A good piece from 'Classic Rock' about the force of nature that was Peter Grant -
Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant didn’t just rule his band, he ruled the entire music industry. But at the height of Zep’s success a divorce sent him into a spiral of depression and drugs.
“When Peter Grant was laying down the law to people,” said former Led Zeppelin press agent Bill Harry, “they would be visibly shaking. People were terrified of him. He had this immense power to project strength. But I found he was like a cuddly bear.”
Those two sides of Peter Grant, the extraordinary man who so successfully guided Led Zeppelin’s fortune, seemed inexplicably contradictory. Yet those facets are crucial to the story of the world’s greatest rock band, their subsequent decline, and Grant’s own rise and fall. How was it that such a commanding and influential figure as their manager came to lose his grip on fame and success? The answer lies in those elements of tragedy that have inflamed the passions of playwrights from Ancient Greeks to Shakespeare.
Grant’s death, aged 60, in 1995, came some 15 years after the demise of Led Zeppelin in 1980. But the seeds of his decline were sown during the hectic era when Zeppelin ruled the rock world – and Grant was making those rules.
Peter Grant was a colossus who managed his beloved band with strength and courage. Bill Harry was amazed by the impact ‘the cuddly bear’ had on those around him. He saw at first-hand how Grant inspired fear and respect. And yet, as many discovered, along with that ferocious aggression Grant also possessed a twinkling good humour. His charm often disarmed people more successfully than his anger did.
Peter Grant and Led Zeppelin was a marriage made in Heaven. Of course, the band didn’t rely on Grant’s – or anyone else’s – shouting and threats to become a success; it was their inspiring music and dynamic stage performances that elevated Led Zeppelin to superstar, almost god-like status. But Grant matched their musical commitment with his own kind of energy.
A former wrestler and ex-National Serviceman, he was no shrinking violet. He tackled the moguls of the music industry (who in those days were very much used to calling the tune, and everyone else, artists included, had to sing to it) head-on. Usually he won. He was the hands-on manager who always travelled with the band, made sure costs were kept down, and that promoters paid up.
It was life experience that equipped Grant for the task he handled so masterfully. Born on April 5, 1935, he was raised in Battersea, South London, by his mother. During the Second World War he was an evacuee and endured a disrupted schooling. In the post-war years the big-built cockney lad held down a number of odd jobs. An attraction to showbusiness led him to become a theatre stagehand, and he landed walk-on roles in several movies during the 50s.
He also worked as a doorman at Soho’s famed 2Is coffee bar where the careers of a number of beat groups and singers began. It was also where Grant met his future business partner, record producer Mickie Most, who once described his friend as “a dreamer who hustled”. Wrestler Paul Lincoln (aka Doctor Death), who ran the 2Is, encouraged his imposing bouncer to try a few bouts. Grant was billed as Count Massimo and crashed around the ring, butting people with his bulbous stomach.
His next job was as tour manager for Chuck Berry, Gene Vincent and Little Richard. Grant had done National Service at the age of 18. A former corporal, he knew how to deal with troublemakers.
After working for promoter Don Arden (who would later manage Black Sabbath, among others) on tours with Bo Diddley, The Animals and the Everly Brothers, Grant moved into management. It was during a US tour managing The Yardbirds that he formed a close friendship with Jimmy Page. When the group broke up in 1968 Grant helped Jimmy form the New Yardbirds – who soon afterwards changed their name to Led Zeppelin.
An early sign of Grant’s skills as shrewd and persuasive operator, he signed Led Zeppelin to Atlantic Records for a lucrative five-year contract, insisting on artistic control and a huge advance – astonishingly, without Atlantic even having seen the band play. His dealings behind the scenes soon became legendary. Anybody who got in the way suffered ‘screamer’ phone calls, desks being thumped so hard they broke, and tirades of abuse. Overweight, Grant suffered from back pain that did not help his temper.
But there was a lot to smile about. Zeppelin’s album sales soared and tours sold out. Eventually everything Grant had worked for had come to fruition. With him pulling the strings and the band pulling the crowds, Led Zeppelin become the biggest rock band on the planet. The lad from Battersea was able to buy Horselunges Manor near Eastbourne, in Sussex, a £100,000 mansion complete with moat, where he lived with his wife Gloria, a petite former dancer, and their children Helen and Warren.
