Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening is gearing up for a final run of its tour celebrating the 50th anniversary of Led Zeppelin’s Physical Graffiti. “This is it, the last run,” the son of Zeppelin’s late drummer John Bonham promises Billboard. “We will not do it again.”
But Bonham already has a good idea of what he’ll do next.
“After 15 years of doing this, I’m always inspired to go, ‘What could be next?’ And this time…Presence!” he says, referencing Led Zeppelin’s seventh studio album, which will celebrate its golden anniversary next year. “That’s one of my favorites. And underrated: ‘For Your Life,’ ‘Achilles Last Stand,’ ‘Candy Store Rock.’ I can’t wait. I feel like we’ve definitely got to try it.” Bonham did, in fact, play the epic Presence opener “Achilles Last Stand” during shows last year after avoiding it previously — “’cause I was always scared of it,” he notes with a laugh.
Bonham acknowledges he’s even looking beyond Presence. “I’m not too sure if I’ll be able to play that well, but in 2029, Presence into (1979’s) In Through the Out Door, in their entirety, would be the way to go,” he says, noting that most of the latter’s songs were never played live by Zeppelin due to the band breaking up after his father’s death 13 months after its release. He’s particularly hot to take on the careening “Carouselambra,” which he played with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones during rehearsals in 2008, when Zeppelin was trying to continue after its triumphant December 2007 Celebration Day reunion at London’s O2 Arena.
“They played it as if they had just left the studio, and they hadn’t played it since they day they recorded it. It was mind-blowing,” Bonham recalls. “Jimmy was only using this tiny little amp, and it still had that sound (sings), that breakdown in the middle. I’d love to play that for (an audience).”
With that future mapped out, albeit loosely, Bonham is looking forward to returning to the Physical Graffiti shows, starting Oct. 22 in Louisville, Ken., with 26 North American dates booked through Nov. 26 in Hollywood, Fla. He considers the Billboard 200-topping Physical Graffiti — Zeppelin’s first on its own Swan Song Records label and the first album to go platinum on advance orders — to be “THE Led Zeppelin” album. He says performing it has been as rewarding as he hoped when he and the JBLZE band set out to do it.
“It’s the first time we’d ever had to go into a place to rehearse,” he says, “because even though we had done nearly every one of these songs at some point, maybe just for one tour, we never thought of actually doing it as the whole album. (Led Zeppelin) used to do ‘In My Time of Dying’ live. They did ‘Kashmir’ live, ‘Ten Years Gone,’ ‘Sick Again.’ But then to do ‘The Wanton Song’ and ‘Down By the Seaside’ and ‘Night Flight’…When I found out ‘Night Flight’ was a Led Zeppelin IV outtake, it made perfect sense; when dad does the (sings drum fill), that’s the ‘Stairway to Heaven ‘ fill. You know, drummers, when we find a new fill we’ll put it in anything, like, ‘Oh, that’ll work there as well..’” He’s also fond of talking to the audience about why the song “Houses of the Holy” wound up on Physical Graffiti and not on Zeppelin’s preceding album of that title.
JBLZE does not, however, play Physical Graffiti in its original running order.
“It’s a show; we’re trying to keep people engaged in this,” he explains. “I know if I went to a concert and knew it was gonna be in order, you subconsciously go, ‘I can nip off to the bathroom on this one’ if it’s not one of my favorites. There’s no way you can put ‘Kashmir’ [the sixth track on the album] that early in the show. And it’s working. From what we’ve done so far, it’s been one of the most successful runs we’ve ever done, just from the feedback we’re getting. People are like, ‘It’s so great to hear those songs in a live environment,’ ’cause nobody plays ‘In the Light.’ Zeppelin never played ‘In the Light.’ Some of these songs never saw the light of day other than when they were recorded, so…here they are.”
Those emotions are resonating even stronger with Bonham this year, which marks 15 years “of doing a project that I really didn’t think I was gonna do that long…. But I realized it’s not about what I want, really. Who am I to stop? It’s what Zeppelin means to so many people. People write to me about it, still, and it gets me every time. I get emotional. It took on a life of its own and I’m glad.”
Besides DNA, of course, Bonham’s own Zeppelin history includes playing with Page, Jones and Robert Plant at the Atlantic Records 40th anniversary concert in 1988 at Madison Square Garden as well as at the 02 show in 2007. He still has particularly fond memories of the latter. “I’d gone from this younger version of me when I’d played with them before, when I had kind of a chip on my shoulder…and now I was a sober 39-year-old that wanted it to be perfect, wanted the knowledge,” he recalls. “I wanted to know everything. I wanted to ask them all the questions…because it’s my dad’s peers, my dad’s bandmates. So you’re having conversations with them, musically, to the point where they’re like, ‘Whoa, slow down! Cut the coffee out.’
