In the January issue (on sale now) of Uncut , we celebrated the career of rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best. Here at www.uncut.co.uk, we'll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Roy Harper, Steve Albini and more. Today: MICHAEL WINNER Irrepressible film director, columnist, restaurant critic, and Jimmy Page’s next door neighbour. The Zep man also composed the soundtrack to Winner’s 1982 Charles Bronson movie, Death Wish II, and it’s sequel, Death Wish III. UNCUT: How did Jimmy come to be involved with the Death Wish II soundtrack? WINNER: They already had Isaac Hayes to do the music in Hollywood. There’s nothing wrong with Isaac Hayes, he's very good, but I thought how dare they choose someone without consulting me? And he was doing it for nothing, I’m not sure why, and giving them a percentage of the record... but I’d lived next door to Jimmy for many years, I’d never seen him, never spoken to him. So I rang up the number, got onto Peter Grant, and actually Peter Grant was very clever because although Jimmy wasn't paid anything, it was a very bad down period for him - the drummer [Jason Bonham] had died, and he was in a very inactive period. Jimmy was in a down period, bless him. So anyway, we made arrangements for him to do the score - and I had to beat Elektra music who were doing him under the same umbrella, Atlantic, in the deal. I had to get a slightly better deal because I was working for the company, Isaac Hayes was doing it for nothing and giving them a percentage of the track, I couldn't go back and say I've got Jimmy Page for 100,000 dollars... anyway so we did a deal, which was very sensible of Peter Grant because what he wanted to do was restore Jimmy back to creativity. A very sensible thing to do, it didn't matter whether he was paid a lot or not. I think this was a very wise decision, he did a deal to get Jimmy back into action. And he rang the doorbell, and I thought if the wind blows he’ll fall over. Ha ha! he might possibly have been on substances, shall we say, at that time.... He’s clean as a whistle now, he doesn't even drink! He was running around the block the other day - he said “Don't tell anyone I’m running, it will ruin my reputation.” He saw the film, we spotted where the music was to go, and then he said to me “I’m going to my studio” – at the time he owned a studio in Cookham, it was later bought by Chris Rea. He said “I don’t want you anywhere near me, I’m going to do it all on my own.” Well, my editing staff said this is bloody dangerous! We’d normally expect to see a sample of music at least, and he’s never don a film! And I said, well, I trust him, that's what we are going to do. I trusted him - just as I trusted Herbie Hancock for the first Death Wish, and Gato Barbieri for Fire Power. I've used a lot of these people who film companies don't usually use. Anyway, Jimmy then turned up with the score, and it was absolutely magical. Not only was it a great score but you know, filming is done to a 24th for a second, there are 24 frames of film go through every second... and everything hit the button totally! It was one of the most professional scores - well, I've never seen a more professional score in my life. On his own – we gave him the film, we gave him timings, and he did it all on his own. I personally edited the film and I laid the music on the film, and I’ll never forget, it was in my attic here in the house next to Jimmy's – I put the two together, I put his start mark against our start mark, and I said “Fuck me! This is absolutely fucking incredible! Great music and its hits every fucking thing its meant to hit at the right time to the 24th of a second!” I was flabbergasted... he hit everything! You know, Herbie Hancock was adorable but he didn't hit everything... Herbie was great, don't get me wrong, but Jimmy was immaculate. It was a great score, and we became very close friends. I taught him to swim in Barbados, I have a picture of me holding his hand a lot in the sea when I taught him to swim. We’re like a couple of old washer women - we talk over the garden wall for an hour. It was raining one evening, I went down and started talking to Jimmy over the wall, I was there an hour and a half. My girlfriend came out - she thought I’d fallen down and died. He’s adorable! I see quite a lot of him, you couldn't have a more perfect neighbour. Then we made Death Wish III.... I cut up the music from Death Wish II and laid it against Death Wish III, and it fitted just as well. So I rang Jimmy one evening and said “Jimmy darling, do you want another film credit and you don't have to do anything at all?” I recut the music, I used them differently, I chopped bits out the middle... I said “You come and see it Jimmy, it’s fucking perfect...” Jimmy said “I must give you new copies of the music from the original masters, I said ‘Well Jimmy I've