Jason Bonham Quotes

My biggest musical influences are probably my parents.

I don't think anyone can measure up to what my father had achieved. I'm just happy to at least play some of his music, but he is really the one who was the pioneer, the one who started all this. He's really The King.

My mom was a singer, and my dad had been playing in bands with my mom's brother. My dad married my mom, and so I was sorta surrounded by music from the get-go. Born right into it.

I don't think I've ever met a drummer who didn't tell me that my dad was an influence. He's a tough act to follow.

The Bee Gees, to us, was the three brothers. In Maurice's name, we would respect that and not be the Bee Gees anymore.

Playing with my grandfather, grandmother and my parents, I came to music pretty naturally.

I'm in hotel rooms night after night, playing a lot of the same venues as my dad and carrying the guitar that used to be his. We're the same person. I don't know if he realises how much of a legacy he has left to his children.

The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I'm gone.

From the first moment that I can remember, I had identified myself as a bass player and it had everything to do with my father, who was a bass player. And he loved music, you know, as much as anybody I've ever seen. And that dynamic I just thought as somehow was a straight pass to me.

Music just runs in my family. My dad and my uncles are a gospel quartet, Latimore Brothers. They've been doing their thing ever since I was a kid, so I just kind of grew up around that.

My mother was a singer, and both of her sisters were singers. There was always music around.

I don't just come from a musical family, but from a musical community.

I'm not trying to emulate or imitate. But I do believe that I embody that spirit from Robert Johnson on up.

Our parents were musicians.

I come from a place where there's a lot of musical families.

I come from a family of musicians.

Raphael Saadiq said to me, quite often, that Chuck D was his history teacher. And so he got a lot from the music, things that he wasn't getting maybe in school. And I feel the same way with regards to Earth, Wind & Fire, Stevie Wonder.

I think the reason being Ravi Shankar's daughter is not such a pressure to me is that I don't look at myself in that way. Of course, he's the best-known Indian musician there is so, people naturally look to me as the next one, but the truth is there are many other musicians out there as well as other students of my father's.

I have goals, I have my purpose. I want to build upon what my grandpa and my dad and my stepdad did in the past.

Everyone in my family has been in music - my cousins, my grandmother, my grandfather - so it's quite a big family tree.

My mom loves music and it poured into my childhood.

I've never acted with my father, but we have always connected through music. He has been a great influence musically. He has always been encouraging about my music and is always happy when I sing.

I learned everything I know about music from my parents and my sisters.

I wouldn't be who I am if my parents hadn't been musicians.

My grandma passed in '78, and that's the year I started recording. It's also the year that my dad retired from his career. So it's funny how torches get passed on, and you feel a responsibility to be connected to the music that they did and try to carry it on in your own way.