If you happen to’ve been protecting tabs on Robert Plant currently, it’s clear he’s doing simply high-quality with out Led Zeppelin. That doesn’t imply he all the time goes it alone, although: In a brand new interview with Vulture, Plant credit his pal Phil Collins for serving to him get his solo profession off the bottom, saying the Genesis musician was “a driving drive” for him.

“After John [Bonham, Led Zeppelin drummer] handed away and there was no Led Zeppelin, there needed to be a approach to go,” Plant says in a brand new interview with Vulture. “I floundered round quite a bit as a result of till I used to be 32, I used to be in some sort of wild and absurd journey… Phil Collins particularly was a driving drive and had optimistic power with the primary file, Footage at Eleven. It wasn’t a troublesome job to get along with different individuals, it was simply whether or not or not we might cook dinner it correctly.”

Plant went on: “With Phil, it wasn’t a lot recommendation as encouragement and consideration. He was taking no prisoners. He would solely enable himself a brief period of time to come back to the studio in Wales and make it work. No one was hiding behind the efficiency.”

Collins would go on to carry out drums on 5 tracks on Footage at Eleven, Plant’s 1982 solo debut. However as a lot as Plant admired Collins, the emotions have been evidently mutual: “Then he got here on tour with me and principally mentioned, ‘Robert, the man that sat behind you for all these years was my hero,’” Plant recalled, the man referenced being Bonham, who died in 1980. “That was it. He mentioned, ‘Something I can do that will help you to get again into combating form once more, I’m right here…’ He’s an awesome spirit, a very good man.”

Maybe to the chagrin of some intense Led Zeppelin followers, Plant nonetheless has little interest in reuniting his iconic onerous rock band: In August, he advised the Los Angeles Occasions that reuniting would really feel gimmicky and “doesn’t actually fulfill [his] should be stimulated.” Collins evidently felt otherwise, as his personal group Genesis did their very own reunion tour in 2021.