Out now is the new book Bonzo: 30 Rock Drummers Remember The Legendary John Bonham by author Greg Prato — who wrote the excellent recent post-makeup Kiss chronicle Take It Off: KISS Truly Unmasked. The new book, which commemorates the 40th anniversary of John Bonham's death, collects the recollections of the Led Zeppelin drummer from some of the most iconic sticksman who came up in his wake — including Kenny Aronoff, Mike Portnoy, John Dolmayan, Brian Tichy, and Steve Gorman, among others.
John Bonham died on September 25th, 1980 of pulmonary edema, which is fluid accumulation in the lungs. He was 32-years-old.
Jimmy Page told us that he knew from the beginning that the magic surrounding Led Zeppelin wouldn't last forever: “I said, basically around the time of the first album, it's all a race against time, and I think it is. It still is. It still is a race against time and trying to do good work and improve on what you've done. It's more difficult as you get older because you know your days are numbered, really. Within Zeppelin we had this amazing vehicle that we could continue and continue and just come up with amazing things — which fortunately we did continue, and we did come up with amazing stuff. But I still thought it was a race against time. I had no idea how prophetic it would be with the loss of John Bonham.”
