Don’t Mess With Zep

Some music fans don’t take kindly to folks who badmouth their favorite group. Among them are a vocal minority that take things a step further than a rational person might otherwise expect. Former Cream bass player Jack Bruce learned this first hand after he made a few unkind comments about fellow rockers Led Zeppelin while attending the Classic Rock Awards last year.

At the time, Bruce lashed out at Led Zeppelin by saying, among other things, F— off, Zeppelin, you’re crap. You’ve always been crap and you’ll never be anything else. The worst thing is that people believe the crap that they’re sold. Cream is 10 times the band that Led Zeppelin is.”

This, apparently, was a little bit too much for Led Zeppelin fans, and some of them – probably not the type you would want living next door to you – decided to take things up a notch by actually making death threats. Although Bruce’s comments at the time were certainly not complimentary, I do not believe he made any threats or suggested that he wanted to see anyone from Zeppelin physically harmed.

Despite his comments, which Bruce has since claimed were made in jest, it appears he is still a rung or two on the evolutionary ladder above the type of person that makes death threats over a few insults directed at their favorite band. Perhaps people like that should seriously consider the saying: “Get a life.”

Perhaps Jack Bruce has learned something from all of this. I don’t suppose many people feel that their lives are enriched by death threats, so perhaps he will tone things down a bit in the future when it comes to speaking his mind about other musicians. Even if it was all meant to be a joke.

Bruce himself was a bit surprised by the intensity of the reaction by some Zep fans. “People like me tend to forget that with YouTube and Twitter, you can’t say anything without it getting around the world,” Bruce said. “"We always used to have a pop at other bands in the old days and that was all it was. It was like I had spoken out against the Queen or something. You obviously can’t say anything against Led Zeppelin.”

Maybe it was all just a poor attempt at humor on his part. In nothing else, he was rather quickly reminded that it’s not 1969 any more. Welcome to the digital age, Jack.

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