The 1969 Led Zeppelin song Jimmy Page believed defined John Bonham
As much as Led Zeppelin were drowning in talent from every possible direction, they would never have hit such heights without John Bonham as their beating heart.
From a technical perspective, Bonham’s drumming credentials were unparalleled. He had a fierce combination of skill, power and tone, which is the envy of anybody else who ever picked up a pair of drumsticks with a heavy dosage of unstoppable charisma on top. While his talent was no secret, he was the tabasco to Led Zeppelin’s Bloody Mary.
Naturally, after Bonham’s sad death in 1980, Led Zeppelin found it impossible to continue without him. Over the decades, when the surviving members did reunite on rare occasions, his absence was palpable, leaving a void that no one could truly fill, not even his son Jason.
Bonham has never been questioned by anybody’s opinion worth a bar of soap, with drumming greats like Neil Peart and Dave Grohl putting him on a pedestal above anybody else.
Those who knew him best, like Jimmy Page, viewed him as a musical God among men, and there was no other drummer he’d have liked to have been in a band for a decade alongside. However, for him, Bonham peaked early with Led Zeppelin, providing his best work on the opening track to their self-titled debut album.
All of the band members wanted to bring their A-game to get the album off to a flying start and succeeded in their mission with ‘Good Times, Bad Times’. “Well, the first track of the first album is ‘Good Times, Bad Times‘ and that’s no accident,” Page reflected in an interview with Rolling Stone.
Page elaborated, “The reason why it’s on there is because it’s actually quite a short piece of music, but it sums up so much in so many ideas, all in one go. It’s just an explosion that hits you.”
Then, he singled out Bonham as the main reason why everyone else had a platform to thrive, adding, But one of the key factors of it, apart from the riff, is the actual drumming, because what he does on the drums during that track just changes people’s attitude to drums overnight. That’s all there is to it.”
In Page’s mind, ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ was more than Bonham showing the full strength of his capabilities, but the wider public perception of the drums as an instrument.
Stamina is an underrated yet crucial ingredient that every rock drummer needs to have. While Bonham’s diet consisted of cigarettes and alcohol rather than smooties and Farmer Joe’s boxes, he was unstoppable behind a drum kit with Page noting, “It wasn’t two bass drums; it was one foot. You might hear people say, ‘Oh, I can do that.’ But the thing is, you see how long they can do it for, and they’ll soon pack up. They might do it just for a little bit, but he could do it for ages. His technique was just out of this world, but he had the imagination to go with it as well.”
As Page explained, Bonham was a different breed of drummer than anybody who came before him, or after, for that matter. In his analysis of his late bandmate, Page also noted how Bonham could “tune the drums in such a way that they would project” was his secret weapon rather than power, as he showed on ‘Good Times, Bad Times’.
Poignantly, Page reflected on Bonham, “The other thing was that he loved Led Zeppelin. He really loved the band, and he used to play the music at home. So we had a lot of fun, and a lot of fun improvising onstage.”
It wasn’t just ‘Good Times, Bad Times’ that was designed to show the world just how Bonham was; their entire debut album was to make the world stand up and take notice.
For Page, who was the mastermind behind bringing Led Zeppelin together, his aim was simple, once sharing, “The first album was a guitar tour de force – that is what it was supposed to be.” However, due to the talent of the rhythm section, Page added, “But I didn’t want to do that at the expense of the other musicians.”
No song on Led Zeppelin does a better job of fulfilling that ambition than ‘Good Times, Bad Times’, with Bonham at the centre stage of the musical excellence.
While his career was tragically short-lived, the achievements that he accomplished in that short time will never be unwritten, and in 100 yards, he’ll no doubt remain the yardstick for anyone picking up the drums.
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