The name “Bonham” is synonymous with honest, high energy rock music. The most famous barer of the name, John, drummed for 70s icons Led Zeppelin. His son Jason would carry on the drumming tradition, playing for the likes of Foreigner, UFO, and Sammy Hagar. John’s younger sister, Deborah, would also make a name for herself, forging her own musical path as an accomplished singer/songwriter. This month will see the release of her new album, a self titled effort with husband and guitarist Peter Bullick, that pays tribute to the blues and soul giants of past and present. We sat down with Bonham to discuss the making of this album, the highlights of her career, and growing up in the heart of Zeppelin mania.
Greetings Deborah and welcome to Defenders of the Faith! How are you doing today?
Deborah Bonham: I’m great! Thank you so much for having me. It’s so good to be here. That’s a very cool t shirt *points to my Led Zeppelin 1977 Tour shirt*!
Thank you! I’m thrilled to have you here. Before we get into this new record, I want to learn a little bit about your background. Growing up in a musical family, did you catch the music bug at a young age? If so, when did you realize singing was your destiny?
DB: Music was always in our house, even before John started with his musical career. Mom and dad used to play everything from old blues stuff and the big bands, which is where John got his love for Gene Krupa from the Benny Goodman Band. I was born into this where it was all going on. When I was 6 or 7, John joined Led Zeppelin. Before that, he was in bands with Robert Plant, The Crawling King Snakes and Band of Joy. It’s just always been there. I guess what happened was when I first saw them play live when I was about 8 I guess…Robert and John played at my 6th birthday party *laughs*, so I got it then, but when I first saw them live, it just compounded it. It was like, “This is what I’d love to do.” It was just something else. I’ve been following that path ever since.
I imagine throughout your teenage years in the 70s that it must’ve been a trip to see your brother and his band become essentially the biggest band in the world. What was that experience like?
DB: Well, yeah, it was incredible. All I’ve ever known was Led Zeppelin. We didn’t know anything else, so I didn’t know lots of bands who put out music that didn’t go to that sort of height *laughs* rather naively I guess. I had amazing rose colored glasses on all the time. Really, that’s the truth of the matter. John used to make a record, come home, say “It’s gone to #1.”, and we’d go, “That’s good!” *laughs* It started to hit me later as I started to grow a bit older. Into my teens certainly, I realized how huge they had become, especially in America. In England, during the 70s, my age group was listening to The Osmonds and David Cassidy and stuff like that *laughs*. Everybody except me and Pete (Bullick). Pete was listening to Rory Gallagher and Free and all of that. I was listening to Led Zeppelin and a lot of Motown, and a lot of other great bands like Little Feat and Humble Pie and all these amazing bands.
A lot of my friends at school didn’t really know the level of Led Zeppelin, until they played Earl’s Court in ’75. That became a big deal for the everyday person because they did five nights. But they never put out singles. They were always quite mysterious. In the UK, it was all about putting out a 45 and getting on Top of the Pops, which was the one program once a week that we had on BBC One. It was all about getting on there. Zeppelin didn’t go there at all, but it was a complete trip. It was incredible watching them play.
From there, you’d embark upon your own musical career, recording demos and eventually releasing your debut album, For You and the Moon, in 1985. This albums was much more in the AOR vein than the blues rock we’ve come to know you for. What were the circumstances leading up to this album? How did it affect the trajectory of your career?
DB: I didn’t really have that much to do with it *laughs*. I had done some demos and sent them out anonymously because I was really worried about how the expectations of me being John’s sister was gonna play out. I got a deal with Carrere Records and of course it did come out. What I was doing with bluesy, folksy, west coast almost. They sent me to Germany to record the album, which was fantastic. I got to meet the wonderful Tony Carey, the keyboard player from Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow, who co-owned the studio. He played some bass on the album for me. He was an amazing talent.
But I didn’t really have much to do with it. They suddenly made it all this 80s rock and I was a bit like a fish out of water. Although I wrote a couple of the songs, I was just basically turning up and singing. It wasn’t really me. That said, it got great reviews. People still say to me today, “I really love that album!” I’m like, “Okay!” *laughs* “If you say so!” After that, I spent quite a long time trying to find my own way. I was always rooted in the blues and soul. I love Motown. I love the singers like Al Green and Otis Redding and Aretha Franklin and all of that, but I also love rock and the rock blues of Janis Joplin and Zeppelin, of course my all time favorite band. I forged a bit of it all into the pot and went forward doing what I wanted to do.
