Photographer Neal Preston is known best for his iconic rock and concert photography. He worked as the official photographer for Led Zeppelin for nearly ten years and has also toured with a long list of other legendary bands and performers including Queen, Springsteen, The Who and Fleetwood Mac . He stopped by the SiriusXM studios this week to sit down with Ron Bennington and talk about his most recent release– a digital book on his time with Led Zeppelin, “Led Zeppelin: The Sound and the Fury.”
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Ron Bennington: Your book, “Led Zeppelin: Sound and Fury” – now this is released as a digital book, which the word ‘book’ can be confusing when it comes to this because there’s interviews and video in there. It’s all kinds of stuff. But why now after all these years?
Neal Preston: Well, I did a couple of books on Led Zeppelin through the years. Basically, your standard kind of coffee table picture books. And given the way that publishing has been moving forward and specifically digital publishing and the advent of digital books and book readers – I decided along with a couple of people at Warners, to kind of blaze a new trail, take a chance and basically give the fans something that is much more experiential in nature that you can’t get from a coffee table book. Stevie Nicks wrote my intro for the book. There are other artists that have contributed little essays about how they feel about the band and how much the band means to them. But all in all, it’s a book that’s experiential in nature and it’s Led Zeppelin through my eyes, my experience, my photographs and my time with them.
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Neal Preston Talks About How Isolated Led Zeppelin Was
Ron Bennington: For at least a generation if not a couple generations – your eyes were kind of our eyes. Because if you were a fan…you got to hear the albums. You might see the tour. You didn’t get all that close. And you really didn’t know who these guys were. And I really think that rock journalism took it to that iconic level of the way a lot of us think about rock and roll. Those pictures are important.
Neal Preston: Well thank you. As it turns out, when you’re in the middle of shooting them, shooting these pictures of anyone important certainly back in the day – I never thought that any of these pictures would become significant or as well known as some of them have become or as iconic as some of them have become. I’m doing my job. I’m in the middle of trying to do a job. In the case of Led Zeppelin specifically, they never did a lot of TV. I don’t know if they did any music videos. Of course, the bulk of their music career was pre-music video, pre-MTV anyway. And by design, by Peter Grant’s design, they were kind of kept arms length from your general TV film projects. I mean yes, they made “The Song Remains The Same”. They were, as much as any band in history, had been cloistered. They were cloistered and really kept away from TV and the like. And if you wanted to see them, you had to go buy a ticket and see them or else it wasn’t going to happen.
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Neal Preston Talks About His Most Important Photos of Led Zeppelin
Ron Bennington: You never know when you get that shot.
Neal Preston: You know. You know when you get a shot that you’re looking for. I mean the 2 most famous shots that I shot of Led Zeppelin, far and away are the picture of Jimmy Page knocking back the Jack Daniels and the photo of Robert where he’s got the white dove in his hand. The one of Robert is a happy accident. I’m on the stage. They release these white doves. I’d like to call them pigeons, but we’ll call them doves. (laughs) They release the white doves in the air at the end of “Stairway to Heaven”. It’s a daylight gig at Kezar in San Francisco. And – (singing) “She’s buying a stairway to heaven” and the song ends and they open up these cages and these 12 beautiful doves fly off into the sky as a metaphor for San Francisco, love and peace. And one of these birds flies around, right close to the audience, maybe there was too many Deadheads in the audience or something. The bird just says – fuck this. I’ve had enough. And flies right back on the stage. Robert happens to hold out his hand and the bird happens to land on it. One of those things. Now as I like to say – if you keep your eye on the ball and your hand on bat, sooner or later, you’re going to hit a hanging curve ball for a home run. As far as the picture of Jimmy with the Jack Daniels – he’s on my left, I happen to be talking to some groupie on my right. I have a camera in my lap. I turn around to say something to Jimmy, maybe he knew I was there, maybe he didn’t. And I see the bottle going up. I pick up the Nikon. I pick up the Nikon with a 24 mm lens. Boom. One snap of the camera and I forgot about it. Happy accident. Being in the right place. Call it what you want.
Ron Bennington: You’ve got to be out there every day….ready to go all the time.
Neal Preston: And you have to be ready to go all the time, but as someone who grew up loving the very famous photojournalists of the era– the Life Magazine guys, the Look Magazine guys, the Time Magazine guys, even the National Geographic guys – I realize that the way to…generally when you’re shooting on tour, is to be a fly on the wall. The less that they realize I’m there, the more perfectly I’m doing my job. Without question.
Ron Bennington: But here’s the thing and I think Cameron Crowe in “Almost Famous” did this perfectly. You’re out. You’re part of the family, but you’re really not. It goes back to that you’re also a photojournalist. Were there times where you’re like – should I take the picture or should I put the camera down?
Neal Preston: One or two times, yes. And I’m not so sure the “Almost Famous” analogy is that good and I’ll tell you why. First of all, you’re aware that Cameron and I are very close friends.
Ron Bennington: Yeah.
