For John Bonham

On "Becoming Led Zeppelin" and Page's personal mythology.

John Bonham was the soul of Led Zeppelin. He effortlessly embodied the heavy/light dichotomy promised in the band’s very name. On track after track, show after show, for the entire run of the band, John Bonham’s drumming essentially was a lead-filled airship, an impossibly heavy, massive thing that weightlessly floated above the audience.

All drummers, regardless of genre, have to deal with John Bonham. Yes, he had a big sound¹, but the musicians have always known the truth about him: no one could swing a rock band quite like John Bonham, and no rock band swings as hard as Led Zeppelin².

And Bonham was an innovator. His sound and vocabulary³ didn’t come from nowhere: he was a student of the instrument, said to have an encyclopedic knowledge of Benny Benjamin at Motown and Al Jackson Jr. at Stax, shouting out to Max Roach with a quote from “The Drum Also Waltzes” at the Royal Albert Hall in 1970, and keenly aware of his peers, especially Carmine Appice and Ginger Baker. But John Bonham set a new standard and created a new archetype, one still in effect today.

For all his power, and the heavy dance of his beat, Bonham never plays authoritatively. Like his fellow countryman Ringo Starr and the jazz-based professionals he admired, Bonham is, above all, flexible. He’s musically open, nimble, and ready to play whatever’s on the docket— blues, funk, Brazilian, reggae, odd meters, folk, rockabilly, country— you name it, John Bonham is ready to play it.

Right up to the end, Bonham was refining his vocabulary, tweaking his sound, and working on his technique. From the brilliant young collaborator of Led Zeppelin I (1969) to the seasoned professional of Houses of the Holy (1973) to the relaxed perfectionist of “Bonzo’s Montreux” and In Through The Out Door (1979), listening to Bonham in chronological order is to track an ever-evolving, nearly experimental musician, one who was always proposing a new answer to the question: “How best to play drums in Led Zeppelin?”

At the very beginning, on “Good Times Bad Times”, Bonham is audacious and life-affirming— his legendary stuttering bass drum still startles me with it’s casual, off-the-cuff magic— but also and always taking care of business. The top and bottom of rock records are drums and voice— as above, so below. If drums and voice aren’t in alignment, you’ve got nothing. So check out Plant and Bonham hitting every downbeat on “Good Times Bad Times” in powerful human unison, just like a lead trumpet and drummer in a big band. What a beginning.

Everybody likes “Good Times Bad Times” and Led Zeppelin I. But let’s give it up for In Through The Out Door, a not-much loved Zeppelin album but a John Bonham master class. Here, Bonham does it all and more brilliantly than he ever had.

He’s a down-the-middle and tasty rocker on “In The Evening”, but listen to his right hand on the hi-hat on “South Bound Suarez”, shuffling and swinging so naturally with Jones’s piano. The Bonham of ’69 or ‘70 would have throttled this, but the Bonham of ’79 can lightly dance on it. Jeff Porcaro based his beat on “Roseanna” on both Bernard Purdie on Steely Dan’s “Home At Last” and Bonham on “Fool In The Rain”, where Bonham also overdubs timbales, marimba, and who knows what else for the samba section, bringing out the song’s lightness and humor.

Bonham’s a serious two-beat country swinger on “Hot Dog”, while on the confounding, experimental “Carouselambra”, he’s the only thing that’s definitely working— without Bonham, the band couldn’t have even attempted this track. He brings sympathy and strength to “All My Love”, then plays a heartbroken 12/8 backbeat for the ages on “I’m Gonna Crawl”. Listen to how soft he plays the snare drum at the beginning of Page’s solo, giving the guitarist plenty of room. Great to hear his lovely buzz roll into the final vocal.

A buzz roll on a Zeppelin album! The evidence is clear— the golden age of John Bonham was still to come. When he died nearly 45 years ago, in September 1980, he was just getting started.

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In December 1980, conceding that Bonham was irreplaceable, Zeppelin left the stage and disbanded, a move that must have cost Robert Plant, Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones a fortune, materially and emotionally. Respect.

Outside a few one-off reunion concerts, Zeppelin has been silent ever since. Yet their music is everywhere, while Plant, Page, and Jones are alive, well, and (occasionally) active. Somehow, Zeppelin feels not really finished, not quite over.

And now we have Becoming Led Zeppelin (2025), a full-length, theatrically-released, Zeppelin-authorized documentary from director Bernard McMahon. The film is laser-focussed on the pre-history and early history of the group, closing with the release of Led Zeppelin II in 1970 and the band’s show at Royal Albert Hall as the album raced up the charts.

Becoming Led Zeppelin is wonderful, made with respect for the music, musicians, and audience. Refreshingly, McMahon assumes that you, the viewer, already like Led Zeppelin, so instead of talking heads breathlessly claiming the group’s social and historical import, his movie just dives in and presents Zeppelin as they saw themselves— a band of rock musicians who aspired to greatness from day one.

With complete faith in the audience, McMahon includes a few more-or-less full-length performances by the band, including “How Many More Times” from 1968 and “Dazed and Confused” from their first US tour. No commentary, no cutaways to reactions, none of the hype and glamour from The Song Remains The Same, just minute after minute of straight, minimally-produced concert footage. It works— Zeppelin’s greatness is powerfully self-evident. As the band always said, as McMahon knew, the music speaks for itself. No explanation is needed.

