![\"John](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/John-Bonham-Border-Far-Out-Magazine-1140x855.jpg\")
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(Credits: Far Out \/ Alamy)<\/p>\n
Tue 16 December 2025 0:30, UK <\/p>\n
It would be easy to slap a big, fat rock on John Bonham<\/a>\u2019s influences.<\/p>\n The fact is, rock as Led Zeppelin unleashed to the world didn\u2019t exist before their eponymous debut in 1969. From the moment the collapsing Hindenburg airship exploded toward the end of the counterculture, classic rock was almost afforded its eternal template, the peacocking, arena-filling bluster heralding the 1970s\u2019 guitar gyrating heyday, while also strutting into perilously close to the self-parody targeted from the punk generations by the decade\u2019s close.<\/p>\n Yet, feet were always tethered to the ground by an intrepid sonic terrain, ensuring Led Zeppelin would ultimately stand as lauded heroes of rock\u2019s mystical chapter. Always offering a rich and exotic realm of escapism glowing potently across their holy album run, the aural unveil on each cut could flash a love of the blues, Celtic folklore, old R&B, splashes of psychedelia, and hefty bludgeons of proto heavy metal.<\/p>\n However, when quizzed on his direct influences, drummer John Bonham was strangely coy about dropping any explicit genres or routine namechecks as to the figures that towered in his estimation. According to his brother Mick\u2019s book on the Led Zeppelin drummer, Bonham admired the powerhouse heft of Keith Moon, Ginger Baker<\/a>\u2019s feral abandon, and was otherwise a student of the jazz tradition\u2019s litany of big band percussionists.<\/p>\n Bonham did highlight one movement from his pop youth that pointed the way to the kit more than any other. \u201cI don\u2019t consider that I\u2019m particularly influenced by anyone or anything,\u201d he reportedly confessed. \u201cBut when I started playing, I was influenced by early soul. It was just that feel, that sound.\u201d<\/p>\n Never one to overly intellectualise, Bonham\u2019s raw, instinctive groove feels plucked from the ether when listening to Led Zeppelin at their best. But amid his heavy pummel, a love of James Brown and the Motown canon guided Bonham\u2019s technique, conjuring power without ever merely smashing the skins with heft.<\/p>\n