Eric and I went looking for some live music to celebrate his birthday in 2023, and we landed on Zepparella at the Des Plaines Theatre outside Chicago. We were so glad we did. Zepparella is an all-female Led Zeppelin tribute band, and each member did a terrific job of capturing her counterpart. Anna Kristina handles the Robert Plant vocals (and the harmonica), Gretchen Menn takes on Jimmy Page, Holly West covers the John Paul Jones bass lines, and founder Clementine sits behind the kit for John Bonham.
Fast forward to this fall, and Eric got the chance to sit down with Clementine by phone for Acid Flashback Radio. Here is how it went.
Music in the house
Clementine’s love of music started at home. “A lot of my early music was because of my father. He was the ultimate music lover, he always had the best stereo, and he was really passionate about music.” That meant John Lee Hooker and southern blues, and the Rolling Stones, who were his favorite. Her grandmother added some big band. “Music came on at 8 AM on the weekends and stayed on all weekend.”
She started on piano and flute in school, but gave up on music in junior high and didn’t think of herself as a musician. College followed, and then a move to New York City, where she was surrounded by players. She tried singing in a few bands, but quickly realized she didn’t know herself well enough to be a good vocalist.
Then came the day a drummer didn’t show up for practice. Clementine sat down at the kit just to goof around, and her boyfriend at the time, a recording engineer and musician, showed her a couple of things. “He was like, actually, you kind of are good at that.” She took her first drum lesson at 27. Her teacher saw her as something of a guinea pig. Clementine knew music but nothing about drumming, so he wanted to see how quickly he could get her playing well. He got his answer. A year and a half later, she was in bands.
That detail stuck with Eric, who plays electronic drums in his own basement studio, and it should stick with all of us. Clementine told him her mom had her first piano recital at 71. “It doesn’t matter when you started if you’re passionate about it. It will always give back to you.”
Finding the instrument
Clementine has a simple test for knowing you picked the right one. “When you find the instrument that’s a joy to practice, I feel like that’s the sign that it’s your instrument. A lot of people try one instrument, and it doesn’t call to them, so they think they’re not musical. Maybe if they had tried around, one would have caught them.”
The Bonham connection
Other musicians told her early on that she had a Bonham sensibility. She figures it’s because she’s a heavy hitter who likes to play behind the beat. At the time she didn’t think she could ever play his stuff.
After years in New York, she joined an original rock band that spent all of 2000 touring the country. When the year ended, she settled in San Francisco and joined an AC/DC tribute band. There was a reason she took the gig. Clementine had only ever played in original bands, so she never went through the usual rite of passage of copying a favorite band at 14. Learning someone else’s music note for note seemed like good practice. A guitarist named Gretchen Menn joined that band too, and the two clicked. When the AC/DC cover band turned down some big tours, they decided to start their own side project. Clementine had pitched a Zeppelin band to her original rock group a couple of years earlier and gotten a quick no. Gretchen said yes. The first Zepparella show was in 2004.
Why Zeppelin
“Getting even close to understanding the magic in Bonham’s playing is a lifetime endeavor for a drummer.” She also likes that Zeppelin stretched out live and improvised, which leaves room for the band to make it their own. “It’s kind of like creating a band within a band. You find out what kind of drummer you are by playing somebody else’s music. It sounds counterintuitive, but you think, this is what he would do, and this is what I just naturally want to do.”
Building a set
Some parts of the songs have to be played the way they were recorded. Nobody wants a different groove on “Immigrant Song,” and plenty of fans are air drumming along to the famous fills. Other spots, like the psychedelic middle section of “Whole Lotta Love,” would turn into extended, experimental jams live on stage by the original Led Zeppelin. These moments are where Zepparella find space to stretch their muscles and make the music their own.
Unfortunately, the math works against deep cuts. “Whole Lotta Love” can run 15 to 20 minutes depending on the night. “When the Levee Breaks” and “Kashmir” are each around 11 minutes. In a two-hour set, there isn’t much wiggle room to add some of their favorite lesser-known songs.
Cut “The Lemon Song,” and fans let you know. Throw in “Sick Again” at a festival crowd that only knows the hits and, as Clementine put it, they just stand there with their mouths open. “Even though we love playing it, sometimes we have to let go of songs in the interest of playing what people really want to hear.”
The band
The current lineup brings a lot of different backgrounds. Anna Kristina leans funk and jazz. Gretchen is into instrumental guitar rock and has performed a guitar concerto written for her with the Utah Symphony. Clementine thinks it’s headed to Minneapolis again in January. Gretchen also plays in Six String Symphony, which performs original compositions that blend electric guitar and classical music. Holly West’s original band, Dead Groove, is a hard, almost stoner rock trio. Clementine describes herself as a support drummer, not a flashy one, and she’s a writer who loves lyrically rich artists like Tom Waits, Nick Cave and Patti Smith.
The band has had one big shake-up. For seven years it had a different bass player and singer. Anna Kristina fronted the band for five years, took a six-year break, and returned in 2018. Holly West is the bassist today.
When the band auditions someone new, Clementine says they know within five minutes. Musicianship matters, but so does personality, since they spend a lot of time together in vans and on flights, often on little sleep. “It’s people who can go with the flow, have a good attitude, and are up for anything.”
Her advice
Eric closed by asking what she would tell young musicians, especially young women. Her answer was simple. Music is a long road with a lot of delayed gratification. “If you think you’re going to be rich or famous, or even make a living from it, that can’t be the priority. The priority has to be that you love playing the instrument and that self-expression.” Keep that at the center, she says, and it will carry you through the lean stretches and the day jobs. “Music is its own reward.”
If Zepparella comes to your town, go. We did, and we’d do it again.
Learn more at zepparella.com.
“When the Levee Breaks” has been a big hit for the band on YouTube. The video went up 16 years ago and has now passed 26 million views. You can watch it here:
