From 1969 to 1980, Jones and drummer John Bonham underscored the searing, blues-based guitar work of Jimmy Page and the bravado and mysticism of vocalist/frontman Robert Plant. Together they etched the blueprint for just about every hard rock and heavy metal band to follow.

After countless post-Zeppelin production credits and collaborations with R.E.M., Butthole Surfers, Brian Eno and others, Jones decided it was time for an album of his own. The result is the all-instrumental "ZOOMA", released on Robert Fripp’s Discipline Global Mobile label. The self-produced solo debut offers a varied mix of hard rock, electronica, blues, neoclassical and jazz that takes Jones outside the bass-and-keyboards box and showcases his talents on a variety of instruments.

We caught up with Jones at his home in London, just a few days before the start of his tour behind "ZOOMA".

Free Times: What took you so long to finally record a solo project?

JPJ: Well, I’ve been making everybody else’s records, for one thing. I did one collaboration with Diamanda Galas ["The Sporting Life", 1994]. She’s collaborated on other people’s records, and she told me, "If you’re going to put that much effort into music, it should be your own." And I thought, ‘You know, that’s really a good idea.’ But the other thing was, around that time I was beginning to think that I really hadn’t played live. So I kind of put two and two together, and I thought, "Well, if I do a solo album, I will also have a body of music that I can take out on the road and play live."

FT: Had you been storing up a lot of material over the years that you were ready to record?

JPJ: No. Over the years, one of the problems I’ve had was deciding on what sort of album to make. I’ve got a really wide range of musical tastes. It could have been more experimental or more electronic or more industrial or more classical or more acoustic, you know? It could have gone in any direction. But it was really a matter of asking myself, "What do I enjoy doing onstage?" I thought, well, I really like making lots of noise on eclectic instruments, so I thought, "Okay, let’s make an album like that and go from there."

FT: People often assume that heavy, low-end sounds are all that a bass player is capable of. But there are far more dynamics and a greater variety of instrumentation on this album. Were you doing your part to dispel that myth?

JPJ: Well, yes. There were a couple of four-string basses, but mainly it was 10- and 12-string basses. They’re just huge sounding instruments. The idea of the multi-strings is that it sounds like there’s another guitar playing along with the bass, an octave higher, so it really sounds like two instruments in one. It’s a trick we developed in the Zeppelin days. When Jimmy was soloing, there was this sort of huge gap between him and the drums, and I had to fill it up. On this album, I’m also playing a bass lap steel guitar, which gives me a contrasting higher voice, plus it’s a great blues instrument. I like playing the blues, so I thought, "Well, let’s use some of that as well." There’s not too much keyboards on the album, but a bit more onstage. And of course, there are strings, which I just love to write for.

FT: I’ve read where you spent almost two years putting this record together. Is that correct?

JPJ: Yeah, but that was not a steady two years, if you know what I mean. The rhythm tracks went down in a couple weeks, about three weeks. But then again, I got sick for a couple of months, and my engineer went on to another project, so I thought, "Now’s the time to take some time and really learn how to mix drums properly." I had the time and I had the studio, so I took my time to do it properly, so that it was really as good as anybody else that I would hire. It’s better than putting a little sticker on the album saying [sheepishly] "Well, this is about as good as I could do, so I hope you’ll bear with me on this..."

FT: Some of this album sounds like Led Zeppelin, and some of it doesn’t. Have your musical sensibilities moved away from where they were then?

JPJ: Well, they’ve not so much moved away, but I suppose they’ve moved on. Moved through Zeppelin, probably. On the other hand, the 11 years in Zeppelin certainly influenced me — especially in the way the rhythm section worked. The way John [Bonham] and I put things together has definitely influenced the way I write my rhythm parts now.

FT: For all of Led Zeppelin’s huge success and huge presence in rock history, does completing a solo album feel more satisfying than what you were doing with Plant and Page and Bonham?

JPJ: I’m very proud of the music I did with Zeppelin. It was great stuff. I always thought it was the greatest band in the world. But this is different. This is my own. And one of the nice things about a solo project is that you don’t have to run your ideas past anybody. One of the difficulties of producing yourself is the opposite of what most people think. Most people think that it must be very easy to get self-indulgent. Actually it isn’t. I’m ruthless with my own music. I’m much harder on myself than I am with another band that I might produce. So I have to let that solo go on for a bit, and be a bit more self-indulgent. Otherwise, I just ruthlessly cut everything down to the bare minimum.

FT: When the tour starts, are you ready for the army of old fans who’ll want to hear Led Zeppelin songs?

JPJ: Well, they won’t hear a bunch of Led Zeppelin songs. It’s simple. They’ll hear some Led Zeppelin songs, I think, if I can do good arrangements on them. I’ve got no singer, for starters. It’s still hard rocking most of the time. It’s going to be pretty varied. I’d be happy to see as many people as possible.