Neal Preston: Cameron was on…well, we were on that tour in 1973 representing Rolling Stone. It was the Allman Brothers. Cameron is on the road trying to get a key interview with Gregg. And I’m on the road for Rolling Stone and we’re sharing a single room and Cameron is actually representing a magazine when he’s doing that interview. As far as I’m concerned, I may be working for Led Zeppelin. I may be shooting in a photojournalistic style, but it doesn’t mean that I have to report back to Rolling Stone or Time Magazine or Cream Magazine in order to illustrate an article where the writer had to be objectively – where the writer is traveling with the band and then has to write a piece about what he sees. I don’t know that it’s a great analogy.
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Neal Preston Talks About Knowing When To Shoot a Photo And When Not To
Ron Bennington: You still have to answer to Peter Grant. There’s things that you would probably love to take the picture of, but you can’t.
Neal Preston: Okay, yeah. (laughs) And there were a couple of times…common sense is going to tell you, more often than not, what you should shoot and what you shouldn’t. I mean I’ve walked into bathrooms on the road. I’ve walked in on Freddie Mercury taking a leak or doing whatever and I’ve shot a picture and he thought it was the funniest thing ever. Every band is different. Every personality is different, but common sense is going to tell you what to do and what not to do. There was a night in Chicago where Peter came out in the middle of a show and stopped the show. Jimmy apparently had a stomach problem and was not well and did not look good. I was out front. It was about 4 or 5 songs into the set. And I was out front. And I see Peter come out and waving his arms – “Stop the show. Stop the show”. I’ve never seen this happen before or since with anybody. Except for Elton John passing out one night. And so I grab all my stuff and I go run through the audience and I run backstage just in time to see Richard Cole, our tour manager, dragging Jimmy who looked fairly lifeless and didn’t look good. And Jimmy’s wearing the bathrobes that they used to put on the band at the end of the show when we do a runner and leave the stadium. That’s when everyone piles into the limos and as soon as the last song is over – band runs into the limo, loading dock doors are raised and boom. The limos go to the airport or back to the hotel. And the band is still yelling for an encore and realizes there’s no encore, we’re on the plane ordering lobster or something. But this particular time where Richard was dragging Jimmy in front of me, I had a camera in my hand. And the photojournalist in me said – you’ve got to shoot this picture. The Led Zeppelin employee in me looked at Richard giving me the evil eye and said – you’re not shooting this picture. Very few times did I find myself in a situation like that.
Ron Bennington: Looking back now, you feel like you made the right call by not taking the picture or do you wish you would have got it?
Neal Preston: I wish I would have gotten it to be true to myself as a photojournalist. However, as a commercial photographer you take a job to take a job. That night when we got back to the hotel, Richard called me in my room and said – Peter wants to see you. So, I go up and see Peter and Peter was not stern, he had a very serious tone and he said – “Look, we’ve never had to cancel a show before. It’s the first time. I hope it’s the last time. I would like you to take the film from tonight and throw it away.” I don’t remember what his words were. “Thrown it away’ or ‘Don’t develop it”. Basically, trash the film. And I didn’t. Mind you, I hadn’t taken the one photo I wanted to, but I had other photos because Jimmy looked very different that night. And they’re some of the greatest photos, I think. I did have them developed and I kept them under lock and key for many, many, many, many years.
Ron Bennington: Because of the sense of history of it.
Neal Preston: Because I had done something Peter asked me not to do, but the sense of history and posterity in me said – keep the film. It doesn’t mean anyone ever has to see it. The one photo I wanted to shoot that night, I didn’t shoot. And that was the Led Zeppelin employee in me.
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Neal Preston Talks About The Peak of Rock And The Death Of Rock
Ron Bennington: If you and Cameron Crowe were sitting around talking about the 70s now, where would you say it peaked? Do you guys have a time in your life where that’s where it’s at?
Neal Preston: (laughing) Oh yes we do. And I’m sure Cameron will be listening to this. So, I will say to you my brother – Peak of Rock, Death of Rock. It’s a little thing that we came up with years and years and years ago. Peak of Rock – Peter Frampton and “Frampton Comes Alive”. X-thousands of millions of trillions records sold. Death of Rock – Peter Frampton in “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”. (laughs)
Ron Bennington: That quickly. That quickly it came and left.
Neal Preston: But you could see what I mean. We always talk about that, me and Cameron.
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Neal Preston’s Thank You To Stevie Nicks
Ron Bennington: Thank you so much man.
Neal Preston: You’re very welcome. Any time. Just a quick shout out to Stevie (Nicks) who wrote a great intro for the book.
Ron Bennington: Amazing, right?
Neal Preston: She’s a huge Zeppelin fan and she is now officially the Queen of Led Zeppelin Nation.
Ron Bennington: I love the fact that here she is a giant rock star, but still remembers what it’s like to look at giant rock stars.
Neal Preston: She was the first one to get me to think about doing a book. And whenever I do anything book related with Led Zeppelin, I always thank her. And I love her to death.
Ron Bennington: Thank you so much my friend. See you next time coming through, Neal.
Neal Preston: Thank you. You got it.
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Order Led Zeppelin on Amazon.com and find out more about Neal on NealPreston.com.
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You can hear this interview in its entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio. Not yet a subscriber? Click here for a free trial subscription.
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You can learn more about Ron Bennington’s two interview shows, Unmasked and Ron Bennington Interviews at RonBenningtonInterviews.com.
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