No matter how many times Robert Plant shakes off his Led Zeppelin legacy with a solo album that willfully wanders afield from his old band's sound, some fans persist in hoping for a return to those hard-rocking days of yore. But as Plant made clear during a recent interview with USA Today, anyone who expects him to spend much time treading old ground is bound to keep coming away disappointed.

"I hear the sound of time roaring past me, and there is no time to lose," Plant explained during a wide-ranging discussion with the artist and his associates regarding his most recent effort, 2014's 'lullaby ... and the Ceaseless Roar.' And if some fans are somewhat befuddled regarding the globetrotting blend of sounds on the new LP, perhaps they just don't realize that he's always been something of a world explorer as an artist.

"It is appropriate for my time in life," he mused on the subject of his latest sound, although he cautioned that it doesn't really fit the "world music" label assigned by some critics. "If it were world music, we would be the least-successful world musicians because we desecrate," he continued. "I like to think it is different -- something completely without ... a name people would call it."

That nameless, boundary-free ideal is something Plant previously noticed with the Grateful Dead, a band that was able to play in and around its own legacy without needing to worry about much in the way of responsibility to the past. As he put it, "There were Deadheads, and it was a good place to be."

Explaining that the Dead earned their following because they "didn't compromise" and "weren't technicolor rock gods," he concluded, "they were coming from a place that, even though it was from an altered state, it was definitely real. ... That is what I want."

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