John Bonham: There Goes Another Rubber Tree Plant

SKF Note: Excerpt from a 1988 interview with 21-year old Jason Bonham.



Jason Bonham: There's a great story. You must print this. It's fantastic.

They had this huge, huge rubber plant in the Abba Studios in Stockholm. And they set my dad's drum kit up in the corner next to it. In this big stone room.

My dad came in. He played for 15-minutes. The next day, the plant was dead.

And they tried to revive this plant for weeks while they were there. And it just died instantly. It was so loud. And [my dad] was using the famous steel drums, like stainless steel shells. Stainless steel bass drum, stainless steel shells. It was just totally awesome loudness.

And this plant, this poor thing, just next day was keeled over in the corner of the room. I thought that was quite amusing.

Scott K Fish Blog: Life Beyond the Cymbals

Awesome story!

Did Jason ever say if the Stainless drums were used to actually record Presence? We have seen the photo (and now this story) that the Stainless kit was set up at Polar but the Sparkle Green kit was also there. Plant has said that Bonham used only wood drums to record. I know it is one of the big "mysteries" of Bonham folklore much like the Sparkle Silver kit that is claimed to exist but no one has photos of.

That's pretty friggin funny. I wish I could kill a rubber tree plant.

I heard this story bf.

In defense of the plant, inconclusive as to the murder being by sound, or the even a murder for that matter. JB could've been pouring the last of his watered down drinks into the pot, plant could've died of natural causes, not enough evidence. Makes a nice LZ RR story tho.

I am thinking that Bonham may have been using the plant to relieve himself in. I mean c'mon .. it's Bonzo!

I'm surprised the plant didn't bounce back!