"I'm like the one up there representing the Bonham family. that's kind of how I should look at it," Jason Bonham told Spinner backstage at L.A.'s Wiltern, where he would later honor his iconic father, John Bonham, as part of Guitar Center's Drum-Off last weekend. The event is a competition for aspiring stickmen and showcases some of the world's greatest drummers, including Tommy Lee, Tool's Danny Carey and Billy Cobham, among others.

There's no question, Led Zeppelin is part of his family and legacy, an inheritance he proved worthy of when he so successfully filled in for his father at the band's O2 reunion show in December of 2007. But he says, breaking the hearts of millions of fans, that part of his life is indeed over. "As far as the big question, the big one, I think that one's come and gone now. But it was a lot of fun while it lasted," he says, echoing Jimmy Page's sentiments in recent interviews that the Zep reunion is not going to happen.

And like his bandmates that night, Bonham is moving on to new music. "I just literally went into the studio last week for two days with one person I'd done an album with before, very quickly, and then the other was a friend of my father's I got to meet later on, Joe Bonamassa and Glenn Hughes, and we're working on a new project with a working title of Black Country," Bonham says. "We just went in with [producer] Kevin Shirley and played riffs and just jammed for two days. And that's really exciting."

Bonham says the new group, which takes its name from the industrial area in England that he and Hughes -- best known for his work with both Deep Purple and Black Sabbath) come from -- is in fact a band. "We're actually recording an album, literally in that process of jamming it out and editing and putting together and going, 'Yeah, that's really cool,'" he says. " Joe just wanted to play guitar so with Glenn on bass and vocals, it's a power trio."