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Jason Bonham: The Disregard of Scrapbooking


SteveAJones

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Thanks, Steve and Sam.

Interesting video of Jason's rehearsal with JPJ, JP and RP (especially the last minute of it).

JPJ's eyes at the end are something to see.

R B)

Are you guys referring to the Atlantic anniversary show? Sorry to be dense, but I don't see a link for the video - I imagine it's been deleted.

I'm so jealous that you've all seen the rehearsals. I'd be thrilled just to see the show again, I thought it was marvelous.

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Are you guys referring to the Atlantic anniversary show? Sorry to be dense, but I don't see a link for the video - I imagine it's been deleted.

I'm so jealous that you've all seen the rehearsals. I'd be thrilled just to see the show again, I thought it was marvelous.

The rehearsals, I'm sure you can find over on YouTube. It's from May of 1988.

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I was trying to find a place for this interview from Bev Bevan where he talks about playing with Jason recently.

Show is set to rock the region

Mail (Birmingham); Oct 8, 2010; Martin Hutchinson; p. 34 Full Text:

(Copyright 2010 Birmingham Post and Mail Ltd.)

IT'S only rock 'n' roll - but we like it! A new show featuring a veritable who's who of Midlands' rockers tours the region over the next few weeks.

The line-up includes country/folk singer Raymond Froggatt and Hartley Cain from his band, Geoff Turton from The Rockin' Berries, Bev Bevan and Trevor Burton from The Move and Birmingham's first pop star Danny King.

Bev Bevan, who has also drummed with ELO and Black Sabbath, says: "We've been doing the Brum Rocks concerts for about four years now and this show has evolved from that.

"It's really been restricted to the Birmingham area but the promoters wanted to take it further afield and introduce other people.

"It's coming together nicely, but it's a real workout for the drums. The show actually opens with a drum solo and then the drum standard, Let There Be Drums."

Bev reveals he was inspired by the music of the 50s.

"If I had to pick a year when music was at it's best, I'd have to say 1958-59; all American Rock and Roll, plus Move It. Those songs really inspired me."

He agrees that It's Only Rock 'N' Roll has quite a line-up of stars.

"Danny King was there at the beginning. He was doing the Hamburg club scene back in 1957! He's one of the original rock and roll singers.

He also discovered Trevor Burton, who was playing in his band at 15 years old."

Trevor went on to form The Move with Bev in 1965.

"In the show, we'll do some Rock and Blues stuff and a couple of Move hits like I Can Hear The Grass Grow and Blackberry Way," Bev says.

"Geoff Turton has a great high voice and he does some of the Rockin' Berries hits as well as Pretty Woman and Young Girl. Ray Froggatt does his own songs like Red Balloon.

"We're doing a tribute to our old friend Jimi Hendrix, as it's 40 years since he died, with a version of Purple Haze and Danny King's version of Yesterday, with just him and an acoustic guitar, will bring the house down."

Bev, who turns 65 during the tour, is known primarily as a drummer but he gets to exercise his vocal chords.

"I'm dusting off Zing Went The Strings Of My Heart which I sang on the first Move album in 1968," he smiles. "I'm really enjoying my drumming these days," he add. "It's like I've got a new lease of life.

"We had a bit of a get together recently at my old friend John Bonham's house, where his widow still lives. Jason, his son, was there and started playing the drums. I remembered that I used to play with him and his dad when he was about seven years old. John and I were drumming away and little Jason had a small kit made up in between us and played along."

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Healing Sixes: blues rock with serious cred

by Wade Coggeshall

Nuvo (Indianapolis, IN)

December 8, 2010

Healing_Sixes_2008_PHOTO_CREDIT_Lorri_Markum_.jpg

Healing Sixes in 2008. Photo by Lorri Markum.

Upcoming performances

Dec. 10 at Booney's, 8187 E. U.S. Highway 36, Avon Dec. 17, 9-12 p.m. at the Rathskeller, 401 E. Michigan St.; no cover Feb. 4, 9-12 p.m. at the Rathskeller; no cover

As it turns out, Healing Sixes didn't have to play an acoustic set when opening for Cowboy Mouth at the Rathskeller Biergarten.

When playing smaller venues, Cowboy Mouth generally asks for an acoustic opener because there's not much room for two full bands to set up. But Healing Sixes, a bruising blues-rock band from Indianapolis that's earned serious cred among its peers, find out too late that going fully electric was an option.

So Healing Sixes do what they always do — make do with what they have. On a comfortable September evening, the quartet forgoes their usual blustery sound for some dusty grooves that guitarist Eric Saylors adds nimble accoutrements to. The song "Grass and Gasoline" off their recently-released fourth record, Bluejay, plays as funky as it is bluesy. Another new number, "Superhot" (inspired by seeing Angelina Jolie on a magazine cover), has an appropriately slinky lounge cool to it.

