Bernard MacMahon

29:10That's absolutely yeah, because it was a very physical experience. There's this extraordinary imagery, but this woman, she's improvising. There's no score. When you go to the silent movie things, if you do meet people that do that, they improvise the music. I think the studio's occasion was sent over some general cues. It was very rare that you'd have a whole score that was sent out. I think you're right. So I think the music can feel more incredibly closely related. I think a movie has to work like a symphony with movements. And the whole thing has to try together and needs to be themes that appear.

29:48So you know, in any other musical, there'll be an overture at the beginning where they play you all the highlighted, like South Pacific, the highlight, the key melody lines, so that when you get into it, you're kind of like, oh, I know that. Do you think that coming from the UK was advantageous to see it with new eyes? Yes. Looking at American music with new eyes. Yes. I think there's a number of things I realized. This research was hugely enjoyable because people were very, very kind and welcoming people in rural America. But they're particularly fascinated if you're coming in from Britain and you're coming into some tiny town and you're interested in this cultural thing that happened almost a hundred years ago, particularly if a lot of them don't aren't even familiar with persons that so I would sometimes meet family members of musicians whose songs are being covered by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash and they had no idea.

30:46Wow. They had no idea that their dad's music could make that impact. Firstly, when you go into the rural areas of the south, you see huge amounts of old England there. So it's actually very familiar. Yeah. Because these are settlers that went over sometimes Scotland and Ireland. Yes, and I'm half Irish. So yeah, and that's the reach of country music. It's the roots of blues. Taj Mahal told me blues is the combination. So this is Taj's thing. I think he's right. He said blues is the combination of African music with Irish folk music. It's those elements to combine. That's how he sees it. And I can't figure anyone that's been more deep plugged into that history in him.

31:31Yeah, that's also interesting that after the American project, you go on the Led Zeppelin, who are so totally influenced by American music. There is no English music in their vocabulary. Now, it's a representation of America from far away and it takes it to an extreme that most Americans would not take it to because they know too much to amplify it that much. Do you know what I'm saying? In some ways, the freedom that comes with this foreign thing that you can interpret and make it yours. In their minds, maybe they think this is how it is in America, but really, it's because their love of this foreign thing is so extravagant in their minds, they take it to this extravagant place where it never was before.

32:35I think that's a very sage observation. There's this huge romanticization of America and American music. It's like spaghetti western movies, same thing. It's like, absolutely. The idea of taking it to this extreme, this poetic extreme. Yeah, absolutely. That is why, If you look at that generation and the subsequent generations the love of the original rocker Billy the rock and all music There's nowhere more fervent than Britain for the adoration of that. It's hugely romanticized and similarly the blues Yes, the blues is just massively romanticized in Britain You know and jazz as well and jazz in Europe.

33:18Yes. You're right American jazz in Europe is much more popular today than it is in America Yeah, because when James Reese Europe came in in the first world war with the Harlem Hellcats, he brought jazz to the European battlefield. That's where the French fell in love with it. So he's bringing in those WC -Handes, songs and stuff like this. And the French were like, what the hell is this? And this, I guess, music brought into rouse the troops of the Americans, but to the French just was exotic and exciting. The Zeppelin story came out. We made American Epic. we made these three historical films.

33:53And the fourth film, our sound engineer, that worked on Zeppelin, rebuilt from original parts, the full recording lathe, the amplifier and the microphones, and we brought a whole group of artists in to record for the first time in almost a hundred years, exactly how you would have done it in 1927. Beautiful. And they all had to come in, do it live, to the wax disk. Yes. And then we pressed up the records. Thank you. Yeah, the first three films were the history of the Carthaginian Wars, and then the fourth film was like, we film a hook group of people crossing the Alps on the elephants, you know, and doing it ourselves.

34:30So this film, I wanted to do one more music film that picked up from where American Epic left off, which would be sort of World War II. And something that took us from World War II to say 1970, It's felt like a very, very exciting arc in communication and music. This is the rival of tape and countless other things. And I thought, you know, it'd be kind of good rather than researching 100 acts. And this area, my previous area, was super mysterious American epic. There's nothing known about most of these acts. Is there one act that rides that wave? I remember that book I read when I was 12, I know it.

35:15Settling. And no one's ever told their story before. There's mysterious as the Memphis Jugbet. Yes. The records all now. It's one of the things that's so interesting about the old blues artist where there might be one photograph. You know, like Robert Johnson, there's one photograph. Maybe with Led Zeppelin, they made it a point to never put themselves on the covers. They also had this mystery about it all with. Yeah, you know before them the Beatles were always on their album covers. Absolutely. They were pop groups. But Lens Eppelin was something else. Eppelin is surrounded with myth and conjecture.

35:54Yes. I remember as I got into Zeppelin's music after reading that book and totally falling in love with it. I remember talking to kids my age and contemporaries that were listening to it too, going back to list this music. And And thinking that my sense of what this group was was different from theirs, having read this long out of print paperback book. Yes. And I realize it was Eplin, the story is being codified by books published in the 80s and beyond that are looking back. They're looking from John Dubonum's death backwards. Yes. The interesting thing about this obscure little book that I read that I said long out of print was it's looking forward.

36:38The ends of the mid -70s, the end is not written. So the whole perspective in the book is from the perspective of these children on this journey. And they haven't even reached the end of it by the time the book's printed. So my perspective on this was by thanks that little paper that was very different. And the book ended with a world of possibilities. Has it done the film? Yeah. Yeah, this is what you want in a movie. So you want something the purpose I think of a movie is to inspire people. Yes. I want them to walk out of the cinema and go, you know, I'm going to form a group or I'm going to apply these things to something I've learned or something I'm doing.

37:22Anything you do that helps you when you leave the cinema. I go, I figure this out. This is what I'm going to do. That's the highest goal you can have for someone that creates something. And that's how the book influenced you. It wasn't so much about music, it was about following your inner light. Yeah. It was like, how do you make music? Demystify what are the things you knew to do creative things? Because what we all do in this creative field, we're craftsmen. And I think the great myth about this is people tout around words like genius and things like this and alter. as if we're kind of touched by certain people touched by the hand of God.

