How John Bonham Revolutionized Drumming with a Bike Chain

Every member of Led Zeppelin brought immense talent to the band. That includes drummer John Bonham. He grew up listening to jazz, studied with big-band drummers, and was so mesmerized by one early rock ‘n’ roll song he loved into his drumming technique. Bonzo’s signature style included playing powerfully behind his kit, but he changed everything about drumming with a small bicycle chain.

John Bonham established himself as one of the best drummers ever with Led Zeppelin

Bonham felt drummers were just as important to rock music as the other musicians. Bonzo believed timekeepers should be front and center on the stage instead of relegated to the back. He manned the kit behind Jimmy Page, Robert Plant, and John Paul Jones, but Bonham definitely made a name for himself in Led Zeppelin.

Take away the other instruments, and many of his beats are instantly recognizable. The shuffle of “Gallows Pole,” the intensity of “Rock and Roll,” his “Immigrant Song” beat that mirrors the guitar riff, and the mammoth stomp of “When the Levee Breaks” come to mind. Plant once said Bonzo’s drumming on “Achilles Last Stand” didn’t sound human, and he made a fair point.

Led Zeppelin disbanded when Bonham died in 1980 instead of soldiering on. There was no way they could replace his technique and chemistry with his bandmates. 

Bonzo was instrumental to Led Zeppelin, and he was just as crucial to drumming. He was so good that Bonham changed everything about drumming with a bicycle chain.

How Bonham revolutionized drumming with a bicycle chain

Bonham played with several bands before Plant recruited him for Led Zeppelin. It didn’t take long for him to leave a mark as a drummer. He unleashes unfathomably fast kick drum triplets on “Good Times Bad Times,” the first song from Led Zeppelin’s first album.

Bonham later played with an oversized bass drum and used a kit made of plastic instead of wood. But drummer Bill Harvey credits Bonham for revolutionizing the drum kit with a bicycle chain in his mid-teens, years before joining Led Zeppelin, writes C.M. Kushins in the biography Beast:

“The one thing that marked him out at that stage was his kick-drum technique, which absolutely flabbergasted all of us, the way he could do these triplets with the bass drum. I asked him once how he did it, and he said, ‘Oh, no, I’m not gonna tell ya, but I’ll tell ya what I have done: I’ve taken the leather strap off the bass drum pedal, and I’ve put a bike chain on instead.’ And of course, all the bass drum pedals now are chain driven. To my mind, he was the first one that ever did it.”

Bill Harvey describes how John Bonham revolutionized drumming

It wasn’t just that he melded jazz drumming with fledging rock music or that he played inventive drum solos or put the drums front and center (figuratively speaking) with his playing alone. Bonham revolutionized drum kits forever by swapping a leather strap for a short bike chain for his bass drum pedal. Now, chain technology is standard. As Harvey noted, Bonham might have been the first to do it. If he wasn’t the pioneer, he was at least the first to popularize it.

Bonzo remains one of the best drummers in rock music history

Bonham’s first drum mentor never thought his pupil was very good; he would be proven wrong time and again. Even though Bonzo felt another rock drummer was a true pioneer, the Led Zeppelin timekeeper left his mark.

Later-day drum phenoms, such as Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, rate Bonham as the greatest drummer of all time. In an era when Bonham, Ringo Starr, and Keith Moon were all active, Zep’s stick man stood out. Paul McCartney ranked him among the best he’d ever seen and wanted Bonham to play on Wings albums in the 1970s.

His sound and style made him famous. Even without those traits, John Bonham changed everything about drumming using just a bicycle chain added to his drum kit.

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