Jason Bonham and his mother, John Bonham’s widow Pat Bonham, recently watched a screening of the upcoming film “Becoming Led Zeppelin” which documents the origins of the iconic band, and it features a posthumous audio appearance by John Bonham.
Jason Bonham shares his thoughts on the new Led Zeppelin movie
Speaking to the Appetite for Distortion podcast in an episode released on June 7, Jason Bonham gave his initial impressions of the film, explaining that the newly found audio of his father’s voice sounded different to how he remembered it.
“I recently watched the documentary … the making of Led Zeppelin. I got to see a preview of it before it goes to whoever is going to release it. And the weirdest thing for me was hearing my dad’s voice because I knew, when … basically it goes from birth to Led Zeppelin II for each member. So, you … of course, Robert is narrating his own story, Jimmy’s narrating his own story, John Paul Jones is narrating his own story.”
“So when it came to [John Bonham], I looked at my wife and think ‘How are they going to do this?’ And at that point I had to squeeze my wife’s hand because all of a sudden it started and you’re like ‘Err’. And all I could think was I don’t remember him sounding like that. And that was really weird,” Bonham continued.
“I was convinced that maybe the tape they were using was slightly too fast, as if they … through transition, through the years it had worn. Because it was late just the tiniest, tiniest bit.”
“After it, I remember I said to my mum, ‘You’ve seen the thing?’ She went ‘Yeah’. I said ‘Did you think that was dad’s voice?’ And she went ‘You know what, I thought it was a little different too.’ So I was right because I was worried, that I was like, how do I not remember him sounding like that? But later there’s other bits that you go ‘OK, yeah that’s him’ but there was a couple of parts where I was like I think just through the years the tape had worn and it needed to be adjusted slightly slower for his timbre and his voice.”
LedZepNews reported in May that the film is complete but is still looking for a distributor. It was noted that “Becoming Led Zeppelin” was promoted in a document provided to distributors at the Cannes Film Festival which took place on May 17-28 in Cannes, France. The film premiered at the Venice and Telluride film festivals in September. However, no announcement of a release has been made as of yet. We will have to see when that happens.
