The Engine Songs V8: the vibrations of the eight-cylinder engine matched with the legendary percussion of rock
Sant’Agata Bolognese, 23 February 2023 – First a roll, then a curve cut with precision in the blue American sky. Then two taps on the kettledrum and tom, and then the foot that, instead of the bass drum, nudges the accelerator of a Lamborghini Urus Performante[1], which in its majestic yellow version seems to compete with the glints of the sun in West Palm Beach.
«I owe my passion for music and cars to my father,» says Bonham, cult drummer and son of legendary Led Zeppelin drummer John Bonham, who for the series The Engine Songs – the trilogy of playlists available on Spotify created by matching the music to the frequencies of the Lamborghini V12, V10 and V8 engines – urged on the Urus Super SUV, enjoying the parallels between the sound of the eight-cylinder engine and the rhythmic, rising hammering of percussion. «Listening to any song, what is the element that keeps it going? It’s simple: the drums. If they don’t stop, the rest of the band doesn’t stop,» said Bonham in the exclusive video interview, the third (the first two featured Luca Natali Stradivari and Amy Macdonald) made with international musical greats.
«As happened with the Aventador Ultimae[2] and Huracán Tecnica[3], to create the playlist dedicated to the Urus Performante, I started from the analysis of the basic frequency of the engine,» explained Alex Trecarichi, music producer and creator of The Engine Songs along with Lamborghini sound engineer Mario Mautone. «In the case of Urus, the parameter that resulted was 50 hertz, corresponding to the vibrations of the drums. So, an important part of the playlist had to be the rhythm.»
And in Jason Bonham’s mind and hands, rhythm and memory become one. «My first Lamborghini-related memory? My father driving a Countach,» recalls the musician, a skilled drummer from the age of five and then the protagonist of numerous world tours and Led Zeppelin reunions along with his “godfathers” Jimmy Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones. «I was in love with that rumble. Dad liked to repeat, ‘I want my sound to be like the sound of thunder.’ That’s the main element of inspiration, both for me and for him: the low frequencies of thunder.»
A powerful, lightning-fast echo: Urus Performante has become a benchmark in its segment thanks to the record it set for production SUVs on the Pikes Peak high-altitude track in Colorado achieving a time of 10:32:064: a full 17 seconds faster than the previous record holder. With power increased to 666 CV, the Performante can produce 850 Nm at just 2300 rpm, accelerating from 0 to 100 km/h in 3.3 seconds, and reaching a top speed of 306 km/h.
«I’ve always been a person who seeks out uniqueness, looking for something that others didn’t have,” concludes Bonham, “and driving a Lamborghini is a sure-fire way to achieve that goal.».