Robert Plant on turning down Black Sabbath’s farewell, why there won’t be another Led Zeppelin reunion

Robert Plant reveals in a new interview with Mojo that Black Sabbath‘s Tony Iommi invited him to participate in their Back to the Beginning farewell show, but declined the offer. The concert, in Birmingham, England, turned out to be Ozzy Osbourne’s final performance before his death.

“I said, Tony, I’d love to come, but I can’t come. I just can’t,” the former Led Zeppelin frontman says. “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.”

Plant will release a new album with his acoustic band Saving Grace on Sept. 26, and they’ll head out on a U.S tour on Oct. 30. While they’ve been known to play Led Zeppelin tunes like “The Rain Song” and “Four Sticks” at their shows, Plant prefers to stay away from the bigger hits.

“What were the hits? How can they be related to now, where do they fit? They fit as a sort of memoir,” he says. “When people say that I don’t like ‘Stairway To Heaven,’ I just don’t like the idea of it. These iconic things – they’re just what they are.”

He adds, “But you know, most people have missed some of the best Zeppelin stuff. ‘For Your Life,’ on Presence. ‘Achilles Last Stand!’ F***** hell. Just extraordinary that three people and a singer can do that.”

The last time the surviving members of Led Zeppelin performed together was in 2007 in London at the tribute concert for record exec Ahmet Urtrgen. While Plant says that performance “came through,” he doesn’t expect it will ever happen again.

As for why, he says, “I suppose, to do it for the sake of it was never what Zeppelin was about.”

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