The saying “Never meet your heroes” took on special meaning for the Bonham family in two notable instances. The first occurred in Hollywood, California, in the 1970s, while the second happened on August 18, 1984, in Derbyshire, England.
While speaking in a recent interview with KSHE 95, Jason Bonham, the son of the late John Bonham, shared some interesting details about his current tour with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, known as the Best of All Worlds Tour. This tour focuses on material from the “Van Hagar” era of Van Halen. During the discussion, Jason recounted two memorable experiences related to the proverb.
He noted that it had been ten years since he began working with Sammy Hagar and Michael Anthony, and he also reflected on an event from 40 years ago when he attended the Monsters of Rock festival at Donington. There, he saw Van Halen perform alongside AC/DC, a show marked by enthusiastic fans throwing bottles during the performances.
Bonham recalled an experience from the Monsters of Rock festival where he had the chance to meet Alex Van Halen. Leonard Haze from Y&T introduced him, and while Bonham was excited to meet the iconic drummer, Alex Van Halen’s response was surprisingly indifferent, simply asking, “So what?”
“It’s 10 years since I’ve been with Sammy and Mike, and it’s 40 years since I saw Mike play at Donington,” Bonham explained (transcribed by Ultimate Guitar). “My wife and I went to Donington, Monsters of Rock: AC/DC, Van Halen. The ‘monsters of throwing lots of bottles everywhere
“And I got to meet Alex that day, and Leonard [Haze] from Y&T introduced me. He came up, this is a classic, and I’m like ‘Oh my God, it’s Alex Van Halen.’ And he goes, ‘Hey Leonard!’ ‘This is Jason Bonham.’ And he goes, ‘So what?’” When they were playing.'”
“I said, ‘Mikey, why was Alex such a dick?’ He goes, ‘Well, we heard your dad was in the Rainbow, and we were playing Gazzarri’s next door. We kind of ran around the Rainbow and tried to say hi to him, and Alex kind of like jumped over the thing and went to put his hand out… And your dad took a swing at him!’ Maybe that’s why he’s a little pissed.”