This new album sees you and Peter taking on some legendary blues and soul standards from the likes of Johnnie Taylor, O.V. Wright, and others. Was it hard to decide on a group of songs to pay tribute to? Were there any that didn’t make the cut?
DB: It was one of the biggest challenges I’ve ever done, mainly because it’s a heavy weight on your shoulders, not least all my life being John’s sister. He set the bar with how amazingly great he was as a musician. Not just the fact that he was in this band where all of them were incredible, but he himself was just phenomenal. That was always on my shoulders. I realized from an early age that if I’m gonna do this, then I have to do that proud. There’s no halfway here. I’ve gotta mean it. That’s how I felt doing these covers.
When you take on O.V. Wright or Johnnie Taylor or Sam Cooke or Ann Peebles, you have to dig deep. It was a massive challenge because I wanted to do the utmost respect for these great singer/songwriters and performers that I’ve loved all my life. It was tough. Trying to find the songs to do, I had to pick the ones that I knew we could take into a different place. You can’t just do a straight copy. They’ve done the best version of that version, the people who wrote it, so you can’t just copy it. You gotta bring your own soul and your own heart to it.
I had about 100 songs. People, very, very close friends of ours who know us so well, were sending us a few songs. A friend of ours in New Jersey, Gary Nesbitt, was sending me songs. Roy Williams, a dear friend who passed away just before the lockdown, he was front of house engineer for Robert Plant for years and years, and he sent me a load. Then Robert sent me some as well saying, “Deb, I think this would be great for you.” I had to whittle them down, and all the ones that I wanted to do as well. I kept listening and listening and kept thinking, “Yes. No. I can’t touch that one, but this one!”
I wanted it to be some classics, but I wanted it to be contemporary as well. I wanted to find some contemporary songs and some obscure songs. The contemporary ones were like the Mark Lanegan song. He was the singer for Screaming Trees who sadly passed away a few weeks ago, which was awful. I’m so glad we did that song because I just love it, “Bleeding Muddy Water”. It was tough, but it was a great, amazing challenge. You know, you get to this age and it’s great to stretch yourself. It’s great to put yourself in a different place, out of your comfort zone. That’s exactly what making and producing this album was *laughs*. It was fantastic.
You addressed that fine line between paying homage, yet without coming off as a blatant copy and making it your own. I feel that’s done very well on this record.
DB: Thank you.
I was also going to ask about that Mark Lanegan song in light of recent events. Did you ever cross paths with Mark over the years?
DB: No, I didn’t and I was really hoping to after doing this because I got to listen to his music from his Blues Funeral album. I knew that he was doing some work with John Paul Jones. I loved everything about what he did. When I heard “Bleeding Muddy Water” off the Blues Funeral album, it was Gary Nesbitt who sent it to me. He said, “Have a listen to this guy.” I just loved it. I loved the album. I thought, “Oh my goodness, I really want to this.” I was so hoping that I would be able to send it to him to see what he thought. I think he was pretty underrated as a signer/songwriter in his own right. I just wanted him to know that I had to cover this because I loved it so much. It touched my soul, and of course he passed away. It was very, very sad.
Well it’s definitely a fitting tribute now. The first single set to be released from this album is a soulful rendition of Albert King’s “Can’t You See What You’re Doing to Me”. How did you approach this one and why do you feel it’s a good introduction to the record?
DB: I wanted to do this song. Roy Williams, the guy I said was front of house for Robert, he sent it to me along with a whole load of others. This was the one that jumped out. I love Albert King and Peter certainly does. Pete’s a big fan. Pete was a little worried. He was going, “Oh my goodness. An Albert King song?” I said, “You know, this is a chance for you to dig in deep and just play your guitar the way you do. You can’t copy Albert King. Of course you can’t. It’s the best.”
