Jimmy Page explained during a talk in London on February 11 why he chose not to play guitar on his girlfriend Scarlett Sabet’s new poetry album Catalyst, which he produced.

Page and Sabet were interviewed at the Libreria bookshop in East London about Sabet’s career and Page’s work with her.

“The one thing I knew it couldn’t be or shouldn’t be was … not to do a musical project and the reason for that is very simple as far as loops or guitar music or whatever it was,” Page said.

“It’s very simple, because if people knew we were doing a project then they would automatically be probably disappointed. ‘Oh, I thought they’d do this.’ Or ‘I thought he’d do that.'”

“Well I’ll tell you what, the best way to deal with something like that is, from my point of view as a producer, is to think of how to do this in such a way that no-one’s ever done it before and no-one would hear it until the day that it was released in any shape or form. There were five people who had heard this project when it came out.”

At the end of the event, the pair were asked if they would produce an album in the future where Page provides the soundtrack for Sabet’s poetry:

“Well I’d really like to think that the way we approached this and the feedback that we’ve had about it, because it’s so unique, it’s definitely been the right way to step forward,” Page said.

“I mean, that’s the way I heard everything at that point. It’s hard to say what will come in the future. I mean, there’s always possibilities, let’s put it that way. But the most important thing was to get this established and hey we’re here now talking about it, so that’s cool.”