It must have been a bit intimidating, then, to try to start your own career after Led Zeppelin disbanded in 1980. What was that first gig as a solo artist like for you?

It was 1982, Peoria, Ill. That afternoon, one of my best friends was with me. I was really emotional and I was hopping up and down and pacing around. So he took me to one of the most dreary shopping malls I've ever been to in my life and we walked round and round pretending to be interested in this sort of rubbish that was on sale, just to try to keep me moving and keep my head off the concert.

I mean, in those days, Led Zeppelin wasn't that legendary, though I guess it was, but it also was still alive. In one way, I thought maybe I shouldn't do this -- I should just quit because nothing could be like that. But on the other hand, the great challenge was it's never going to be like that so what's this new thing going to be like? I knew that I had to forge on but there were mixed emotions.

I walked onto the stage and we started into "Burning Down One Side," which is the opening track on "Pictures at Eleven" (1982). I was reduced to the size of a mouse. I was absolutely drowned because the response from the audience was so amazing. And it was such an emotional thing to be there without my mates from Led Zeppelin, without that security blanket of belonging with the boys. I was just standing there alone and it was a brave new world and ... I mean it's ridiculous because I was 32 years old; I mean I wasn't a baby. But I guess by contemporary standards I'd had two whole careers by then, the pre-Zeppelin and Zeppelin eras, and now I was embarking on a third one. And it was quite something, yeah.

There's one thing that I've noticed about your music during the years since Zeppelin, and that's a sort of transparency, where more and more you can really hear what musical roots you're drawing from.

Well, I don't know really. That's a matter for you, for everybody -- it's personal opinion. I mean an album like "Manic Nirvana" (1990), which was -- I'd say is -- incredibly brittle and precocious, and risqué with so much humor in it, you know? But you could see through it all, and you can see the different layers of music, you could go past the Wavy Gravy and into a kind of dreamscape of the post-Woodstock period.

That's what my music has become, even more so now with "Mighty Rearranger" (2005), where one part of the song is beckoning you towards the Sahara, while another part is taking you to San Francisco in '67. It's quite detailed. And everybody says to me, "Hey man, next album you've got to keep it really simple." 

So it sounds big and strong and powerful and has a relationship with Led Zeppelin -- there's a lot of stuff that's African-based and Mississippi-based. But the method and the means are quite different.

The process of creativity in this contemporary world means that we can do things on the fly, on the run. We don't need a studio -- just somebody's garage. We can bounce tracks, we have a laptop and two mikes and that's how we got the drum sound on three of the tracks on that album. It's back to the time of Gary "U.S." Bonds again, you know.

Another part of that process today is sampling, and I've always loved how you used Zeppelin samples on "Tall Cool One", with Jimmy Page. Was he into that -- and your other music? Did he have any comments?

Not unless I went out and fished for them. I know that he was very dubious when I started sampling Led Zeppelin, but I said, 'Look, you know, if the Beastie Boys can do it, I guess everybody can do it,' you know? And he did play with me on "Now and Zen" -- his performance and presence on those two tracks ("Tall Call One," "Heaven Knows") in the midst of that kind of techno outrage was a long way from our sort of organic Led Zeppelin root. I think he really enjoyed it.

I mean we did spend quite a bit of time in between "Manic Nirvana" and "Fate of Nations" working together, but it was quite evident that we definitely had gone into different areas. And I like to do what I like to do at a certain tempo. Jimmy moves at a totally different speed and tempo. I mean I don't have the musicality or the skill, but I have a lot of energy.

I've always wondered about that rate of creativity, of producing songs. It seems as if you and Page were constantly creating in Led Zeppelin.

That was just Led Zeppelin, yeah, and sometimes not much of that. But then when it was hot, when it was on ... I mean we were young men, barely anything more than boys really. I was 19 when I met Jimmy, and 20 when I persuaded Bonzo to come with us from the Band of Joy. We were young and we had energy and it wasn't about material success; it was about creative rebirth and not hanging on to one or two plots and sticking with it.

Two more questions about Led Zeppelin: If you had to choose one tune that truly revealed what the band was about, which would you choose?

Wow. Well, I think "The Ocean" would be a great track because it has the kind of uniqueness of the rhythm section, of Bonzo and Jonesy. It has a hugely powerful riff, and it has a kind of a bleak, winsome vocal that talks about bringing people together. It's not quite Jesse Colin Young, but it's cool ... 

But on the other hand, I guess you could say that if you wanted to know about the full sovereignty of Led Zeppelin, it'd have to be "Kashmir" for obvious reasons because it's just so big and proud. It doesn't care about whatever terms may be used later on to describe it. Because when you write and you record, you do it in the present tense, you do it for now.

If ever people complained about the bombast of Led Zeppelin, who cares? I mean nobody could write a song like that, with the kind of background that Jimmy and I had through our travels in Morocco and the Atlas Mountains? It was so much of actually being exposed to those cultures and yet: it ... was ... rock.

I like that lack of apology or explanation ...

Well, it only became unapologetic later on when we could look back and dissect it. But at the time, "Kashmir" was just what it was. It was part of "Physical Graffiti," which was a bunch of songs which we came upon with enthusiasm and zest and great power and we didn't think about whether it was even going to be considered six months later.

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