With our 3rd pick, BF & the BFFs are ecstatic to select, the hardest-hitting, hardest-partying, hardest-core drummer in rock, David Grohl's personal idol, the most notorious and influential pounder of the skins, from Birmingham, England,
John Bonham!
After the recent rush of drummer picks, we are stunned Bonham is still on the board and wasted no time in taking him with our 3rd round selection.
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[Throughout the 70s], the band ruled the heavy metal landscape, and Bonham's drumming was a key part of their appeal. His most basic playing, exhibited on early classics such as "Whole Lotta Love," had an explosive power that was larger-than-life (even next to Plant's singing and Page's soloing), especially in tandem with Jones' bass work, and in later years, when he added orchestral tympani and other, more exotic and advanced percussion devices to his array, it only added richness to the power and articulation that he already exuded. He was as well known as Page or Plant, and his featured spot, the sometimes 45-minute-long piece best known as "Moby Dick," was a recognized musical reference point far beyond the ranks of their fans (enough that it could be satirized in This Is Spinal Tap). He could also play with admirable restraint and great effect as well, as on "Bron-Y-Saur Stomp," and his more circumspect presence on some of the band's middle-period folk-based material, such as "The Rain Song" from Houses of the Holy, is welcome. But Bonham's great musical virtue was his raw power -- Ginger Baker could generate polyrhythms that teased and dazzled the listener (even next to Eric Clapton's solos and Jack Bruce's thunderous bass); Bill Bruford, whether in Yes or King Crimson or any of the bands that followed, could make his drums seem to sing (and very sweetly, at that); Carl Palmer exuded almost unnatural speed behind his kit; and Keith Moon played his drums like an orchestra accompanying the Who. But whether it was the bass, the snare, the cymbals -- even the symphonic gong, which he added to his sound a couple of years into the band's history -- that he was hitting, Bonham played with the power of a pair of pile-drivers. Not coincidentally, he used some of the heaviest sticks around, and he never gave up that attribute of forcefulness, even when he added synthesized drums to his array of sounds in the late '70s.
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