Led Zeppelin’s frontman Robert Plant has reflected on his friendship with bandmate John Bonham whose sudden death broke up the British rock band.

The eight-time Grammy award-winning singer remembered first meeting Bonham at the age of 16, who approached him after performing with a local band in 1965.

Appearing on BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs, Plant said: “He was big, he had this way about him and he said ‘look you’re going somewhere really special, but you will never get there without me’ and he was right.

“John and I walked a million miles together.”

The Black Country-born lead singer said that he was “intimidated” when guitarist Jimmy Page recruited him and drummer Bonham to join bass player John Paul Jones in the rock band Led Zeppelin.

“I knew when Led Zeppelin began, John Bonham and I were coming from the Black Country.

“We were big fish there, but we were suddenly alongside John Paul Jones and Jimmy Page who were really seriously accomplished, far more mature and pretty well versed in all the different elements of melody and construction and stuff like that, so it was kind of daunting in a way.

“Although I really wanted to be around excellence, when I came head to head with it I was really kind of intimidated.”