Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant was lucky to find the band as his earlier musical groups barely found traction. Yet it was a symbiotic relationship — Zep was lucky to have him as the frontman. Plant’s notable, non-musical job is a dream come true, but he regrets one part of his life he sacrificed to be a rock star with Led Zeppelin.
Robert Plant regretted sacrificing his home life to join Led Zeppelin’s tours
Jimmy Page assembled Led Zeppelin from the ashes of the Yardbirds. The band’s earliest gigs saw them billed as the New Yardbirds, but Zep built its reputation with its arduous touring schedule.
The band toured Scandinavia and England exhaustively in late 1968 before the debut record hit stores. In 1969 alone, Led Zeppelin went back and forth between North America and Europe for extensive tours three times. They crisscrossed the Atlantic twice in 1970, per the Led Zeppelin website.
The point is, Zep was plenty busy. The first year they didn’t extensively tour the world was 1974 — six years after they formed. Plant regretted how much time he was away from his family, per People:
“What I recall for the first two years is my daughter not really knowing who I was and getting rather agitated when I came back off tour, as she thought I’d come to rob the house.”
Robert Plant
Plant sacrificed his home life while Led Zeppelin toured the world. He regrets that he had a thin bond with his daughter because of it, but the singer gave up so much more.
Plant was on tour with Led Zeppelin when his son tragically died
The seeds of Plant’s regret were sown when he saw that his daughter treated him like a stranger. The band later had downtime at home built into their schedules, and tragedy struck during one vacation with his family.
Plant walked out of a 1975 car crash in Greece with comparatively minor injuries, but his wife and children weren’t as lucky. They had to be airlifted to England for medical treatment. Then Plant had to leave the country as a tax exile. He wasn’t there as they endured the recovery process.
Plant almost surely regrets not being at home when his son died tragically in late July 1977. Karac Plant developed an infection that quickly took his life. The singer was in the U.S. and couldn’t return to England before his son died.
The singer had a daughter that didn’t recognize him. Plant had to abandon his family after a horrific car crash when he was with them. And he was far from home when his son died suddenly. Plant became an international rock star with Led Zeppelin, but he questioned how much he had to sacrifice to make it happen.
Plant nearly quit music when his son died, which is understandable. After alienating his daughter and leaving his family to live as a tax exile, devoting himself fully to his family likely seemed like the best idea at the time. He remained with the band and channeled his grief into the song “All of My Love,” which was one of Plant’s best Led Zeppelin moments.
The singer performed live after Zep broke up
Plant didn’t have to live with the regret of touring after 1977. He and Led Zeppelin played a handful of European concerts in 1979 and 1980, but they never did any extensive worldwide jaunts after Karac Plant’s death.
The singer didn’t abandon playing live, though. Plant and Page toured extensively behind their 1994 No Quarter project. He hit the road with the Sensational Shape Shifters in 2018. The singer will play a string of North American dates with Alison Krauss in the summer of 2023, per their website.
He became a rock star with Led Zeppelin, but the band’s extensive touring led to sacrifices that Robert Plant came to regret. Yet the singer didn’t abandon performing live, and any sacrifices he makes now are on his own terms.
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