Jimmy Page Book Interview on David Letterman Late Show

Led Zeppelin guitar legend Jimmy Page shares "Jimmy Page by Jimmy Page: The Open Edition," an autobiography with many rare pictures and music memorabilia from Jimmy Page's illustrious career on the Late Show With David Letterman November 6, 2014. The publication is the first book by any member of Led Zeppelin.

Jimmy Page chose many of the rare photos in this autobiographical collection from past shows with Led Zeppelin, from the band's private plane used for touring and from fan and magazine submissions. Photos used within the book are from some of rock music's best photographers such as Jim Marshall, Kate Simon, Ian Stewart, Ross Halfin, Dominique Tarle, Gered Mankowitz and Pennie Smith. One of Jimmy Page's favorite pictures of all time is a passport photo shot captured of Page by Neal Preston in 1977 while he was on tour and aboard the Led Zeppelin personal tour jet.

December 2015 update: Jimmy Page says he’s working on building a new band with whom he plans to tour in 2016 AND release that new music. Page says that his new band will be ‘totally different’ from Zeppelin, and that the potential performances will be a unique experience:

“There will be all sorts of material from different eras,” Page said. “Right across the board; that’s the way I’m seeing it. But like I said, there will be surprises. It won’t be entirely what people might be expecting.”

It’s been decades since Page has embarked on a tour, as he’s spent most of the past few years curating the Zeppelin reissue series. Needless to say, new material and a tour from Page will be a big, big deal. As he said to Guitar World:

“It was a question of having time,” he said. “The only way to have time is to shut down and then do what you want to do. I’ve been doing so much Led Zeppelin stuff over quite a number of years now; so it’s not been so easy to think about anything else in the tail end of this year. But OK, next year, bang!”

Rolling Stone article excerpt: 1. Page said that a photo where he posed in a checkered sweater-vest was taken in the London house where he lived when Led Zeppelin formed. He added that the band rehearsed "Babe I'm Gonna Leave You" and "Dazed and Confused" in the room where he posed for a picture next to a huge flowerpot – "a jardinière, really." The same house opened up on the back to the river Thames, where he sometimes would go boating in the evenings. "Women liked it," he confided.

2. Page said that his days as a session music demanded more facility with sheet music than he actually had. "I needed to read music," he moaned. "I was very lucky because they'd give me my part first."

3. Page described his intentions with Led Zeppelin's debut as "a guitar tour de force, but not at the expense of the other members." Taking a moment to praise each of his bandmates, he quirkily called John Bonham "very regional as a drummer."

4. Led Zeppelin earning a gold album was an important moment of validation for Page. "I'd heard about gold records and seen Elvis Presley's album." So his reaction to getting his first gold record was not cynical, but rather, "Hallelujah, we got there."

5. Looking at a famous photo of Zeppelin on an airport runway, adorned with Hawaiian leis and clutching the boxes that held the tapes for an in-progress Led Zeppelin II, Cornell remarked, "Of all the records I've ever made, I don't think I've ever held a tape box." Page talked about how the photo was partially staged, but that the band was indeed schlepping around their own tapes as they did sessions at various American studios, which let them record as they toured and kept the music out of the hands of record executives. It was an extension of how they handled their debut: "The record was recorded, and then it was taken to the record company. That's why we were able to say 'no singles.'" The Led Zeppelin aversion to singles was born from Page's time in the Yardbirds, when the band would regularly would get derailed by needing to produce their contractually obligated non-album singles.

6. Cornell's best turn of phrase came when he described a photo of Page sitting in a rural Welsh stream: "This is a photo of the front porch of that universe you created with acoustic music."

7. Studying a photo of Zeppelin onstage at a sold-out show at the Forum (the Los Angeles arena), Page identified the date by the guitar he was holding: "I've got the Les Paul, so that one's in 1969, probably late 1969." Looking at an earlier live photo of the group, he joked, "The light show's more interesting than the band."