Jimmy Page Says Les Paul Was Real "Guitar Hero"

Jimmy Page Says Les Paul, Not Himself, Was “Guitar Hero”

Fans may beg to differ, but Jimmy Page insists he’s not a “guitar hero.” That accolade, he says, is a title more befitting the late great Les Paul.

““I can’t think of a greater guitar icon than someone who has the musical intellect to change what was there before, and take music in another direction,” Page said, speaking to the U.K.’s Daily Telegraph during a visit to Gibson’s London offices. “That’s a guitar hero for me.”

Covering an array of topics, Page also modestly told the Daily Telegraph that he feels he “never mastered the guitar.”

“Either I was playing it or it was playing me,” Page revealed, “it depends how you look at it. As a kid, the only things I had to do were go to school, do my homework, and play guitar. I play maybe every other day, now. But I don’t think of it as practice. I want to see if there is a new shape, a new pattern of chords, a new riff. I’m always looking for the creative spark. Always.”

Page went on to say that despite being the driving force behind Led Zeppelin, the band was a “group personality.”

“I knew from what I’d learned being a session musician that the key was to capture the performance while there’s a mass enthusiasm going on,” he said. “It becomes totally passionate, you feel the music. A lot of music today, they work electronically, tidying everything up, but that living energy has become sanitized. In Led Zeppelin we managed to do some of those major albums in three weeks. People today can’t understand that. It’s beyond them.”

Page plans to release new music sometime this year. To read more of his conversation with the Daily Telegraph, click here.