John Bonham’s all-time favourite drummer
The late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham changed the landscape of rock drumming. Fusing a jazz background with a hard rock edge and great technical proficiency, Bonham took the world of drumming by storm when the quartet broke through in the late 1960s. He was a master of the off-beat, bass-drum and triplets, and without his efforts – which encompassed songs of numerous different formats – many subsequent rhythmic pioneers would have been without their primary influence.
Highlighting how apparent Bonham’s skill was to all, Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant once recalled an anecdote wherein Jimi Hendrix, arguably the most pioneering guitarist of his day, was blown away by Bonham’s thunder. As collected in A Thunder of Drums, the American told Plant: “That drummer of yours has a right foot like a pair of castanets!”
Another legend indelibly impacted by Bonham’s work was Rush drummer Neil Peart, a sticksman widely deemed one of the best to have ever done it. He even cited the Led Zeppelin man as one of his favourites of all time. In the 2005 film Anatomy of a Drum Solo, he said: “When I was starting out, very young, John Bonham and Led Zeppelin were new in those olden days. John Bonham did always the big triplets with his giant bass drum. I had two little bass drums at the time. So I just added those in. (I also) had kind of four-beat triplets as my variation on it. So then over the years I found many ways to develop that. Also to apply it to songs outside of the solo.”
When discussing the excellence of Bonham’s famous ‘Moby Dick’ solo, Iron Maiden drummer Nicko McBrain told Louder Sound in 2020: “John’s style was cutting edge. John was really the pioneer of the fast right foot, where he put a lot of doubles and played around with triplets on his bass drum and he does that a lot through Moby Dick. What astounded me was the speed and the way he would group the triplet around with the four note group on the top of it.”
As Bonham’s style was so dextrous, it is understandable that he learnt from some of the finest that came before him. Accordingly, and taken in tandem with his death in 1980, the question of who his favourite drummer of all time was has long been one that needed answering. Although Bonham never gave a traditionally definitive answer, he deemed jazz drummer and bandleader Gene Krupa as “God”, which provides a clear picture of his thought process.
Krupa was one of the original pioneers of drumming, with the great Neil Peart once expressing: “Gene Krupa was the first rock drummer in very many ways. Without Gene Krupa, there wouldn’t have been a Keith Moon.” Clearly, there wouldn’t have been a John Bonham, either.
Famed for his energetic style and charismatic showmanship, a young Bonham idolised the percussionist and his distinctive style. As explained by his brother Michael on Bonham’s website, the Led Zeppelin star was greatly influenced by the 1956 biopic The Benny Goodman Story, in which Krupa starred as the titular king of swing. Michael said, “John went to see the film with his dad” and that for the budding musician, “Gene Krupa was God”.
It has also been reported that Bonham expressed great love for another classic Krupa movie, Beat The Band, where the Chicagoan plays on a set of steam pipes, a boundary-pushing moment despite the very 1947 context; a musical. Whilst other information on Bonham’s love for Krupa is scarce, it all adds up to the American being the Led Zeppelin hero’s favourite of all time.
Watch the famous drum battle between Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich below.
