{"id":566864,"date":"2026-05-05T05:22:24","date_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:22:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/566864\/"},"modified":"2026-05-05T05:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-05-05T05:22:24","slug":"carmine-appice-responds-to-rumours-he-was-asked-to-join-led-zeppelin-after-john-bonhams-death","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/566864\/","title":{"rendered":"Carmine Appice responds to rumours he was asked to join Led Zeppelin after John Bonham\u2019s death"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carmine Appice has spoken out about the\u00a0rumours\u00a0that\u00a0Led Zeppelin<\/a> asked him to join after John Bonham\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

The veteran rock drummer is best known for playing with Vanilla Fudge and Cactus, as well as in\u00a0Rod Stewart<\/a>\u2019s band, and when Zeppelin legend John Bonham\u00a0passed away in 1980, there was speculation that Appice would be a candidate to replace him.<\/p>\n

In a new interview, Appice\u00a0has confirmed\u00a0that he was aware of the\u00a0rumours\u00a0at the\u00a0time, but\u00a0has\u00a0said he was never approached by the band in any formal capacity.<\/p>\n

Speaking on the\u00a0Talk Louder podcast, he recalled that\u00a0he had heard that it might come down to a choice between himself and Cozy Powell of\u00a0The Jeff Beck Group, but that even if he had been asked, he would have been unable to accept, as he was on tour with Stewart\u00a0at the time.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u00a0would\u2019ve, but I was with Rod,\u201d Appice explained (via\u00a0Blabbermouth<\/a>). \u201cIt\u2019s not like I was with nobody, we\u2019d just finished doing six nights at the Forum [in Los Angeles].\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, Rod said to me, \u2018Are you gonna join Led Zeppelin?\u2019 I said, \u2018Not that I know of.\u2019 I said, \u2018I know there\u2019s rumours, but I never got a call or nothing.\u2019 He said, \u2018Oh, that\u2019s good. Let\u2019s keep [the rumours] going. There\u2019s rumours that I\u2019m gonna retire, so let\u2019s keep it going. We\u2019ll just sell more tickets.\u2019 I said, \u2018OK.\u2019 So that\u2019s what we did. But I was never asked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bonham passed away on September 25, 1980 at the age of 32 after aspirating vomit following heavy alcohol consumption. In the end, Led Zeppelin chose not to replace him, feeling he was irreplaceable, and they disbanded the group shortly afterward.<\/p>\n

Phil Collins<\/a>\u00a0filled in on drums for their appearance at Live Aid in 1985, while Bonham\u2019s son Jason has played at the few\u00a0subsequent\u00a0Led Zeppelin shows, including their Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction in 1995 and at the huge Ahmet Ertegun tribute concert in London\u2019s O2 in 2007.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere,\u00a0Robert Plant was named as this year\u2019s Record Store Legend as part of Record Store Day 2026<\/a>,\u00a0while\u00a0Jimmy Page shared the \u201coriginal home demo\u201d of Led Zeppelin\u2019s \u2018Ten Years Gone\u2019 last month<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carmine Appice has spoken out about the\u00a0rumours\u00a0that\u00a0Led Zeppelin asked him to join after John Bonham\u2019s death. The veteran…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566865,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[96,128,3584,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-566864","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rock","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566864","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566864"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566864\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566865"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566864"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566864"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566864"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}