In a new interview with Forbes website, The Yardbirds drummer has claimed that Chris Deja was going to the bassist in Led Zeppelin but was shunted in favour of John Paul Jones. He has also claimed that they wanted to call themselves The New Yardbirds but did not because Dreja threatened to take legal action.

Speaking about the news, Mcarthy, said: “[The Yardbirds] petered out. We were so tired, on the road for three years, playing every night. We lost all the creativity in the band. It wasn’t quite the same with the four-piece lineup, (which includes Keith Relf, Chris Dreja, Jim McCarty, and Jimmy Page). Keith and I decided to leave to do something totally different, which we did with Renaissance. But there was already a tour booked with Vanilla Fudge.

Continuing Mcarthy, said: “So Jimmy [Page] went and did it with Robert Plant, John Bonham and John Paul Jones. They called it The New Yardbirds for the first tour. Chris Dreja got shunted out in favour of John Paul Jones. But Chris had rights to the name. He stopped them from using The New Yardbirds, sent them a lawyer’s letter or something. So legally they couldn’t carry on with it. They changed it to (Led) Zeppelin.”

Led Zeppelin, who formed in London in 1968, are one of the worlds biggest rock bands to emerge from Britain. The group consisted of Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, frontman Robert Plant and drummer John Bonham. Along with Black Sabbath and Deep they are considered to be one of the big three bands to have pioneered Heavy Metal, with their main influences, like their peers, coming from Blues, Psychedelia and Folk Music.

After they changed their name to Led Zeppelin they signed with Atlantic Records who gave them, their much needed, artistic freedom. Initially disliked by critics, they nevertheless soon became one of the most commercially successful bands of the 1970’s. Their fourth album simply titled “Led Zeppelin IV” featured the song “Stairway to Heaven”, which is their biggest hit and one of the most popular rock songs of all time.

Page wrote most of the music, while Plant was responsible for most of the lyrics. In the later period, Jones’ keyboard compositions became a key factor in the bands experimentation and progression. They toured relentlessly and became notorious for their excess and debauchery. This ultimately came to a head in 1980 when Bonham tragically died from alcohol abuse, which lead them to split. Their legacy over the following decades carried on and the remaining members held several one off reunion shows with the most recent being in 2007 where Bonham was substituted by his son Jason.