John Bonham’s Drumming Genius: And His 13 Minute Live Solo During Moby Dick

There are rock drummers, and then there’s John Bonham. The man would hit drums like they owned him money. Few musicians have so thoroughly redefined their instrument within a genre as he did. From the first thunderclap of Good Times Bad Times to the primal, bare-knuckled solo of Moby Dick, Bonham elevated drumming from mere rhythm-keeping to a central, commanding force in Led Zeppelin’s sound. His technical flair and sheer power have made him a benchmark for generations of percussionists, and a source of near-mythic reverence for those who’ve tried to follow in his footsteps.

One of the most electrifying showcases of his talent came during Zeppelin’s live performances of Moby Dick, a track that became less of a song and more of a platform for Bonham to unleash his full range of ability. According to Drum! magazine, Bonham would sometimes extend the solo to thirty minutes, turning concert halls into thunder chambers—often beating the drums with his bare hands until he drew blood. It wasn’t showboating. It was an embodiment of intensity, discipline, and musical intelligence.

The Power and Precision of Bonham’s Drumming

Born in Redditch, Worcestershire on 31 May 1948, John Henry Bonham possessed a rare blend of intuitive feel and technical brilliance. He was loud, yes, but never messy. Classic Rock describes him as -

“doing things with a bass pedal that it took two of James Brown’s drummers to try and emulate—and they knew a bit about rhythm.”

One of Bonham’s most defining technical contributions was his pioneering use of bass drum triplets. While many drummers use double pedals to achieve rapid-fire beats, Bonham managed jaw-dropping bursts of triplets with a single pedal, cleanly and consistently. It’s a technique that features heavily in Moby Dick and can be heard executed with seamless fluidity in the 1970 Royal Albert Hall performance.

Beyond his footwork, Bonham’s hand technique was equally refined. He could blur the lines between power and nuance, inserting ghost notes and off-beat syncopations that added surprising swing to Zeppelin’s otherwise heavy sound. In many performances of Moby Dick, Bonham would abandon his sticks mid-solo, pounding toms and snares with his hands—a move both theatrical and technically demanding.

Moby Dick: A Showcase of Mastery

Moby Dick was rarely played the same way twice. The studio version, featured on 1969’s Led Zeppelin II, gave just a hint of what the song could become onstage. By the time of the 1970 Royal Albert Hall performance, the piece had evolved into a rhythmic journey.

Introduced by Robert Plant—who made a point to say Bonham’s full name before even naming the track—the performance begins with the iconic riff laid down by Page, Bonham, and Jones. After a minute, they drop away, leaving Bonham alone with his kit and the crowd.

What follows is an extraordinary exploration of rhythm. Bonham starts slow, deliberately pacing his phrases. He then expands into bursts of triplets, lightning-fast rolls, and off-kilter accents that give the solo texture and shape. He never plays purely for speed’s sake; each passage builds into the next, creating a narrative arc with rising tension and crashing release. As Michael Fowler wrote in a tribute for McSweeney’s, Bonham discovered “that all drumming is just triplets—or should be.” From there, he sped up the beat without losing that triplet core, “flying around the kit with blinding speed, hitting every drum and cymbal in those negligible spaces.”

Why Bonham’s Style Still Matters

John Bonham’s drumming remains a high-water mark in rock not because it was loud, but because it was musical. He filled gaps, not just bars. He gave groove to thunder. His playing swung with a heavy jazz sensibility—unsurprising given his love for Gene Krupa and Buddy Rich—and he brought those techniques into the rock idiom in a way no one else had done.

Dave Grohl has remarked that Bonham’s fills “shouldn’t be humanly possible.” And yet, whether it’s the iconic intro to Rock and Roll, the cavernous pulse of When the Levee Breaks, or the five-second drum fill at 3:42 in Achilles Last Stand, Bonham makes it all sound organic. Never over-rehearsed. Never overly clinical. Just right.

It’s this mix of spontaneity and technical control that’s so difficult to replicate—and why Bonham continues to be cited as an influence by everyone from heavy metal drummers to jazz players and funk musicians.

More than forty years since his untimely death in 1980, Bonham’s work still feels current. His live solos on Moby Dick remain among the most studied and revered moments in the drumming world. And though many have tried to match his precision, feel, and sheer presence, none quite sound like him.

It’s fitting, then, that Bonham’s last name still echoes like a tom strike through the halls of rock (or like the 'Hammer of the Gods') history, powerful, primal, and precise. He didn’t just keep time. He created it.

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Sources

• Drum! Magazine. “John Bonham: The Thunder God of Drumming.”

• Classic Rock Magazine. “The 50 Greatest Drummers in Rock.”

• McSweeney’s. Michael Fowler, “John Bonham Was the Greatest Drummer Who Ever Lived. End of Discussion.”

• Royal Albert Hall Archives – Led Zeppelin 1970 Performance

• Grohl, Dave. Interview in Rolling Stone, “On the Legacy of Bonham”

• Plant, Robert. Led Zeppelin Live Introductions and Interviews