Feared, respected and loved in equal measure, Peter Grant seemed like a man of destiny. But then, at the height of Zeppelin’s success, a process of collapse and decay began. Events began to pile up that shook even Grant’s usually solid confidence. First, in August 1975, just months after Zeppelin’s Earl's Court concerts, Robert Plant and his family were injured in a holiday car crash on the Greek island of Rhodes. As a result Grant had to scrap a planned world tour, and secretly told colleagues: “This could be the end of Led Zeppelin.”
With his band out of action and him and them holed up in a rented house in America, Grant was prey to temptations he normally avoided. He began experimenting with the drugs that were floating around the buoyant rock scene. Under stress and often in pain, his mood swings became ever more unpredictable.
Worried about death threats to the band, he began backing up his own intimidating manner by hiring security guards with guns. The good-time party atmosphere was replaced by something more sinister. And while coping with security and financial problems, he neglected his family affairs. He became more aggressive with people he didn’t trust. As one record executive said: “Peter’s philosophy was simple: you were either a friend or you were a foe.”
The great wealth he had amassed through Zeppelin’s huge success proved a double-edged sword for Grant. He filled his Elizabethan manor house with tapestries and antiques, but his wife found herself living in isolation while he was off gallivanting around the world with a rock’n’roll circus. Zeppelin always came first, which put a strain on the Grants’ marriage. Gloria was especially unhappy at the time her husband was living in a rented house in Long Island, reputedly to avoid having to pay crippling UK taxes.
He recalled later: “I had some problems in 1975, and my wife was fed up with it all and walked out on me. It was not a good scene. There were drug problems with one or two people, including myself. It was really hard for me, because I had to leave the kids and my divorce was starting.”
This personal breakdown undermined Grant’s confidence and sapped his spirits. He moved out of the manor house and went to live in Los Angeles, where, down and depressed, he turned to cocaine and eventually found himself taken over by the drug.
A friend recalls: “The pattern of his life changed. Peter would call his wife every day. But once the phone calls didn’t come, Gloria sussed something was going on. Then he kind of fell apart and never really recovered. He became a different person. He was one of the richest and most powerful men in the music business. Suddenly his wife ran off. It was a terrible blow to his ego.”
By now Grant’s appearance made him look more menacing than ever. He was like a long-haired pirate, in baggy jeans, satin shirts, jewellery and rings.
When even his relationship with Led Zeppelin became strained, his close friend Mickie Most noticed the changes: “When Zeppelin started, he would kill for those guys. Their relationship was unique, and so tight it eventually became claustrophobic. By the fourth album everybody wanted some air and freedom. Their relationship became unhealthy, and after all his hard work Peter had a personality change. The split-up with Gloria was like the final nail in the coffin. He was morally broken. He wasn’t the Peter Grant we all knew and loved. He became secretive, and you felt uncomfortable around him.”
Another friend said: “Peter never got over his divorce, and never recovered from the fact that something he’d held so dear was taken away. It was a great personal tragedy. Although he eventually won custody of the children, as far as he was concerned he had failed. And he was not a man used to failure.”
After the divorce, Grant returned to his manor house. But life with Zeppelin deteriorated further. The shit hit the fan during what should have been another successful American tour. After being out of action since Robert Plant’s accident, the band were ready to rock. But so was the boat.
Led Zeppelin’s eleventh US tour began in April 1977. Along the way there was a riot at one of the gigs, hotel wrecking sprees, and the disappearance of cash from the funds. Zeppelin played sold-out shows at Madison Square Garden and the Los Angeles Forum.
The tour reached its nadir at Oakland County Coliseum near San Francisco on July 23. After Grant’s 11-year-old son, Warren, was involved in an altercation with one of promoter Bill Graham’s security men, the guard was promptly beaten up by Grant and his security man John Bindon. As a result, Grant and Bindon, together with John Bonham and tour manager Richard Cole, were all arrested. A civil suit was filed seeking $2 million in damages against the Zeppelin entourage.