Motley Crue drummer Tommy Lee claimed he was stealing from Led Zeppelin’s John Bonham, but he didn’t realized Bonham had ripped off somebody else. Dave Grohl Dropped A Led Zeppelin 2021 Bombshell.
Carmine Appice said on the Hangin’ and Bangin’ podcast, “I was with Ozzy [Osbourne] when we took Motley Crue on their very first tour, and I saw the John Bonham stuff being done – like spin-and-grab the cymbals – with Tommy [Lee, drums].
“And I said, ‘Wow, dude, that’s pretty cool. Where’d you get it?’ He goes, ‘From John Bonham.’ I said, ‘Well, indirectly you got it from me because I used to do that with Vanilla Fudge.’
“He didn’t believe me, so after the tour, he came over to my house, I had this big house in Sherman Oaks, like a 4,000 square foot house with all these saunas, so he came over the house and I showed him videos from the Ed Sullivan show, 1968.
“I said, ‘There it is.’ He said, ‘Wow, dude, I can’t believe you did that before Bonzo – oh my god.’ And then he first walks into my house, ‘Man, I got to get a crib like this one day.’
“He ended up where he ended up, and then I showed him the end of the song ‘Shotgun,’ which was very similar to the end of [Led Zeppelin’s] ‘Rock and Roll,’ which was done four years before, and when he saw that, he went, ‘Dude, I can’t believe it!’
“We became buddies, I would go to his house when he’s married to Heather [Locklear], we’d watch Gene Krupa videos, the old videos on his big screen TV and we’d be talking about stick spinning and all that, and he was always like a little kid.” Ultimate-Guitar transcribed his comments.
