Robert Plant Laughs About ‘Dire’ Remixes
Robert Plant laughed about some of the “dire” remixes that were offered to him over the years.
In the latest episode of his Digging Deep podcast, he also discussed how his remix of “The Last Time I Saw Her” – originally from his 2002 album Dreamland – came about when he was deceived by a record label.
He recalled being invited to join Universal Records by being told: “You’ve had your time with Warners now and Ahmet [Ertegun] and all that. You need to come over. You can do anything you want to do … just do it, and we’ll make it big.”
"Well, that’s exactly what they didn’t do!" Plant recalled. "But why should they? They’re a label! I’m still waiting to have a contract for some of the records I’ve made.”
You can listen to the latest episode below.
However, the spirit of creativity that the move inspired led to the “Last Time” remix, which Plant said was “the first crazy shit” of more that followed. Noting the “vitality” of the version, he added that "it’s great to deconstruct stuff. It’s quite exposing as well. I quite like that, when you take all the glitz away and you’ve got some guy trying to do his best. … I’m happy to be dehumanized – I think I already am, in some respects!"
On the other hand, Plant observed, “Throwing tracks out to people to see how they get on … some of those things that came back were dire! There’s a ‘Babe I’m Gonna Leave You’ remix somewhere that somebody did for a laugh, and all the way through it’s just, ‘Babe! Babe!’ And then you get a bit of stuff going on and some more ‘Babe! Babe!’ ‘The Slog’ was another one I remember. I’ve got a 45 of a ‘Black Dog’ thing.”
Plant shared his interest in the studio tricks producers can pull on remixes, making one exception: “God forbid the vocoder!”