John Bonham

by Mick Bonham

  “Get off my garden or I’ll call the police.” I looked up to see a very irate lady leaning out of a bedroom window, less than impressed at finding me face down in her garden. I tried to think of a reply, but before I could think, the brain sent the same reply as before. “I beg your pardon? What did you say?” I was just about to tell her again when John’s heavy hand landed on the side of my head. As he tried to pull me up I resisted pathetically and both of us ended up face down in the mud. Shouting some grovelling apology to the lady, John bundled me towards the car. I later found out that the lady in question had been the mother of Lin’s best friend, Bernie.

  As we neared the car Jacko and Allan got out to lend a hand, but as we were all the worse for wear, Jacko ended up hitting his nose on the car door, giving himself a nasty nose bleed. How we drove back to the flat I don’t know, but I’ll never forget the look on Allan’s face. He was not a big drinker, not used to nights like this and he looked very alarmed. Allan Pitt went to live in America shortly after this incident and now lives in Chicago with his second wife Joni and has a nervous twitch in his left eye!

  As we entered the flat the room went deathly quiet. All eyes were on us as we stood in the doorway; John caked in mud, Jacko covered in blood and me with blood and mud. Our respective ladies had been particularly gentile during the evening, minding their p’s and q’s amongst those that didn’t drink or swear. But as we stood there “Where the fuck have you been?” resounded around the room in a voice that would shatter glass at 50 paces and suddenly all hell broke loose. Lin started having a real go at me, Pat was giving John a real ear bashing and Mum set about Jacko. Allan was in real shit with his then wife Sue and the poor bloke hadn’t done anything. Our Debbie had brought a friend with her from her convent school, Dawn Braithwaite. I remember Dawn, she was a lovely quiet girl from a lovely quiet farming family. The pair of them dived behind the settee until the shouting calmed down. Apparently Dawn still has the lucky ‘horse shoe’ from the christening cake as a memento of the day she had with ‘The Bonham’s’.

  Whilst everyone was shouting and arguing, John and I sneaked off into the kitchen to find some food. Luckily, there was still some left so we sat down at the table, surrounded by bedlam and got stuck in. Splat! The cake caught me just under the right eye, much to John’s amusement, so in retaliation a spoonful of trifle hit him on the chin. By the time Allan’s wife Sue walked in, it looked like John had fed me with a catapult. Now for some strange reason, having just given Allan a bollocking, Sue decided to take a liking to me, sitting on my lap and draping her arms around my neck. Maybe it was the cake. Next, in walked Lin, followed by Pat. Much shouting! In walked Debbie and Dawn and began cleaning up and hiding any knives that were on display. Out walked John, trifle on chin saying, “I’m going on bloody tour and I ain’t never coming back,” and with that he disappeared into the bathroom and locked the door. By the time Lin came down from the ceiling she could see the funny side of things, luckily for me. Strong coffee was made and we went into the lounge to try and calm down.

  Heaven knows what time it was when people started to leave, but there was still no sign of John. The toilet door was still locked so I gave it a hefty knock but there was no reply. This called for drastic action so I fetched my toolbox and Jacko set about taking the door off. Suddenly he stopped, turned to me and suggested that it might be a good idea to send the ladies back into the lounge, as no one knew quite what we’d find behind the green door. As the last screw was removed and the door was lifted to one side there was John, bless him, fast asleep on the loo with his trousers round his ankles.

  By this time, Debbie and her friend were looking tired, so Dawn got her suitcase and they waited outside the door while Mum said her goodbyes. Although Jacko and Mum were divorced, with Mum living about 20 miles away in Kidderminster and Jacko in a flat across the road from ours, they had always remained great friends, but I reckon Jacko pushed this friendship to the edge on this particular night. Two minutes after they’d left Debbie came running back saying Jacko had picked up Dawn’s suitcase, said “Oh good, we’re going on holiday, bacon and eggs,” and fallen headfirst into a large bush by the side of the car park. Apparently Mum had said, “Just leave him and get in the car.” But Debbie thought better of it and, defying Mum, came to tell us. Poor kid was ever so worried. So, off we went again. We eventually got Jacko into his flat and then returned to ours where John, Pat, Lin and I sat drinking coffee, trying to get John in a fit state to drive. Of course all hope was abandoned and Pat drove back. As we waved them off we glanced back into the flat for the second time that day. This time, it looked like an earthquake zone and took a good two hours to clean up before Lin would let me go to bed.

