Who would have been the best replacement for John Bonham in Led Zeppelin?
Led Zeppelin might sound chaotic and haphazard, but what you’re actually listening to with that band is a perfect musical balancing act.
Following his experience as a session musician, Jimmy Page was very ambitious with his Led Zeppelin ideas, deciding that he wanted to blend multiple genres together, which he described as having lots of “light and shadow” within the music. Thus, when you listen to Zeppelin, you pick up on plenty of hard rock, folk, acoustic music, blues and R&B that coloured their output in myriad and intentional ways.
Now, it’s one thing to want to create a musical smoothie, but it’s another entirely to find bandmates capable of bringing your vision to life. Luckily, Page was able to loop in Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, both of whom were able to adapt to whatever style they were working with. Then, holding everything together as the glue on the drums, you had the rhythmic genius that was John Bonham.
There are certain rules you need to adhere to when you’re learning to be a drummer, and it seems that Bonham dismissed the majority of them immediately. He made his own rules, playing hard and fast, uniquely and excitingly falling into step with the different styles of the Zeppelin smoothie. Simply put, the band wouldn’t have sounded the same without him, and it’s for this reason that they opted to call it a day once Bonham sadly passed away.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” said Robert Plant when remembering the fallen Bonham. “I had to go and find out if I really want to do it. Did I want to do it, or did I just want to sit back there like a croupier at a gambling thing, and just kind of rake [the money] in. Or, did I want to actually continue this kind of gig of finding out where I’m going. I wanted to take all the trappings away, because I’d lost my best mate.”
The band have never gotten back together since deciding to part ways, except for a couple of one-off performances. There was a disastrous reunion at Live Aid where Phil Collins hopped behind the kit, and a pretty successful run at the O2 when Bonzo’s son, Jason Bonham, took his dad’s place. It begs the question, if the band ever had previously wanted to reunite, rather than just doing sporadic shows, is there a drummer out there who could have permanently taken Bonham’s place?
Given the success of the O2 gig, many people would say Jason would be the perfect person to step into his father’s shoes, much like the young Shane Hawkins of the Taylor Hawkins progeny. This wouldn’t be a bad decision, but Jason is a musician in his own right and likely wouldn’t want to make a name for himself just being a by-product of his father.
There are plenty of drummers who could potentially pick up the sticks behind Bonham if the band did previously decide to give it another go, such as Carl Palmer, Carmine Appice and Cozy Powell; however, this writer believes a great option could have been Chester Thompson. Thompson has enough experience playing with a variety of rock, jazz, prog and blues bands that he could fit right into the lining of Zeppelin seamlessly.
It would be a lot of work to get up to speed with a playing style like Bonham’s but Thompson would be willing to put the work in. When he first started playing with Frank Zappa, he quickly needed to get used to playing for long days as he mastered the fine art of switching genres in a heartbeat.
“People thought Zappa was some kind of freak-out hippy, but he was seriously dedicated,” recalled Thompson, “That was my first introduction to practising for 40 hours each week. It was eight hours a day, and there was no time wasted. Every time we finished a rehearsal, I felt that my brain was sweating. It was really intense music, really difficult music, and I always say it was the best school I ever went to.”
To replace John Bonham, being a good drummer isn’t enough. The replacement would need to be well-versed in multiple genres, have an aggressive yet concise playing style, and be willing to put in a lot of work to perfectly align himself within the balancing act that was Led Zeppelin, and Chester Thompson possesses all of these great qualities in abundance to slip right in.
Never Miss A Beat
The Far Out Led Zeppelin Newsletter
All the latest stories about Led Zeppelin from the independent voice of culture.
Straight to your inbox.