There were times when I blundered and got the dreaded look from the lads. But that was a good sign. It showed I'd attempted something I'd not tried before.

My names John Bonham, I'm a drummer and I'm potty about cars.

I never had any lessons. When I first started playing I used to read music. I was very interested in music. But when I started playing in groups I did a silly thing and dropped it. It's great if you can write things down.

With Zeppelin, I tried to play something different every night in my solos. I'd play for 20 minutes but the longest ever was 30 minutes. It's a long time, but whenI was playing it seemed to fly by.

I don't consider that I'm particularly influenced by anyone or anything. But when I started playing, I was influenced by early soul. It was just that feel, that sound.

Nowadays you can't be loud enough!

My nerves before a gig got worse; I had terrible bad nerves all the time. Once we started... I was fine.