By PAUL SOUTHWELL
LED Zeppelin’s legacy and influence is untouchable. The illustrious, excessive and colourful history of the band’s conquering of the music world in the seventiess has been documented extensively across all media formats and this continues to the present day. After they disbanded in late 1980 following the death of legendary drummer John Bonham, surviving members branched out into other projects, sometimes alongside band-mates, and also have participated in rare, and hugely celebrated performances of reformed versions of Led Zeppelin. Notably, the drum spot has been filled appropriately many times by Bonham’s son, Jason Bonham, who has delivered his playing skills exceptionally well to the demanding role.
Over a decade ago, in a further homage to his late father, Jason Bonham and vocalist James Dylan put together Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening (aka JBLZE). Joined by bassist Dorian Heartsong, guitarist Jimmy Sakurai and keyboardist Alex Howland, the JBLZE offers an uncanny and authentic tribute to Led Zeppelin. Last in Australia in 2018, JBLZE are returning to our shores for a tour that promises to honour the remarkable music of Led Zeppelin, interlaced with various illuminating anecdotes from Bonham that only he could divulge and do so with utmost authority. We spoke to Bonham to discuss the upcoming tour and the unique experiences of working with the members of the ultimate rock band, Led Zeppelin.
Hot Metal: We’re looking forward to seeing you returning to Australia again.
Jason Bonham: “Oh yeah, I am looking forward to be back. Sorry, we would have been back sooner but with everything going on, obviously, with the rest of the world, as you know, with COVID. It kind of put a stop on everything with a two-year hiatus with everybody so I am just really pleased that we’re back and are able to come and play.”
HM: How will you approach the set list on this tour? Led Zeppelin’s massive back catalogue must create some challenges but would also keep things fresh.
JB: “The best way to approaching it is to take back the three years of over thinking it, I think, and we tend to play or stick to the thing that we’ve known and played, and gone, ‘This is the best set list we have’. And then once we did that for a few years it was like, ‘alright, let’s change it,’ and every time we changed it, I felt then that we were actually changing it, and it was becoming not as good a set list because we felt we have to change it. So, I did a lot of that, ha-ha, as I said. The weirdest thing is, we’re now 13 years into a project which I only said I’d do one tour on. We’ve played them a few times now so we do, in fact, we’ve kind of played all of them a few times and we kind of have a thing of ‘these sound really good and comfortable’ and I think that is the one thing that we like to do is, I always think, ‘if it doesn’t sound right immediately, I’d rather not push the envelope on something. I would like it to be as natural as possible when we’re playing it and we’ve kind of come to a list. But with that two-hour list, there are probably five songs that we can change in and out of, which we can add, or take away, or put different ones in its place. But there is definitely a beginning, a middle, and an end. I think that with the beginning, and I always say this, there are three choices of introductions, from sonically when you listen to it, for me I am so used to listening to either The Song Remains the Same, the set list from ’73 or a ’77 set list, starting with ‘The Song Remains the Same‘. So there is a choice with those kind of introductions, and then, of course, I have the very good fortune to play with them, so we do have the alternate O2 Arena start of the show which was from album number one with the song ‘Good Times Bad Times‘. So we have enough beginnings that we can alternate at the start of an evening, and then there is a middle section of different acoustic songs that we can throw in there. I am a keen fan, and I will never change and never take out my favourites of the ’73 version of ‘Since I’ve Been Loving You’, I am just a huge fan of that song, and of course, ‘Kashmir‘, and ‘Stairway To Heaven’, ‘Rock And Roll‘, and ‘Whole Lotta Love‘ has to be in the show. But we’ve got a whole bunch of other stuff that you can mess with from ‘Babe, I’m Gonna Leave You‘, to ‘The Lemon Song‘, to ‘Thank You’, to ‘No Quarter’, to ‘Misty Mountain Hop‘, ‘Trampled Under Foot‘, and you’ve got a whole bunch on Physical Graffiti, which I love, a whole bunch of Presence songs, which we know. But I do sometimes like choosing the obscure ones and that can go wrong sometimes when people are going ‘okay, but can you do one everybody knows?’ You can tell when it is not a real die-hard Zeppelin audience, they’re going ‘I don’t know this one!’ But that is just us getting, not bored, but we want to try different stuff. I definitely feel that we have an order which we put stuff in and then we can have our fun where we can have at least five songs in a show where we can change each night, even if we need to so yeah, it has kind of written itself now, in a way.”
HM: Indeed. You are in a unique position because there are not many tribute bands, I suppose, that have actually played with the vast majority of the band members.
