Led Zeppelin’s Robert Plant has been called ‘Percy’ Plant throughout his music career. When it comes to asking how it came out, there is a growing list of theories about it, and no one is sure when it first came out. Let’s take a look at some of the theories.
The nickname became the topic of interest in Led Zeppelin’s web forum, where the question about the nickname was asked in 2011. Some users suggested that the nickname comes from ‘Percy,’ a 1971 movie about a bloke who had a chandelier fall on him, leading him to sustain having a transplant for his genitals. Soon later, one of the pictures of the lead singer from a magazine became the highlight of the topic. The picture particularly focused on the lower part of his body, with the caption ‘Robert ‘Percy’ Plant.’
Others suggest that it derived from the 70s famous TV gardener Percy Thrower, coming from an inside joke among the band members about growing their own ‘Plant.’ A user who suggested this theory also shared his opinion about Led Zeppelin’s career with the growing and developing of Robert Plant, soon to ‘blossom’ into a ‘Golden God,’ his other nickname.
When the conversation gained popularity, it was still uncertain who gave Plant the ‘Percy’ nickname. Four years after the question was asked in the forum, SiriusXM shared an interview on their YouTube channel with the name who gave Plant his long-used nickname. The rocker, apparently, got his nickname from their producer, Eddie Kramer.
The original story turned out to be completely different from the theories on the forum. During his interview with SiriusXM, the producer revealed that during the shooting of the band’s movie, ‘The Song Remains The Same,’ Plant was ‘not the greatest he should have been’ with his vocals, so he was advised to sing them again. According to Kramer, Plant refused to do so, to which he replied to Plant with the following:
“Oi, Percy, how’s your absence, mate?”
The producer described Percy to be a character of one of the characters in one of the TV series in the 60s, with the last name ‘Plants.’ He then further explained the bands of the ’60s used cockney rhyming slang phrases and turned them into theirs, which was, apparently, what he did with Plant’s new nickname.
Although there is still no official explanation from Plant himself about ‘Percy,’ the list will keep growing until the rocker makes it clear how it came up.