38:02My experience in what I do and looking at say, let's appalling, is that it's an enormous amount of hard work. A massive incremental work that eventually becomes... It's so many bricks that eventually you have the Great Wall of China. And you're like, how the hell? You can see this thing from space and this is staying here. And that's I suppose what people might term as genius. but it's very counterproductive to use those terms. And so what I like about this is it was showing you the book was showing and the film was showing the practical things that you do. And then it lets the music play that you get to hear the music.

38:38Another point of it is that you can only put in that time if you really love something. Yeah, yeah, you've got to really love it. So I was looking at this follow -up and I said, this is the story. This is the story we've got to make. After American Epic, I said, this group takes us through from Jimmy's born and he's the eldest in 1944. So it takes you from World War II through to 1970. And I knew the exact point where I wanted the film to end, which should be with their home coming at the Alba Hall. And so with all the films I do, I would never knock on someone's door and say, hey, I've got my idea on the film.

39:21In my mind, I have to work out exactly how I'm going to make that film and can I do it? How would I do it? So with this, I spent about eight months writing a script and tracking down archive. So this is an incorporation before you've ever talked to anyone in the group. Yes. And they could very easily say no. Correct. I was the way I'd going into it that they had never participated in a documentary. Yes. They had never ever sat down and formally told their story in any form to a biographer or anything like that. Yes. So the receive was absolutely, it would be known. Yes. So you spend eight months putting together what you would do in a dream project that likely would not happen.

40:08Your My mindset was I'm making this film with these people. Yes. That was my mindset. And you met them, you don't know them. Don't know them. In fairness, I had met Robert Plant. I'd been introduced to Robert Plant through a wonderful musician called Justin Adams, you know, discovered Tanara Wynne and all those great things. Oh, fantastic. And Justin, that was through David James, the great music manager. And Justin had brought me backstage to meet Robert long before Epic was finished. And so Robert was familiar with our work, but I could tell what I knew of Robert Platt that that would have no impact on, you know, other than he came to the American FX, I thought, but yeah, so he hadn't met them and certainly didn't met Jimmy or John Paul Jones.

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42:28Prior to this project coming to be, what do we know about the relationship between those three people? At that point in time, before you reached out, it was apparent to me that of all the groups, the major acts, and they've got to be like in the top three, haven't they? No one does less publicity than they do. Yeah, none. They do none. Yes. I mean, I think when the last big series of reissues came out with the double LPs and the CDs, I don't think a robot plot jump or genus to the single interview or post of any time in their social media. The last two things I remember, anyone doing where there was a concert that was filmed and recorded.

43:17Were they, were they changed the way the songs were presented? Oh yes, yes, yes, with that was Robert and Robert and Jimmy. And that was sometime maybe in the 80s? Or 90s. I actually saw that show by, how was it? Fantastic. Yeah. Pure chance. Friend had a spare ticket. It was, no media. And it was, I knew someone. They said, do you want to come? So, these are all these interesting things. I'd actually got lucky and seen these things. those are two young to sing, Zeppelin. So all these things at kind of the pointing the way this is your film, you know? And then, you know, I got a last minute ticket to see the O2 shows as well.

43:52Yeah, and O2 show also there was no publicity. There was one show, it was announced, they did the show and that was it. Yeah, exactly. So I think it's fantastic, that's what I love about them. If they don't do any of that stuff, I mean, like, you know, the thing that's exciting that Zeppelin is Well, I often wondered, apart from the musicianship, which is, you know, let's say apart from the extraordinary musicianship and the songwriting production, if I think what makes them very exciting is when they appeared in 69 as the Beatles were essentially falling apart. Yes. This group appears that literally has no Beatles in its DNA whatsoever.

44:36And of all the big groups, even Pink Floyd, there's elements of Beatles in there. There's zero Beatles in the Zeppelin to my ears. And I think that was what the public needed and wanted after this massive almost decade long in factuation influence of the Beatles. This group appears to be so different in its DNA that it caught their interest. You know? There's a moment in the film where you show the album chart with Led Zeppelin number one in Beatles number two. And I'll say, it's a shocking thing to see because the Beatles are still the Beatles. Exactly. You know, as you said, they're hugely, hugely important and fantastic group.

45:25And yet Zeppelin is so different. Yeah. And I love Jimmy says in the movie, He played on everybody's records, except the Beatles. It's like no beat or skidding. Yeah. And as you say, he's so interesting. He's not interested in everyone. It's like it's almost like it's destiny. This thing is, you know, and those things are exciting things where something comes in and it's the polar opposite of whatever dominated the thing for 10 years. Those are the things that are exciting. But they're also, they're the most difficult things to break through because nobody in the business gets it. Yeah, there's no point of reference for it.

46:03Yeah, it's brand new. It's a little bit of a new environment. You can't stand them. Yes. No record company in Britain was interested in paying an advance for them. Incredible, and listen to that album. Yeah. You know, if you talked to Glenn Johns, which I, you know, did extensive background interviews, he brought that lacquer of album one and played it to all the prominent people in the music business. He told me he played the mid -jagged. He said, he's getting them on the Rolling Stone circus. Jagged like, don't get it at all, he said. and hired Jethro Tullin instead. He played it to, certainly to George Harrison, I can't really play it to other Beatles and Pete Townsend.

46:40He played it to all these people. So, and then happened with the Beatles. Right. Yes, exactly. Nobody would sign the Beatles if you did it. Exactly. Yes, you're absolutely right. Yeah, it was like rock bands are finished, isn't it? Yeah. It's over. Because they were kind of like, they had that Motown thing they loved, but they were really a throwback to the, their big things were, you know, the cricket and the cricket and Karl Perkins, those songwriting rocker -billies. That's what they liked. And that was considered in late 1960, that was completely out of date, wasn't it? God knows what those record companies were wanting to throw us into, you know?

47:17I mean, it was all Bobby DARREN and all this kind of, it was definitely going super middle of the road, wasn't it? I think that's what the industry wanted. I think the industry wanted to get rid of these drug -taking, pot -smoking, rock -abiding musicians and replace them with entertainers again, you know. What do you think Moodle and Zeppelin, Zeppelin? It's the sheer technical ability of these four master musicians. I can say that having made this film, it's been, you know, year is editing this film and however tricky it was to get it to the film it is now in terms of like the way it's sequenced.

