I remember in the early days when we played six nights a week for a month and I was doing my long drum solo every night. My hands were covered in blisters.
Sometimes you'd come up against a brick wall... or sometimes you go into a fill and you'd know halfway through it was going to be disastrous.
I dare not drink before a gig because I'll get tired and blow it. So I have to sit drinking tea in a caravan.
I hate it when people slag us off. We had done three tours during 1970 and we finished off feeling we had just about had enough. We had done so much in that short space of time, we were drained.
There were times when I blundered and got the dreaded look from the lads. But that was a good sign. It showed I'd attempted something I'd not tried before.
Drumming was the only thing I was ever good at.
There was absolutely no intention of splitting up. We had so many great ideas to use on the new album. John Paul Jones was incredible, coming to the studio each day with new instruments to play.
With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by.
