In a new interview with Guitar World magazine, Lita Ford opened up about the time she was asked by Led Zeppelin to play bass for them back in the ’70s.
About this Ford said:
”The Runaways were playing at Gazzarri’s or The Starwood, I’m having trouble with names because those places aren’t there anymore. It was upstairs… yeah, it was the Starwood. It was early Runaways days, you can tell we were like 17 or something. But Jimmy Page and Robert Plant came to see the show, and The Runaways were quite the novelty, being teenage girls that could rip it up, kick a*s, and rock the house.
”The places were always packed with fans, and our manager at the time, Kim Fowley, said, ‘Okay, girls, gather around and get a picture with Robert Plant and Jimmy Page.’ I was scooched in there, like, ‘Oh yeah, great!’ I grew up listening to them and I was still growing up. Robert Plant said, ‘We’re looking to replace our bass player, John Paul Jones,’ and I thought, ‘I’m not hearing this.
”I refuse to believe that this is really coming out of his mouth.’ I thought, ‘He’s got to be joking,’ because John Paul Jones is God on bass, as far as I’m concerned. But that’s what he said. And I walked away, just thinking, ‘Oh, that was nice.
”That was nice of him to look at me like that.’ In those days a lot of people didn’t look at us as musicians because we were female and we were young. They never took us seriously as musicians.”
Andrew Daly, the interviewer, noted that “it’s interesting they wanted you to play bass since you’re a guitar player”, Lita Ford replied:
“I got into The Runaways because they heard I was a bass player. I had played bass for a few shows in a local band in Long Beach, California, covering for somebody who got sick. Then everyone thought I was a bass player.
”So, I don’t know… but that’s what came out of Robert Plant’s mouth. And I was, like, ‘Nah, he didn’t really say that’, but he did.”