SOUNDS, Interview by John Ingham ~ March 13th 1976
….What
was it then, trying to string a couple of licks together? But the vision of 11
year old Jimmy page playing a cardboard guitar in front of the mirror was not
to be corroborated.
“Yeah,
well, you know…Until suddenly you realize the scope of the thing and what
you’ve got to do to pull it off.”
He
also professes to be “dabbling” with synthesizers, having completed a
soundtrack for Kenneth Anger’s film Lucifer Rising.
Anger,
a noted American experimental film maker who gained notoriety 12 years ago with
a bike film called Scorpio Rising, and more recently with Invocation
Of My Demon Brother, a short, intense, ritualistic film with a jagged,
rough, almost naive synthesizer soundtrack by Mick Jagger that had a quite
disturbing effect, began Lucifer Rising ten years ago. But friend and
confidant Bobby Beauseloil (later a friend of Charlie Manson) stole large
portions of the footage. (What was left eventually became Invocation.)
Now he is shooting it again, a feature length film. With the first 20 minutes
finished, he asked Page for his services.
“With
a synthesizer every instrument is different from what it’s meant to sound like,
which is especially interesting when you get a collage of instruments together
not sounding the way they should and you think, (excited) ‘What’s that?’ That’s
the effect I wanted to get, so you didn’t immediately realize it was five
instruments playing together. Because
Anger’s visuals have a timeless aspect.
“The
important thing with Invocation was that the visuals and music were like
that – ”. He interlocks his hands tightly. “And the music couldn’t
really exist on its own. That’s how I wanted this music to be, but I wanted to
hold up and keep the attention without people actually listening to it.
“The
film’s pacing is absolutely superb. It starts so slow, and after say four
minutes it gets a little faster and the whole thing starts to suck you in. The
thing was, I only saw clips, and 20 minutes is a long time, and he put the
music onto the visual – I know he didn’t do any edits because I saw the piece
with different music – and things just worked out in synch. Like certain bits
match certain actions. It’s so well crafted, and this undercurrent of
everything working independently.
"It’s
just so arresting. I had a copy and while I was in the States I hooked it up to
a big stereo and frightened the daylights out of everyone.” He laughs
softly.
“I
was on the sixth floor and there were complaints from the twelfth. There’s a
real atmosphere and intensity. It’s disturbing because you know something’s
coming. I can’t wait for it to come out.”
“It’s
so time consuming. It’s a horrible medium to work in. It’s so boring! So slow!
Just shooting the fantasy sequence. ‘Can you do it again so we can get a
different angle? Can you do it again?’ I’m not used to that. It’s a silly
attitude, okay, but nevertheless…The Anger things is completely different.
Working with him is a unique experience.”
He
became interested in parapsychology and altered states at about 11.
“Reading
about different things that people were supposed to have experienced, and
seeing whether you could do it yourself. And sometimes, yeah, but I didn’t
understand a lot until I grew up.”
It
was at this time, too, that he discovered Aleister Crowley.
“But
I couldn’t understand what he was getting at until years afterwards. It kept
nagging me, I couldn’t fully grasp what he was getting at.
"I
feel he’s a misunderstood genius of the twentieth century. Because his whole
thing was liberation of the person, of the entity, and that restriction would
foul you up, lead to frustration which leads to violence, crime, mental
breakdown, depending on what sort of makeup you have underneath. The further
this age we’re in now gets into technology and alienation, a lot of the points
he made seem to manifest themselves all down the line.
"His
thing was total liberation and really getting down to what part you played.
What you want to do, do it. Anyway, that’s a minor part, just one of the things
they couldn’t come to terms with. Saying there would be equality of the
sexes. In an Edwardian age that’s just
not on. He wasn’t necessarily waving a
banner, but he knew it was going to happen. He was a visionary and he didn’t break them in
gently.
"I’m
not saying it’s a system for anybody to follow. I don’t agree with everything,
but I find a lot of it relevant and it’s those things that people attacked him
on, so he was misunderstood.”
THE SOUNDTRACKS COLLECTION BY JIMMY PAGE PLAYED A HUGE ROLE IN MY DECISION TO RETURN TO TUMBLR EARLIER THIS YEAR. THE MEDITATIVE NATURE OF THE MUSIC GROUNDED ME AND INSPIRED ME TO BECOME MORE EXPERIMENTAL MYSELF AGAIN. THANKS A LOT JIMMY PAGE AND TO B. WHO GAVE ME THE BOXED SET AS A GIFT.
I finally got in the mail today, a hard copy of an original GIG Magazine from 1977. As the front cover suggests (Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills & Nash, Fleetwood Mac, and Tom Petty) this Volume 3 Number 9 edition of The Music Gig is from May, 1977. The price was 85 cents. The Music Gig was published in New York by Editor in Chief Sam Chase, with Jean-Charles Costa serving as Editor. The format mimics Rolling Stone, with black & white printed pages except for an occasional dash of color. The back cover ad for Camel Filters is the only page in full color.
I’ve been long awaiting this for Chris Salewicz’s interview with Jimmy Page. It is augmented by some distinctive illustrations of Jimmy Page by Charles Jackson Pate. Page reflects on rehearsals for a post Presence tour, the Led Zeppelin flick, The Song Remains The Same, and his confidence in the future of his band.
Excerpts from this interview are often quoted due to it being one of the longest responses by Jimmy Page on the topic of the Occult, his position on mysticism and interest in Aleister Crowley. I include the section from the interview on these topics below. Enjoy.
