The first time I ever met John Bonham was in a tiny basement room we had rented on Lyle Street filled with loads of amps and speaker cabs that had been begged, borrowed or stolen and it was quite literally: ‘This is Robert, this is John’ ‘How do you do? What shall we do now?’
‘What do you know?’ I said I’d been playing sessions and knew nothing at all, so Jimmy just said, "Well I don’t know, do you know any Yardbirds songs?" And we went with ‘Train Keep A Rollin’ in E, and Bonzo counted us in and there was like this instant explosion --- an instant recognition --- that this would be a really good outfit to be with.
What struck me most about Bonzo was his confidence, and you know he was a real cocky bugger in those days. Still, you have to be to play like that. It was great --- instant concentration. He wasn't showing off, but was just aware of what he could do. I knew John was rock solid because drummers and bass players have to work so closely together you quickly recognise each other’s ability.
When you're a bassist and coming up through the bands you know immediately about the drummer: "Well he’s not up to much --- or --- my God, I can’t work with this bloke." With Bonzo and I, we just listened to each other, rather than look at each other, and we knew immediately from the first count in we were solid and absolutely together. We knew straight away it was going to be good and that we would become a great rhythm section.
When I was doing sessions I played with three different drummers everyday. You'd get to know the ones you'd have a nice time with and the ones who were going to be hard bloody work. As soon as I heard Bonzo play I knew this was going to be great --- somebody who knows what he's doing and swings like a bastard. We locked together as a team immediately.
We had a mutual respect when we both realised we knew what we were doing. I listened to his bass drum foot and he listened to what I was doing. It was one of those rhythm-section marriages. John was musically loud. He was a strong drummer, and we were playing rock 'n' roll --- you don't want somebody just tapping about.
He loved playing drums, but he hated being on tour. I remember in the early days he wouldn't go to bed until it was light. I used to sit up with him, just talking or listening to the radio. He really hated being away, and he hated flying. So that was another thing that made him drink. We'd send cars to drive him to the airport. He'd been known to order the driver to turn round and take him back to Birmingham.
His fear of flying actually got better when we had our own plane. They let him sit at the controls of a Lear jet, and because he loved fast driving he suddenly realised flying was a bit like driving his car. They let him do a few moves, and... I can remember somebody coming out of the loo at the back saying, "What the hell was that!" as the plane lurched. John came out of the cockpit with a big smile on his face and he said, "That's the fastest thing I've ever driven."
-John Paul Jones