{"id":618443,"date":"2025-12-07T18:29:14","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:29:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/618443\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T18:29:14","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T18:29:14","slug":"the-iconic-band-keith-richards-and-eric-clapton-both-hate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/618443\/","title":{"rendered":"The iconic band Keith Richards and Eric Clapton both hate"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Eric<\/p>\n

(Credits: Far Out \/ Showtime Documentary Films)<\/p>\n

Sun 7 December 2025 16:30, UK <\/p>\n

This is going to sound a bit \u2018old many yells at cloud\u2019, but what we have here is a curious case in which both Keith Richards<\/a> and Eric Clapton momentarily seem to forget who they were, and forget that they\u2019re rock stars.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Part and parcel of being a rock star, especially one in the 1960s, is surely a bit of hearing damage<\/a>. Before in-ears got so advanced and ear protection was available in little individually wrapped packed in jars on more venue bar tops, the people really were just pounding those eardrums.<\/p>\n

Just image the noise level Richard has spent decades facing up to, not only through the sound of his own guitar, but having Charlie Watts pounding the drums behind him, and Jagger yelling his lyrics next to him. That doesn\u2019t even account for the volume of their crowds as their fame grew, and the screaming likely reached shattering levels. <\/p>\n

Isn\u2019t that the whole point? Isn\u2019t the entire branding of rock music that it\u2019s meant to be played out until the speakers rattle and the room shakes? So what happened to both Richards and Clapton, two of the most famous rockers around, when their mutual issue with Led Zeppelin really seemed to come down to how loud they were?<\/p>\n

\u201cBonham was a hell of a powerhouse drummer. Although I think he was heavy-handed,\u201d Richard said, once saying it sounded like he was just \u201cthundering down the highway in an uncontrolled 18-wheeler\u201d. In some harsh words, he claimed the abrasive drummer put the \u201cled\u201d in Led Zeppelin, stating, \u201cAs a band, I felt they were aptly named, but they never took off for me, musically<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Clapton felt the same. \u201cLed Zeppelin took up our legacy. But then they took it somewhere else that I didn\u2019t really have a great deal of admiration for,\u201d he said, talking about how the band started out inspired by Cream, and then tanked it. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had a really strong foundation in blues and jazz,\u201d he said, seeing his own band as characterised by nuance and even a light-footedness. But in Zeppelin, he didn\u2019t see that at all, with bandmate Jack Bruce also agreeing, stating, \u201cCream is ten times the band that Led Zeppelin is<\/a>. You\u2019re gonna compare Eric Clapton with fucking Jimmy Page?\u201d<\/p>\n

Bruce was really the harshest of them all, going all in when he said, \u201cFuck off, Zeppelin, you\u2019re crap. You\u2019ve always been crap, and you\u2019ll never be anything else. The worst thing is that people believe the crap that they\u2019re sold.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the issue once again came down to a loud, abrasive drummer that hurt their precious ears as Ginger Baker also joined in, once stating, \u201cThe general public are so fucking dumb that anyone could think [that] Bonham was anywhere near this kind of drummer I am is just extraordinary.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the end of the day, both Richards and Clapton, as well as his old bandmates, seemed to see Zeppelin as nothing but a noisy unit with no nuance, as Keef concluded, \u201cI always felt there was something a little hollow about it, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n

The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter<\/p>\n

All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Far Out \/ Showtime Documentary Films) Sun 7 December 2025 16:30, UK This is going to sound…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":618444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3936],"tags":[77,42028,31828,21945,269,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-618443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-entertainment","9":"tag-eric-clapton","10":"tag-keith-richards","11":"tag-led-zeppelin","12":"tag-music","13":"tag-uk","14":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115679708650716474","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=618443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/618443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/618444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=618443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=618443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=618443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}