Jason Bonham says aborted project with Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones was 'as close as you could get,' felt real

Jason Bonham didn't keep it a secret in 2008 when he thought he might be working in an official capacity with Jimmy Page and John Paul Jones. The drummer said he'd been to England for rehearsals, and Jones soon remarked that once singer auditions concluded, the announcement of an album and tour would be likely.

In a far-reaching interview for MusicRadar, Bonham goes further than ever before in explaining why their collaboration in 2008 never did come to fruition before he and Jones went on to separate projects last year.

"It got as close as you could get. It got real close," he tells Joe Bosso in a piece published online yesterday. "You know, we did a year of writing and putting stuff together. I loved working with Jimmy and John Paul. It was so much fun. That band ... I think we felt more like a band than Black Country Communion."

It is in an unpublished portion of the interview that Bonham more fully discusses that group, whose debut album was recorded in less than two weeks and will be released this September. The crux of Bonham's interview, as published online yesterday, focuses on his imminent touring project, called Jason Bonham's Led Zeppelin Experience, which is a multimedia tour featuring the music of Led Zeppelin and plenty of personal photographs and home movies that help Bonham to tell the story of growing up as the son of Led Zeppelin's drummer. Bonham says he will not announce the lineup of his band before the first show of the tour, so as not to invite any prejudices regarding the musicians he has already picked.

As to why last year passed without him touring with Page and Jones, he says, "I think ... basically, they [Page and Jones] agreed to disagree. After a while, it was just time to move on."

When Bosso asks whether singer Myles Kennedy was a definite enlistment for their group, Bonham says, "Nope. There was somebody else. [pauses] Somebody else was involved -- and that's all I'll say to that. But as I said, I've always love the time we had together. I can't even explain it, it was just great!"

Lemon Squeezings spoke with Bosso today about the interview, and he declined to speculate on who the other singer might have been. At least one account has confirmed that Aerosmith's Steven Tyler sat in one weekend in 2008 but that Page thought his audition was "shambolic." Another possibility is that Page was hoping to hold out for Plant to join up.

Bosso did comment to Lemon Squeezings, however, on Bonham's statement regarding the rehearsals with Page and Jones feeling "more like a band than Black Country Communion." Bosso says he didn't interpret this as a dig on the so-called supergroup, which also involves singer and bassist Glenn Hughes, guitarist and singer Joe Bonamassa, and keyboardist Derek Sherinian.

"We did another part of the interview that will run on MusicRadar later," says Bosso, "during which he said that the group (BCC) recorded their record 'very quickly; the whole thing took 10 days from start to finish.'

"He said that the speed in which they worked was surprising, that he might have liked to have done some drum parts over again, but everybody else seemed very happy so there was no reason to. My take, and you can quote me, is that he sounded very proud and pleased with BCC and is definitely looking forward to going on tour with the band and making another record with them. He does see them as a band with a future. From the impression I got, he's looking for them to gel as a group on the road. Because the record was done quickly, this is in stark contrast to the year he spent working with Page and Jones, hence his remark. I don't think his comment was a slight against BCC at all."