48:00When the performances were played in the edited bay every single time I heard them my heart would jump for joy how amazingly sounded I never got bored with that music. I was never less than elated when that music came in. So it's a The combination is like from the ground up, you know, bottoms drumming, absolutely mind -boggling. I mean, he's a jasa. He's a jasa with strong love of soul music. He's not a rocker. He's not on the floor at all. Everything swings with bottoms. So the first thing you've got is a rhythm section that swings, and I think that's so many of the groups that want to be inspired by that Xepplin.

48:41Unfortunately, they don't get it. that what makes Zeppelin works is the rhythm section swings. Yeah. People misscaical Zeppelin for heavy metal. Yeah. And it's totally not... And then you move to John Paul Jones, who literally didn't tell me, did not understand what music was. As it was in the late, you know, 60s. This is not his thing at all. So he comes in with a whole different... So you listen to these things like good times, bad times, the opening track. I mean, he's playing like Motown style bass lines on his songs. I mean, no Convert Rock bass player would think of the thing he plays. So there's, he's got him with John Bonham.

49:23So you have Bonham's extraordinary patterns. He's driving a sociable figure, it showed up technical flaws in how every movie is delivered for cinema. I could hear errors in the way that the DCP, which is the thing that lives in the way that had been packaged because Bonham's drumming is so sophisticated. It shows up if things aren't in sync. Then you got Jonesy coming in weaving in and out of that with his extraordinary imagination. Again, this is the kind of poem countless types of music. And then Jimmy, I mean, we opened the film, the second song you hear is the Johnny Bennett Trio train kept rolling and I got an original 45 of that you know and it's just the sound of that is so ferocious it's so exciting there's no drums on it it's a double bass electric and rhythm guitar and a vocal and I think I talk to the Jimmy that track is like a total touch stone for him so you have Elvis in Memphis and he's working for electrical company and he was the driver and the electrician was Johnny Bennett.

50:33So these two guys are in a truck together. And Elvis goes to Sun and does the sessions with Sun with this wonderful, subsoaring voice. And Johnny is the hardcore feral rocker Billy and he does those initial records for Coral, like Train kept rolling. I mean that's as bad as aggressive as you can get and I think it's just Jimmy's meat. That sound. Yes. I remember playing Howling Wolf with him and he was like, he just like, his face lights up. That kind of real feral, edgy roar. So you got that in there and then he was showing me his house, Jimmy. He had this collection of like early Arabic music.

51:15These are records from the 50s that he had as a kid. So this is satan music and these are rare records that they'll put out, you know, his master's voice and you could tell these were original copies he'd had from childhood. So that whole Eastern music thing, he was into that from his childhood. So all that's in the mix. And he has this enormously broad session career. And then Robert, Robert had sung in almost every star he could imagine before that flame. He's like a Trubidor, you know? Yeah. So he'd been a mod, he'd been a soul singer, he'd been a Tom Jones type singer. As he said, throwing it against the wall, seeing if it sticks.

51:56But there was this big passion for blues. And just before Zerplin, you know, I came across all these recordings he had made with Alexis Corner, who was like the father of British blues. And it's Robert singing and you can hear this sort of template emerging and this different voice emerges. He do all these things, but he describes in the film, you know, that as a kid going to suddenly boy with him sitting on the American folk loose tour at the Birmingham town hall was like a life -changing experience. And so I think it's the combination of these guys coming together with all their different interests.

52:30And the fact that unlike most groups, their meeting as relative strangers in that room, you know, Clark and John Bonham knew each other and they played some groups together. But as Robert says, you know, John Bonham's lovely wife had said, don't play with that planted. Don't go near him, visitors asked it. So they were kind of like, you know, it's just sort of almost a co -operation. Because we think of Barnum as the outlaw character in the band, but it was Robert. Yeah, I think Robert's the most outlawish. He's the most outlawish. He was the one he was thrown out of his house by his parents. Yeah.

53:06You know, so the great thing also about the Zeppelin stories, if you're you're a kid and you're setting out on your journey, Whatever that journey might be and you have something you want to do that is not what Your school your parents are telling you should be doing whatever it might be You are one of the four members of Led Zeppelin on that journey So they're archetypes their archetypes. So John Paul Jones his parents of orderville entertainers So they're in the theater business the only difference is that John Paul Jones is father things, basic guitars and novelty instrument. In two years' time, it will never be heard of again.

53:44Get yourself a saxophone, you'll always work. It's my favorite line in the film, I love it. It's very funny. He has no talent on a basic guitar. He did, um, he did, um, um, shaking all over by Johnny Kidney Pirates and the bass thundering through the, through the jukebox, because that's what I want to play. And so, you know, he goes on that journey with, so he grew up literally standing on the wings of these shows. Then you have Jimmy, who's, I relate to a lot because his mother, like mine, was very supportive of his music and all his school friends that he introduced us to, remembered Patricia's mom as like encouraging them to rehearse in the living room.

54:27And whereas Jimmy's father was more like get your studies done, what's always guitar business, but the mother was sore something and she he encouraged it. And then you have John Bonham, who's parents are neutral, but they're, as long as you're paying for your kid and your wife, that's fine with this music, but there's always a job for you at the family building firm. And then the other end of the spectrum is Robert Platt, where parents want him to be a charter accountant. And when he, it merges, he just want to do that. They throw him out of the house. So if you're a kid, you are one of those architects.

55:04That's the full, all the four points in the campus. So that's another thing about the story that struck me is it's usefulness. I thought everyone has an entry point into this story. You're one of those kids. You've got the support of both parents, one parent, neutral or no support. You're one of them. And so those are the things I'm interested in the film that like what's the mean? So none of this film was ever approached in the point of Oh, this could make a lot of money. I never, it never entered my mind. I just remember, I love this nice 12 and boy, with this music making extraordinary score for a movie.

55:42Yeah. So I had the South Pacific story, you know, which is, in South Pacific, it's like the thing about racial harmony and in Led Zeppelin, it's a story of a quest. And we had songs every bit as good as barley, high, or a happy talk with Zeppelin, and days to confuse. Though it's said, you've got this amazing story that's illustrated by communication breakdown, you know? A whole lot of love, rambulon. So to me, it was like, that was what I was thinking. I was thinking of it like a musical. Like I was there. I wanted to make a film that I could go to the Brixton Ritsie like I used to have a teenage and I could watch it three times a year.

