When Helen Grant was a young girl in boarding school, she would hide the fact that her father was Peter Grant, the music manager who turned Led Zeppelin into the world’s first stadium rock phenomenon and helped to change the industry.
“I was always a little worried about what the other girls would be like with me,” she says. “I managed to hide it for quite some time until a massive article came out about Dad. All the other parents had seen it and said: ‘You’re not going to believe this but that girl you share a dormitory with, her dad’s that big Peter Grant person.’”
But decades on, Grant can’t stop talking about her father, once referred to as “one of the shrewdest and most ruthless managers in rock history”. He negotiated Led Zeppelin’s sizeable five-year record contract with Atlantic Records, fought for them to get an unprecedented 90% of concert earnings – pioneering the shift of power from agents and promoters to artists and management – and supported the band’s decision to never release singles or appear on television.
Grant is selling her 10% stake in Led Zeppelin that she inherited from her father after his death in 1995, providing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for someone to acquire a significant share in the band’s business activity.
“I always thought my dad was the fifth member of Led Zeppelin, everybody said it,” Grant says proudly. “He put his artists on a pedestal – anything they wanted or needed, Dad would get on with it. He took care of everything. There would be no Led Zeppelin as we know it without him. He was the driving force.”
Grant, 59, who lives in East Sussex with her family, says she has been thinking about the sale for years and hopes to use the windfall to further her father’s legacy.
“I’ve always been led by my gut, which I get from Dad,” she says. “It felt like the time was right for me to part ways. I’ve got five children, four stepchildren and seven grandchildren. It’s time to move on. And it’ll be incredible to be able to do something with Dad’s legacy – maybe a film or documentary.”
Grant recalls how growing up around Led Zeppelin became a way of life for her and her brother, Warren. They attended concerts and listened to test pressings of the band’s albums. Grant was even backstage with her father at Led Zeppelin’s seminal concert at Knebworth in 1979.
“It was like a big family, we knew each other really well. We had some amazing holidays in Miami and the south of France. Bonzo [John Bonham] and Pat [Phillips] and Jimmy [Page] and Charlotte [Martin] used to come to the south of France. John Paul Jones we’d see at his house. We had a lot of family time with the band.”
Some of her greatest memories are from the 15th-century moated manor Horselunges that she grew up in and still lives close to. “Mum and Dad had some great times there – great parties, great Christmases. Even now, it’s quite strange that people get talking to me and I mention Horselunges and they say: ‘Isn’t that where that Led Zeppelin man lived? Do you know him?’ And I say: ‘Well yeah, he was my dad.’ They often say: ‘Helen, we’d never think in a million years that you were involved in all that madness.’ But Dad kept me very grounded.”
Though her father had a reputation for being a bulldozer (he was rumoured to have had associations with the Kray twins, and once dangled the entrepreneur Robert Stigwood out of a fourth-floor window), Grant says there was another side to him.
“There were certain things he did that he probably shouldn’t have done. But he was also very kind, caring and emotional. We had quite a fiery relationship. When you put two strong characters together, especially if it’s a father and daughter, there’s going to be explosive things. Even in his later years, when I moved to Eastbourne to live near him, we use to have our occasional blow-ups. And then about 24 hours later he’d knock on the door and say: ‘Get in the car Helen, let’s go.’ We never carried on an argument.”
She remains fiercely proud of her father, who she says “turned the music business on its head”. “I’m so lucky in that even though 30 years have passed since his death, I can still Google him and look at his pictures when I feel unsure and down.”
The sale of her stake comes as a number of legendary artists including Bob Dylan, Neil Young and members of Fleetwood Mac have struck deals to sell their back catalogues for reported nine-figure sums.
The business includes sound recording rights and publishing rights, which together generate royalties from sources including sales, streams, radio airplay, public performances and synchronisation fees, as well as Led Zeppelin’s other ventures, encompassing trademarks and merchandise.
“I think there’s a lot of people out there who will hopefully be potentially interested,” Grant says. “And then I have to work out who I feel would be the right person.”
