How John Bonham used his son to prove Phil Collins was overrated: “My 12-year-old boy can play that”
When John Bonham died, the surviving Led Zeppelin members decided it was time to call it a day. They were all hailed for being the individually best representations of their respective instruments. As such, the idea of keeping the band moving once one of the most crucial members had passed just didn’t seem to sit right with any of them.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” Robert Plant said when discussing the drummer’s death. “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.”
Of course, while Led Zeppelin have remained split since Bonham’s sad passing, they have reunited a couple of times for some one-off gigs. Two of their most notable reunions were at Live Aid in 1985 and 2007, when they played at the O2 Arena as a tribute to Ahmet Ertegun, who signed the band in 1968. These two reunions saw the band work with two different drummers, many of whom have compared following their stints with the band.
The band’s first temporary replacement for John Bonham for Live Aid was Phil Collins, whose stint with Led Zeppelin has become relatively infamous. Jimmy Page especially wasn’t a fan of Collins playing with the band, as he said the Genesis drummer went into the gig half-heartedly and had barely bothered to learn the songs.
“I don’t know what the big fuss is about.”
John Bonham
“Robert [Plant] told me Phil Collins wanted to play with us. I told him that was all right if he knows the numbers,” said Jimmy Page when discussing the reunion. “But at the end of the day, he didn’t know anything. We played ‘Whole Lotta Love’, and he was just there bashing away cluelessly and grinning. I thought that was really a joke.”
Jimmy Page felt the band made up for this disastrous reunion during their 2007 reunion at the O2 Arena. Jason Bonham, John’s son, filled in for his father during this show and did justice to the complicated songs that his Dad was responsible for. “Initially, there were going to be two nights, with us on one night, along with other Atlantic artists,” said Page. “The idea was that we would do a half-hour set, but I said, ‘I’m not rehearsing to do a half-hour set! We’ve got Live Aid to correct.”
It’s pretty unanimous amongst Zeppelin fans (and music lovers in general) that the 2007 reunion was much better than the band’s stint at Live Aid. However, many people might not know that the show wasn’t the first time Jason Bonham had been used as a token to prove that his father was better than Phil Collins. Decades earlier, when Jason was only 12 years old, John had used him to show people that Phil Collins was overrated.
“Phil loved my Dad, and he saw him before he was in Zeppelin, and I said, ‘Well, when you released Duke, and ‘Turn it On Again’ came out, you’d just beaten my Dad in the Melody Maker drum awards pole’,” said Jason Bonham.
Concluding, “[My Dad] got me to learn ‘Turn It On Again’ by Genesis as a 12-year-old kid. So, I’m 12 and on the drum kit, put it on the jukebox […] I’m playing along with it, and I do that three times, and he says ‘Do it again’, and then he goes ‘I don’t know what the big fuss is about, my 12-year-old boy can play that song’.”
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