When Zeppelin disbanded in 1980 following the death of drummer John Bonham, Jones made little attempt to remain in the public eye. "I didn't know what to do, to be honest. I didn't want to join another band. Once you've been in the best band in the world, there's nowhere else you want to go." Eventually, he went back to doing just what he'd been doing before Zeppelin was formed in 1968: producing, arranging, and performing on other people's records, with occasional forays into classical composition.

Because he's made such a point of shunning the limelight, Jones tends to be the person one thinks of last when one thinks of Led Zeppelin. But listen back to those epochal albums of the late '60s and early '70s and it'll soon become clear without Jones's muscular bass playing and enviable skill as a composer, arranger, and multi-instrumentalist, Zep would have been a very different band. It's also arguable that by the late '70s, as Jimmy Page lost his chops in a chemical haze, Jones had become the group's prime musical force. That argument gains weight when you put on "ZOOMA" (Discipline Global Mobile), Jones's first album as a solo artist (unless you count the soundtrack he did for the movie "Scream For Help" back in 1985). Dark, primal, and unrelentingly heavy, it's th emost devastating recording officially released by an ex-Zeppelinite and it comes as close as anyone in the last two decades has to capturing the almight LZ spirit.

Which leads us to the obvious question: Why now? What happened to cause that Jonesian affinity for bone-crushing riffs, which had mostly lain dormant for the better part of two decades, to re-emerge? The answer lies five years back, in the 1994 world tour that Jones embarked on with iron-lunged Goth diva Diamanda Galas to support her album, "THE SPORTING LIFE", which JPJ had graced as a producer, bassist, and cowriter. Playing small rooms attended by good-natured crowds was something of a revelation. "When we took it out on the road," he recalls with a chuckle, "I suddenly went, 'Ah yeah, I remember this, playing to people I can see.' Then I thought afterwords, 'How can I repeat this? Well, if I do that solo album I've always been promising, I can take it out on the road, play the places I want to play, and do everything on my own terms.'" Over the next four years, in between other projects, Jones worked on writing the material for "ZOOMA" and setting up his own recording studio in London, where much of the album was recorded.

There are no vocals on "ZOOMA", and there were never meant to be any. "I don't sing, and there was no point in getting somebody else in to be involved in what for me is a very personal record," Jones explains. "Also, I think people are more used to hearing instrumental music these days because of bands like the Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, and Underworld, so it seemed like a good time to make this type of album." While some listeners may miss that Robert Plant wail, others will welcome the fact that nothing takes away from the thunderous instrumental interplay on tunes like "B. Fingers" and the title track. Interestingly, Jones notes that he wrote the former cut's hand-contorting riff during a walk in the country, his bass nowhere in sight. "I write away from instruments," he says. "If I sit down with an instrument, I'll forget that I'm writing a song and just end up noodling. So I came back [from the walk], picked up a bass guitar, and tried the 'B. Fingers' riff out, and I realized it that it was extremely difficult to play. But I was able to play it just long enough to get it down on tape." He laughs with a certain confident air. He wrote that tune about four years ago. I get the feeling he may have practiced it just a little bit between then and now.

Jones plays the lion's share of the instruments on "ZOOMA" - four-, 10-, and 12-string basses, guitar, organ, mandola, an electric sound processor called the Kyma, and a custom-built bass lap steel - but he also employed the services of a few sidemen, including Butthole Survers' guitarist Paul Leary (who JPJ first met while producing the Surfers' "INDEPENDENT WORM SALOON"), King Crimson's Trey Gunn on stick, percussionist Denny Fongheiser, and the string section of the London Symphony Orchestra, who add depth to the slow simmer of "Snake Eyes". The most notable guest, however, is undoubtedly Pete Thomas, best known as the drummer for Elvis Costello and the Attractions. Jones first worked with him on the Diamanda Galas project. Thomas has been playing up a storm for decades, of course, but his Bonham-esque bashing on "ZOOMA" is both extraordinary and unexpected. "Pete has a really good time playing on my records," Jones says, "because he never has a chance to do that stuff. He goes, 'Oh, that was really rockin' on that one, wasn't it, John?' And I go, 'Yeah, it was.'"

Still, credit where credit's due. "From the waist downwards, [the drum parts] are all my parts," Jones asserts. "Basically, I said to Pete, 'From the waist up, you can do what you like, but your feet are mine.' I learned a lot working with Bonham. The two of us played together instinctively, but looking back, I know why riffs are successful, what adds to the power, and what takes away from the power, and I brought a lot of that experience to writing this record. I'd think, 'Well, there's a beat's rest here. What would Bonzo do there? Would he hit it or would he leave it?' I wrote the drum parts to lock in with the bass. That's what makes it really powerful, when they support each other."

When it comes to supporting one another in non-musical terms, the ex-members of Zeppelin haven't always distinguished themselves. Jones wasn't invited to the Page & Plant '90s reunion party, for reasons that remain mysterious; reporters weren't allowed to ask the duo any questions on the topic. "I was kind of disappointed that I found out about it by reading it in the newspapers," Jones says with what is surely some understatement. "Since then, I've never asked them why they called their record 'NO QUARTER' or stuff like that, but we do get together to do Zeppelin business. There's a few subjects perhaps we don't touch upon, but... it's a long time ago now, they're doing whatever they're doing, and I'm really happy to be doing this."

Jones would never allow himself to say overtly unfriendly words about his formber bandmates in front of a journalist, of course, but even without him stoking the fires of controversy, one can easily come up with several reasons why he was left out. Personality conflicts? Musical differences? The unpleasantness of having to divide the money three ways instead of two? All are quite possible. But my vote's for pure jealousy. Not only does JPJ look substantially better these days than either Page or Plant does, but as a player he could probably blow both of them off the stage. Catch Mr. Jones when he hits your town (the tour starts in October), and you'll see what I mean.