Guitar-Shredding Facts About Led Zeppelin
“When I was a kid, we weren't really supposed to listen to secular music. But one day, I found a 'Led Zeppelin IV' cassette tape in the garage, and it was just amazing-sounding music, not like anything I'd heard before.
I remember thinking: 'Well, if God created music, why is his music in church not as good as this?'”—Nathaniel Rateliffe
There are a few things that link all of the great bands of the 20th century. Led Zeppelin is one of those bands that is instantly recognizable thanks to their insane riffs, stomping beats, and howling blues-tinged vocals. When a song like “
Whole Lotta Love” or “Kashmir” comes on the radio, it’s basically human instinct to turn the volume up as high as humanly possible.
For the past 50 years, fans have been soaking up Led Zeppelin’s hard-rocking tunes, and the band has cemented its legacy as one of the most influential bands of all time, having inspired countless hard rock and heavy metal bands.
Here are 42 guitar-shredding facts about Led Zeppelin.
Led Zeppelin Facts
42. Protégé
Perhaps curiously, considering their blues roots, Led Zeppelin is cited as one of the key stylistic influences on modern metal, along with bands like Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Their first and second albums, Led Zeppelin and Led Zeppelin II feature the type of heavy guitar riffs that would later characterize heavy metal.
41. Down South
According to guitarist Jimmy Page—and just about anyone with a pair of ears—Zeppelin’s roots are in blues music.
Blues was a significant part of their stylistic toolkit for their first album in particular and the band has actually faced lawsuits for copying a bit too much from blues artists.
One notable example was co-writer Willie Dixon suing Led Zeppelin for using lyrics from his and Muddy Waters’ song “You Need Love.” As you can guess, Dixon and Waters’ lyrics were adapted for Led Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love,”
resulting in a lawsuit that was settled out of court, with Dixon being listed as a co-writer on the Zeppelin track.
40. Go Big or Go Home
We consider a trip a pretty good one if we’ve got a semi-decent hotel room to go back to. Led Zeppelin upped the ante by renting six floors of the Continental Hyatt House in LA, now known as the Andaz.
If that wasn’t enough, drummer John Bonham and tour manager Richard Cole would drive a motorcycle down the hallways. There is a reason the hotel was known as the “Riot House” during the 1970s.
