Not every musician is meant to stay in one lane forever. Even in a band as legendary as Led Zeppelin, there comes a time when the magic runs out—or, at the very least, people start itching for something different. But when Led Zeppelin ended, John Paul Jones found himself with a challenge no one could really prepare for.
Because really—how do you even begin to replace John Bonham?
There are great drummers, and then there was Bonzo: raw power, perfect timing, and an instinct that couldn’t be taught. After his death, it was obvious that trying to carry on with someone else would be a pale imitation. Jimmy Page was heartbroken, Robert Plant was devastated, and Jones? Well, Jones was quietly preparing for life after Zeppelin.
Unlike his bandmates, Jones had roots deep in the session world before Led Zeppelin took off. He had already carved out a name for himself arranging and playing for everyone from pop stars to folk artists, and even during Zeppelin’s peak, he’d considered walking away to become a choirmaster. So when the curtain fell, Jones didn’t panic—he adapted.
Still, nobody expected his post-Zeppelin path to be quite so unpredictable.
While Page stuck to blues and Plant leaned into mystical world music, Jones embraced chaos. He jumped into collaborations that made jaws drop—from alternative freaks like the Butthole Surfers to modern rock titans like Foo Fighters and R.E.M. If you expected orchestras and elegance, Jones gave you distortion and grit.
And yet, through all that genre-hopping, there was one artist Jones still hoped to collaborate with: Neil Young.
“He’s another person who doesn’t like to stand still,” Jones once said. “I would have thought it’d be interesting to work with Neil Young… there’s just something about what he does and the way he does it. Should he ever knock on my door, I’d probably say yes.”
It would have been a perfect storm of creative energy. Jones—the meticulous multi-instrumentalist with an ear for space and texture—paired with Young, the wild-card legend who embraces imperfection like it’s a virtue. Together, they could have crafted something truly out of bounds: Young’s vocal rasp laid across Jones’s layered arrangements, fuzzed-out riffs colliding with delicate mandolins.
It might’ve never happened, but it’s a collaboration that still makes sense on paper. After all, they’re both rebels in their own way—Jones walked away from the world’s biggest band rather than compromise its integrity, and Young has spent decades flipping off the music industry while following only his own instincts.
In a world full of safe moves and reboots, Jones and Young might’ve been the last real risk-takers. And if they ever did join forces, you get the feeling neither one would bother asking for permission.
