What Makes John Bonham Such a Good Drummer?

is the way Bonham hit the drums. Anybody can hit a drum hard but it can choke the drum past a certain level if you don’t do it right. Bonzo’s technique allowed him to hit hard while drawing the sound out of the drum, providing power while still letting them “sing.” Couple that with his perfect pocket and you have one of the all-time great Rock drummers.

of why Bonzo was an outstanding drummer. I got the feeling he could have gone on for hours.

The other thing, what I have always contended was the basis for their greatness, was their influences. I read stories about all the blues Plant and Page listened to together. I did not know about Bonzo's influences, though: jazz and James Brown (I'm sure there were others, but that's what the vid mentioned.) I think they were talented enough to really hear and understand different techniques, and they were playful enough to try different methods of incorporating those techniques into their music.

Bonham used to carry palettes of bricks up ladders all day long for a living, and I think that gave him a tremendous amount of stamina.

Thanks for posting the video, I really enjoyed it - especially the music notation in real time.

Which I think means he could hold them light and still hit hard if that makes sense.

Contrarily, Neal Pert used the lightest sticks. Still a good drummer but a different sound. Led Zeppelin used cool recording techniques.

Microphone placement and where the drums were played that a lot of bands didn't do.

That band was full of geniuses.

Two Beyerdynamic M160’s slung over a balcony railing capturing his “warm-up” set they had put in a stairwell in an old English castle. He was warming up to go track the song in the main room when they noticed the slap back echo was in perfect time with the song. I love recording for that reason - sometimes one is never sure what’s actually going to work until it’s stumbled upon.

But you probably knew all that!