Get the Led Out a Zep-approved tribute band

It would be futile to try and calculate the number of “tribute” acts performing around the world today. But among them is a band that by any measurement is at the pinnacle of the tribute-act universe.

Get the Led Out’s clone-like Led Zeppelin performances have put the group in the same league as many original artists working today. The band’s fees reportedly match – and often exceed – those of other traditional headliners.

Over the next 30 days alone, the sextet has 16 concerts booked in 11 states, including New Hampshire, Alabama, Wisconsin and Texas. Closer to home, Get the Led Out will play the Scottish Rite Auditorium in Collingswood from Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m.

Local origins

Not bad for a group whose beginnings go back some 23 years to a local hangout in Bridgeport, Pennsylvania. According to group co-founder and lead guitarist Paul Hammond, Get the Led Out grew out of a regular gig at the turn of the 21st century with fellow charter member and vocalist Paul Sinclair.

“Paul and I had been gigging with some friends playing Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith songs at Bridgeport Rib House,” Hammond recalled. “Every first Sunday of the month, we would do that set. It was packed like every night because people wanted to hear us do Zeppelin and Aerosmith. Paul can sing (Aerosmith lead vocalist) Steven Tyler as well as (Zeppelin front man) Robert Plant.

“Paul was approached by some other local musicians who wanted to do a Zeppelin tribute band,” Hammond added. “They wanted to do a lookalike band with Paul dressing like (Plant) and dying his hair blonde. But Paul Sinclair is not about that at all. He never wanted to be an impersonator.

“So the only way he agreed to do a Zeppelin show is to do it faithfully to (the group’s) studio versions.”

While Hammond and Sinclair originally split their repertoire between Zeppelin and Aerosmith, the choice to focus on the former was relatively easy.

“Zeppelin was no longer touring,” Hammond explained. “They didn’t even have a reunion concert scheduled. So there was more of a demand. Plus, their catalog speaks for itself. It basically appeals to everybody because their music is so diverse.

“You have Delta blues, you have Celtic folk, you have funk, you have Chicago blues, heavy metal. It’s really across the board.”

But Hammond also remembered that Aerosmith’s 1980s reinvention as a pop act “wasn’t quite (Sinclair’s) cup of tea.”

A reluctant participant

Hammond – who handles much of the group’s off-stage business – initially resisted the idea.

“I actually didn’t want to do it,” he ackowledged. “I was like, ‘Nah, I really don’t have any interest in the Zeppelin cover thing,’ because we were doing recording work and I had a lot of work being a (musical) tech. So, I was alright with my life. “But I begrudgingly agreed to do it and went to the rehearsals.

“We ended up doing some shows, and the fans loved the concept, so it actually took off fairly quickly. We didn’t really have to pay dues as far as slogging it out in bars or clubs.”

At the time, there weren’t many Led Zep tribute bands on the boards, as is still the case today. But from the jump, Get the Led Out has staked out its own exclusive turf.

“We were the only band, and are still the only Led Zeppelin band, that plays what’s on the record and does all the overdubs and does all the parts authentically,” Hammond emphasized. “And that’s what has always set us apart.”

It should be noted that dedication to painstaking reproductions of Led Zep’s output is also the reason Get The Led Out has six members – including a second guitarist and full-time keyboardist – rather than Zeppelin’s four.

Zep-approved

It’s not unheard of for top-tier tribute bands to have made connections with the artists they emulate. Members of Genesis have endorsed and performed with The Musical Box, and Brit Floyd has been joined on stage by Pink Floyd’s David Gilmour and Roger Waters.

While there has yet to be personal contact with any of the three remaining Led Zeppelin members, Get the Led Out is clearly on their radar.

“They know about us,” Hammond said. “Years ago, we were playing in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and standing in the green room. The promoter was standing there talking on the phone. She gets off the phone and says to me, ‘Who do you think I was talking to?’

“I said, ‘I have no idea,'” Hammond added of the encounter. “She says, ‘That was Robert Plant. He’s gonna be here next week. And he asked who’s the band playing tonight.’ And she told him Get the Led Out. And he said … ‘That’s a great band!'”

Plant supposedly saw the band in Nashville.

“He sent a message through our sound man from his guy he was working with in the studio,” Hammond recounted. “He sent like thumbs-up on the show or something like that … And (Zep guitarist) Jimmy Page follows us.”

And why not? As Hammond suggested with a chuckle, Get the Led Out may very well be an asset to the remaining Led Zeppeliners: Legendary drummer John “Bonzo” Bonham died in 1980.

“We are probably selling more records for them at this point,” Hammond observed of the storied group, “than they would be otherwise.”

For tickets, go to etix.com.