Alice Cooper baffled by Robert Plant's refusal to rejoin Zeppelin

In a recent interview with the Palm Springs Boxing Examiner, legendary shock-rocker and boxing fan Alice Cooper pondered why Robert Plant thinks he might be too old to rejoin Led Zeppelin. Cooper doesn't believe it would be that big of a deal for the 62-year-old crooner to get up on stage with his former bandmates and rock out again, to the delight of millions of diehard Zep fans.

"They are just standing there," said Cooper, who's also 62, "what is so hard? Jimmy Page wants to do it. John Paul Jones wants to do it. And they got Bonham's son [Jason Bonham], who is a killer drummer. All they need is Robert Plant. But what is Robert Plant out there doing? Playing folk music! What is he doing?"

Plant is actually playing rootsy Americana music with the Band of Joy—which includes singer Patty Griffin and guitarist Buddy Miller—and will bring that group to Vancouver in April. It's doubtful that "Black Dog" or "Stairway to Heaven" will make the setlist, but that's okay with Plant, who recently told Rolling Stone that—while the one-off Zeppelin reunion that happened in London in 2007 had its moments—his heart isn't into those songs any more.

"The preparations for [the 2007 show] were fraught and intense," he said, "but the last rehearsal was really, really good, for all that it represented and all that we were trying to capture. But I've gone so far somewhere else that I almost can't relate to it... It's a bit of a pain in the pisser to be honest. Who cares? I know people care, but think about it from my angle—soon, I'm going to need help crossing the street.

"There's nothing worse than a bunch of jaded old farts," Plant added, "and that's a fact. People who have written their story—they've gotten to the point where nothing moves. I don't deal in that, and I don't deal with anybody who deals in that."

For his own part, Cooper is more than happy to live in the past, touring—as he did on the Gruesome Twosome trek with Rob Zombie that hit town last year—on the strength of his back catalogue. He can get away with it, since his string of five amazing Alice Cooper Band albums in the early '70s—Love it to Death, Killer, School's Out, Billion Dollar Babies, and Muscle of Love—left him with a ton of choice concert material.

"I go out on stage and say 'turn it up'," enthused Cooper, who was finally nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last September. "I never get tired of playing my songs."

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