JB: “Yeah, and I do have that ace up my sleeve although I do not try to bring that out unless I really have to, you know, when anyone says anything about it. I purely started this literally as a way of dealing with, you know, after the fact, when we did what we did with the reunion and the way everyone was talking that there was going to be more, and then I got together with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones in 2008 to write and do an original project. It was, you know, top of the world stuff and there was definitely a coming down moment when it all stopped. So, I wasn’t that keen at the time when my manager actually said, ‘Why don’t you get a Zep cover band together?’ and I am like, ‘is that your words of wisdom?’ I went ‘thanks a lot for that’ but I then got with some people and when we originally put the first show together, and I thought ‘okay, I can see this working’ so in the end, I started to tell stories in between the songs, of what it was like and of what it was like growing up with Dad, and was just making it a little bit more personal, which, as I say, when you’ve grown up where your Dad is an original member of the band, and you’ve played with them, you’ve got a little bit more to talk about than you haven’t, when you’re playing those songs. So for me, that was special and if anything, that is the one thing that I can share with the audience; those little anecdotes to make it, you know, ‘we’re here to enjoy Led Zeppelin together, not for me to play it to you and you to go Oh wow, you did a good job.’ We are all fans as well and so we share a celebration of the music as a unit.”
HM: That makes sense.
JB: “It is for all of us and I know that for me, without the audience, we are just five guys on stage playing Zeppelin music to an empty place. But it works so much better when you can share it. For me, I felt very proud to bring it back to Australia. When I brought it the first time, you know, Zeppelin got there once and for me to come back and play it again, you know, I am like ‘yes, I got to do a one up on Zep!,’ I guess, but no, it is not really like that. I get to bring it back, you know, I can bring a bit of music back again, and it is always a pleasure to come there. I travel there when I am not touring. I am a huge tennis fan but for the first time ever, we are not playing when…usually I am there right after the tennis finishes in Melbourne. This time I will be there right after the F1 in Melbourne.”
HM: Have you found that by being in other bands, and playing with people like Joe Bonamassa, Glenn Hughes and Sammy Hagar, that generates an expectation towards your versatility? Is there a sense of having to play like Ian Paice or like Alex Van Halen?
JB: “For me, it is the greatest thing. Most drummers, these days, we all play in cover bands because most of the time, when you’re being asked to play in a different band, or in a different genre, and the original guy is not there, you are in a cover band because you didn’t play it originally. So with Black Country Communion and Joe, it is great because most of the time it is just our material so that is one love that I have when I am playing with those guys. We are actually going to do a new album, starting in June this year. With Sammy, it is the same again; we recently got to create our new album (Crazy Times) together, all in the studio, with Dave Cobb producing, which was amazing to do. So it is not only when we play live, which I love. I loved opening up the Van Halen stuff we played as Alex was a big influence on me. To get to play all that stuff, I get a best case scenario for me. I get to play some amazing drummers’ music. So it is not like you’re going up there and going ‘what have I got to do? You’re kidding me, right?’ I get some great, great drum stuff to play, and you know, I’ve never had to complain at any time about what I am being able to play, with any of the artists. I think that you have to, you have to adapt to what you are doing anyway, otherwise it is…I would never try and not play certain things, like with what Alex did, there are certain things that you’ve got to do, but then there are certain things that will always sound like me. But I am very strong to the key moments that have to be done, I always think that there are certain drum fills that have to be there, or passages, but they are great players, all of them, you know, Ian, Alex, yeah, you’ve got to love it.”
HM: In studying these great players, including your father, how would you say rhythm sections compare between bands of the seventies with bands of today?
JB: Ah, well bands today… There’s me with one of my key things now, I’m going ‘Is there a strong bass player and drummer representation in most artists these days?’ I think, ah, I hope so, but since my son [Jager] has started doing music I have kind of been tuned into a pop punk genre to try and get an understanding all about it and to try to help him in any way that I can, and (not) sound like an idiot father. You can … no matter what you do in your life, when your son goes, ‘dad, that’s a stupid idea’ and you’re going, ‘yeah, maybe I don’t know anything about music anymore.’ It will be like ‘I want it to be more like real drums’ and then I will start listening to everything that he is referencing and there isn’t any drums in it, apart from a machine. So I am going ‘what do I do now, how does this work?’ So yeah, it has been nice learning about this sonically. It is not about ability anymore, it is about how it can sound and how it can be and it has been great learn about that you can sound like you had 25 different drum kits in one song and it is fine. It’s like that because of the way that they chop it and edit it and everything. So I am learning but it is a big learning curve from the beginning. You are kind of hit in the face and you’re going ‘I’m old, I don’t understand, I am stuck in my ways!’ I will ask ‘where is the bass player, when are we doing the tracking again?’ and the response is ‘no, we’ve got the track done’ and I’ll say ‘really, you didn’t play together?’ I am hoping that I can get a little bit of what the new stuff is and take some of the old and maybe it will make it sound a little bit different. That is what I am hoping for with my boy, he’s got together with some great guys now in Los Angeles. They’re playing and out doing gigs. I am really pleased that he is in that live environment now where before it was just studio, constantly just doing tracks and programming. So now he has got a Zimbabwean drummer, he has got an English guitarist, an American bass player, and he is English himself, but has grown up in the States since he was eight years old. I wish him every bit of luck. I do hope that there is that comrades in between that I identify as a drummer and the only people I know, being old, are the old school guys where there was the drummer and the bass in the older bands. Yeah, I don’t know anymore. Is there anybody like that anymore? I mean what is going now?”