56:19Yes. That was the whole thought in my head. I wanted to make that kind of film. I was the best sound possible, you know? And tell you what I was saying. It sounds, it's insane how it sounds. It's so good.

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58:11Tell me when you first met Jimmy Page. So I'd, I'd done all this research, got a storyboard together and so storyboard is where you, you create the film in pictures. So I'd written a script. And then I had this storyboard, a bound storyboard. And this is it here. Oh, fantastic. So it's got a bit tatting now, but this is housed in a 19, these are in, this is a 1920s 78 RPM album and I've taken the wallets out. And so I basically had the whole story depicted through. This is all their childhood. So a series of photographs, both of them and what was going on in their lives at that correct exactly.

59:00So young Jimmy Page. Yeah, Lonnie Donigan. Yeah. John Paul Jones, I hadn't tracked down the church yet. Could John Paul Jones played organ in the church? Yes. So I had this storyboard ready and I reached out, I wrote to Jimmy Page. and said I'd like to meet and I didn't say why I wanted to meet and a meeting was granted. That's odd. Yeah and it transpired when I got to the meeting that he was very familiar with American epic and I'd watched all the films and he had the book and the soundtracks. There were nine So I sort of sat down, he arrived with some like shopping bags which he like a bunch of them as you put down by the door and we were in a hotel and I Pulled the storyboard out and said look I'm got this film and I started walking through the storyboard and he became very animated and was like Making lots of observations that was walking through and it was very kind of meticulous.

1:00:16I can remember, I planned to maybe spend two hours doing this, was seven hours. Wow. I've just absolutely constant conversation. There was only a break in the middle, for we went for half a million tea up the road at the Orangery, which is where half a million tea was invented. Wow. And so we kept seven hours going through. And like not stopping for breath, just I'm walking through and he's adding all these things and additional observations and going, yes, and this was the end of the line. And every now and then he would just fire a question at me. So I think at one point I said, um, so this is the point where you travel up on Terry Reed's recommendation to go and see Robert Plough singing at the teacher's training codenade, I don't think it was.

1:01:04And he turned to me and said, what was the name of the band Andy was in and I'm like, upstreetle. He has very good carry -on.

1:01:14That's the thing. As well as shirt. You know, as well as shirt. I mean, I would, I would. So what happened here is the storyboards, like a hundred pages of images, and there's not a single piece of text written on it. So you're telling the story. You're looking at the images and explaining the story. Yeah, so I have everything committed to memory, every date, every person, every place, it's all committed to memory. And so Jimmy in this process, I mean, it was very enjoyable in Goating, but I realised afterwards that was seven hours of memory that I had to have. I couldn't look up anything. And so at one point I said to him, oh, such and such happened in May.

1:02:01And he sort of thought, he was like, I thought was early June and I went, nah I'm sure it's May, it was something like this and he went, let's check. And he went to the bag, he'd brought, and he took out the bags and poured the bags over the contents of the bags and it was all his diary's going back to 62. Wow, I brought a picture of it here to show you. And so this is that first meeting. Amazing. And those are the diaries in front of him. Yeah, he looks happy. Yes, yes, yes. He's a really, really nice guy. He's a really, really nice person. The Scrabber's personality to me. Super enthusiastic.

1:02:38I mean, total real love of music. Like, he opened up with the dress book and gave me the numbers. He gave the number of odd wire. He was still very close to who taught him his first chords on his guitar. And I met Rod and Rod was this just wonderful kid. Still this kid. It was like approaching 18 because his kid and he had this passion and I recognized and I met all Jimmy's friends I went he's got the same passion for music he did when he was 13 14 15 he's never lost it that thing of music he has is totally unjaded and so when we were talk about things and we were talk about pieces of music that were entering the story he just eyes would lie up when he was recording Johnny he still feels the same way about the record like when he first heard it.

1:03:28So I think what I loved about like to back him was just the joy, the excitement in it. There was no cynicism, once you're... When you're in the circle and you're just talking about the stuff, real enthusiasm. Do you get the sensitivity still plays? Yes, so... I mean, he came out and did like a year ago, he did a... they were inducting Leapen Ray into the rock and roll hall of fame. He came out and like, completely out of the house and turned up and played rumble, you know? At that, like a fucking champ. I mean, it's so powerful. Actually, I haven't asked him, like, do you sit and play? I mean, if I'm making a film with somebody, my relationship really centers around with them on the film.

1:04:19Yes. And so I kind of like to keep that relationship about the period that I'm covering. So if it's from childhood to 1970, I quite like to stay in that zone with the subject. So when they meet me, their head's totally in that zone. And so if you watched it, you see the film. They're never in the film talking, looking at it now, this is what I think. I wish they'd known it. They're in the moment, they're walking you through the film, they're living it in real time. Unless someone starts chatting away, we some of them do about things. I don't probe into like the day -to -day specifics of how he might play today or whatever.

1:05:03I guess my view is that that's a whole lot of book. Yeah, the film is not who they are today. The film was a moment in time. Yeah. And we're living it with them. Exactly. So the first thing I went through is when he's talking, the first thing I'm looking is like, I'm with this guy, and He can see you making America for love. You don't make America anything to make money Yeah, you make it because it's an important story It needs to be told and it's the last window before anyone that was there is dead. Yeah, and that was the thing the fuel depot and He could tell when I walked into that room that I actually loved this story and I thought this story was meaningful and it was the world would be a better place, particularly for kids if the true story of how this group did what they did was out there.

1:05:49And I just saw all those sort of tabloidy books that were published in the 80s about largely written by people that went on a jumbo jet with them for a day, a week or so, and hung out of some parties. Well, that's not how you get from 1944 to 1970. That's a whole bunch of insane work to get you to that place. And so, when I'm talking with him, what was really interesting and he was like, he just got really enthused. He was like literally brought back that time as we were going through the pages and because the film, as you see, is quite thorough in each of these stages. I thought I was probably talking to him for two or three hours before we even got to Gerard Street.

