The Black Sabbath song that almost featured John Bonham
When hard rock was starting to come into its own, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin seemed to arrive from different worlds. Although both had their roots in blues, what Zeppelin did with the rock genre tended to be fairly eclectic compared to Sabbath, who were more interested in making some of the most terrifying rock music ever made. While both bands were responsible for predicting what the future held with the heavy metal movement, there was a slim chance that both backbeats would meet in the middle.
During the early 1970s, though, Zeppelin and Sabbath had a lot more in common than people realise. Like most other hard rock acts of the time, the critics lambasted both of them when putting out some of their best material, with journalists claiming that they were pale imitations of acts like The Yardbirds and Cream. As both bands started to come into their own, the public started to get behind them as the leaders of heavier rock.
When stretching out, Zeppelin was interested in mixing styles, incorporating electric and acoustic instruments to make things heavy. On the other side, Sabbath was interested in making drony jams that felt like they were signalling the apocalypse, like on ‘Children of the Grave’. Once Sabbath got their bearings on the album Vol 4, John Bonham started paying close attention.
Being a big fan of Sabbath, Bonzo was struck by how well the song ‘Supernaut’ grooved and offered to play on the track. As original drummer Bill Ward recalled in Classic Rock, “Bonham really loved ‘Supernaut’. He had that song down. We were in the studio one day, and he came by. He saw I was playing the double bass drum. And he said: ‘I’ll do it on one’”.
The timing never truly worked out, though, with Tony Iommi saying that the song devolved into a lengthy jam, saying, “John wanted to play ‘Supernaut’, but we jammed instead. We were in the middle of recording, so it fucked up the session. I know it was recorded, and I’d love to hear it. The tape must be around somewhere”.
By the time Sabbath expanded their horizons, though, Zeppelin was already on another level. Fresh out of their self-titled period, the band were on the precipice of the album Houses of the Holy, which would feature some of the more adventurous songwriting of their career, from the folksy ‘Over the Hills and Far Away’ to the steady groove of ‘Dancing Days’.
When listening to the finished version of the song, though, ‘Supernaut’ may have inspired Bonzo when working on the next Zeppelin album. Given how the song chugs along with a slightly off-kilter groove, it’s hard not to think of it as the groundwork for what Bonzo did on ‘The Ocean’ on the next album.
Although the collaboration never came to fruition, Ward still has fond memories of working with the late Zeppelin drummer at the session, explaining, “I can still hear him playing that intro on the hat, over and over. Bonham’s bass drum work, of course, was incredible. ‘Supernaut’, I tell you, sounded like something from the hardcore bands of today, where they play two bass drums with such incredible speed”.
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