Saylors, wearing a "Richard Dreyfus hat" to protect himself from the setting sun, gives "Loretta Left for Racine" a distinctive bluegrass flavor. "That's Alright," another new track, was originally played on piano. Here it's guitar, complete with flamenco flourishes by Saylors.

Singer Doug Henthorn's voice projects a weary soul in a youthful package. Indeed, each member (including drummer Wade Parish and bassist Jeff Stone) has longish hair and looks a bit like a Lebowski disciple. Parish adds the biggest visual curveball; he's dressed in a dark red shirt, brown tie and grey vest with jeans. His use of a parmesan cheese can filled with peppercorn as a tambourine adds yet more quirkiness.

"We generally don't do the acoustic thing," Henthorn says after Healing Sixes' set. They did record a DVD in 2007, Live at Harby's, that was an acoustic performance. And Henthorn writes most of his material on acoustic guitar. "But I always envision, when I'm working something up, that it's going to be a full band, electric thing," he explains. "But it seemed to work well tonight."

Parish admits the group dreaded dropping the volume from 11 for this gig.

"You're always afraid it isn't going to work or it'll feel flat and uninspired," he says.

But the nice weather, coupled with a laidback audience, made it seem natural.

"If it was in some shitty club after midnight, after three other bands, it wouldn't have been any fun," Parish says.

After Pod

Healing Sixes aren't solely a blues rock band, though that genre has come to be their bread and butter. Henthorn says he's always been inspired by the blues, "I think even before I really knew what it was."

The Crawfordsville native remembers listening to Stevie Wonder, whom he considers to be steeped in the blues, when he was a toddler. Before Healing Sixes, Henthornwas in a band called Pod in the late '90s that signed a deal with Columbia Records.

"It was that pipe-dream bullshit where they flew us to L.A. and put us up in apartments for like three months, gave us rental cars," he says while sipping a beer in a darkened, empty banquet room at The Rathskeller. "It was awesome. I was driving a Volvo. Then the whole thing fell apart."

Pod played a form of prog rock that wasn't exactly popular at the time. The label ultimately shelved their album, and the group disbanded soon after. The experience didn't totally deter Henthorn though.

"It was a real dark time, but I wanted to continue writing," he says. "I found out through that experience that this is what I'd do better than anything else."

The music that came out of him after that fell in the blues-rock realm, though that wasn't necessarily his intention.

"I just had some ideas together, and wanted to make them happen," Henthorn says.

Creating the Sixes

Henthorn knew Parish from his work in the covers band Oliver Syndrome. Saylors came on board next, having met Henthorn through a Broad Ripple engagement he was performing.

"Eric just kind of showed up at a gig," Henthorn says. "I hadn't talked to him in a couple years and didn't really know him. But he showed up with some demos wanting to know if I'd want to sing."

Saylors, who lives in Fortville, started playing guitar at age 16.

"That's when I got the bug for sure," Saylor says. "I always wanted to be a drummer but my dad said absolutely not. Get in the car, we're gonna go see Jerry Reed. It worked out."

Bluegrass was his main influence, having attended numerous such festivals.

"It didn't really matter (what the music was)," he says. "As long as there was a drumset, some lights, a PA and a soundboard, I was there."

Stone replaced original bassist Chaz Winzenread (Jon E. Gee from Mellencamp's band also was in the mix for a time) after a couple albums. Henthorn knew him from around town, but he was brought on as a temp initially.

"It became clear over time that he was the right guy," Parish says. "He and I just locked in immediately groove-wise. We hear time kind of the same way."

The original lineup was always sort of there, but an unfortunate accident initially derailed it. Parish had only been riding a motorcycle a couple months in 1997 when he broke both of his legs in an accident.

"I ran into the back of a pickup truck that had come to a stop at maybe 50 mph," he says.

It was going to be at least three months before he could walk again. That was bad timing for Henthorn. His first baby was on the way, and he wanted to finish a record before parenting took over his life.

With Tony Medeiros on drums, Healing Sixes released their debut, Maple, in 1998. A subsequent slot opening for Jason Bonham's band ended with the great Led Zeppelin drummer's son liking what he heard. When Medeiros took off for Florida, Bonham expressed interest in replacing him.

The Bonham years

As it turned out, having such rock royalty in your band can be both a blessing and a curse.

"He wasn't a square peg in a round hole," Parish says of Bonham. "He was exactly the drummer the band needed."

