From Impresario: Lez Zeppelin at World Cafe Live
Let’s face it: The cover band is basically the SPAM of the music industry — a cheap substitute. So who has the balls to play second fiddle to one of the biggest rock outfits in history? An all-girl band, of course. Taking a break from her raging tour life (with a stop tonight at World Cafe Live), Lez Zeppelin founder and guitarist Steph Paynes let us in on how four chicks with instruments bring a new edge to Led Zeppelin’s timeless tunes. — Cheryl McEvoy
How did you get the band together?
I had been in enough crap bands to know not to go through auditions. So I just asked around. I talked about it endlessly. To find a drummer who plays like Jon Bonham — that just doesn’t happen much. And how do you find someone who sounds like Plant?
Did you always intend to make it all girls?
Once I decided to go through with this foolish idea, I knew I wanted it to be an all-girl band. Going out and playing this music as all girls is so powerful and has such an effect. It’s the whole gender and cultural dynamic that makes college professors want to write about us. Especially because Led Zeppelin was perceived as being aggressively male, despite the fact that they [had long hair] and wore women’s clothing. It’s kind of fitting that we have that femininity.
Do people give you a hard time for being women?
They’re completely skeptical — they don’t expect the power that comes across. They come thinking we’ll hit some right notes, but they don’t expect to be completely bludgeoned by the power. It’s definitely sexism working in our favor — the surprise contributes to the “wow” factor.
You pay tribute to arguably the greatest rock band of all time. That’s gotta come with some pressure, right?
Yeah, that was the foolish part. We take this seriously. We have fun, but in terms of the music, all of us are very, very serious about what we’re playing. What is it about Led? What is it about the sound? The improvisation, the intensity of it all … But I think this is a group of fairly prodigious musicians — we’ve all done our homework … We do have that Zeppelin energy.
Do you party as hard as the original? You know, the drinking, debauchery, trashed hotel suites?
[Laughs] Oh yeah, all of that — the sex, the drinking, the drugs, the motorcycles in the hotel, the fishing off the balcony, the sharks …