So we just took it down another road. The original has this incredible bassline going through it and it’s got a different type of swing to it to what we did. We just changed it around a bit and put it into a different feel and a different bassline. It was the drums and bass that set the tone for where we were gonna go with it. We decided to tag that front end on. Pete started playing and I said, “Yeah, this is working.” I loved it because it really let him rip as a guitarist. The band is just on fire on that one. Somehow Albert’s vibe was coming through us *laughs*. I was thinking, “Oh my goodness, this is Albert King.” I’m looking up going, “I hope we’re doing OK Albert!” *laughs*
Who played alongside you and Peter on this record?
DB: It’s Rich Newman on drums. His dad is Tony Newman and Tony Newman is an amazing drummer. He’s retired now, but he was the drummer with Sounds Incorporated and he did Diamond Dogs with David Bowie amongst a load of other things. Rich has an amazing pedigree and he’s one heck of a drummer himself. In fact, he played on Robert Plant’s album, Carry Fire. He played on “Bluebirds Over the Mountain”. He’s a fantastic drummer and he’s been with us for 15 years. He played with both Steve Marriott and Rory Gallagher before they passed.
Jared Lewis plays keyboards. He’s been in our band for 20 odd years. And this whole band were taken to back Paul Rodgers. I opened up the show. We did a 2017 tour around the UK called the Free Spirit Tour. Then we brought it to the US in 2018 with Jeff Beck and Ann Wilson for the Stars Align Tour. Paul had seen Pete play guitar and watched the band. One of Pete’s heroes is Paul Kossoff, of course. They’re a cracking band.
Then I had a friend of mine, Paul Brown, known as “Brother Paul”. Brother Paul is just this great guy. He lives in Nashville at the moment. He played with Ann Peebles and was her musical director, the great blues musician Bobby Rush. He was actually in the band Europe. He’s this white guy with all this blonde hair, who dresses in all these unbelievable 70s pimp suits. Here he is playing with all these incredible black soul and blues guys. He’s so good on Hammond. He’s just incredible. He knows how to work with the boys, so he’s great and he’s such an old friend of ours. I just rang him up and said, “Do you want to put some Hammond on this?” So he did!
That’s awesome, and it definitely works. I couldn’t get over how tight the band as a unit comes off playing these songs.
DB: Yeah, we’ve just been together for so long. The great thing is we’ve just done them live. We did a couple of shows in January and we now just done a show up in London a couple of weeks ago. I don’t just say it because it’s the band that I’m in. They were off the scale. It was just so good I forgot to sing at one point because they were playing so good. I was just sitting there grooving. They’re looking at me like, “Vocals?” “Oh yeah!” *laughs* It was such a good time. It is a cracking band, but it’s years and years of working together that give it that.
Speaking of performing live, I came across a cool video not too long ago of the band performing “I Don’t Need No Doctor” with Jerry Shirley.
DB: Yeah, that was actually a few years back, maybe 5 or 6 years. Of course we had the pandemic, so it must’ve been. That’s a bit of a story because what happened was I did a version of Humble Pie’s “Black Coffee” on my Old Hyde album. Jerry got to hear it and there was gonna be a Steve Marriott memorial in London with Humble Pie with Peter Frampton coming over, Paul Weller, and Noel Gallagher from Oasis. It was a big lineup. I got this call from Jerry Shirley and he’s a real *imitates accent* east end type of guy. “‘ello gyal!” “Hello?” It was like 9 o’clock on a Sunday morning. Hey goes, “‘ello gyal!” Ya fancy coming and doing a bit of singing at the Marriott memorial?” “Yeah, I’d love to! Who is this?” “It’s Jerry Shirley, the drummer!” I went, “Oh my God! Jerry Shirley from Humble Pie!” It totally freaked me out.
I went and did the show. He asked, “Would you sing two songs?” I sang “Black Coffee” and “I Can’t Stand the Rain” which is an Ann Peebles song. That’s how it all comes full circle. Steve Marriott loved it and did it on the Thunderbox album. It’s one of those songs that I love the way he did it. I did those two songs and I joined Humble Pie with Peter Frampton, Jerry Shirley, Clem Clempson, and Greg Ridley. I joined them for “Shine On” and it was just one huge moment for me because I’m such a fan. After that, Jerry said to me, “Gyal, if ya ever need a drummer, I’ll come n’ join ya.” And he did! He drummed with us for quite a long time.