1:06:30Wow. So he was going so into this world And what was nice, I think, for him was that I had learned all this stuff, or as much as I could. And so it became very collegial, and you'd be filling the even things. Well, actually, it was also this, and there was this. And so I could tell straight away he was collaborative. Yes. So the other thing that's really lovely about Jimmy Page is I know there's this sort of image of him as just an iconic guitarist. And of course, you know, state, you know, he is this. But the thing I thought was interesting meeting him and is at the core of I think of Zeppelin stories, he's actually a very collaborative person in my experience.

1:07:11So when he meets Robert Plan, who's this 19 year old kid singing an OBS tweedle and is just recommended by Terry Reed, he wouldn't have had any way of hearing Robert Plan. I mean Robert had made some records but it was so obscure. Jimmy wouldn't have been able to get in. And Jimmy was already both a cap studio musician and in the artboards. In the artboards, absolutely. Which were a significant band. Yeah, and I met Shell Talmy, you know, I did about 170 interviews as background research this film. Wow. I'm retorting the Shell Talmy. And he said, if you were trying to make a contemporary record and you couldn't get Jimmy Page or John Paul Jones, forget it.

1:07:52If you needed, you needed additional musicians to supplement a group because you didn't think the group was tight enough to play the F -F -A single or whatever. So they were the sound of British music at that time. Oh yeah. Unspoken. Yes. Behind the scene. Yes. But they were the sound. Ready. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Those were the guys. And Shell Tami said, it ain't happening if you know I've heard those guys on it. Wow. And then she was trying to do some middle of the right. If you don't see something, it's men of sound. Contemporary. It's many of these sounds are teenage audience. If you can't get those guys, forget it.

1:08:25That's how highly they regarded it. Yeah, it was also a remarkable hearing that the famous telecaster was given to him by Jeff Beck. Right, yes, I think he told me that, I mean, there were childhood friends. I think he said, Jeff made a guitar himself. I don't know why I thought he was a bass, I can't remember, he made a guitar, I heard the impression it was quite crudely fashioned, you know, sort of, they go way back and he said it was all about, I mean, they love James Burton, they loved him. I mean, I was a kid and I heard, believe what you say, that single. Good god, that Burton solo rips out.

1:09:03Is that even a human being playing this thing? It is, it's mind -boggling. So you said they were all like, let's hear your version of My Babe, and we'll be in one of Ricky Nelson's tracks. So those kids, they were like, of the rock and roll records, James Burton, was the real touchstone guitarist. And he doesn't get props Ricky Nelson now, but those records are amazing. And it's Burton. You know, Burton's a guitarist on Suzy Kee. That's him. Age, Ricky 60. How do you know that? Yeah, that's James Burton. Wow. Dale Hawkins, one of my second ever concerts I went to. Yeah, but anyway, so he goes up to see Robert Plant and obviously he's impressed and invites him to his house in Pangbourne to try him out.

1:09:47And you know, it's a well -known story. He says, I want to do a reinterpretation of this Joan Bias recording, you know, Babe I'm going to leave him. I've got this idea of how to do it. And he's plant scenes and he's totally thrilled with it. And they both know this is something incredible. And at that point he tells Robert, you know, we've got this band together. And Robert's like, no, no, no, no. Whatever drumming you've got in mind, you've got to see this guy I know. And I think this is, tells you about Jimmy Page and why he's different from other people. He is the most experienced session musician in London.

1:10:27He's played with all the greats period. Exactly. And he's in the yard, but so he's been in the counterculture. He's seen all those musicians up on the west coast. I mean, who's had more experience? Yeah, he listens to this 19 year old kid and he goes to some gig with Tim Rose to watch this kind of drama. And I just think how many people, if you're 24, whatever he was then, 24 and a 19 year old, that you think it's a good thing, I said, you're going, oh, sorry, kid, because in the 19, 24, that's a big age difference. Yes. And yet he listens to him. I think there's a lot that tells you about Jimmy Page that he's got this incredible focus vision about what he wants to do.

1:11:11And I think this is the aspirational, but yet he's open to ideas. And so when I was going through with him, I felt he's a collaborator. And all he wants to know is that you're the right singer, or you're the right filmmaker. So when it got to the end of the presentation, I said, he said, how do you want to do this? And I said, well, I want to do it with everyone. all the bad things and he goes, ah, so that's a bit more of a task. And he says, you know, he said, you only have to get the other two on board. And I said, yeah, and he said, well, I'll help it anyway. I can. You know, and I said, you didn't speak for the others.

1:11:45No, not at all. Yeah. No, so it's very much like a kind of a democracy. Yeah. And yeah. And then he indicated this would not be super easy. Yes. Absolutely. You know, he would be supportive and helpful. He'll be supportive. What's the next step? So I said, the other thing, Jimmy, is it needs to be an independent production. I'm making this as an important historical film. As you can see, I'm bringing into full film together. I want to make a film focusing on music and this musical journey, it's inspiration, it goes, so it needs to be an independent film, it goes, that's fine. You make the film.

1:12:21And so, from then on, you know, I went to track down John Paul Jones. and he hadn't seen American Epic, so I sent a copy of the American Epic films to his manager and said, would you just ask him to watch 20 minutes of this? And if he's not interested, you'll never hear from us again. I think it was a day or two later, I got a phone call from the manager and says, he wants to meet you in the tomorrow. Great you're free. So we met at this club in Chizek and I sat down with him And that was an magical meeting because John Paul Jones is the most press shy, does the least amount of media of a group that does no media.

1:13:07And John Bonne -Mepham, let's... Yeah, for John Paul Jones. No, John Paul Jones might have done the least media of any of them. Yeah. He doesn't feel any compunction to be like, glathering to the press at all. Yeah. So I'd done a huge amount of research on him, And I was fascinated by his story. And so I sat down with him and started walking through the storyboard. And the first thing that struck me that I'd never seen in the few fragments of bits and pieces down was he's an incredibly charismatic guy. Really funny. I mean, you see in the film, can't you? I mean, he is a natural raccontour. And I was saying, I mean, I have to say, I was looking for a filmmaker's point of view and I was saying, this guy is absolute gold.

