Correction: The number of Grammys Robert Plantand Alison Krauss won for their album Raising Sandwas incorrect in a previous version of this story.
NEW YORK — Think about Robert Plant and the images of the "golden god" come to mind — the thick, blonde hair, sparkling blue eyes, slim physique — combined with a bluesy yelp that practically defined the raw power of rock 'n' roll.
While his face may show signs of age at 66, much of his rock-star look remains intact. More importantly, he aims to stay artistically creative rather than become a nostalgia act. The man who belted out Rock and Roll and Stairway to Heaven in the 1970s turns down lucrative offers to stage Led Zeppelin reunions. Now, he's plotting a smaller-scale 2015 tour in support of his 10th solo album, Lullaby and ... the Ceaseless Roar. The shows start in March, with four dates in Latin America, then continues with a U.S. appearance, just announced this week, as one of the headliners at the BottleRock festival in Napa Valley, Calif., in May. (More tour dates are expected soon.)
Settling down for an interview on a velveteen-covered couch in a cavernous room at the Bowery Hotel in Manhattan, Plant uses the example of another band to explain the type of audience he covets. "There were Deadheads, and it was a good place to be," he says.The Grateful Dead "didn't compromise. They weren't technicolor rock gods. They had such a huge following because they were coming from a place that, even though it was from an altered state, it was definitely real. …That is what I want."
Led Zeppelin broke up in 1980, and Plant immediately embarked on a successful solo career. His true creative breakout may have been 2007's teaming with bluegrass icon Alison Krauss for Raising Sand, a platinum album that won six Grammy Awards(including album of the year) and garnered him heaps of critical praise for a perceived change in sound. In truth, his sound has never been static.
"My preoccupation as a very young early teenager was a music form that I might have missed. ... If I had missed it, I would never have sung," he says. "If I hadn't heard theHowlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson, Little Richard music, I wouldn't have been drawn to music. Most of the music we (in England) were surrounded by was slush, without any commitment. ... I was born again and saved and reincarnated by American music."
Dave Pegg, long-time bassist for British folk-rock group Fairport Convention, well remembers Plant's youthful musical passion. Monday mornings often found Pegg, Plant and other teens — including future Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, and future Traffic members Steve Winwood and Jim Capaldi — waiting for Birmingham record shop The Diskery to open so they could buy the latest records.
"Robert and Jim Capaldi were kind of walking histories about blues and obscure soul albums," says Pegg. "Robert was always especially interested in the blues and, obviously, as he got older, he absorbed other styles. When he was younger, he was thinking about cabaret, sort of an Engelbert Humperdinck kind of singer."
Plant even recently lived part-time in the USA for two years, sharing a home in Austin, Texas, with singer Patty Griffin. Following the end of that relationship in 2013, he returned full-time to Worcestershire, England, not far from the Welsh border.
Back in England, he revitalized his former band, Strange Sensation, and christened the new group the Space Shifters. Almost immediately, the bandmates traveled to Chili, Peru and Australia. Through their travels, they developed the 11 songs on Lullaby and ... the Ceaseless Roar, which some label as "world music."
"It is appropriate for my time in life," Plant says of the mix of Americana, African music, blues and soul on the new album. "If it were world music, we would be the least-successful world musicians because we desecrate. I like to think it is different — something completely without … a name people would call it."
Plant's evolving musical philosophy also extends to his live performances and choice of venues, which sometimes vex his long-time fans.
While he was socializing after a recent show at the 600-capacity Brooklyn Bowl (yes, a concert venue and bowling alley), Plant's fans took to social media to gossip about why the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Famer would opt to play such a small club when he could sell out the likes of London's 20,000-plus seat O2 Arena. (He and Led Zeppelin did just that in December 2007 when they got together to play at the tribute to music industry titanAhmet Ertegun.)
"We went bowling there one night, and one of the club managers said, 'We'd love to have you play here,'" says Space Shifters guitarist Liam "Skin" Tyson. "By the time we went to L.A, Robert said, 'You know, we can go and do it.' So it was sort of impromptu."
That type of spontaneous schedule change is typical, says Tyson, noting the group has also played gigs in remote desert areas, outposts in the Arctic Circle and small clubs around the world. Indeed, at the photo shoot for this article, Plant told his manager he wanted to explore renting a flatbed truck so the band could play an Indian reservationin the Dakotas.
"We play anywhere," says Tyson. "We play wherever there is a gig. … The performances become more intimate at those shows. He feels natural, playing in those small places rather than in giant arenas in front of crowds."
This comes as no surprise to Krauss.
"Somebody like Robert, who is constantly changing, has a mystery about him because he can't get enough," she says. "It's like he is a constant student of music — and at the same time art, in general, and people and cultures."
While many fans and critics hope Plant's solo work is a tease to a Led Zeppelin reunion, others luxuriate in its originality. The album made a handful of 2014 critics' "best of" lists, garnering praise like this:
"It's possible to hear the weight of his years on Lullaby and ... the Ceaseless Roar — it is, in the best sense, mature music, dense in its rhythms and allusions, subtle in its melodies — but he never feels weary, nor does he traffic in false nostalgia," writes Stephen Thomas Erlewine of All Music Guide. "He's building upon the past, both his own and the larger traditions of his homeland, both spiritual and actual, and that gives (it) a bewitching depth. It's an album to get lost in."
Space Shifters' guitarist Justin Adams celebrates such reviews, if only because they allow the music to stand away from that of Led Zeppelin.
"Sometimes with Robert it feels that it is hard to get anybody to hear what is going on now (musically) because people are so overwhelmed with his legacy" he says. "But it's exciting that some people are now seeing that he is doing something just as fresh and just as exciting as his past work, and it's happening now."
Plant makes it clear he has no intention of losing sight of his lifelong pursuit of setting his life experiences to music. "I hear the sound of time roaring past me," he says. "And there is no time to lose. "
