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How Robert Plant's new band 'saved his sanity'

XPN | By Raina Douris,

Kimberly Junod

Published December 5, 2025 at 11:02 AM PST

Robert Plant says his new band saved his sanity, so it makes sense that their album is called Saving Grace.

In today's interview, Plant elaborates on just how they saved him, and he talks about the joy he's found playing with this group of musicians he assembled in the Welsh Borders. He also talks about how the band, whose official name is Robert Plant with Saving Grace featuring Suzi Dian, started out by playing small clubs with no advertising or promotion.

"I really like the idea of teeny weenie, with no expectations, no need to put my shoulders back and become anybody else but a guy who loves singing," he says.

Plus, Robert Plant with Saving Grace perform live for World Cafe.

This episode of World Cafe was produced and edited by Kimberly Junod. Our digital producer is Miguel Perez. World Cafe's engineer is Chris Williams. Our programming and booking coordinator is Chelsea Johnson and our line producer is Will Loftus.

JPR Music

Raina Douris

Raina Douris, an award-winning radio personality from Toronto, Ontario, comes to World Cafe from the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation), where she was host and writer for the daily live, national morning program Mornings on CBC Music. She is also involved with Canada's highest music honors: Since 2017, she has hosted the Polaris Music Prize Gala, for which she is also a jury member, and she has also been a jury member for the Juno Awards. Douris has also served as guest host and interviewer for various CBC Music and CBC Radio programs, and red carpet host and interviewer for the Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Association Awards, as well as a panelist for such renowned CBC programs as Metro Morning, q and CBC News.

Kimberly Junod

World Cafe senior producer Kimberly Junod has been a part of the World Cafe team since 2001, when she started as the show's first line producer. In 2011 Kimberly launched (and continues to helm) World Cafe's Sense of Place series that includes social media, broadcast and video elements to take listeners across the U.S. and abroad with an intimate look at local music scenes. She was thrilled to be part of the team that received the 2006 ASCAP Deems Taylor Radio Broadcast Award for excellence in music programming. In the time she has spent at World Cafe, Kimberly has produced and edited thousands of interviews and recorded several hundred bands for the program, as well as supervised the show's production staff. She has also taught sound to young women (at Girl's Rock Philly) and adults (as an "Ask an Engineer" at WYNC's Werk It! Women's Podcast Festival).