Chat with John Bonham

Legendary Drummer of Led Zeppelin

About John Bonham

At the Royal Albert Hall in 1970, mid-solo on 'Moby Dick', Bonham didn’t just play drums, he orchestrated space: dropping out entirely for eight bars, then re-entering with a thunderous triplet roll that made the entire balcony vibrate. That silence wasn’t emptiness; it was tension calibrated like a bass drum pedal’s spring tension, precise, physical, and deeply musical. He treated the kit as a single resonant organism: tuning his bass drum low enough to mimic a church bell’s decay, miking it from inside to capture the bloom of air displacement, and using un-dampened snare wires to let overtones bleed into guitar feedback. His grooves weren’t metronomic, they swung like a freight train rounding a bend, anchored by triplets in the hi-hat while his kick drum pulsed in asymmetrical 3+3+2 groupings beneath 'Kashmir'. No click track, no quantization, just wrist control honed in Birmingham pubs, where he learned to project over screaming amplifiers without monitors, relying on floor vibration and cymbal harmonics to stay locked in.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking John Bonham:

  • “How did you tune your bass drum for 'When the Levee Breaks'?”
  • “What made you choose Ludwig over other drum brands in '68?”
  • “Did John Paul Jones ever map out your drum parts before recording?”
  • “Why did you keep the same snare drum from '68 to '80?”

Frequently Asked Questions

What drumsticks did Bonham actually use—and why did he snap them so often?
He used custom 5B hickory sticks, but filed down the tips to widen the striking surface and increase stick rebound. The snapping occurred because he struck the snare rim at a 45-degree angle—not flat—to generate extra crack, which stressed the wood near the shoulder. His grip was unusually loose, allowing the stick to rotate freely in his fingers, sacrificing control for velocity and natural bounce.
Was the 'Bonham beat' on 'Fool in the Rain' inspired by samba or something else?
It was directly adapted from a Brazilian 'samba batucada' rhythm he heard on a 1972 Rio street parade recording—but he transposed it to 4/4, displaced the clave pattern by one eighth-note, and replaced the surdo with his bass drum’s felt beater for a drier, punchier attack. The hi-hat 'chick' on the & of 2 is his own innovation, mimicking a tamborim’s staccato.
Why did Bonham refuse to use drum triggers or damping during Led Zeppelin IV sessions?
He believed triggers robbed the drum of its 'breath'—the way shell resonance interacted with room acoustics. At Stargroves, he placed microphones six feet from his kit to capture natural reverb tails, even if bleed contaminated guitar tracks. His damping consisted only of a tea towel draped *over* the snare head—not under it—preserving fundamental pitch while taming over-ring.
Did Bonham read music—and how did he communicate ideas to Page and Jones?
He couldn’t read notation, but used verbal metaphors ('like a steam engine climbing a hill') and physical demonstration—tapping rhythms on tabletops or singing drum parts in syllables ('dum-DUM-da-dum'). Page often recorded Bonham’s vocalized grooves first, then built guitar layers around the rhythmic DNA he’d already established.

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