1:13:48This was him comfortable and relaxed in a private place and I'm walking through and I'm talking through all these details about his childhood and his musical background. He has a tons of stuff like two hours before we get to the first episode and I'm into this and you can see how I'm interested in this stuff. And so he's like piling in all that he had lots of stuff that is not known because he is he's the most mysterious of any of the zeppelin things. If you look online before me, so there's not even a picture of his parents anywhere. Which is unheard of with an act of that magnitude. There's always little bits and pieces.

1:14:25He is incredibly mysterious figure. So he's every bit as mysterious as life as the 1920s believe that. How would you say the meeting with John Paul Jones and Jimmy were different? Jimmy's meeting was very focused on all the details that make up the hull. And Jimmy has this real attention's detail like it's all the bricks make the giant castle. And so he's going through and you're going talking through the hull film. And he's essentially trying to ensure that all the pieces are there. Yes. And if there's any additional things he's going, well that led to this and this is to this. And then this is, you know, so he's like checking all the wiring.

1:15:13John Paul Jones was more of a racon term. And so he was like a great after dinner speaker. He would try and give you the feel of those times. So he was really was someone trying to evoke like when he would talk about the Vorderville careers of his parents, he'd really try and bring you into those theatres with those acts. When he's playing his little band and he's chatting to this, because all those little bands they play in youth clubs and youth clubs would generally run by churches. And so this preacher comes up to him and says, do you play the organ? And John plays a bit of piano. He kind of goes, oh yeah, like he says, well, we're looking for an organ.

1:15:55Is that me also need an organ? And John's, he's just 14, just says, I can get you an organ. And the priest who's actually a young priest, I think he's only like 24 or something. The Rev Gordon Bates, I found out later. I tracked him down the priest. He was still alive, he's now 90. Wow. The loveliest man. So he's the one when I tracked him down. He provided all the photographs you see of the church with the congregation. Because that church, Jonesy goes to, It was bulldozed like a couple of years later in 64. I think he was there in about 61. And so all that stuff is like completely lost to time and the red golden base and the red golden base also had always old cuttings, including a picture of John Jones's first band, The Shadows at the youth club.

1:16:45He had a photograph of that. And so amazing stuff. And so Jones he was really good at evoking these places and the atmosphere. And I just found like how I was in these streets with him. He talked about as a little boy. He wanted to be a studio musician. And he didn't get his dad to set it up for him. He went down to this street in London where all the musicians would congregate called Archistreet, which is in Soho. And it would be like, you need to both play, you need a drummer, like this. And he's there with these old, grizzled, old session musicians, this little kid with his bass guitar and he gets a gig playing with one of the shadows, you know, Tony Mean.

1:17:24And so, I remember thinking with him, he was very effective at giving you a feel of places what atmosphere is we're like. And so, you see in the film, he's the one that really is quite evocative about being in that room in that first rehearsal. And he's like, there's always equipment and it's like, he's so and so, meat so and so. So, I thought he was brilliant because he made me feel like I was in these rooms in these studios. At the end of that first meeting with him, did you get the sense this could happen? He said at the end of the, he said, he's been very engaged, you could hold up. But he didn't make any comment on the, on the overall film.

1:18:03And he just looks at me and he's had this sort of half smile, a somewhat impassive expression. And looks at goes, by the way, this is me excited. When can we start? Wow! Wow, amazing. So next is Robert. He's, yeah. Tell me about that. Ah, so Robert was the only person that was aware of us. We were on his radar, as I said, through American Epic. The person that really got me started in the entertainment business was Brian Eno. I was working on a multimedia project called Tarring and Furnow. And Brian Eno, I'd gone to see him and asked for his help, which he very, very kindly extended to us. And he was a very important thing about the Holocaust.

1:18:47I was the only Gentile in all Jewish production. And Brian lent enormous support and guidance to help get this thing. And I got the sound track signed to Ireland Records. And Brian recommended, I said, look, he said, you need an experience, for us, and helping you navigate getting in funding for this and doing so you recommend this amazing manager called David James, who managed Jar Wobble and all these people like this. And Justin was a member of Invaders of the Heart, Jar Wobble's band Justin Adams. So these were the guys that got me into the business on the music side. And so Justin and I had stayed in touch through David James and Justin then had become Robert's musical director for many, many albums of the year, they were very close and all those wonderful things were they were going and playing in the desert and stuff like this.

1:19:40That was all with Justin because Justin's area is like Rob is hugely broad in that musical area. So Justin had been telling him about these guys he knew that were trampling around the south and had found photographs of Henry Thomas, photographs of such a thing. So, occasionally I think some of these things we were founding that I was texting and these things, Justin, who've been passed on to Robert. So we met Jimmy, we met Jonesy, and the next thing was to meet Robert. And I was just reaching out to each of them individually in just whatever seemed to be the easiest order. And I didn't say when I made the meeting, I've met with Sohn Sohn.

1:20:21And normally at the end of the presentation, I think Jonesy might have said, you've seen Jimmy, I said, yeah, I saw him last week. Is he in? I went, you know, he's in, and he goes, and the service was like that. So, Robert had just begun a tour, and one of the first dates on the tour was in Perth, Scotland, which is where my producer Allison McGaute's family are. And so, we went up there and Justin Adams put us on the guest list of the show. And so, we come backstage, and it's this big old theatre full of people. But wonderfully, for some reason, no one had been given backstage passes apart from us.

1:20:58It was like a dream basically. So we're on our own in the backstage, just in the robot strolls in. And comes and gives us really warm greeting. And says, I just want to say how much I've enjoyed American Epic. The films were amazing. The book and everything else. It's always wonderful stuff. And he turns to me and says, what are you going to do next?

1:21:22I said, funny, you mentioned that. We'd like to do you, let's Eflin. And he said, looks at me somewhat blankly. And I brought like a piece of archive. I thought I'm never dream of pitching someone a film at an after show. But I brought something like a piece of proof of where that first rehearsal was. I think I got some paperwork. because it's always been a source of mystery. It's on Girard Street. That's been, no, it's been some people at the Spectralibid. It's generally was understood it was on Girard Street in Soho, which is Chinatown now. But the exact building until we did this film was being lost in the midst of time.

