“Should have been”: The one album that broke Dave Grohl’s heart
No listener is safe whenever they put on a particular album. As much as some fans want to find some songs to listen to when they’re out and about during their day, there are a few moments when an album hits a raw wound from the minute it starts and never lets up. And while Dave Grohl was always a fan of all things heavy, he claimed that this supergroup album left him ice cold and more than a little bit disappointed when he first got ahold of it.
Then again, there are only so many times when supergroup projects manage to work. Although many people like to talk about their fond memories of listening to The Traveling Wilburys trade lines back and forth or Crosby, Stills, and Nash harmonising together, it’s not like everyone also doesn’t have some tainted memories of bands like Damn Yankees to look back on like old embarrassing kids photos.
If there was one man that seemed bulletproof as a supergroup, though, it should have been Led Zeppelin. Not all of them may have been big names when they first emerged in the late 1960s, but by the time their debut album dropped, everyone knew that they were dealing with some of the greatest musicians in their field, whether that was hearing Robert Plant wail or John Bonham leather the life out of every drum in sight.
But once everything came to a halt after Bonham’s death in the early 1980s, Jimmy Page was the one hit the hardest. Zeppelin was his baby from the minute he got the idea to jam with John Paul Jones, and the next few years would see him operating as a free agent, whether that was contributing to a handful of gigs with The Black Crowes in the 1990s or starting The Firm with Paul Rodgers. For someone who helped found the concept of hard rock, him teaming up with David Coverdale for an album should have been a slam dunk, right?
Well, yes and no. Because while most of Coverdale/Page is some degree of decent, one can’t help but think that this was the album that Zeppelin made had they carried on without Bonham. All of Page’s energy was still there, but considering Coverdale’s half-imitation of Plant and a dash of Axl Rose growl in there, much of the album feels more like a vanity project despite it coming from a genuine place.
Even as a founder of mainstream grunge, Grohl was a card-carrying member of the Zeppelin fan club and could see through the album in no time, saying, “The Coverdale, Page record. I know a lot of those songs should have been Zepplin outtakes, but they ended up Page so that broke my heart.”
It’s not hard to see where Grohl is coming from, either. Looking through songs like ‘Shake My Tree’, it’s clear that all of the puzzle pieces for Zeppelin are there, but despite it being in an odd time signature and having an absolutely killer harmonica part from Coverdale, there’s a certain clunkiness that happens knowing that there’s no killer Jonesy bass part coming or a Bonham-esque drum fill.
Still, Coverdale/Page is a great record to look at what could have been had Bonham not gone on too big of a bender in the 1980s. And since Grohl had a chance to perform in a supergroup of his own with Jones in Them Crooked Vultures, maybe that signature Zeppelin stomp has a few more riffs left in the tank should he be given the call to fill Bonham’s shoes.
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