So how does it feel to take it all in -- you know: the synthesizers in the '80s, the '50s revival with the Honeydrippers, reuniting with Jimmy Page ... 

I'm quite amazed by it really. I had romances with different technologies, with different sonic nuances and the whole idea of contemporary sounds in each era. I can hear the different ways that we were looking at the studio and the tools that we had to make those sounds. Some of it definitely has a time about it. You can read in the [liner] notes -- I say that every collection of songs should be looked at for what they were amongst everything else that was going on.

I mean it's like it's nine different moments of great power and thrust -- sometimes understated, sometimes blasé, sometimes coquettish. Everything was new every time.

That's true -- over the years you never really locked in to a definitive Robert Plant sound, or created a Robert Plant band.

I look at it with amazement because I was left entirely to my own devices bringing in friends and new musicians and engineers and new environments like some kind of panacea or tonic. I mean, from where it began recording in 1981 to where it is in 2006, it's all so varied. I didn't ever want to get one sort of signature tune, signature mark sonically or vocally and just hang onto it. I wanted to keep moving around. The journeys are quite spectacular.

I have to surprise myself, I have to try and push myself into an area where I'm a little unsure, take myself out of character and surprise myself.

So you would explore one musical direction for a while, then move on to another?

I wouldn't say that. I'm precocious and I have two or three things that are moving at the same time. I like the idea of rushing into things and keeping various plates up in the air and keeping an energy level going, so that if only 40 percent of it becomes tangible that's OK. And then I suddenly throw my hands up in the air and scream "I can't do this!" I come from a very strong and demonstrative lineage, as well as coming from the land of ice and snow [laughs].

Led Zeppelin really had only one "pop" Top 10 hit -- "Whole Lotta Love" -- and you had a few as a solo artist, like the remake of "Sea of Love" with the Honeydrippers. Were you more motivated that way with your solo recordings?

I think as far as going for the commercial jugular -- trying to write hits and get big radio -- that's not a successful way of doing it. Even with Led Zeppelin, it was not just based on monetary gain, it was based on feeding the soul. That's what the whole deal is about for me continuing. I may be a shadow really of what that great thing was but I'm very confident and focused in the way I go about it.

Journalists get to play the game of naming styles or putting artists into categories. If you had to choose a name for where your music has been over the past 25 years, what would it be? How would you describe the progress you've made?

I suppose "Off-road" -- taking any terrain. My music has always been in the shadow of the great music of Led Zeppelin, but it's also always been kind of been apart from the Honeydrippers, which was a kind of a done deal stylistically, it does go off-road. The music that we're making now sounds as if it's just crawled out of the Sahara and crashed through, onto a kind of a grunge, hip-hop dance floor. Yeah, music for all terrains I guess. It's four by four. [laughs]

Over time I grew much more focused and rounded and stated and opinionated. My lyrical capacity improved, my opinions became more focused. I began to leave Dion and the Belmonts behind and the whole 'baby baby' bit -- which doesn't mean after a couple of gin-and-tonics that doesn't come back.

I guess that, from the inception, from the beginning of my own solo career in 1966, pre-Led Zeppelin, all I wanted to do was to try and emulate a black sound. My very first single on CBS was a Rascals track called "You Better Run" [included on Plant's two-disc, best-of "Sixty-Six to Timbuktu" collection]. By "black", I mean the pastiche of '50s stuff: my record collection and, like you have here -- the whole CBS-FM on a Friday night, the "Doo Wop Shop," all that stuff. I knew all about that and that was going into character. And all the way through Led Zeppelin I was trying to develop a style which was part black, and influenced by my record collection, and looking at the music of the American youth.

When Led Zeppelin was no more I was very powered and determined that I must make a new stand and continue this process of constantly changing -- which I think was very evident in Led Zeppelin -- and of enjoying my whim and letting fate and a little bit of creativity lead me wherever I'm going to go for the rest of my career. If it is a career.

One more question about the box set -- looking over all nine discs, is there a song that plays a pivotal role for you -- that captures your coming into your own as a solo artist?

I think "Fate of Nations" [1993] was a major turning point for a number of reasons. I was writing stuff like "Network News" and "The Greatest Gift" and "Great Spirit" -- there were other adventures back down the line, but they were just not as evocative about personal discovery. By the time of "Fate of Nations," I wasn't missing any beats at all with what was going on around me.

My singing on the album is quite emotive and rather like my vocals on the "Rain Song" with Zeppelin, or "All of My Love" or even "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You." I felt my vocal deliveries were never the less and always were charged.

I also became more capable of explaining that I needed this color or that color for a song, and suddenly I felt encouraged by the producer and the record company to bring in people for particular roles and I'd never done that before. Richard Thompson arrived, whose guitar playing I always respected but I could never see fitting in with the way I project. But it worked, amazingly. And then I had a hurdy-gurdy player, Nigel Eaton, and the girl from Clannad [lead singer Maire], Moya Brennan, arrived. And Nigel Kennedy, who is the crème de la crème of solo violinists worldwide, came in about two hours after a group of Indian classical violinists, who were sitting cross-legged on the floor looking very serene and otherworldly, but they couldn't get the parts right. So he came in and nailed all the violin parts and harmonies!

With that record, I didn't feel any longer that I had to be responsible for the emotions of the musicians around me. I could really pick and choose. Other people do it from day one, but I've always felt a loyalty and obligation to the people that I work with as if it must always be like that. Coming from Led Zeppelin, there were only four of us and, despite our comings and goings, there were only ever going to be four of us. So every time I had a band I kept thinking it's forever, you know?

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