1:22:03So I had some piece of research that I found that indicated the address of where that was. And he was like, I could see his eyebrow race. And then we just changed the subject. And we chatted about lots of things and stuff like that. super friendly and at the end of the evening he just shook hands and said goodbye to Alison and me and then he went out of the room and he stuck his head back in the door and he goes, I know you game and I'm interested, meet me at Sheffield. So a few days later we went down to a show in Fresh Sheffield and we met him there, had this really nice chat but he had loads of people backstage there and then he said, at the end of the evening, he said, meet me in Los Angeles which is what I live.

1:22:46So it's like I know a few, a week or two later, we're back in Los Angeles and we go to see him at the Orphium. And there's wonderful concert, really, really memorable show. And it was quite good with actually, I really loved the concert he was playing. It was like a fantastic concert. I wasn't really doing this version of Bluebirds over the mountain, but it's a terrific show. So I was getting to see these shows, each of these missions that, to watch the show before meeting him. But I really enjoyed that show. So it was kind of very memorable that whole thing but if you go back stage in our sandwiches It must be like 200 people then he comes in says a quick polite hello.

1:23:20He talks to every single person in the room Really politely goes to more so it's like two hours later and eventually I said to us and I Was happy says no stay and eventually everyone's gone. It's this giant room and he's standing against one more With his manager Nicolet and we're at the other one then he just walks over and comes over and says and we're gonna do this And I said, yeah, and he goes, meet me in Birmingham. So, you go on a plane, go to Birmingham. And then, God bless him. He walks into the hotel and standing next to him is Pat on him. Wow! And so I thought, you lovely man, you've spoken to Pat, you've told her about who we are.

1:24:01You haven't been pitched to film, but you obviously, you obviously tell. You understood. Yeah, it was very, it was heartwarming. He, a kid called her, I said, we should come to this. And I just sat down and went through it. And she came, she was so lovely, she came as part of photographs. You know, I'd never been seen before, John Bonham, all these images. And they chatted through and, when Robert saw the story, he was really funny. And I just saw this side of him, I'd never seen the media for so open, like, kind of wanting to be understood. and we're going through the story. I remember he could see his spirits rays when he saw it went up to 1970.

1:24:45Yeah. That was when it ended. And I kind of mentioned this with him, and he said, this is so wonderful to say, because this was a really wonderful time for me. Yes. He said it was before it was all kind of formalized being into it. So he said, we're playing to these wonderful hippie girls dancing. And he said, and there was no plan. We were just winging it. Now of course Jimmy had a plan, but it was this energy. I understood. And I totally got it. I think he saw, yes, this film. And even though Jimmy had a plan, there's no telling what's gonna happen. Absolutely. There's no telling. So for this was like, this was all these things.

1:25:24So I brought a little piece of paper up that was said, like, I think I got it here. I brought this little piece of paper up that was like, we're gonna do this film, you know, kind of thing so I could have something. No law or anything like that, he just signed it straight away with Pat. This is incredible. Yeah. This is incredible. Yeah. He was like, I'm in. Wow. Great guy. So then we set up the enthusiasm. We have this, we have a meeting with all of them, all three of them together. And how's that? And how are they different together versus independently. Well, you know that rhythm that you have that people like they just have a...

1:26:06It's all of us, you know, when we have like... If you put me in the room with my brother and my dad, I'm going to talk differently than if I'm on my own. It's no different from any of those things. You just get a slightly different rhythm to the people, you know? One person might be quieter than they are when they're with you. Yes. Another person might be louder. Yes, it was one of those things that is very when you make documentary films, this is very common. Yes. Tell me the differences though. Tell me in the group meeting, what was different? Well, I mean, this is a meeting to really formally decide we're going to do this film kind of thing.

1:26:45Are we going to let you... Are we going to allow you to make this film? In the sense you can't make a documentary about some without the permission to use the music. So I think in terms of that meeting, what was really cool about it was that they agreed that the film and supported the film, we should have complete artistic freedom to make the film. So collectively they agreed that, and I thought that was unprecedented in terms of like an act of that magnitude. And so they never lost a frame of the film. And so they're not producers of the film, but it was very personable. They're very individually, very entertaining and charming people to be with, but when I was with the three of them together, that was the first time I had this sense of like, this is like a major organisation.

1:27:40There was something about the gravitas of the three of them in the room together. Probably even for them. Yeah. I mean, those meetings the rest, I understand, you know, was very kind of them to organize that, you know. So, yeah, you felt like you were at a summit meeting of like these almost these three countries or something. Very cool. It was very, yeah. So that was the point. So it was like, you know, when they agreed to this artistic freedom and they were like, yeah, you make it. Looking back on it, why I felt was really ingenious and we required it, but it wasn't like something we had to kind of like push for.

1:28:16What was really smart about is that when they made a decision as a group that they were going to do something and as you know the last one was the O2. So these are very rare these things. And that's one of the wonderful things about that's happened is they're not pushing product down people's throat. They let the music stand for itself as I see it.

1:28:42What I I'm in this place that no one's allowed to be in to make this film and they've given me the freedom to make it. So it'd be bloody good, you know, because you've got no one to blame by yourself if there's not working. Yeah. I thought that was on so many levels, it's smart, you know. And so we set about putting the thing together and then we did the interviews with them. And first the other thing, as we've mentioned, is that if you have incredible memories, like way better than mine, like astonishingly good memories, don't forget, I've done 175 background interviews with everyone from Vic Flick to Glenn Johns to, you know, rev Gordon Bates.

1:29:20Yes. None of which is in the movie. It's just the information you need to make the movie. Yes. Only voices in the movie are the better. Oh, there. Because... And the music. Because they're alive, apart from John. Yes. And so, let the audience, they've agreed to let them talk, go into up and tell the story. So I knew after meeting them, I thought they're reliable witnesses. So I've done this at eight months of, I was obviously very familiar with their zeppelin before, but I've done eight months of hardcore research. And so I'm aware when I'm talking to some of the other credible witnesses, do they remember things correct?

1:29:54How did you find the Bynum audio interviews? So I thought thinking, well, if we have all three of them talking, we have to have John and there. And I thought, God, this is a high bar because he was superpress wary. And so I thought, I've got to try and track down something with him talking. And I remember Robert saying, because I think I said to them, I want to have John to have an equal presence. And I remember Robert saying, how are you going to do that? It's like, I don't recall hearing anything of him talking more than the few sentences. And I said, we'll find it. And I think he said something like, well, he did American epic, I guess.

