John Bonham’s son Jason has revealed the existence of unmarked tapes that may contain unreleased studio mixes of Led Zeppelin songs in his father’s belongings, according to Guitar World.
In an interview with the Vinyl Guide podcast, Jason revealed the big find, sharing that he discovered the box of tapes upon his most recent visit to his childhood home, though he had yet to listen to the tapes himself. “I need to get the machine up and running and hook it up, which I will save that for an episode for YouTube, like ‘Let’s get this thing up and running. Let’s find out if we’ve got anything that hasn’t even been released yet,’” he shared, “Because they’re all unmarked, that’s the best of it. Or they just deteriorated.”
He also noted that due to the format of the tapes, the contents may be destroyed if he attempts to play them, sharing: “They might just… you put them in the machine and it just erases them the moment you press start. I think they had to do that when they were doing the Knebworth mixing. They had to bake the… they only had the U-matic tapes and they had to bake the tapes to preserve what was on there. Imagine all the multitracks they’ve got, from the one-inch to the two-inch, sitting in Jimmy’s facility or whatever.”
Jason Bonham - the drummer son of late Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham - was also asked about Greta Van Fleet and the constant comparisons they get to the Zeppelin gang to which he replied:
"I got an alert, because it had all this Led Zeppelin thing about it. I'd have been annoyed if I'd been Robert [Plant]. I'd have been annoyed if they said that he sounded like Robert.
"Robert did not sound like that. Robert was amazing, and still is, but when he was in his young days, his voice was miles [better], just in a different league. He Was Way Better.
