Tracing the history of John Bonham’s drums
For a time, John Bonham was unbeatable. The hard-drinking, fast-living drummer for Led Zeppelin, Bonzo remains the emblematic rock drummer. Sure, Keith Moon, Neil Pert and Ginger Baker are all essential maestros in their own right, but if it’s floor-shaking power you’re after, then there’s no other drummer more worthy of your time. Below, we’re going to dive into the history of Bonham’s kit, exploring how his tastes and requirements evolved over the years.
But first, it’s worth exploring what Bonham required from his kit. In a 1973 interview, the drummer opened up about his drumming style, revealing that he “always liked drums to be bright and powerful. I’ve never used cymbals much. I use them to crash into a solo and out of it, but basically I prefer the actual drum sound.”
For Bonham, good drumming was all being able to hold a solid groove. Everything else was decoration. “It’s all to do with the swing,” he continued. “You get a much better tone with a big stroke than you do with a short stab.” According to Jimmy Page, Bonham was also a dab hand with a drum key, Speaking to NPR, the guitarist said: “He really knew how to make the instrument sing, and because of that, he could just get so much volume out of it by just playing with his wrists. It was just an astonishing technique that was sort of pretty holistic if you know what I mean.”
In the early days, less was more. After seeking the advice of fellow musicians, Bonzo secured his first kit for Led Zeppelin: a Slingerland, which was given to him by the drummer of The Yardbirds when they broke up. Used for the first Led Zeppelin album only, the kit featured a 22″ bass, 14×5 inch snare and 13″, 16″ toms. While the colour is unknown, there is some suggestion that it was perhaps a blue sparkle kit. Bonzo almost certainly used smaller cymbals during this time.
From the winter of 1968 until the spring of 1969, Led Zeppelin toured with psychedelic rockers Vanilla fudge. The band’s drummer, Carmine Appice, liked to use two huge 26-inch Ludwig bass drums, a set up which greatly impacted Bonzo, who promptly ordered two bass drums of the same size, a 22-inch bass drum with a custom-made metal rim for use as a floor tom, an 18×16-inch floor tom, and a 15×12-inch marching tenor drum, which he used instead of a small tom.
After adopting a ‘maple’ kit by Ludwig for use on Led Zeppelin II – which featured on tracks like ‘Whole Lotta Love’ and ‘Moby Dick’ – Bonzo returned to the sparkle kit he’d used in his early days. Bonham is said to have treasured this model above all others, referring to it as his favourite sounding kit to friends. After ditching the maple model, John used a series of three green sparkle kits, which were used on four albums: Led Zeppelin III, Led Zeppelin IV, Houses Of The Holy and Physical Graffiti.
Then, following the launch of Ludwig’s Plexiglas-shelled Vistalite drum range, Bonham embraced a new chapter – pioneering the kit with his custom-made Amber version, complete with intersecting circles symbol on the kick. It is this model that Bonham can be seen playing in the Led Zeppelin film The Song Remains The Same. Unfortunately, despite its iconic status, the drum’s reputation for cracking meant that it quickly fell out of favour.
Bonham would replace his Amber Vistalite with a Ludwig kit in silvered sparkle. Two years later, in 1977, he would ditch the glitter for a more refined stainless steel model. Unlike his previous kits, this one featured tension lugs to help increase the volume during large concerts like Led Zeppelin’s performance at Knebworth in 1979. This was Bonham’s final stage kit and was used on Led Zeppelin’s final two tours: Presence and In Through The Out Door.
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