While the Yardbirds are a historically influential band and well known for its all-star lineups from 1963-68, it might be easy for its two remaining founding members wonder what if?
After all, former members Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck and Eric Clapton are considered guitar gods. And hometown peers Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Eric Burdon are all-time rock stars.
So does drummer Jim McCarty regret breaking up the band in 1968?
“Well, yeah, I suppose looking back on it, yes,” McCarty said. “There were some regrets about it, but we just couldn't sustain that energy really. I think we'd have been well burnt out by now if we'd have kept going.”
Rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja for decades was out of music completely, working as a photographer.
“Those five years in the '60s felt like 25 years,” Dreja said. “It's been easier this time around.”
The Yardbirds decided to get back together a few years after reuniting in 1992 when the band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
“It was a great boost to our confidence,” McCarty said of the induction. “So many people said they'd love to see the band reformed, so we took that on board.”
McCarty said Dreja, Beck and Paul Samwell-Smith, the Yardbirds original producer and bass player, had stayed in contact.
“I'd been working in London with a little blues band and we built a following similar down in West London to the old days at Richmond. (They) used to come down as well and see the band, and we sort of went from there. An agent that we knew was booking the Animals and he suggested getting the Yardbirds back together.”
It may have been harder to find a new singer than it was a guitarist. Singer Keith Relf, who played with McCarty in post-Yardbird bands Renaissance and Illusion, died in a 1976 accident.
“We knew John Idan,” McCarty said. “He was a bit of a Keith lookalike, you know, long blond-haired frontman, and we filled out from there. The trick is not having the lead singer or the lead player but we've been lucky. We've found good people.”
Idan, a Detroit resident, left the band last year to pursue a solo career. Today's Yardbird lineup is McCarty, Dreja, harpist-singer Andy Mitchell, bassist David Smale and guitarist Ben King, who, McCarty said, “certainly fits in the shoes of some of the old guys.”
The young performers' daunting task of playing with such a historic band is made easier by McCarty's musicianship.
“(The Stones) Charlie Watts and Jim McCarty are the alpha and omega of rock drummers,” said Mick Martin, a Sacramento blues musician, historian and radio personality. “Jim created a lot of the motifs the guitar players played off. He's an absolute metronome. To me, he's the man and he never got the credit he deserves.”
McCarty doesn't call attention to himself as other might.
“I was never one of the flash drummers like Keith Moon or Ginger Baker,” he said. “I never really played solos. I was just concentrating on holding the band together, getting the right feel. Some people say some nice things about me. I suppose I wasn't a big drum star. I'm not really a showy sort of person.”
McCarty confirmed some stories about the Yardbirds:
n Page could have been Clapton's successor, but he didn't want to miss out on work as a studio player. That opened a spot for Beck, who eventually was replaced by Page anyway.
n Led Zeppelin was called the New Yardbirds for a month before learning Dreja had a copyright on the name Yardbirds.
n “Dazed and Confused” was penned by a folk guitarist named Jake Holmes, who opened for the Yardbirds for a show at Greenwich Village, New York.
“I bought the record, and we worked out a version of it,” McCarty said. “We used to play it as part of our act. We did “Dazed and Confused” and then we split up, and Jimmy carried on with it playing it with Zeppelin.
Page's timing with Zeppelin was perfect.
“It was incredible because in those days when we broke up the LPs or albums didn't sell so much,” McCarty said. “It was always singles. That's what we'd seen throughout our career. Having to get another hit single, one after another. As soon as we broke up the album market went mad. It just exploded, and of course Zeppelin was selling millions of albums.”
The other Yardbirds didn't cash in, but they have a place in history.
“I am so glad to be associated with the band right from the beginning,” Dreja said. “We tried experimental stuff and eclectic stuff. Maybe people didn't get it then and maybe they get it now. I am glad we broke the rules and did things to the equipment that the manufacturer would not have recommended.”
McCarty probably often is asked, “What if you had kept the Yardbirds together in the 1960s?”
“With retrospect, I suppose if somebody'd come along and said ‘How about having six months holiday then come back and do another tour?' That would have worked. But that wasn't the way it was in those days. It wouldn't have made sense. Everyone would have forgotten about you.”
Dreja elaborated.
“Jimmy was much fresher than the rest of us,” Dreja said. “We were doing thousands of shows a year and basically we got burned out. Keith and Jim wanted to play a softer type of music and we wanted to fold the band. That four-piece was the forerunner to the Led Zeppelin sound. It sounds like a dream ticket but in actuality it didn't work out too well. The egos didn't mesh.”
It's easier now for McCarty and Dreja to be Yardbirds.
“The nice thing is you don't have to do it the whole time,” McCarty said. “You can do a tour and then rest up for a few weeks. In those days it was just relentless. Night after night. We were together about five years and I can't remember many days off. In those days there wasn't much money in recording royalties, so all the money had to be made was on the road.”
The Yardbirds are on one of their shortest tours ever with three shows in Canada, two in the United States, one being Saturday, March 13, at Harrah's Lake Tahoe. It will be the Yardbirds third Harrah's concert in four years.