicated for his taste. Also, I think Page was still semi -recovering or maybe even still in his addiction stage. Different sources say different things. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazedcat Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Plant was smart to stay away from this, the pressure would have been enormous. I doubt it would have lasted more than a couple of albums anyway, that's usually the shelf life of any "super group". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rock Historian Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 ^Yes, it would have been a great deal of pressure coming soon off the Zeppelin demise and getting right back into the swing of things with the hype of such a project-that could have played a part in his decision too. Who knows. I just think the demos are damn cool! I think there's another thread on XYZ, so maybe it's proper to redirect it all there..... Here's my favorite from the bunch: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dazedcat Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 Why? Because based on those demos, the group wouldn't have been super. Not at all. It's not easy at times to listen to a demo and tell if there's anything worthy or not there, but I agree with you. I don't hear much of anything worthy either. I realize it's Jimmy Page playing and I also realize what website I'm on but..........well as I said, Plant did the right thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chicago Posted February 11, 2012 Share Posted February 11, 2012 It's never been stated as fact that Robert was asked to participate in the XYZ project. Jimmy Page's guitar tech from that era, Tim Marten expresses the opposite in Dave Lewis' recent book Feather in the Wind. Q: Jimmy worked with Chris Squire and Alan White in 1981- how far did that project get to becoming a full-fledged band? TM: It was an exciting project that we were all sworn to secrecy on. It's probably the best album that never got released. They were going along really well- Chris knitted together with Jimmy and I, everyone was up for it, but something happened over contracts and it never happened. I don't know quite what it was. It was a shame really, as it could have been really good. Robert wasn't involved in that-it was never going to be something Robert sang on but they were all keen to take it further. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rock Historian Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 XYZ Interview with Alan White 1993 by Mike Tiano of the Yes mailing list Q: One of the less known periods in your career was your involvement with XYZ. Yourself, Chris and Jimmy Page. How did you and Chris link up with him? AW: I met Jimmy quite a few times because he lived pretty close to Chris, he lived in the same area. We used to meet at parties in London and all that kind of stuff and basically Chris called me on day and said," Jimmy wants to go and play in the studio kind of thing", so we all just turned up one day and started playing and it started sounding pretty good. We got the engineer in there and they started putting down the XYZ tapes as it were.. Quite a lot of it was stuff that I'd been writing with Chris and we had, I think it was like four, five, six songs. I don't know if that's out in the black market yet. Q: I don't think so...I've never heard of them-- AW: I think the only two cassettes that exist is, that outside of the master tapes, is I've got one and Chris has got one, but Chris says he can't find his now, but I do have a copy of it at home. Q: Do you think that the band had real potential? AW: Oh, it was sounding pretty good, there was some interesting music. It was really different, it was like Zeppelin meets Yes kind of stuff, it was real odd. Q: Was it always a trio or was Robert Plant ever involved at any point? AW: It was a trio, and Jimmy kept calling Robert saying how great is was and he should get involved but Robert thought (the music) was too complicated. He came and listened to it and I think he thought it was too complicated; or else there could have been the kind of a Yes Zeppelin band at that time. I think that kind of either frightened a lot of people off at that time or it was a too-good-to-be-true kind of thing. But the management thing got involved and they really screwed it up and it just all went haywire, that's what really dissipated the whole thing. Q: So it was the management, or was the band behind it as well? AW: Pretty much the management, but I think Robert was very iffy about it, he thought the music was too complicated, he was more of a rock 'n' roll wailer kind of thing. We were doing things in (taps out five beats)...there's one thing that we did that was kind of a lick that I wrote at home one day it was like almost like a military type thing put in a odd time signature that built up into this really orchestrated kind of piece of music...and it was all in 7/4 time so I think when Robert heard 7/4 it was like, "What am I getting myself into here?" So... Q: That's not rock 'n' roll. -----------------------------------------------------------------------Here is part of a Chris Squire interview talking about the XYZ project back in the early 80's with Page and Plant Q:I understand that "Mind Drive" from Keys 2 is largely based on a piece you and Alan White workedon with Jimmy Page in the early 80s. CS: Uh, yes, that's right. [in a surprised tone of voice] Who told you that? Q:The rumor is that copies of the original version are circulating on Led Zeppelin bootlegs in Japan. CS: So, that original version is out there. Hmm. Yeah, it sounds very similar, apart from the fact that Jimmy Page isn't playing on our version of it. [laughs] But I wrote the thing in the first place ^Ö the chords and everything.Jimmy just played my chords. But I suppose it's interesting to compare the two versions. Q:What can you tell me about the sessions that resulted in it? CS: There was a period when Trevor Horn and Geoff Downes had been in Yes in the 80s. We had done the Drama album and toured America on that, and that's also when John Bonham died around the summer of '80. So, after we got back from touring, Jimmy moved and bought a house in England near the house I was living in. So, we became neighbors and got together. He was obviously pretty depressed about John Bonham's death for awhile, and I kind of helped him out of that by saying "Let's try to do some new music" and that's really what happened. Q:Is it true that you were planning to form a band with Page and Robert Plant called XYZ, standing for "Ex-Yes and Ex-Zeppelin?" CS: Yeah, that's right. It was gonna be myself, Alan White, Jimmy and Robert [Plant]. Page and Plant are of course now playing together, but at the time, Robert wasn't ready to jump back into it. He was feeling the loss and wanted to go his own way. But of course, 18 years later, he's doing what we could have done then. At the time, Yes was in a kind of sabbatical period. [laughs] Geoff Downes and Steve Howe started the Asia project, so Alan and I were gonna work with Jimmy and Robert. But Robert never completed the equation, so that's when we went back into the reformation of Yes with 90125, which was probably the best thing to have done. Q:What was it like to work with Page during that period? CS: Uh, very stony. [laughs] There was a lot of drinking etcetera involved, I remember. Umm, yeah. [laughs and pauses] Let's leave it at that shall we? Read more: http://www.led-zeppelin.org/reference/index.php?m=int34#ixzz1mDjMFfy8 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Melcórë Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 Why? Because based on those demos, the group wouldn't have been super. Not at all. You never know how the songs might have turned out had they actually been fleshed out and not just demoed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rock Historian Posted February 13, 2012 Share Posted February 13, 2012 You never know how the songs might have turned out had they actually been fleshed out and not just demoed. EXACTLY......those demos where just very basic ideas to create a foundation-you can't judge somethings full potential (that never took flight) from that basic output. To me it had potential to be something. - which is irrelevant now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KevJay Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 the track posted doesn;t sound too bad. Is that Squire singing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the chase Posted March 18, 2012 Share Posted March 18, 2012 the track posted doesn;t sound too bad. Is that Squire singing? yes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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