Robert Plant has joked that he will become an “Elvis impersonator” if he finds himself in an uncertain period of his career.
The Led Zeppelin legend has revealed that he is willing to rely on his impression of the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll if all else fails.
Robert told Mojo magazine: “Well, at the end of my first formative period, I was in what you’d loosely call the biggest band in the world.
“The fervour that surrounded that, it was an unearthly condition and because of its terrible finales, I got suddenly launched into that post-Zeppelin thing where I went, I’m never gonna play any Zeppelin stuff again.
“But I was on my own, and Atlantic, Ahmet (Ertegun) and people like that, were saying: ‘Why don’t you put the band back together?’ I said, ‘Look, I’ve made a record called Shaken ‘n’ Stirred. Nobody likes it, but I like it. F*** it. Nobody liked Zeppelin, but we liked it. F*** it.
“And if it ever gets to another point where it’s not like that in my quantifying of it, then I’m lost.
“I’ll just be an Elvis impersonator. I’m really good at doing Elvis!”
Robert also revealed that he turned down the chance to attend Black Sabbath’s Back to the Beginning concert at Birmingham’s Villa Park last month – the final performance given by Ozzy Osbourne before his death – as he has “found other places”, despite being invited by Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi.
The 76-year-old singer recalled: “I said, Tony, I’d love to come, but I can’t come. Because I know how it will be for me to see Steven Tyler, who I had loved many times as Steven Tyler… I just can’t.
“I’m not saying that I’d rather hang out with Peter Gabriel or Youssou N’Dour, but I don’t know anything about what’s going on in that world now, at all.
“I don’t decry it, I’ve got nothing against it. It’s just I found these other places that are so rich.”
Meanwhile, Robert enjoys living in a more guarded fashion now after the attention that he faced at the height of Led Zeppelin’s fame.
The Whole Lotta Love rocker said: “I have been to some incredible pinnacles which were unguarded.
“In the beginning with Zeppelin, there was no T-shirts, no security.
“Later on, we each had a cop with a gun with us, everywhere we went. But we were really still just kids.
“So the structure of everything was not covered. Everybody found jobs for themselves on the périphérique of the star quality: somebody to look after you, somebody to offer you something, somebody to coerce somebody not to look after you… all that stuff is just a mess.”