Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant recalled the moment onstage with Jimmy Page when he decided to redirect his career toward the work he’s done in recent years.

The change of focus away from the music he’d been known for led to a series of award-winning albums, including work with country singer Alison Krauss and his latest solo LP, Carry Fie.

In a new interview with George Stroumboulopoulos on House of Strombo, Plant said the change "developed until the year 2000, when Jimmy Page and I traveled around the world with an Egyptian orchestra, playing – stuff, you know. It got to a point one night in Mannheim in Germany, where we were playing inside a big concrete cube to a huge audience of males pumping the air with their fists. And I went, ‘Well, I don’t think we need this anymore. It’s time to get off the bus quick.’”

You can watch the interview below.

Plant noted that the “we” he referred to meant “the many, many myriads of me.” “We got to Paris and we played the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights," he recalled. "It was an insignificant bill. It was the beginnings of Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen acoustic, Peter Gabriel acoustic and the Dali Lama. … I saw the guitarist in Radiohead [and] when it was time for a solo, he just knelt down and started messing with his pedals. … I went, ‘Well, that’s a lot different to the world I’ve been in, of expressive gesture and stuff.’ I realized it was time to change. Then I started writing.”

As the discussion moved into culture, Plant, a Tolkien fan, was asked if he watched Game of Thrones. He said he doesn't, but he was offered a part in the TV show. "Yeah, well, I don’t want to be typecast," he said. "I started that shit up! Go back to ‘Immigrant Song.’ Led Zeppelin being part of a cultural exchange in Iceland, with the Icelandic government.”