“People ask me a lot, ‘What was the highlight of playing with them?’ back when we did Celebration Day. To be honest with you, the highlight was the six weeks leading up to it, being with them from 11 in the morning ’til 6 p.m., five days a week. That was really special.”
Bonham also holds dear one special conversation with Plant, with whom he’s closest, in which the singer bared his reason for never wanting to reactivate Led Zeppelin as a going concern.
“He gets a lot of grief for that,” Bonham notes. “We had a great conversation right after the O2…We went to (a pub) to watch a football game, and on the way back my son dozed off and I said, ‘I’ve got to ask you…are we gonna get the band back together?’ and he said, ‘I loved your dad way too much…Everything we said when your father passed, it would be like we didn’t mean it. When your father left us, left the world, that was it for Led Zeppelin. I can’t go out there and fake it. I can’t be a jukebox. I can’t. We couldn’t do what The Who did. It was too vital. I can’t go out there and try and do it that way.’”
Bonham says that Plant also assured him that his decision “‘is not out of disrespect to you. You know the stuff better than all of us, and no one can play it who is alive as close to your dad like you. But it’s not the same.’ And I got it. I was absolutely fine for that. My dad and Robert, they’d known each other since they were, like, 15. So it’s a lot deeper because of their relationship.”
Outside of JBLZE work, Bonham toured earlier this year with Black Country Communion, the supergroup with guitarist Joe Bonamassa, bassist-vocalist Glenn Hughes and keyboardist Derek Sherinian. A live album was recorded during the tour as well. “We hadn’t played together for so many years…and it was great,” Bonham reports. “I’m so glad they were recording every night, ’cause one night we suddenly went into a whole other realm.”
Bonham reports he remains on good terms with Sammy Hagar despite being dismissed from his Best of All Worlds band last year and replaced by Kenny Aronoff — partly because Bonham had to tend to his ailing mother in England, who’s since recovered. “I wish it could’ve ended in a slightly different way,” he says of Hagar. “But I had an amazing 10-year-run with him, and I’m grateful for it. I always joke with him. He always sends me a message and says, ‘You know it’s not over, right? You know we’re not done yet,’ and I always write back and go, ‘Oh, we are. You can’t afford me anymore,’” he laughs.
The upcoming Jason Bonham’s Led Zeppelin Evening tour dates include:
Wed, Oct 22 – Louisville, KY – The Louisville Palace Theatre
Fri, Oct 24 – Cincinnati, OH – Hard Rock Casino Cincinnati
Sat, Oct 25 – Gary, IN – Hard Rock Live Northern Indiana
Sun, Oct 26 – Cleveland, OH – MGM Northfield Park
Tue, Oct 28 – Indianapolis, IN – Murat Theatre at Old National Centre
Wed, Oct 29 – Detroit, MI – The Fillmore Detroit
Thu, Oct 30 – Rockford, IL – Hard Rock Casino Rockford
Sat, Nov 1 – Waterloo, NY – The Vine Showroom at del Lago Resort & Casino
Sun, Nov 2 – Port Chester, NY – The Capitol Theatre+
Tue, Nov 4 – Ottawa, ON – Hard Rock Live Ottawa
Wed, Nov 5 – Toronto, ON – Massey Hall
Fri, Nov 7 – Atlantic City, NJ – Sound Waves at Hard Rock Hotel & Casino
Sat, Nov 8 – Danville, VA – The Pantheon at Caesars Virginia
Sun, Nov 9 – Montclair, NJ – The Wellmont Theater
Tue, Nov 11 – Boston, MA – Citizens House of Blues Boston
Wed, Nov 12 – Providence, RI – The VETS
Fri, Nov 14 – Hampton Beach, NH – Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom
Sat, Nov 15 – Bethlehem, PA – Wind Creek Event Center
Sun, Nov 16 – Hanover, MD – The HALL at Live!
Tue, Nov 18 – Huntington, NY – The Paramount
Wed, Nov 19 – Albany, NY – Palace Theatre
Fri, Nov 21 – Bristol, VA Hard Rock Live Bristol
Sat, Nov 22 – Atlanta, GA – Coca-Cola Roxy
Mon, Nov 24 – Orlando, FL – Walt Disney Theater at Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts
Tue, Nov 25 – Tampa, FL – Hard Rock Event Center – Seminole Hard Rock Tampa
Wed, Nov 26 – Hollywood, FL – Hard Rock Live