  The next evening we popped over to see Jacko to make sure he was okay. He didn’t look too well. He’d not had the most comfortable night’s sleep because he’d gone to the loo in the middle of the night, fallen off it and had got himself wedged between the wall and the toilet and that’s where he’d spent the night, because the silly old sod had fallen asleep.

  I was to see very little of John for the rest of the year, because at the beginning of April Led Zeppelin flew off to America, for their biggest tour to date: 51 shows in 30 cities. More than 1,300,000 fans went to see them during the tour.

  What did happen to City Boy?

  Chapter 21

  OLD FARTS, YOUNG FARTS (AGE DOESN’T MATTER)

  During the time I spent collecting and writing the stories from friends and colleagues, the biggest surprise came when a close friend had bumped into Glenn Matlock from the Sex Pistols. Glenn was the bass player with the band and, although he never achieved the notoriety of say Johnny ‘Rotten’ Lydon or even his own replacement Sid Vicious, it should be noted that Matlock was the brains behind most of the successful Pistols’ songs that still bristle with so much energy and anger, even today.

  They say Matlock was booted out of the band for professing a love of the Beatles, ironic really if you recall that post–Pistols, John Lydon, then a member of PIL once wrote to Robert Plant asking him for the lyrics to ‘Kashmir’, which Lydon wanted to cover. So it seems the influence of old farts was always there with the young farts, if they liked it or not.

  Glenn had said that he thought this book was a great idea and, having met John, wished to tell his story. So, a meeting was arranged for me to meet him and find out how Punk and Led Zeppelin ever got together.

  The meeting place was to be the Warrington Hotel in Maida Vale, on the up side of London. As I sat there sucking on a Budweiser, waiting for Glenn to arrive, I must admit that I was a little apprehensive meeting a ‘Pistol’. How would he look and how would he be dressed? The picture in my mind was a frightening hairstyle with clothes to match. So, when he arrived in very smart, casual clothes and hair groomed to match, the only thing I could think to say was, “Seems we’re all a bit older these days”. So with that introduction it was decided that we needed more beers and then we could get on with the story.

  After 12 months out of the UK and nearly two years since they had played a gig, Led Zeppelin would arrive back in a country that had undergone a dramatic musical change. Punk rock was the order of the day and bands such as the Sex Pistols and The Damned were at the forefront of the assault on the music business.

  Glenn Matlock

  “We’d all gone down to the Roxy to see The Damned and the place was heaving with people having a good time waiting for the band to come on. Then suddenly the place went quiet and I noticed the whole Led Zeppelin entourage had walked in the door to the welcome of ‘What are those old hippies doing here?’ and other derogatory remarks, but after a while we thought ‘Wait a minute, these are one of the biggest bands in the world and they’ve bothered to take the time to come and see what we’re about,’ so we went over and introduced ourselves. Then we all went to the bar to get better acquainted and it was about this time that The Damned took to the stage. As I can remember they were going to play two sets, so the first o
ne only lasted about 15 minutes, so we went back to the bar to find out more about Zeppelin. I was chatting away to Jimmy and Robert when a loud crashing sound was coming from the stage, so I went to see what was happening. I was amazed to find John stood at the back of the drum kit with an angry snarl on his face and, standing bolt upright, he let out a tirade of abuse at the band. He was shouting ‘Where’s the fucking band gone? They’ve only been playing for 15 minutes – we play for three fucking hours because we’re real men and not a bunch of wimps. Where’s that Mouse Scabies? I’ll show him how to play, Bollocks, leave him where he is, I’ll play with the band, and he carried on calling for the band to come back on.