got the masters, it’s perfectly alright...” he said No no. That's how meticulous he is. “You want me to lay the whole thing again, lay every single cue by hand again?” I said “Jimmy, of course we will.” Hahaha! So he got two films for the price of one... How did you find Jimmy? He was the ultimate professional, he was extremely gentle, extremely gentlemanly, I was asked to all his strange girlfriend’s parties - Charlotte, she's now head of the church in Bray. He knows all the restaurants around here, recommends them to me now. He's a great neighbour, a great person and a great expert on Victorian art - a serious expert on Victorian art. I went around all the painters and I didn't realised then he'd been at art school. He's got a fantastic collection of Victorian art, Byrne Jones tapestries and things. He was an occult expert, as well… Yeah, I once said to Jimmy “What's all this about the occult and black magic?” Oh, he said, it’s all nonsense... well I’m sure it wasn't nonsense, bless him, but he'd grown out of it by the time I’d met him. A lot of people had a period of lunacy, it didn't matter - in his case particularly it didn't matter, because that great talent was never affected by it. Do you think Led Zeppelin will ever tour again? I don’t think they are going to reform. It’s well known that he has a kind of one off love affair with Robert Plant. One minute they love each other and the next they don't... I think it’s 50/50 at best. Jimmy doesn't need the money. What I admire about Jimmy is he is always working - I say “What are you doing Jimmy?”, “Well, it’s the 30th anniversary of something, I’m making a video, were redoing the film, re-relasing it...” He's always doing something. I don't know, I don't want to get involved in asking impertinent questions because he’s a friend, you know? I’m quite happy to read about it in the papers. Did you read that wonderful book, I’m With The Band? Pamela Des Barres, she was a girlfriend of mine. I said “Thank you dear for not putting me in the book.” She mentions Jimmy a lot. The house next door to me, as a matter of interest, he bought from Richard Harris the actor... I’m still plugging my diet book. He's putting on a bit of weight now, Jimmy, I may give him a copy. Haha! I think he’s so wonderful - He adored my girls, I've got very pretty receptionists here, and they said “He's not dying his hair any more...” I think he looks much better, bless him. Otherwise he’d look like Bill Wyman. He looks younger, strangely enough, I think. STEPHEN DALTON

In the January issue (on sale now) of Uncut , we celebrated the career of rock's greatest and most mysterious guitar hero through the first hand accounts of the people who know him best. Here at www.uncut.co.uk, we'll be posting the full and unedited transcripts from those interviews, including words from Robert Plant, Jeff Beck, Roy Harper, Steve Albini and more. Today… ROY HARPER Brilliantly ornery English singer-songwriter and long-term Page associate, celebrated by “Hats Off To (Roy) Harper” on Led Zeppelin III. Jimmy played on Harper’s Stormcock – credited as “S Flavius Mercurius” - and toured with Harper on their 1985 collaboration, Whatever Happened To Jugula? *** ROY HARPER: Did I lead Led Zep astray? Regarding the narcotics, I think we were all as bad as each other. Musically, I might have done though. I’ve always thought of Jimmy as a real gent. He might not have shown up a couple of times, but he knows I forgive him for stuff like that. I think if Jimmy and I share anything, it’s in our own sense of self-belief. You can sometimes have no confidence at all, but still have an underlying self-belief that can’t be touched. And I suspect Jimmy’s the same in that way. We were both in skiffle bands around the same time and come from the same musical root as young teenagers. After Led Zep, we started playing together again. I’d always wanted to get something together with him. But the times weren’t right. The ‘80s were just about the worst time in my whole life. It was a period in time that was just absolutely horrible. And neither Jimmy nor myself seemed to be able to dedicate enough time to it. I always take a long time to prepare before I write new stuff, but I think Jimmy was distracted as well. He’d just come out of the biggest band in the world and was kind of looking for something to do. But at the same time, he wasn’t. He didn’t have to do anything. We never really got together properly and didn’t give each other enough of a chance. And I regret that now. It was both our faults. In the ‘80s, we were both stacked with energy and we could have done something together that would have meant something. The main problem was rehearsal time. I lived in the north and Jimmy lived in the south, so it wasn’t as though we were living next door to each other. We weren’t in that position. It was always a procedure to get