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John Bonham: The Power & Finesse Behind The Led Zeppelin Sound [Highlight From Episode 341] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Here's a highlight from a recent episode of book Don Rock,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: John Ling and the author of Backbeats, A History of
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Rock and Roll In fifteen Drummers John Bonham Bonzo great
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  Speaker 1: quote from Robert Plant including the book to describe Bonzo's
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  Speaker 1: steadiness on the bass battle. Jimi Hendrix was blown away
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  Speaker 1: by it, and Robert said to Jimmy after the show,
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  Speaker 1: he's like a rabbit.
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  Speaker 2: He's like a rabbit.
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  Speaker 3: Yes, if I'm breaking any news in this book, I
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  Speaker 3: do believe that that is an original Jimmy Hendrix quote
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  Speaker 3: that Robert Plant shared with me when I interviewed him.
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  Speaker 1: Don't recall ever hearing that before.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just it was such a fascinating it
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  Speaker 3: was a fascinating anecdot because of course Plant has amazing
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  Speaker 3: insightful things to say about Bonzo's playing. But you know,
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  Speaker 3: Jimmy Hendrix is like, he's not just a guitar player,
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  Speaker 3: like he's the guitar playing genius. And so it's like
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  Speaker 3: the idea of a guy with that level of sort
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  Speaker 3: of instrumental command watching led Zeppelin early in London and
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  Speaker 3: then immediately the first thing he wants to talk about
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  Speaker 3: isn't Jimmy page he wants to talk about the drummer.
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  Speaker 3: I think that really embodies kind of what Bonhom brought
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  Speaker 3: to that instrument. It was just like he was, you know,
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  Speaker 3: kind of a Hendrix's equivalent, you know in many ways.
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  Speaker 1: Sure, sure he played ghost notes on the bass drum
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  Speaker 1: without sacrificing intensity or energy. For those not familiar, what
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  Speaker 1: is a ghost note and what made Bonhom so good
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  Speaker 1: at that?
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  Speaker 3: A ghost note is just sort of the technical term,
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  Speaker 3: as we say, for those kind of those sort of
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  Speaker 3: half hits in between the main backbeats. So instead of
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  Speaker 3: that like boom bo boom bop, the doing the boom,
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  Speaker 3: it's that like that sort of echo. It's just as
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  Speaker 3: they say, they call it the ghost because it's just
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  Speaker 3: the sort of like tail. So any kind of like
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  Speaker 3: as we say, like, that's one of those ways to
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  Speaker 3: get that variance and intensity and then and in volume
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  Speaker 3: really that drummers can use. And so a lot of
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  Speaker 3: people can do that on their hands or with one hand,
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  Speaker 3: and Bonham was really one of the first people to
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  Speaker 3: do that with his bass drum foot And you can
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  Speaker 3: hear that right off the top side one track one,
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  Speaker 3: you know, on the led Zeppelin self titled album Good Times,
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  Speaker 3: Bad Times. You can hear like his entrance when he
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  Speaker 3: comes in with a funny little high hat thing and
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  Speaker 3: then he does this like once Plant comes in, he
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  Speaker 3: does these great little like triplet.
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  Speaker 2: Almost like kind of movements on the bass.
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  Speaker 3: Drum, and similar to what people how people reacted to Hendrix,
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  Speaker 3: that's just one of those like people in the club
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  Speaker 3: are going to look at that and just be like,
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  Speaker 3: oh my god, who the hell is this guy? That's
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  Speaker 3: just like a real uh, a real path breaking new
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  Speaker 3: kind of way to blow people's minds with the drum set.
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  Speaker 2: In nineteen sixty eight, I remember.
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  Speaker 1: Reading about out the song rock and Roll and bottom
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  Speaker 1: intentionally messed with a little bit, so anybody that was
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  Speaker 1: going to do any cover band that was going to
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  Speaker 1: try to do it would have difficulty with it. And
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  Speaker 1: that reminds me of the hal Blaine thing with like
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  Speaker 1: where's he going with this at the start of the song, right,
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  Speaker 1: you're not sure when he's going to come in when
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  Speaker 1: hit the bass pedal?
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  Speaker 3: Totally yes, so hard to It's so hard because I
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  Speaker 3: believe what you're referring to is there's the great song
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  Speaker 3: rock and roll starts with a drum intro, and from
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  Speaker 3: the way he plays it, you like find yourself going like,
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  Speaker 3: here comes the entrance of the.
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  Speaker 2: Whole band, and you're always wrong.
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  Speaker 3: And I believe that's because he actually starts the fill
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  Speaker 3: on beat two of a measure, so it's like it's
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  Speaker 3: like an eight beat a two measure phrase, but he
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  Speaker 3: starts in the two, so it only it's a seven.
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  Speaker 3: It's like a seven beat fill instead of what you
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  Speaker 3: would expect to be an eight beat film. Just an
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  Speaker 3: example of that. Yeah, And I think he was conscious
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  Speaker 3: from the start that, like he had the kind of
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  Speaker 3: style that people were going to be kind of mesmerized by.
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  Speaker 3: And I don't think he was in any way worried
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  Speaker 3: about people nicking his moves or anything like that, but
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  Speaker 3: I can definitely imagine him being like, oh, I'll make
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  Speaker 3: it harder in a.
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  Speaker 2: Playful sort of way to ape my style. Yeah,