  Certain members of the Zeppelin entourage moved in to try and calm John down and get him off the stage. The funniest thing was that as they lifted John off the floor and started to carry him out to take him up the stairs, he was still bolt upright shouting for Mouse Scabies to come out. By this time the audience had returned to their original mood and were shouting ‘Piss off you old hippie!’”

  So exit John Bonham from the punk scene, and to think that at the ripe old age of 29, you’re an old hippie. What was worse, in two years’ time, as Zeppelin readied themselves for the Knebworth concerts, they would be called dinosaurs. How fickle the music industry can be.

  As for Glenn Matlock, I recall with some amusement him telling me that, as a young lad learning to play guitar, he had saved all his pocket money so he could buy a music book to learn some chords to some top songs. One of the best guitarists, he reckoned, was Jimmy Page, so what better book to buy than Zeppelin’s second album songbook. Racing home keen to get stuck in, he discovered with some astonishment that, “there weren’t any fucking chords. It was all riffs.”

  The new wave stir caused the voices of doom to cry out that dinosaur bands like Led Zeppelin would no longer dominate and would disappear into the past from whence they’d come. Zep’s 11th tour of America would prove this to be utter crap, never mind the bollocks. The tour was supposed to have started in February, but was postponed for over a month while Robert battled with a bout of tonsillitis.

  With the responsibility of a young family, I had finally got myself a proper job as a salesman at Viscount Furniture, a large store in the rural town of Alcester, Warwickshire. So it came as a big surprise when, during the halt to Zeppelin’s attack on the States, John and Pat arrived at the shop to give my career a little boost. Together they bought carpets, beds, suites and various other nic-nacs, adding up to more than the shop normally took in a week. The manager was so impressed he said I ought to lunch with them (my thoughts exactly) and off we went in John’s latest purchase, a Mercedes 6-door limousine. John drove while Pat and I sat in the back watching TV and sipping champagne.

  There was no way I was going back to work that day, so after a good curry it was decided that we should pop over to see how Robert was getting on. Within a few minutes of arriving in Robert’s lounge, several bottles of wine and a large bottle of brandy appeared. The rest of the day was spent with Robert and John reminiscing about times gone by and listening to a tape by Ral Donner, an artist Robert had got very excited about. By the end of the day, and the brandy, Robert decided he was going to scour the States for this fella and record him. John was also in a state of excitement, because at long last he’d been voted the Number One drummer in both the NME and Sounds. So here we were, the top drummer (world), top singer (world) and top furniture salesman (Alcester).

  Finally on 1 April, Led Zeppelin kicked off that 11th tour of America at the Dallas Memorial Auditorium. Again it was their biggest tour, with 51 shows in some 30 cities, in front of a staggering 1.3million fans. They broke their attendance record when 76,229 people came to see them at the Pontiac Silverdome on 30 April. During the month of June they would play six nights at both The Forum in California and Madison Square Gardens, New York. The tour would run from April until August, with breaks at the beginning of May and July. Both times John flew home.

  On John’s second visit back home in July, two birthday parties were thrown at Old Hyde. One for me on the 13th, and another for Jason on the 15th. This time round it wouldn’t just be Jason playing with a new toy as John had got one too, an AC Cobra. Still, as you’d expect, this was no ordinary Cobra, it was the bee’s knees. COB1, originally owned and raced by Duncan Hamilton, a winner at Le Mans. It was a lovely sunny day, and John fancied putting it through its paces, so the pit crew lined up outside the Chequers pub and tanks were filled. A cloud of Mach One like smoke from the rear of the car announced the trials were over. The car had stopped on the side of the road and John never moved, so we raced up to see what was wrong. Arriving at the car we found John sat still, just staring at his latest pride and joy. “What’s wrong?” we asked. “I’ve fucking broke it, that’s what’s wrong.”

