Pitchfork

According to NME, Led Zeppelin will be touring and recording without Robert Plant. Yikes.

The three surviving members of Zeppelin (Plant, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones) reunited in 2007 for one show at London's O2 arena, with Jason Bonham filling in for his late father, OG drummer John. But Plant denied last year that he had any interest in pursuing a reunion tour anytime soon, issuing a statement via his webiste that said after he finished his tour with bluegrass singer and Rising Sand partner Alison Krauss, "[He] has no intention whatsoever of touring with anyone for at least the next two years. Contrary to a spate of recent reports, Robert Plant will not be touring or recording with Led Zeppelin."

But Page's manager Peter Mensch claimed today that Zeppelin would soldier on without Plant: "They [Page, Jones, and Bonham] did the show with Robert Plant; they had a really good time rehearsing, the three of them, before Robert showed up. And they decided that if they could find a singer that they thought would fit their bill, whatever their bill was at this stage in their career, that they'd make a record and go on tour."

Jack White, possibly the only person alive who could plausibly replicate Plant's swagger and yelp, has already said that he won't be involved with the tour. Last year, he told the British tabloid the Daily Star that "I do not believe you can have a band called Led Zeppelin, singing Zeppelin songs, without Plant." Which...yeah.

Mensch hasn't yet named the replacement singer, if indeed there will be one. "It's gonna be a long a difficult process," he says. "And we're not soliciting people! So don't call me about it!"

There's at least some possibility, though, that the new singer will be Myles Kennedy of-- oof-- Altar Bridge, aka the guy who replaced Scott Stapp when Creed broke up. Kennedy's been widely reported to be practicing with the rest of the band. Good lord. We, the people of Earth, cannot allow this to happen. Write your Congressman or member of parliament.

Update: Either Mensch read this post or somebody else talked to him, because now he's saying that this reunion isn't happening after all, telling MusicRadar this today: "Led Zeppelin are over! If you didn't see them in 2007, you missed them. It's done. I can't be any clearer than that." Thank the Jesus.

According to Mensch, who sounds like a total shithead, the band had toyed with the idea of touring and recording without Plant. "They tried out a few singers, but no one worked out," he says. "Frankly, I wish everybody would stop talking about it." Uh, does he mean himself?