Com-Page-riots: Richard Cole

For this Pageia Obscura I'm going to profile Led Zeppelin's tour manager and author of the tell all book, "Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin Uncensored", Richard Cole.

Jimmy Page and Richard Cole

Richard Cole was born in the North London borough of Brent in 1946. Cole got his start in the music business working as a road manager for John Barker and soon began handling tours for acts such as The Who in 1965, The New Vaudeville Band in 1966, and Vanilla Fudge in 1967. Cole became one of the first Englishmen to specialize in taking British acts on extended tours of America, revolutionizing the way tours were conducted by bringing the band's gear with them across the Atlantic, and using English roadies, rather than renting equipment in the states, and hiring unknowns as had been the convention previously.

Cole started up a friendship with The New Vaudeville Band's manage Peter Grant around 1966. When the Yardbirds went on tour in America, Grant picked Cole to act as the manager of the band on the road. When the Yardbirds dissolved later that year, and Led Zeppelin was born out of the ashes, Grant once again called on Cole to take his new act across America. Cole would go on to work as Led Zeppelin's tour manager for every subsequent tour the band embarked upon with the exception of their tour of Europe in 1980, when his substance abuse problem had spiraled out of control.

Robert Plant commented further on the issue of Cole's dismissal in 1985, "These stories would filter out from girls who'd supposedly been in my room when in fact they'd been in his. That sort of atmosphere was being created, and we were quite tired of it. So eventually we relieved him of his position … And in the meantime he got paid a lot of money for talking crap. A lot of the time he wasn't completely …well. And so his view of things was permanently distorted one way or another."

Richard Cole and Jimmy

Richard Cole, if he is to be believed is the cause of much of the mayhem that surrounded the band during their life. Cole supplied the band with numerous drugs and partook right alongside them; marijuana, cocaine, heroin, uppers, downers, you name it he got it. One of Cole's other extra-curricular responsibilities was making sure that there was always a steady stream of willing women surrounding the band for whenever their more primal needs took over.

After Led Zeppelin broke up as a result of John Bonham's death, Cole went on to work for acts such as Eric Clapton, Black Sabbath, and Three Dog Night. In 1980, Richard Cole was arrested and incarcerated on terrorism charges for Bologna railway station bombing in Italy where 85 people were killed and over 200 were wounded. Though he was ultimately exonerated, the time behind bars allowed him to detox off of heroin, which had taken a hold of his life for a number of years up to that point.

Scene from the 1980 bombing of a Bologna, Italy Train Station

In 1985, Cole sat down with writer Stephen Davis for an interview for Davis' book "Hammer of the Gods: The Led Zeppelin Saga". Much of the book's juicier details come straight from Cole's mouth and was paid $1,250 to tell his story. Jimmy Page didn't think much of the book saying, "I think I opened [the book] up in the middle somewhere and started to read it, and I just threw it out the window. I was living by a river then, so it actually found its way to the bottom of the sea." When John Paul Jones asked him Cole directly why he had said the things he did in the book, Cole exclaimed, "he'd been a drug addict who needed the money."

Cole later decided to write his own book to tell his story in his own words and under his own name. The result was "Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin Uncensored". The band collectively rallied together to rail against the book, Jimmy Page stated, "There's a book written by our former road manager, Richard Cole that has made me completely ill. I'm so mad about it that I can't even bring myself to read the whole thing. The two bits that I have read are so ridiculously false, that I'm sure if I read the rest I'd be able to sue Cole and the publishers. But it would be so painful to read that it wouldn't be worth it." John Paul Jones was furious at Cole's depiction of drummer John Bonham as a drug fueled maniac, and vowed never to speak to him again.

Richard Cole's book

Despite their differences, Cole was invited by the band to attend their 2007 reunion at the O2 in London, even given seating in the VIP section.