HM: Well, for old school, Simon Phillips is still around and for progressive music, there’s Gavin Harrison. They are both incredible drummers.
JB: “Yeah but for me they always go back to the genre that I grew up on in some ways. I remember when Simon did There & Back (Jeff Beck) and how old was he in 1980? Simon is a couple of years older than me. He was probably 17 years old when he did There & Back and he wrote one of the songs on there. Yeah, I mention that because we just lost Jeff Beck recently and he was a tremendous player of note, and I have known him since I was 14 years old. So I’ve known him and grown up with him and always had a good relationship with him. He was a guitarist who just got better with age, for me, he was still innovative at 78 years old, even to the last recording that he did, with Johnny Depp. I even bought that album and it was, ‘Wow, he is still so phenomenal at what he does on guitar,’ you just cannot comprehend, really.”
HM: He was indeed a musical genius and will be greatly missed. He also did that Lord Sutch album (Lord Sutch and Heavy Friends) with your father, and with Noel Redding, amongst others.
JB: “Yeah, that is some great work with Screaming Lord Sutch. Flashing Lights and Thumping Beat, that was some very killer stuff for those guys. I actually got to jam with Noel Redding in a club and we did Manic Depression and right before he went on, he went ‘what are the changes again?’ and I was like, ‘ah, okay, this is bad.’ We were ready and I was thinking ‘oh my God, I get to play with Noel Redding and he’s going, I haven’t played this song in 40 years!’ So it was fun and I am a huge fan of the old days, you know, every time I got to play, I’d look back, and I’ve been fortunate. I’ve got to play Mudstock, which is the next time they did it in the nineties, when it was the Red Hot Chilli Peppers, and all that. I played with Paul Rodgers and we had the original Free bass player, Andy Fraser, we had Slash from Guns N’ Roses, we had Neal Schon from Journey, Brian May and to do all those great songs, with Paul… and I got to play with that band. I played Israel with Neal Schon, and with Paul, and then we went to England and did a tour with Steve Lukather as the lead guitarist. That was just phenomenal. To do an album (Muddy Water Blues: A Tribute to Muddy Waters by Paul Rodgers) with Jeff Beck on it, with David Gilmour, Brian May, Brian Setzer, and Gary Moore! You know, the Muddy Water blues album, you know, as I said, if something happened to me tomorrow, I’ve done okay. I’ve played with some amazing people and I have been very fortunate.”
HM: It’s certainly impressive. How did you approach playing with Jimmy Page on the Outrider tour in 1988?
JB: “I had to keep remembering that he is the boss. Ha-ha. As much as I wanted to go ‘hang on a minute, we need to change this’ it was really good to learn. He was so good at letting me do my thing and never once said ‘I don’t like that’. He would let me figure out I didn’t like it myself, you know what I mean? If it was just the beginning of rehearsals, and just the fact that when we did all the soundtrack stuff (Death Wish II: The Original Soundtrack – Music by Jimmy Page), when we did the tour, I had never been in a situation where I had had to count before. So, there were certain things from the soundtrack when we were doing ‘The Chase‘, that thing which was leading into the big guitar solo with Jimmy, there was a certain section where I suddenly remembered that I had to do a count of seven before each fill. That was really bizarre because I can watch the video back and I can see myself tipping my head every now and again, doing the bars, I was like, ‘One, two, three, four…,’ ha-ha, but that was the only way that I could do it, you know, I mean, I look back and I was 22 years old. I was loving life, drinking, and smoking and being an idiot, but I got through it. I’ve looked back on everything and I’ve thought ‘well, you know, that wasn’t that bad for somebody that drank and smoked and did everything else that he was doing’. I am just glad that I got through to the other side and be able to look back and still really enjoy music, and to still be playing it, when I will be 57 this year.”
HM: Well done, and thanks for having an enlightening chat. We didn’t manage to get to Hammer of the Gods.
JB: “Oh, that’s alright, you’re not missing anything there.”
HM: We look forward to seeing you back here again very soon.
JB: “Thank you very much, I am looking forward to it. Take care.”
