“Robert Plant said I could have had all the women he had!”: Terry Reid reflects on his decision not to join the band that would later become Led Zeppelin
Those familiar with Led Zeppelin lore will know that the late Terry Reid was in the running to front the band – called the New Yardbirds, in its early stages – before Jimmy Page landed on Robert Plant.
In an interview with MOJO published after his death in August 2025, Reid reflected on his decision to pass up the opportunity, saying he didn’t necessarily turn Jimmy Page down, but rather had prior commitments with The Rolling Stones at the time.
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And in a new feature, Record Collector recalls what Reid said in response to Robert Plant at a club gig in the 2000s, when he told Reid: “You could have had my life!”
“Robert also said I could have had all the women he had!” Reid replied. “Look, nobody is more glad of Robert having that success than me. I plugged him into it! Am I gonna say now, ‘I wish I’d never done that’? It’s like saying, ‘I could have owned HP Sauce… bought the whole company and really been something with my life.’ You know what I mean?”
Indeed, Terry Reid had a reputation for sticking to his guns on the gigs he decided to take. As the story goes, he also turned down an offer to play with Deep Purple in 1969. “It weren’t my thing,” he said. “Spandex gets up my arse.”
“I suppose I didn’t really want to be part of a band…” he said in his final MOJO interview. “I’ve lived my life the way I wanted,” Reid concludes. “Running around, chasing your tail, chasing after this, chasing after that, it’ll do one of two things: it’ll either drive you crazy, or it’ll get you in a whole load of trouble.”
“The only time I really considered it was with Jeff Beck. He had a sensitivity that was totally different [from] any other guitar player. But he was always going down his own path, too, so it never happened.”
The post “Robert Plant said I could have had all the women he had!”: Terry Reid reflects on his decision not to join the band that would later become Led Zeppelin appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.
Source: www.guitar-bass.net
