Robert Plant’s favourite John Bonham moment for Led Zeppelin
Even before Led Zeppelin was formed in 1968, Robert Plant and John Bonham were joined at the hip. Having played together as teenagers in groups like the Band of Joy, Plant and Bonham were always destined to be musical soulmates. When Jimmy Page recruited Plant for his next project after The Yardbirds, Plant, in turn, recommended his old buddy Bonzo to sit behind the drum stool.
Across their decade and change playing in Led Zeppelin, Plant and Bonham remained friends while recording some of the greatest rock songs of all time. Not even a pre-show fistfight could dampen their friendship, with the pair staying close all the way to Bonham’s death in 1980. When asked to pick out Bonham’s finest moment on record, Plant decided on the Houses of the Holy track ‘The Crunge’.
“What Bonzo’s doing is great,” Plant told Tony Bacon in 1980. “Without even having to think it out, he used to come across such—his work was so overly adequate, so extreme, and yet so understated. There were so many different elements of what he was doing. So a fill would only be there if it was necessary, but when it came, well…”
With a series of shifting time signatures, Bonham takes hold of the funky James Brown rhythms of ‘The Crunge’ and makes them sound effortless. With a swagger and sway that could only come from Led Zeppelin, ‘The Crunge’ is one of the band’s most complex tracks. But you’d never be able to tell based on Bonham’s sure-footed performance.
While relations between all four band members had endured some major ups and downs throughout the 1970s, the band entered the 1980s with a renewed sense of purpose. Led Zeppelin had survived punk and new wave, and when a low-key European tour across June and July went well, the band were ready to return to America. But less than a month before the first date, Bonham died, putting a permanent halt on all things Led Zeppelin.
“When we lost John, we agreed unanimously that that was that,” Plant shared shortly after Bonham’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.”
Check out ‘The Crunge’ down below.
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