  Luckily it was nothing major, so John flew back to America, still a happy man, not knowing that trouble and heartache were just around the corner. On the first night of two at the Oakland Stadium, John was involved in a fight with security guards, along with Peter Grant, John Bindon and Richard Cole, following an incident with Peter’s young son Warren. All four were arrested and charged with battery, but all this would be overshadowed by the news that Karac, Robert’s young son, had died in hospital. Robert, accompanied by John, flew home immediately.

  Chapter 22

  J.H. BONHAM DEVELOPMENTS (INCORPORATING BODGIT AND SCARPER)

  Arriving back at the farm, John immersed himself in family life, getting more and more involved in Jason’s scrambling. There was still a gap and he needed to do something during the week, so he called in to see me at the shop.

  “Mick, I’ve got this idea. How about getting all the lads who worked on Old Hyde and getting back into the building business?”

  “What we gonna do?” I asked.

  “Renovate old farms.”

  “Whose?”

  “Mine. I just bought one.”

  “What’s the wages?”

  “30 bob a week and a big orange at Christmas.”

  “Done.”

  It was down to Jacko and me to round up the old team. Stan Blick and his son Pete were the brickies, Tuffy Reeves and his son Andy handled groundwork and roofing, whilst Jacko and I were basically carpenter and chief cook and bottle washer. And as of 5 September, J.H. Bonham Developments was back in business and our first project was a derelict old house known as Beech Elm Farm, adjacent to Old Hyde.

  Once the team were all assembled we arrived at Beech Elm Farm to view the new project. What we saw left us wondering whether John really knew what he was doing. The word derelict doesn’t come near to what state the house was in. Derelict would have been easy, this place had fallen down. The front wall was now in the garden and the main bedroom was now on the ground floor next to the lounge. Closer inspection revealed that the barns and outbuildings were in better condition, so that’s where we started, firstly securing a shanty for us and a nice office for the gaffer.

  Over the next three years we would renovate three farms altogether, incorporating a lot of hard work and several excursions into silliness. Yet again, one of these episodes would involve John’s right hand man Mathew. Along with his many other chores, Matt had to tend to the chickens that were now living at Old Hyde, producing fresh eggs. Unknown to Matt, on the other farm Tuffy had found a dead fox that was as stiff as a board and, along with John, had devised a devilishly good plan. Before I carry on with the story, I’ll try and introduce you to ‘Tuffy’. Always adorned in a flat cap, he was a man of the land, a wheeler-dealer countryman, small in stature but huge in character with a very dry sense of humour. John and I had known him since we were kids, because he had worked for our Granddad and then for Jacko, but in all this time we had never knew his first name, he was always just ‘Tuffy’.

  Anyway, back to the devilish plan: the fox was taken up to John’s house, and with the use of a stick he was propped upright in the chicken coop. The chickens were put out of harm’s way and
we all took cover behind a wall. Once under cover, John shouted out for Matt, telling him to get the gun, as there was a fox after the chickens. Within seconds Mathew was out of the house, gun at the ready and running towards the hen house. KABOOM! A shot was fired into the air to scare the fox, but it hadn’t worked as the fox stood his ground, much to Matt’s disbelief. As he slowly approached the fox, the stick gradually broke and poor old foxy slowly fell over and ended up with his legs sticking up in the air. All was deathly quiet, broken by inane giggling from behind the wall. Still, no harm done, except that the noise of the gun had scared the shit out of Bruno the bull, while he was going about the business those bulls do best. It took nigh on a week before that cow stopped smiling.

  As Beech Elm rose out of the rubble, John was so chuffed he went and acquired another derelict farm for our next project. He spent his days sorting out the plans for the new job and coming up with new ideas for Beech Elm, then on most weekends he would go off with Pat to watch Jason scramble as part of a team he now sponsored. With all his involvement in the building business and Jason’s scrambling, John seemed more relaxed than he’d been for some time. Yet there were still a couple of issues that worried him. What would become of the band? And if they didn’t play for some time, would they be forgotten? Answers to these questions came early in 1978 when Led Zeppelin made a virtual clean sweep of the awards in the Cream magazine Reader’s Poll in America.