Words by Riley Fitzgerald
Graphic by Press

Led Zeppelin engineer Eddie Kramer has recalled working with John Bonham.

Kramer’s thoughts on Zeppelin’s drummer arrive via a new interview question and answer session with Gibson.

Kramer would work with Led Zeppelin on three of the band’s eight studio albums.

Most famous he worked with the group on Led Zeppelin II.

He would later have a falling out with Jimmy Page following Houses of the Holy only to return again for Physical Graffiti‘s recording sessions in 1974.

“Here’s the thing about Bonham,” Kramer shares with Gibson host Brad Tolinski, “if you put John Bonham in the room and you only had three microphones you could record John Bonham because the way he hit the damn drums and the way he tuned the kit.”

“That combination is the sound,” he contends. “If one imagines standing in the room watching him play, the distance of the weight and the speed of where his arm would fall from there to the snare, and that contact was so fast and he had so much impact, and the foot, of course, one of the heaviest feet in the business.”

“He was the machine,” Kramer enthuses, “the was the driving force behind Zeppelin. When it came time to record him [for ‘Houses of the Holy’] at this place that we very fortunate, it was called Stargroves, which is Mick Jagger‘s mansion outside of London.”

“We used The Rolling Stones’ mobile [recording studio],” the engineer recounts, “and here we had an opportunity to put Bonzo in a room entirely by himself, which was this huge sort of conservatory basically, a big wooden room with a carved wooden window frame, very ancient sort of room with incredible acoustics.”

“So I set him up there with just a stereo pair of mics, snare mic, tom mics, bass mic, that’s it, and he just banged away,” Kramer enthuses, “The first time he hit the snare – oh my god – and when he came into the truck to hear it, ‘Nice mate, it’s alright.'”

Later in the interview, Kramer’s interviewer asks who he considers the “best” drummer he ever worked with.

“I think Bonzo was the greatest rock ‘n’ roll drummer that I’ve ever experienced,” he shares, “and I’ve recorded a bunch of greats.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” Eddie adds. “I love [Jimi Hendrix‘s drummer] Mitch Mitchell for his particular way of playing with Jimi, the jazz influence, and the way he held the sticks, you know, the proper traditional jazz way.”

“But that’s like looking at chalk and cheese,” he clarifies. “Bonzo was the master of rock ‘n’ roll. I mean, I can’t think of a drummer who hit harder, had such a fantastic feel, and here’s the thing: [Jimmy] Page used to sit with Bonzo and work out the patterns.”

Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page’s overall vision for group’s songs, Kramer believes, enhanced Bonzo’s own formidable talents.

“If they were very complex, and some of them were, he would work out the patterns with him and rehearse with him until he got it,” Kramer recalls, “and I can just remember Bonzo yelling and cursing [while playing], but when he got it, it was as if all the pieces of a huge combination just went click like that, and bang, we would get a tape in like a couple of takes, it was amazing.”

Kramer then offers a reflection on Zeppelin as a whole.

“So distinctively different,” he shares, “When the band was first put together, you had these two very astute well-seasoned session guys: Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones. I think Page started when he was 16 or something in the studio doing sessions… then you had these two guys from the north of England, real tough guys.”

“Robert Plant was into the ethereal things,” he shared. “He wrote the lyrics to the songs and, I mean, a voice like that was golden, there was nobody out there who was doing that kind of stuff, those notes that he hit were just incredible. Personality-wise, very flamboyant, I think is the word to use.”

“Page was into the intellectual,” Krammer offer by way of contrast. “You know, and I think to a certain degree, so is John Paul Jones, but I couldn’t imagine, there you have these polar opposites, but when they play together, they were just linked together, there was no separation.”

“The personalities off-stage,” he adds, “Okay, we can all get into that, but I like to try to think of them as amazing people in the studio, great to get on with. Did they get up to fun and games with me? Yes. I suffered as a result of being an engineer at their hands, as did many people, they certainly got up to their pranks.”

Kramer will offer further reflections on the group in the forthcoming documentary From the Other Side of the Glass. 

His full Gibson interview here.