And with Zeppelin’s classic double album, Physical Graffiti, celebrating it’s 50th anniversary this year, JBLZE (as it is often referred to) will be playing a month’s worth of shows from October 22-November 26 throughout North America. For which, tickets can be purchased via jasonbonham.net.
Jason spoke with AllMusic about a month before the tour’s launch, and was willing to select his 5 favorite tracks off Physical Graffiti, and explain why for each.
Kashmir
“The easiest one I would come to in the five tracks would be ‘Kashmir.’ The way the story’s been told, and Jimmy [Page] tells it one way, and I kind of heard it another way, and obviously, with dad being one of the co-writers, I always look at that and go, ‘How is that possible that it’s Robert [Plant], Jimmy, and John Bonham…and no John Paul Jones on that song?’ It baffles my existence to comprehend that.”
“So I always said, ‘I wonder how dad communicated his idea?’ And I think he was just grunting this kind of, ‘I got this idea’ [sings main riff of ‘Kashmir’]. And from that, the acorn grew to the oak tree. And that’s generally, I think, how he contributed a lot of the time. So that, to me, was such a powerful song that I’m proud of.”
“It’s second to ‘Stairway to Heaven’ in this modern day and age, where we can see what’s popular in streams and whatever. And it was the song now that any other band that does any kind of Egyptian, Indian-esque, kind of that Far East [feel], we’ll go, ‘Ah. Trying to copy Zeppelin.'”
“And that was from their influence of traveling through Marrakesh, when Jimmy and Robert were traveling around. And he wrote it on a train, apparently. And just the simplicity of the of the drum. And that’s one of the hardest things to do as a drummer, is to be able to hold back. And dad was great at that in the studio. Not so great live – he wouldn’t hold that live! He would ‘go for it’ live – which was good. It was an exciting part of the thing.”
“So, I love that simplicity, the fact that they used two tape machines to run simultaneously to get the flanging on the drums. That was the phasing on the drums. It wasn’t, ‘Put a phaser on it,’ or whatever. They ran two machines just slightly out of sync. So you get that beautiful – and Headley Grange – drum sound. Very ‘room mic,’ hardly any direct mics.”
“I love the fact that it only says ‘Kashmir’ once in the song. They never were chorus kind of guys. They were pieces of music put together.”
Ten Years Gone
“I strongly believe – and you’d have to ask Jimmy this – I wonder if he was influenced at all by anything that McCartney and Wings had put out at that time? I’m trying to think, ’75…so ’74, I’d have to look it up. But there are some things in there that always remind me of Wings [sings beginning guitar bit of ‘Band on the Run’]. So when he goes into that guitar solo, it’s got a very almost like [sings] ‘Stuck inside these four walls…’ And I knew my dad was very close to Paul, and to Wings. So, I just wondered if there was some form of a diversity there.”
“Because that song, to me, is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever written. And live, when we play it, it’s one of the most emotional songs to play. Because it’s a realization it’s 45 years gone since he [Jason’s father] passed. And it’s one of the last songs I remember him playing at Knebworth ’79, when I stood at the side stage, disgruntled, because I was very into my dirt bike [Jason was thirteen at the time]. There was a race, a very big race, that I was supposed to be at, and I couldn’t. It was two races over the same weekend. So, ‘You have to choose to miss one race, because you’ve got to come and see your dad.’ Y’know, God, I am so glad that my mom and dad were like, ‘Hey, you can’t have everything in life. Make a sacrifice.’ Because I only got to see Zeppelin four times. So, I’m glad.”
“And that show to me, Knebworth, was a very special show. And it stuck out to me. I remember Robert saying, ‘It should be called ‘Eleven Years Gone,’ because it was now ’79 and it was ’68 when they first got together. I love the line, ‘Never thought I’d see your face the way it used to be.’ Always, it’s one of those moments that you’re, like, ‘Wow. I wonder, what he’d [Jasons father] think now?'”
“And the solo, just Jimmy’s playing in it. And for us musically now, how we put it together with having the other the other musician, the keyboard instrumentalist, come guitarist, come mandolin player, come whatever we throw at him, Alex Howland, there’s one part, if you listen to that. There is a sitar line, and it goes all the way through [sings main guitar riff] in that.”
“[Howland asked] ‘Do you really want me to play that one line?’ I went, ‘Honestly, it works so great live, because when they did it live, they didn’t have that capability.”
Trampled Under Foot
“Especially since I found out it was inspired by Jeff Beck playing drums. I didn’t know, until only right up when we were on tour and I watched YouTube, and [in a video interview with Beck] Stevie [Wonder] goes, ‘Oh, what’s that?’ And he goes, ‘Oh no, Stevie. It’s me, Jeff. I’m playing the drums.’ And then Stevie started doing the clavinet part, and I didn’t realize that was a collaboration between Beck. So that inspired ‘Superstitious,’ which then I remember, that inspired the Zeppelin guys on ‘Trampled Under Foot.'”
“There’s a bootleg somewhere of them actually jamming that, and then suddenly, they start coming up with their own parts. And so it started off as a, ‘Let’s jam that song.’ And then all of a sudden, it then forms itself into ‘Trampled,’ which was wonderful. And it’s one of those songs live where as we’ve been doing the whole show, but not in the order of the album, we save it because it’s an upbeat song. And it’s the one where everyone really just gets up and joins in. Just great. Another one of those Zeppelin classics that came from all the different genres that they’re allowed to be.”
Night Flight
“Now, there’s going to be a left field song: ‘Night Flight.’ Which, was an outtake from Led Zeppelin IV. I just love dad’s drumming. Every night when we start with that hi-hat, all you have to do is do the hi-hat, and I see people in the audience go, ‘Night Flight!’ I absolutely adore playing that song live.”
Down By the Seaside
“Because there’s so many great other songs on Physical Graffiti, like ‘In My Time of Dying,’ ‘In the Light’ – epics – you forget ‘Down By the Seaside.’ Because it’s the diversity and just how they could just go, ‘It’s okay to do this.’ You get a lot of bands, they’ll jam something and write something, and they go, ‘Oh, that’s not us.’ Zeppelin were never afraid to go, ‘That’s not us.’ ‘It still is us’.”
