Drummer Chris Slade mentioned the sudden finish of ’80s supergroup the Agency got here as a shock to him, and that if it had all the time been meant as a short-term mission, he’d by no means identified.
Whereas singer Paul Rodgers and guitarist Jimmy Web page have each mentioned they’d by no means deliberate for the four-piece to final lengthy, Slade maintained that the actual purpose they cut up after two years in 1986 was as a result of discussions for a Led Zeppelin reunion had been underway.
Rodgers informed Traditional Rock in 2010 that the Agency had solely ever meant to make two albums in an effort to assist Web page reinvent himself after the collapse of Zeppelin in 1980. “By the tip, I felt that Jimmy was up and working and in nice form – he was in improbable type. And I type of thought, ‘Nicely, job executed,’ actually,” the Dangerous Firm frontman mentioned. Web page agreed that he hadn’t needed to get “knocked into an album-tour-album state of affairs.”
However in a brand new interview with Final Guitar, Slade mentioned he’d believed “the sky was the restrict” for the Agency. “As far as I knew, we had no illusions about the place it was going, and we did not suppose it was a one-off or short-term factor in any respect,” mentioned the drummer, who additionally performed with AC/DC from 1989-94 and 2015-16. “I can positively say that if that was the case, I had no thought. I can not communicate for Tony [Franklin, bassist], and possibly he did know that it was a short-term factor for them.
“A giant purpose that we broke up was that Led Zeppelin got here again into the equation for Jimmy,” Slade continued. “There have been reunion talks, they usually did not know in the event that they had been going to attempt to tour or not, .” Whereas these reunion talks got here to nothing, Slade nonetheless felt they introduced an abrupt finish to the Agency. “It simply occurred at some point,” he recalled.
“I used to be actually upset with the choice, as I knew that band had potential, but it surely was actually one thing that Tony and I merely might do nothing about,” he mentioned. “If Paul and Jimmy determined that was the tip, then that was it. What might we do? How do you change a type of guys, not to mention each? The reply is easy – you do not.”
Regardless of his disappointment, Slade mentioned he’d “all the time look again on these two albums very fondly. Folks say to me typically, ‘Why did not you proceed? These information had been nice. It’s best to have made extra.’ I all the time say, ‘Nicely, I do know. I’d have cherished to proceed on with the Agency, but it surely’s one thing that was merely out of my palms.'”
Led Zeppelin Albums Ranked
Counting down each canonical Led Zeppelin album, from worst (comparatively talking, after all) to greatest.
A Look Again at Rock’s Forgotten Supergroups
