JASON BONHAM

I'm playing my father's music and I'm a fan of Led Zeppelin. The response has been beyond what I ever imagined it would be. Unreal. Everyone seems to understand the story I'm telling.

My dad provided me with a great way of life, and he was very charitable man.

The fan support throughout the years, and the new generation, has made Zeppelin larger than life.

The thing with Led Zeppelin songs is that they were never the same. They were very fluid and tight but loose.

After my dad passed away, I had this bizarre goal. I wanted to play drums for Led Zeppelin. I just wanted to be able to say, 'Dad, I did it.'

I always regretted that I never had the chance to tell Dad how great I thought he was.

I heard heart wrenching stories about fans who had tickets for the 1980 show in Montreal, the first concert that didn't happen, when my dad died. They'd be in tears. It was hard to deal with sometimes.

He might have been in Led Zeppelin, but to me he was just dad.

I've been working on some original songs with the band that does the Led Zeppelin experience. We're going to start writing as an original band and see what comes out of it. It'll be kind of Zeppelin-esque because of the way the guys play - but there's nothing wrong with that.

You know at 14, when you lose your hero - your father - that's why I hold him on such a high pedestal.

Well, when you grow up in a family situation like in England, you're whole - we call it pub culture, and it is, really. You grow up, you literally come home from work, everyone goes to the pub at 6:30, you drink till 10:30, go home and go to bed. That was our entire life - all my aunts and uncles, and my grandfather drank 'til he was 85.

I was really into motocross. I started racing when I was 10 years old and did very, very well. That was my dream, if anything, more than drumming.

South Florida was definitely not a bad place for my kids to grow up.

At some point I got sick of people calling me Bonzo junior. But now that I'm older and wiser, I'm just honored to be mentioned in the same breath.

I think I misunderstood the following in the footsteps bit, in a few of my early drinking years. I'd take any form of being compared to Dad as flattery. So if I fell off a stool or smashed up a TV set just because I was drunk, and somebody in the bar went 'Hey, man, that was just like Bonzo!' I would be really happy.

I was into the Police. I dyed my hair white-blond and wanted to be Sting.

One of the reasons I do the Led-Zeppelin Experience is because I really didn't get the chance, while he was alive, to understand how great my father was. I never got the chance to tell him.

When I turned 17, I had a bike malfunction at a race, and in my head, I went, 'You know what? I'm done. I'm going to go play drums.' I still ride my bikes for fun, but that was the turning point.

I loved 'Rain' and its take on the Beatles. The way they used a timeline and news reel to create a mood, and crafted set changes throughout, it was stunning.

I'm a huge fan of Ayrton Senna and the color scheme of the old McLarens.

I remember when I went to see Led Zeppelin live in 1979 at Knebworth, there were certain songs that stood out to me and will stay with me forever.

As a young kid I never saw myself as a drummer.

If you had asked me in 2005, when I had just joined Foreigner, that I would leave the band in 2007 to play with Led Zeppelin, I would have said you're nuts.

It took a thing like my father's death to make me decide that I actually wanted to pursue drumming.

I've always wanted to do an album with half the people I've worked with. People like Robert Plant, Paul Rodgers, Jeff Beck and Slash.