The one drummer Sammy Hagar said was as good as John Bonham
After over half a century in the business, Sammy Hagar never stopped being a fan of rock and roll music.
There are definitely pieces of the rock and roll industry that are bound to lose their lustre over the years, but ‘The Red Rocker’ knew nothing was better than getting to hear an electric guitar screaming over a roaring crowd whenever he got onstage. He could have easily kept playing his old record collection and been fine, but he knew that the biggest part of rock and roll was keeping his ears open for when the new school came along.
Because when you think about it, the fans don’t really know what they want until you give it to them. Most people would have felt that rock and roll was nothing but another fad when Elvis Presley came along, but when The Beatles made their way to the Ed Sullivan stage, everyone began to realise that there was more to life than simple rock and roll. There was a whole range of music to explore, and in terms of influence, Led Zeppelin practically picked up where the Fab Four left off.
While everyone in Zeppelin never hoped to get anywhere close to The Beatles, there’s hardly any weak link across any of their members. Jimmy Page was a musical visionary with a guitar in his hand, and Robert Plant set the standard for what rock and roll frontmen looked like, but the reason why they are a thing of the past is all down to the heartbeat being gone forever. Drummers can come and go in rock music, but no one in their right mind could ever think about replacing John Bonham.
His signature swing on their classic tunes was one of the most important pieces of their sound, and while they did have a few one-off reunions, there’s a reason why Page never spoke that highly of Phil Collins playing Live Aid with them. Playing drums with Zeppelin is something that comes from the gut rather than years of playing, and when Jason Bonham first got behind the kit, everyone had to rub their ears and make sure they weren’t hearing his old man’s musical outtakes.
Hagar was already in the middle of his peak with Van Halen when Jason first started making waves, but it wasn’t until he sat with him to jam that he realised what was going on. Alex Van Halen had already taken his cues from Bonham from the moment he started performing, but when working with his own band, The Circle, Hagar felt that some of that Zeppelin magic rubbed off when they kicked into their own rendition of ‘Rock and Roll’.
From where ‘The Red Rocker’ was standing, what Jason did managed to give his father a run for his money, saying, “Jason is that good, and he has his sound, he has everything, he just inherited it! I mean, he worked on it, he’s been playing longer than his father, but he inherited that gene of knowing where that foot… Anybody says, ‘Where’s the one?’ When you’re playing with Jason, you know where the one is, and it just makes it all so much easier for a singer and a guitar player like me.”
And it’s not like Hagar doesn’t know what he’s talking about, either. He already had the chance to work with a reformed version of Zeppelin without Robert Plant, and while there was no way that they would use the original name without all the surviving members, the fact that they wrapped up their career with Jason doing his father proud on Celebration Day is still one of the best ways that any band could hope to finish their career off.
There’s no telling what Jason is capable of without his father’s old bandmates, but what he’s doing with Hagar is about more than playing what’s right for the song. It’s a reminder to everyone the kind of thunder that Bonzo had back in the day that modern Zeppelin fans never got to fully experience.
