"EVEN ON MY LITTLE KIT HE PLAYED LIKE JOHN BONHAM"

JASON BONHAM ON THE TRIALS AND TRIUMPS OF LIVING UP TO HIS DAD. INTERVIEW BY DANNY ECCLESTON.

When were you first aware of what your dad did and what it meant to people?

When you don’t know anything else, it’s just normal. Dad plays drums in a band. It wasn’t like he was in The Beatles! And he never played much drums at home, and if he did it was on my kit. But even on my little kit he played like John Bonham.

John Bonham is most rock drummers’ favourite drummer – why?

I think there’s this misunderstanding about his style. He was not a bish-bash drummer. He had a real finesse. If you watch things like the Royal Albert Hall show [from 1970] you’ll see how far up he holds his sticks. That gave more control, less wallop. You think of him as this thunderous drummer, but he had an amazing left hand. And he had a swagger not matched by anyone.

Did you miss him when he went on tour?

I don’t remember him being away that much. They’d do the big tours but then we’d go on these big family holidays in the south of France, for a month at a time, and people would come and join us: Lulu and Maurice Gibb; Ringo. They’d go out and party with Oliver Reed and Peter Sellers. That’s when dad shaved Ringo’s hair off. Which mum said was fine until they took the eyebrows off as well!

Did you always want to follow your dad into drumming?

I got really into racing dirt bikes and that was my distraction when dad was away. But when he was home, he really got into it, got up at six in the morning to make the bacon and egg sandwiches and drive me to Wales. We had a trailer on the back of a Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud! I remember a guy from Kawasaki coming up to him and saying, “Your son’s fast, we’d like to sponsor him.” And dad goes, “Nah. We can afford our own bikes…”

When you got back into drumming, how was it dealing with your dad’s legacy, on his own turf?

At 15, Robert would pick me up from school and I’d demo tracks for his solo album before Phil Collins came in. Looking back, it gave me a false sense of security. I was going to be the guy! It didn’t help me in my choice of lifestyle. If someone would say, “Just like his old man!”, even if I was being drunk and smashing something up, I’d take it as a compliment.

You did Jimmy’s Outrider album, then the Zep reunion at the Atlantic 40th birthday party in 1988. What do you make of it now?

For me, and I think the people there, it was… it was what it was. It was unrehearsed. We’d had two hours in the afternoon. And looking back on it now, that‘s what it sounds like.

How did you feel when you were recalled for the O2 show?

It was June 10, 2007, I was on tour with Foreigner, had to get a stand-in. Flew to England on the red eye, went to the studio at 10 in the morning, set up my drums and at 12 the guys arrived, and we did nothing that was on the list of songs I’d been sent. But it went amazingly well. Jimmy and Robert looked at each other and looked at me and said, “This is as good as it’s ever sounded.” Robert had to go and said, “Uncle Jimmy wants to talk to you about something. Maybe your wish is gonna come true.” I remember bawling like a child and it was all, We’re gonna do a new album, do this, that. Wow! All of a sudden it was on. Then the next rehearsal, when we started rehearsing in August, it was a very different vibe. Once the managements got involved, now it was a serious event, it was a little bit less personal.

This must have been a whole new level of being Bonham Junior.

I was so paranoid about getting it wrong! I felt that I still hadn’t proven to anybody that I could play drums well. With about a week to go, I met a friend for coffee on the way to rehearsals and they asked me, “Are you having fun?” And I was… “No. It’s driving me crazy. I feel like I’m failing every day.” And they gave me the best advice they could’ve. They said, “Stop trying to be John. Be Jason and John will come naturally.” And it was at that rehearsal that Robert turned around to me after the first song and said, “Where’ve you been? Finally, you’re here.” But for me the show was only one part of it. Being round them for that amount of time, it made me feel… when I left the room it was as if maybe dad would walk back in, or when I came in it was like he’d just left. I feel very close to him when I’m with the three of them.

What do you remember most about the show? Before we got on stage, Robert got us in a huddle and said, “Remember to have fun. Because whatever happens, they can’t take that away from us…” Then I remember the roar and thinking, “I can’t swallow.” Robert said, “You are gonna sing the harmony, aren’t you, on Good Times, Bad Times?” And I’m like, “What?!” It was a great decoy to stop me worrying about the bass-drum triplets! But once we got to Black Dog we were more relaxed. We’d started to improvise more than we had during rehearsal.

And after it?

I remember, as we’d got close to the show, my mum had said to me, “Will you be OK when it ends?” Because this is what I’d lived for as a kid. This is what I’d talked about in rehab. This was what was painful to me when Page And Plant was together and people asked me why wasn’t I playing with them? This was the torment. This is what I wanted and never got until that moment. It was crazy, overwhelming. I remember, afterwards, Robert trying to steal the lamps from his dressing room. He said, “I like these lamps, I’m having these!” The Gallagher brothers were in there. Paul McCartney, dancing. The Edge. Oh my God, look who’s here! Then it was waiting for the bootlegs so I could check up on the playing, ’cos I knew I’d fluffed up on one bit and it was bothering me. But we did it!

Then Jimmy and John wanted to continue it?

That came a few months later. We lost someone who worked for Robert, Big Dave, shortly after the show. I remember being with Robert, with my family, in the Midlands, and Robert had promised to take me and my son to the Wolves game, but I knew Dave had died the night before, so I said I didn’t hold him to it, but he said, “No, come on.” I remember my son falling asleep in the car on the way back and I said to Robert, “I’ve gotta know, do you think we’re gonna do it again?” And he said, “No. But don’t ever think it was because you can’t do it. There’s a lot more to it than you think, son.”

You rehearsed with different singers…

A guy called Myles Kennedy came in from a band called Alter Bridge. I kept mentioning Chris Cornell, but nobody seemed to reply. Then the strangest thing happened. I got a phone call from Robert. He said, “How’s that new singer?” I thought, “Busted!”

In the end, it never came to pass. Where did that leave you?

If anything, it was harder to deal with than the O2. It was the thing that mum had said. I’d got sober in 2001. This was 2008 and it was like someone was trying to make me fall off the wagon. I’d been pressured to leave Foreigner and I was left with nothing. That wasn’t the happiest time in my life.

But you’ll always have the O2?

It’s a tough thing – to have that seat for a short time. But I have a Grammy for it. It’s carved in time: the only other person to have played drums on a Led Zeppelin album was also called Bonham. I’m happy to have achieved that. I’ll always be compared to my dad, whatever I do or try not to do. But you know what? I’m very proud of him and I love the music.

You’re doing this show: Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening…

I started it as a kind of therapy. It was trying to get the Led out of me. But I get to play those songs and feel good about it, as well as doing my other work with the other artists I play with. I hope to bring it to England one day. It’s a trip down memory lane with home movies and video and telling stories. Everyone who sees the show tells me afterwards, “I get it. I absolutely get it.”

Have any of the others seen it?

I’m sure they have, somehow. A DJ tried to get Robert to comment on it, but all he got was, “Jason can do whatever he wants. No one plays those songs as good as him other than the man who isn’t around. He has my blessing.” Robert always says, “I adore the passion you have for the music we made with your dad and your knowledge of it. But it scares me sometimes.”

"THEY SAID, 'STOP TRYING TO BE JOHN. BE JASON AND JOHN WILL COME NATURALLY." JASON BONHAM