John Paul Jones denies playing on any Yardbirds studio tracks (interview part 2 of 22)

This is the second part of the transcript of my interview with John Paul Jones, conducted Dec. 10, 2001.

SPS: When you were – I was gonna say "with the Yardbirds." Did you consider yourself to be with the Yardbirds?

JPJ: No, I was never with the Yardbirds. I did some arrangements for the Little Games album. That's the only thing I had to do with anything.

SPS: What about playing bass on like all their later A-sides?

JPJ: I never played the bass on their A-sides. Where'd you hear that from?

SPS: A couple books. One a book on the Yardbirds by Greg Russo, a guy from New Jersey.

JPJ: No, I never played the bass for the Yardbirds on record.

SPS: So it was all Chris Dreja then?

JPJ: Yeah.

SPS: Wow. That answers some of my other questions.

JPJ: Page played bass for the Yardbirds.

SPS: When he first started out with them.

JPJ: Yes.

SPS: One of the things I couldn't understand is, he'd always been playing the guitar and stuff like that, doing his session work. And then he gets out of the session work, immediately switches to bass.

JPJ: I think he joined the Yardbirds and -- I don't know what the story was, but he played bass because there was a bass player at the time leaving.

SPS: That's something you can just pick up having played guitar?

JPJ: No, it's sort of similar, but [inaudible].

SPS: I know Chris Dreja had played the rhythm guitar for like three or four years with them, and it took him a while to switch to bass.

JPJ: On a certain level, they're interchangeable, but… [trails off]

On to part three: John Paul Jones on the formation of Led Zeppelin.