together, with instruments and everything. What it suffered from, his and my playing, was non-rehearsal. That was the stumbling block. We were great when we got together, the same good friends. But because we didn’t dedicate time to rehearsal, we never really got anything off the ground. [1985’s Whatever Happened To] Jugula was a good starting point, but it was mainly my songs with Jimmy’s playing attached to it. But if he’d given me some pieces to work on and we’d done it together, then we would have had a totally different album altogether. I think that was the nature of both of our lives at the time. In some ways, it was down to laziness, that ‘Oh, we’ll do it later’ attitude. But I wish I’d moved in next door, as it were. I’ve no idea how Jimmy feels about that time now, but I’d think he probably regrets not making more of it too. He’d had so many opportunities to do so many different things, but the big problem was: what do you do after Led Zeppelin? Anything you do is likely to be looked at as going downhill. And as well as the reticence on his part for not wanting to really get into anything, we do have our own idiosyncrasies too. After something as big as Led Zep, you have to find someone you specifically believe in and dedicate your career to starting again. You have to actually start again with energy. But what do you do if you’ve got the ability to actually pay to fly to the moon? [Touring in ‘84] I was down at Jimmy’s place in Windsor and I’d got naked for Sundays. I’d got my girl with me, you know, we were enjoying it. Then suddenly I’m getting bitten by gnats, as we were by the water. I didn’t think much of it, so we got dressed and everything. Two days later, Jimmy and I are doing TV up in the Lakes, for Whistle Test. By then, I’d come up in eggs all over my arms and legs. It was my first allergic reaction to some pathogen I hadn’t come across before. So at lunchtime, I went into Jimmy’s room. The previous night, we’d been pissing around with the TV crew. We had some white snuff, which they thought was cocaine. It was comical. So when I went into Jimmy’s room on the day of the shoot, I showed him these eggs and he said “Ah, I’ve got something for that”, and he gave me some antihistamines. We were due to film a couple of hours later, but just as we get up there, I decided to drink a can of Holsten. But it reacted with the antihistamine and I couldn’t play. I realized really quickly what was happening, so asked my girlfriend to run down to the stream with an empty water bottle and fill it up for me, so I could wash it all out of my system. But it didn’t wash out in time, so the TV people, of course, thought that Jimmy and I were both completely stoned. That we were being rock’n’roll crazies and were totally out of it. And they decided they weren’t going to have anything to do with us. It was a virtual write-off. I tried to say tell producer Trevor Dann that we should give it an hour, because then I’d be able to play again. It was just the antihistamines, but they didn’t believe us. They told Jimmy and I they had a dinner party to go to in London. And the dinner party won. But it was a terrible thing, a real catalogue of errors. Talk about bad luck. It’s a strange memory, but a really good memory. I have fantastic memories of playing together with Jimmy. I love playing with him. I think Jimmy’s one of the most spontaneous players I’ve ever met. He does things that are really unusual. What he likes to do is improvise. I’ve played with a lot of people, but him and Hendrix stand out. I played with Hendrix in a couple of clubs early on, but for my own taste, I think Jimmy Page has it. I’ll get castigated for that, but I think it’s true. He’s very generous too. He doesn’t try and stamp himself all over a piece of music he doesn’t know about. He’s wanting to know what it’s all about. He’s very amenable and a very sensitive player in that way. Very early on, Robert [Plant], Jimmy and myself were listening to something one of us had done. I said “Jimmy, are you out of tune there?” And Robert flew at me: “What do you mean, is he out of tune? He’s never out of tune!” I thought shit, I’ve been really told off. I told them not to worry about it and that I’d just listen again. So I listened to it again. It was out of tune, but at the same time, it wasn’t. There was an ethos about it that was completely on the ball. And it had taken Robert, just with a couple of words, to tell me that not everything is perfectly in tune, but it is if you listen to the context. He was being very protective of Jimmy, but at the same time, it was a good lesson for me to learn. I took it as an educated thing from Robert. Both he and Jimmy were in a realm were those things had ceased to be the major concern. The major concern was the feel of the music. And that is the real nature of rock’n’roll, the core of it. INTERVIEW BY ROB HUGHES