John Paul Jones doesn't see the point of a Led Zeppelin reunion

This news originally appeared in an edition of the newsletter "On This Day In Led Zeppelin History."

Steve,

Re: JPJ interview

I think the most important issue that you yet haven't touched upon is the potential reunion with Page and Plant and his thinking about why he was left out in the past.

Kind regards,

Peter
Stockholm, Sweden

John Paul Jones and I did spend some time on Dec. 10, 2001, talking about whether a Led Zeppelin reunion would be possible.

Each and every day since John Bonham died, there has been in some form or another, a rumor that Page, Plant and Jones would carry on. That's what everybody wants to know, and so the question was inevitable. I knew it, and Jones knew it.

But I felt uneasy talking about that subject with him because his mind is not really in that place at all. In the interview's second hour, I asked him flat out, "Is there going to be another Led Zeppelin reunion?" He shook his head and said nothing. I rephrased the question for him, and he said:

"While I don't have a problem with it, I don't think we could go back in time and re-tour what wouldn't be Led Zeppelin anyway, apart from the fact that there aren't enough of us to make a Led Zeppelin reunion. We're all different people now anyway."

That seemed like a definitive answer to me, and I felt like the subject was impossible. But I persisted with asking a more specific question. I told him that one of my readers had suggested a reunion with Jones, Page, Plant and drummer Jason Bonham on a high-profile, televised concert, for instance, the Super Bowl half-time show.

The idea of reuniting for a show like that was just foreign to Jones. He responded, "But why? For what reason? For the money?"

Then I echoed to him what I hear every day from people who receive my newsletter: that people of every age want to see Led Zeppelin live again, particularly those who were too young to see it in the past.

He said, "What happens if we did it and we disappointed them all? We wouldn't want that." I had almost no response to that, and he finished it off by saying, "The time has passed."