The Gig Interview: Jimmy Page by Chris Salewicz, GIG, May 1977
“When you’ve discovered your true will, you should just forge ahead like a steam train. If you put all your energies into it there’s no doubt you’ll succeed.”
…I understand that a changed Robert Plant who has taken to reading Nietzsche on plane journeys has emerged since the accident. I know that you were ill for about nine months prior to joining the Yardbirds and I’ve heard you’re supposed to have spent much of that time reading. Was that when your interest in the occult began?
(Fifteen second pause) “My interest in the occult started when I was about fifteen.”
Do you agree that whereas Western society tends to see occult matters as a very dark – a very black – thing it is, in fact, a very light and enlightening thing?“
“Well, there has been a major revival, a spiritual revival, throughout the world and it reflects all over the place. Not just within the West.
“And there’s a great interest in the Celtic mysteries and the Dark Ages and the areas where a lot of these truths were just erased for the sake of the Church, you know. But I’m quite fascinated by these things.”
So obviously the folkie Traditional English side of Zeppelin all emanates from one logical area of interest, no?
“Yeah. Well, a man’s a product of his environment. It depends how much he wants to educate himself in that framework. You know, in relationship to his craft. There should be no boundaries, so just carry on as far as you can and do it.”
Page, of course, is an ardent aficionado of occultist and magician, Aleister Crowley (1875-1947). Indeed, the guitarist owns Equinox, an occult bookshop situated off London’s Kensington High Street, which has a large section devoted to Crowley’s works as well as having his birth chart pinned to one wall. And, as already mentioned, Page spends most of his time on British shores at the home that Crowley once owned, Boleskin House.
Not unexpectedly, such matters are beginning to arouse the interests of the more sensational end of the British press. In fact, only a few weeks ago a National Enquirer-like weekly magazine featured an aerial photograph of the house on its cover along with details of collapsing staircases and the appropriate ‘Dark Man Of Pop’ blurb about Page.
“Well,” says the guitarist, “They should have gone into the history of the house and Crowley would’ve come out like a shinning angel compared with what else went on.
"I mean, it’s had a history of suicides and con tricks. Plus the site of the house is on the site of a church and a graveyard, and the church was burnt down by an arsonist with the whole congregation in it. So the actual foundations of the house are built on hallowed ground.
"But I’m not really interested in going on about Crowley in so much as, say, Pete Townshend does about Meher Baba. I’m not interested in trying to turn anybody on in any way whatsoever. You know, there are a thousand paths and they can choose their own.
"All I know is that it’s a system that works. (laughs) Although, of course, there’s not much point in following a system that doesn’t work.”
But what about the hassles you’ve had with Kenneth Anger? (Page wrote the score for film-maker occultist, and author of Hollywood Babylon, Kenneth Anger’s imminent film, Lucifer Rising, but was turned down by Anger towards the end of last year and replaced by none other than Mansonite Bobby Beausoleil. Since then Anger has denounced Page on every possible occasion.)
“I think it’s more the problems he’s had with himself. All I know is that at the end of the film I promised him – as I had before – the loan of a three speed projector which makes the editing so much easier. I said to him ‘well, it’s just going to be your own time invested’. And I also told him that he must put the music on after he put the footage together so I was just waiting for him to contact me, really. He had other music that I’d done instead of the stuff that I’d delivered which he said he wanted to use. Nevertheless, I still needed to hear from him. And I never heard anything.”
Didn’t he come down here and stick things onto the door of this record company?
“Oh, that was his curse. That was pathetic. His curse amounted to sending letters to people. Silly letters saying ‘Bugger off, Page’ and this sort of thing.
"How can you take that sort of thing seriously? (Sounds quite deeply disappointed). A man you had thought to be a genuine occultist and it turns out to be just. theatre. It’s a shame, really.”
Although it’s quite acceptable these days, do you wish your occult interests weren’t known about?
“I just don’t want it rammed down people’s throats as though I’m saying it’s the be-all and end-all and the only way you’ll be able to put things together. I’m not saying that at all. You might go off and study the Gurdjieff system and be equally.
"But what I can relate to is Crowley’s system of self-liberation. In which repression is the greatest work of sin. It’s like being in a job when you want to be doing something else. That’s the area where the true will should come forward. And when you’ve discovered your true will you should just forge ahead like a steam train. If you put all your energies into it there’s no doubt you’ll succeed. Because that’s your true will. It may take a little while to work out what that is, but when you discover it, it’s all there.
"You know, when you realize what it is you’re supposed to be here for. I mean, everyone’s got a talent for something. Not necessarily artistic but whatever you care to say. And it’s just a process of self-liberation. I mean, I just find his writings to be twentieth century. As a lot of the others weren’t.
"And there’s really nothing more to say than that. I find him quite a curious, highly enigmatic character. Consequently I enjoy my researches into him. But it doesn’t want to be blown out of all proportion, though, because that would be. silly, you know. I’m just another artist, too.”
Yeah, it’s an interest in all things occult and, as you said, all things English or, rather, of Albion. And that’s just one area, right? “Mmmmm.”
“When Crowley first moved there [Boleskine House], he complained to the local council about the “prostitute problem” in the area. A mystified official was dispatched to investigate and reported there were no prostitutes. “That,” Crowley replied, “is the problem…”
Occult Aspects 