Indeed, Bonham brought plenty of thunder to Healing Sixes' second album, the aptly-named Enormosound, in 2002. But there were logistic problems too. Namely, Bonham lived in England at the time. That made it difficult to record much, and one-off gigs were impractical. Henthorn laughs at memories of Healing Sixes (named after the healing power of six strings and the six pack) getting offers to play Birdy's and pocket the door profits.

"What am I gonna fuckin' do, call Jason? 'Hey man, we got a gig at Birdy's next fuckin' week! Fly over and let's do it,'" Henthorn says. "It became this diminishing return kind of thing. As crazy as it may sound, having Jason Bonham as the drummer in your band is not the most practical thing."

Parish, while still not in the band, remembers hearing many people about town question why someone of such pedigree would play in a group from Indy.

"I think there were people who acted like it was a weird thing – like those guys thought they were cool because they had a famous guy in their band," he says.

Henthorn says that was never the intention.

"(Bonham) joined the band because he liked the fuckin' band," he says. "Yet we encountered quite a backlash when Jason joined. I feel like we got a lot of 'who the fuck do they think they are?' But if the son of the greatest rock drummer of all time says he wants to play in your band, do you think it would be a good idea to say no?"

In the short time Bonham was part of the fold, there were plenty of what Parish calls "Spinal Tap marquee moments," including one that read "Jason Bonham's Healing Sixes." Henthorn's favorite was in New Jersey. It read "Healing Pixies featuring Jason Bonhouse."

"I've got a fuckin' picture man," Henthorn says. "It was unbelievable."

Between Bonham's international address and his more lucrative gigs with Foreigner, UFO and the London Choir Boys, it soon became apparent that the arrangement couldn't continue. Parish never lost contact with Henthorn — even filling in for Bonham when he couldn't make a show — and soon returned to the band.

"We kept in touch because I always loved his stuff," Parish says.

Rock networking

Still, the Bonham connection gave Healing Sixes some renown outside the Midwest. As disastrous as the Pod experience was for Henthorn, he still made friendships that proved fruitful later on. One was with Kevin "Caveman" Shirley, the producer at the helm for Pod's lone album who was still riding high from his work on Silverchair's Frogstomp at the time.

Shirley produced Enormosound for Healing Sixes and eventually became the regular producer for acclaimed blues guitarist Joe Bonamassa. Henthorn was invited to sing lead on a cover of Zeppelin's "Tea for One" that both Bonham and Bonamassa were recording for a record by the latter. Bonamassa later contributed guitar to the song "Fine Time" from the Bluejay album.

In the past many bands would've used such connections to spring for greener pastures. Yet Healing Sixes continue to keep base in Indianapolis.

"There's not been a real impetus to leave," Parish says.

Henthorn adds, "I remember back in the day people telling us, 'Man, you guys gotta move to L.A. or New York or Nashville or something.' What the fuck for? Particularly now with the Internet. The world is so small now."

Not to mention technology exists today that makes it quite possible for anyone to produce record-quality material themselves.

"Not to be cocky, but we've done our records ourselves," Parish says. "If you've got somebody with good ears who mixes well, you don't need all that. And the record industry in the shape it's in, those people are barely holding onto their jobs. They're not going to be any more excited about us if we're from there."

As far as the Midwest, Henthorn notes that, "I think there's something legitimate here. As much as I hate (mid-America), I also love it. I think there's something very real about this area, in comparison (to L.A. and New York)."

Parish says they could move somewhere like San Francisco, but then they wouldn't have anything to rage against.

"Everybody's open-minded and gets along (there)," he says. "We wouldn't be pissed off about anything."

Heartland provincialism aside, there's also the typical problem of finding decent venues in which to play. Indianapolis doesn't have enough. Traveling the state is required.

"There are enough places to play to keep you busy within two or three hours," Parish says.

This time, though, they've scheduled a lot more touring, putting more focus on promoting an album instead of playing bars to nobody. Stops so far have included New York, Pittsburgh and St. Louis.

Not that it's easy to put together a more ambitious tour. "We're all a little stressed out and we may lose our houses," Henthorn jokes.

He imitates a child's voice.

"Mommy, why can't we have Christmas this year?"

"Because Daddy's tryin' to be a fuckin' rock star."

http://www.nuvo.net/indianapolis/healing-sixes-blues-rock-with-serious-cred/Content?oid=1899169

December 8, 2010

Band touts healing powers of blues rock

By Wade Coggeshall

The Hendricks County Flyer (Avon, IN)

Wed Dec 08, 2010

AVON — Healing Sixes' brand of blistering blues-based rock came about authentically.

The Indianapolis band's singer, Doug Henthorn, eventually came to the realization that he was into blues "before I really knew what it was." The Crawfordsville native played in a band called Pod in the late '90s that specialized in progressive rock. After signing a deal with Columbia Records and relocating to L.A. to record their debut, the whole thing fell apart.

