The 1972 heavy metal song John Bonham was completely in love with
The late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham knew Black Sabbath before their respective bands took over the world. Bonham was only 16 when he first got in contact with Sabbath’s Bill Ward, and instantly, Ward knew there was something out of the ordinary about his peer in the Midlands music scene.
As teenagers, the duo played on the same circuit across the Black Country under various guises, but Bonham’s talent didn’t take long to receive national attention. In 1968, he was a drummer in demand, with musical artists of stature all queueing up to convince him to sign up for their project.
Eventually, after initial hesitation, Jimmy Page successfully lured Bonham to join the New Yardbirds, which later became Led Zeppelin. When the latter became hugely successful, Black Sabbath were inspired, but for Ward, it was inevitable that Bonham would rise to the top.
At the time, few could have predicted just how profoundly Bonham would alter the sound of rock drumming. While many drummers of the era focused primarily on keeping time, Bonham approached the instrument with an almost physical intensity, treating rhythm as something explosive and deeply expressive.
His style fused the swing and groove of jazz with the sheer force of hard rock, creating a blueprint that generations of drummers across metal and heavy music would spend decades trying to replicate.
Ward’s recollections also underline the strong musical connection that existed between Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath during the early 1970s. Though the two bands are often remembered as pioneers of different branches of heavy music, they emerged from the same working-class Midlands environment and shared a similar determination to push rock into darker and heavier territory.
Bonham’s admiration for ‘Supernaut’ feels particularly fitting given the song’s relentless groove, which remains one of the clearest examples of how rhythm became central to the evolving language of heavy metal.
During a radio interview, Ward recalled first meeting Bonham: “Besides being a brilliant drummer, when he was really young, when he was 16, I would watch him play,” he said. “We were both playing drums by the time we were 16 years old. When he played, I thought he was playing out of time because I would hear his bass drum kind of doing these really odd hits. I didn’t understand what he was talking. I couldn’t understand how his drums were talking to me.”
He added: “It took me at least one year to understand that he was talking in a completely different language. Then I got it, and I just woke up to it. I went ‘Oh my God. I don’t believe that he is doing this’. And I didn’t really heard a lot of the big bands drummers do it, I hadn’t heard anybody in rock do it before him. I did not quite know how he was doing it. I am talking about his bass drum work, specifically. I just watched and went, ‘Oh my god, I don’t believe this guy!’.”
Their friendship remained intact once they became well-known, and they occasionally hung out in the studio. Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath even once enjoyed an impromptu jam session. However, sadly, no recording exists of the historic event.
According to Ward, the Led Zeppelin drummer also had a favourite Black Sabbath song. He told Classic Rock: “Bonham really loved ‘Supernaut’. He really had that song down. We were in the studio one day and he came by. He saw I was playing the double bass drum. He said: ‘I’ll do it on one.’ He was, without question, the best rock drummer in the world.”
‘Supernaut’ appeared on Black Sabbath’s fourth album, Vol. 4, an LP made at the height of the band’s cocaine abuse. Despite the chaotic environment in which Sabbath made the record, the heavy metal pioneers struck gold on the release, which also included ‘Changes’ and ‘Snowblind’.
Listen to ‘Supernaut’ below.
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