Elsewhere, the film is much like The Beatles Anthology (1995)— new interviews with Plant, Page, and Jones, intercut with photos and film of their pre-Zeppelin lives; essentially short individual biographies which then intertwine. It’s moving to hear John Bonham tell his own story via a previously-unheard audio interview, fleshed out with some lovely home movies and childhood photos. No longer a mythological rock and roller, here’s John Bonham the human being, just his mother’s son.

At one point Bonham, speaking quietly, baldly states that he loves playing in Led Zeppelin, and adores playing with John Paul Jones. Jones then speaks candidly and fondly of Bonham’s right foot— his bass drum foot. It was a joy to sit in a theater and hear musicians show love like this, not often heard outside the circle.

It’s an odd feature of Zeppelin that instead of the interpersonal squabbles that define the trajectory of most bands, Page, Plant, Jones, and Bonham got along beautifully. They weren’t friends from youth who buoyed each other through adolescence and beyond, they were professional colleagues who worked together in mutual respect and shared ambition, which the film shows and quietly celebrates.

But Robert Plant and Bonham were the exception, as the two had known each other at least since their early teens. When Plant speaks about Bonham, with easy fondness and something like neighborliness— he’s just John, his buddy, and his wife Pat, both friends since who knows when— I was touched. This was how my grandparents in Hamburg, NY talked about their neighbors and friends, folks who simply were part of their lives, and who knows or cares how that got started? Robert Plant doesn’t defend John’s honor, or tortuously explain how good he was, nor is there a histrionic performance of closeness.

To Plant, Page, and Jones, John Bonham is simply present, in memory and sound, which they generously share with us.

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The three surviving members of Led Zeppelin are easy-to-admire cultural heroes in 2025, safe in their senescence, utterly respectable. But it was not always thus. The music speaks for itself, and it tells a different story.

Becoming Led Zeppelin, has a relatively easy story to tell, since everyone likes beginnings. It’s the rest of the band’s history that’s complicated. The film’s civil, Beatles Anthology-like veneer is broken a few times, cracks forced by Page himself:

• About the middle of the film, and out of nowhere, Page, who thus far has been solely focussed on musical and business concerns as he establishes the band, tells of a trip to to a palmist that pointed him towards committing to his vision of Led Zeppelin;

• Note Page’s smile and twinkling eyes as he uses the word “evil” to describe the fever pitch that “Dazed and Confused” would reach in live performance;

• Finally, watch Page nod his head vigorously and knowingly after simply saying “The next shows were in San Francisco”, during Zeppelin’s first USA tour. He knew, with utter surety, that San Francisco in ‘69, brimming with both light and dark spiritual energy (Zodiac, Altamont), would be where Zeppelin took off.

No surprise that it was Page who introduced these notes in the film. Despite all that ought to de-mystify Zeppelin— the passage of time, their stodgy professionalism, their ubiquity, the institutional honors they’ve received— there’s something otherworldly about them, a seductive darkness in their music. We all hear it. It’s what set them apart, then and now. It’s why we like Led Zeppelin.

Of course, that darkly-seductive-something seems to flow from Jimmy Page’s well-documented and sincere interest in the occult. Page’s occult studies and their influence on his life and music have been the source of countless half-serious, half-joking speculation for sixty years, giving us a corpus of fundamentally goofy tales about Page that ultimately disrespects him, his band, their music, and the listeners.

But what can be said— what no one can dispute— is that Jimmy Page thought about music very differently than the average British blues/rock guitarist. Undoubtedly influenced by his wide reading in occult and esoteric traditions, Page told himself an unusual and powerful story about the power of music and the role of the musician.

That story is a big part of what made him do the work needed to become a professional musician, to succeed first as a studio guitarist, then with the Yardbirds. It’s that story—whatever it is— that drove him to connect with Peter Grant, with John Paul Jones, with Robert Plant and John Bonham.

This is why I love thinking about Zeppelin— there’s no better illustration of the power of our personal mythology, of the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. Jimmy Page knew that all music is, fundamentally, magic. Page’s understanding of music’s power is a big part of what Led Zeppelin actually is, and inconceivable without John Bonham’s beautiful and swinging contribution. Through Zeppelin’s worldwide popularity, Bonham did much to make African and Black American rhythm the world’s rhythm.

Gratitude and respect for John Bonham’s music— for all he referenced, for all he achieved, for his individuality, skill, and humility in the music. Led Zeppelin is everyday music, but watch for that bustle in your hedgerow— there’s magic here.

1. He also had a warm, resonant sound. Listen to “Moby Dick” at the Royal Albert Hall: those big Ludwigs are tuned resonant and full, no tape or muffling in sight. This is not bludgeoning force— this is a precise and methodical drummer seeking a sound that would blend with his band.

2. Mr. Tom Melito, one of the most graceful drummers in the world, told me as a teenager that the only rock band he liked was Led Zeppelin, because, as he said “Bonham had a huge beat and swung so nicely”. Mr. Melito spoke for many, and he was right.

3. A sound captured by Jimmy Page. It was Page who directed the engineers on how to mic Bonham, it was Page who oversaw the mixing and mastering of every release. I have to remind myself that Jimmy Page was Led Zeppelin’s George Martin, which is quite an achievement.