"It was a real dark time, but I wanted to continue writing," said Henthorn after a recent show at The Rathskeller in Indianapolis. "I found out through that experience that this is what I'd do better than anything else."

He enlisted drummer Wade Parish, whom he'd seen play in the band Oliver Syndrome, to form a new group. Guitarist Eric Saylors came on board next.

"I hadn't talked to him in a couple years and didn't really know him," Henthorn said of Saylors. "But he showed up with some demos wanting to know if I'd want to sing."

They went through a handful of bassists before Jeff Stone entered the fold four years ago. The quartet settled on the name Healing Sixes, to symbolize the healing power of the six-pack and six strings.

"I always thought the number six has a bad connotation," Henthorn said. "But if you think about it, we have six packs and six strings. Coincidence? I think not."

Though Parish was in the original incarnation of Healing Sixes, he didn't make his recording debut with the band until the 2007 DVD "Live at Harby's." A motorcycle accident 10 years prior left him with two broken legs and lots of physical therapy.

"I was riding a bike like you drive a car," Parish said. "I ran into the back of a pickup truck that had come to a stop at maybe 50 mph."

Henthorn didn't want to wait on Parish to record their debut, so he enlisted Tony Medeiros to play on Healing Sixes' first album, "Maple." They subsequently opened for Jason Bonham - son of the legendary Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham - in concert. Bonham was impressed by the band. When Medeiros left, he expressed interest in replacing him.

Bonham only played on one Healing Sixes release, the aptly-named "Enormosound." The problem was, he lived in London at the time and also drummed in the bands Foreigner, UFO, and the London Choir Boys.

"It became this diminishing return kind of thing," Henthorn said. "As crazy as it may sound, having Jason Bonham as the drummer in your band is not the most practical thing."

Healing Sixes also endured a sort of resentment because of Bonham. Parish, who stayed in touch with the group throughout this time, remembers getting a vibe from some people questioning why someone of Bonham's stature would play in a band from Indianapolis.

"I think there were people who acted like it was a weird thing - like those guys thought they were cool because they had a famous guy in their band," Parish said.

Henthorn says that was never the case.

"He joined the band because he liked the band," he said. "Yet we encountered quite a backlash when Jason joined. I feel like we got a lot of 'who do they think they are?' But if the son of the greatest rock drummer of all time says he wants to play in your band, do you think it would be a good idea to say no?"

With the lineup now intact, Healing Sixes released their fourth full-length, "Bluejay," this fall. At this point in their career, they're focused more on promoting their albums instead of, as Henthorn puts it, "Playing bars to nobody." Their brand of music doesn't exactly top the sales charts though. But Henthorn says they need to remain true to themselves above all else.

"We don't play for the radio stations," he said. "We play for the people who come to see us and really dig us. It's cliched but it's true."

Visit the website www.healingsixes.com for more information.

http://flyergroup.com/local/x1894468412/Band-touts-healing-powers-of-blues-rock

Edited by SteveAJones
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Son of Led Zeppelin legend John Bonham to sell house

Birmingham Mail

September 26, 2008

9EDF06BD-070E-FCB6-57EB458CA5F880DA.jpg

A slice of rock and roll lifestyle is up for grabs, complete with a cool £1.3 million price tag.

Jason Bonham, son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, and a successful musician in his own right, is selling his sprawling seven-bedroom pad in rural Worcestershire.

The 42-year-old has moved to Florida and estate agents are billing the sale as an opportunity for a music fan to own the perfect home to throw parties.

Bonham Jnr has carved out a career drumming for rock bands across the world, including Foreigner, but will be best remembered for filling his father's shoes for two Led Zeppelin reunion shows and a further tour rumo.

The converted coach house at Birlingham, near Pershore, was home to Bonham, his wife and two children for six years and has been restored to include its beams and original floors.

Morgan Aps, of Worcester estate agents John Sanders, said: "I would imagine that because of the unique character of the house and its history, there will be increased interest.

"It has been completely transformed in to the ultimate house for wild parties ,but it would be equally suited to a family who want a really nice living space.

"Birlingham is one of the most popular and exclusive villages in Worcestershire and if the right person comes along, it could be snapped up very quickly."

Other selling points include three acres of land, a garage and workshop, timber panelled hallway and drawing room and a sitting room with a mezzanine balcony.

Redditch-born John Bonham provided the rhythm which helped propel Led Zeppelin to super-stardom during the 1970s but the band split after their drummer died.

http://www.birmingha.../#ixzz1FjnL6k4z

Edited by SteveAJones
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