We were playing out in Austria. It was a big show. Jerry had retired and Rich Newman had taken over. I said, “Jerry, do you wanna come out with us and do a couple of songs?” He said, “I’d love to.” I said, “What about a couple of Pie songs?” So we did a few, including “I Don’t Need No Doctor”, and it was just fantastic.
The thing with Steve Marriott is despite being such a little guy, those are big shoes to fill vocally!
DB: Oh you’re not kidding! Both my brothers played me Humble Pie when I was younger, both John and my other brother Michael, who was two years after John. There were 14 years between me and John and 12 years between me and Michael. Both of them played me Steve Marriott. I thought he was this big black guy with this big soulful voice. There’s no way he could’ve been this little diminutive white guy, no way! When I saw him, I was like, “You’re kidding me! This is Steve Marriott?!” I had this picture in my head of like an Otis Redding type of guy. He was such an amazing vocalist. I absolutely loved him. So yeah, those were big shoes to fill, and we hadn’t really rehearsed either. To go out and sing “I Don’t Need No Doctor” was a bit nerve wracking, but it worked.
Speaking of great singers, what’s the best piece of advice Robert Plant gave you?
DB: Get out and pay your dues on the stage *laughs*! Earn it! Go out there and do it! That’s what he told me and he was right. That was when I was about 19, the days that I thought you made an album and everything goes to #1. Isn’t that what happened with Led Zeppelin *laughs*? He said, “Nope. You gotta go out. You gotta pay your dues. Join a band, get out there, and get on the stage.” I still got his letter. He wrote it on Wolverhampton Wanderers, his football team, stationary. He said, “Start with the General Wolf in Coventry.” Another wolf thing, you see. It’s in the middle of England in Birmingham. It was quite a legendary club. So that’s what we did. We started at the General Wolf. That was the thing. Go out and play.
That advice resonates now more than ever, especially in today’s day and age where even the biggest artists have to tour to make a living. The record industry has shifted so dramatically in the past decade from physical media to digital.
DB: It’s a whole different animal now. We’ve just consistently toured because that’s how you earn your living. We’ve been very, very fortunate that at this stage, Quarto Valley Records saw something in us and went with it. That’s quite rare in our style of music and at this age. I’ve got to give them a shoutout, Bruce Quarto and Mike Carden, because they saw it and they’ve been so supportive. They just said, “We love what you’re doing. Let’s try and do something.” I didn’t think that was really ever gonna happen. We were just going bang, bang, bang touring because we weren’t gonna sell records. How on earth do you do that nowadays, except at the merch table after you’ve played? It’s been great, but to actually have a record deal now with Quarto Valley, a label who really does believe in us, is quite special. In saying that, it is a different game now. The sooner we can get back to touring after the pandemic, the better. We are doing it here, but we really wanna get over to America.
Which is a perfect segue into the last question. What are your plans for the rest of 2022 in regards to touring and promoting this album? Could we see a run in the States later this year?
DB: I’m really, really hoping so. Things have opened up a bit more here, so we’re starting on the 28th and 29th of April, when the album is released. We’ve got dates up and down the UK. Then we’ve got some European shows, which is great, but I really want to get back to America. America has a longstanding history of getting this type of music. We had such a ball when we were on the Stars Align Tour. It was fantastic. Then we came back in 2019 and we played the east coast. We played the Cutting Room in New York, which was absolutely brilliant.
We went up to Daryl Hall’s, Live at Daryl’s House, and that was just a blast. Then we went to Levon Helm’s place in Woodstock. Of course I’m going, “Wow I’m in Woodstock!” *laughs* 50 years late, but never mind! I went around town singing Joni Mitchell and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young because it was just great. Without a shadow of doubt, we’re trying to get back over. We’re just trying to find an agent right now. We’re talking to different people. It’s about biting that bullet and getting us over there, so I’m hoping in the fall we will be there. I’ll do everything I can to make that happen.
Bonham-Bullick will be available Friday, April 29 on Quarto Valley Records. For more information on Deborah Bonham, visit www.deborahbonham.com.