1:30:33You found all that stuff from the 20s. So how I did that was, I tracked down every interview that John had done in the print media and anywhere else. And I contacted all the journalists. Most of whom were alive and said, did you have a tape? And in most cases, they either have done shorthand or they've discarded the table, what have you been. And eventually I'm talking to Sam Repallo, who runs the Led Zeppelin website, who's a huge repository of Led Zeppelin material. And he passes on this bootleg recording of an interview with Robert and John, and it's like a really good interview. It's a short excerpt, but it's excellent journalist and the sound quality was not good enough to using the kind of film we make for a cinema.

1:31:25It was like third or fourth generation, but I could tell it was originally from a quarter inch tape. And I could tell it was also a radio journalist because he was not talking over them and he was Australian accent. And so I contacted the University of Canberra in Australia, which is where radio tapes in Australia, that's where they get sent if someone can be bothered to send them in. Unfortunately, the University of Canberra We've done a giant American epic festival. So they were helpful. You had a relationship. I had a relationship. So I sent through the tape, an excerpt of the tape with the journalist speaking and saying, can you identify who this is?

1:32:01And they identified him as this journalist from a Sydney radio station. And he was a stringer that had obviously been doing this interview in advance of their first Australian tour. I went to the radio station, they said we don't have that tape. So I went back to the University of Canberra and said, has this tape ever been sent to you? And they looked and they went, no, we don't have it. And then before I put the phone down, I said, how many unmarked reels do you have? And they went thousands. Because doing epic old found that with the Library of Congress and these things, there are pallets of stuff that get bequeathed to them that they receive.

1:32:41but it can take years to process that material. So they said thousands of unmarked reels. And so I persuaded them to start looking through the unmarked reels. And I think it was a couple of months later. I got a phone call and they said, go to your email. I opened up the email and there was an MP3 transfer. And it was that interview and it sounded bloody amazing. Wow. And so I persuaded them to send a real great in to our end point audio where our engineer Nick Burgundy transferred it was fantastic. I was just like the dream interview. So many comments from him that other band members hadn't said.

1:33:21Wow. And then after that we found two other American interviews that just discovered shorter ones. And between those three, there he was. Yes. And I said he was never doubling up what the rest of the band said. And he was talking about all these things at the moment. I remember Jimmy sort of saying, he said in the funny sort of ways that the star, the show, isn't he? Because he said he's right there in the moment because his interview was so close to the events when they're happening. So he's got, he's fresh and he's got all these perspectives. So those were the elements that came together and when the band turned up to the interviews, I said all of them turned up with bags of photographs and sound recordings.

1:34:04Everything I'd never seen before. So different groups in this past, but also a lacquer of this track that's even John Bonham and in their group Robert Clark and the band of Joy called Memory Lane, they'd written together and no one had ever heard that before. So cool. Yeah, and so he said, there you go, have this. And all of them, John Paul Jones, or just, I think this is anything that's zeppelin. That's the world's say, I mean, I always speak for them, you know, but what I did notice, and there's the less I said the kids, when they go for it, they go for it. Yes. They do it properly. They don't hold back.

1:34:39And I think there's those infusing in the film. They're super candid. Those are people really telling you what they feel. Where did the footage come from of the live performances? I searched everywhere, Bar the Mariana Trench for any existing footage. So there were two or three known performances that were filmed from that time and a lot of material that isn't been seen before, but there were two or three known forms. So the first thing I would do is I would track down the filmmakers or whoever had filmed it, I'd go to those facilities and I'd go through and get all the rushes and the original elements.

1:35:17So with this film, everything you see in the screen has been in our hands. So, you know, like here, so this is the actual negative for the performance of days and confused. Amazing. This is what comes into our hands. So we have all these pieces. back in the days of the 40s and 50s, sound was like the one of the highest priorities in the Hollywood movies, and really hence the enormous attendance figures that movies used to have then. Now sound is kind of a bit of an afterthought in films. And so when we get these films in here, what we're doing is we're transferring the original film where we're able to really high -quality scans.

1:35:54But what makes this difference is that Nick Burg is probably one of the best transfer for engineer on the planet, for pulling audio off all these different mediums, because he did the American Epic film. So he didn't just like learn how to transfer 78. He has the original recording system. Each ear of Hollywood, he has all the original mixing desks. So we were working on the mixing desks that they mix Oklahoma. I see. Yeah. And so he understands all that material. He is able to record this stuff going in And so he knows what he's meant to be hearing when he's getting the original lags or the elements, what's meant to be coming out.

1:36:34And so, you know, I experienced that when we were using the original 1920s recording kit for American Epic, I suddenly knew how the 78s were going to sound because I was making them. I was making them with Willie Nelson and Nas and Jack, why could he hear what these things are going to sound like. So when I would get the 78s from the 20s, I would know what was the product of deficiencies on that disc as opposed to what the actual wax disc it was cut to sounded like. You know, see all these things that you get to learn from. The real medium brings something to the recording positive or negative.

1:37:11Correct. It always does something like we fetishize vinyl because it sounds so good, but it doesn't sound like what the tape sounds like. It sounds like vinyl. Exactly right. And so that's the fundamental thing of the movie. When you watch it, is that what you're listening to? So with those episodes' support, we have access to master tapes, remasters of this episode material. But from Epic, I also started listening to the original discs. And I remember thinking, what are we going to give the public? As you mentioned, when you make a record, it sounds different. Yeah. There are three steps in that process.

1:37:51You have your quarter -inch master that Glenn Johns and Jimmy mixed down in Olympic for Led Zeppelin one. Then that goes to Atlantic and a production master's made and various things are done to that tape to get it ready for being cut. Then stage three, a lackey risk cut by a George Pirus or Bob Ludwig. And that has a huge amount of stuff done to it, as you know. So in the case of, say, Zeppelin II, Bob Ludwig hugely gooseed that cutting of that record. So that it has this extraordinary sound. In fact, that record is so loud that after they pressed the first, I don't know, 250 ,000 of them, they were getting complaints from people that had cheap turn tables because the needle is moving, you know, when you play a record, the volume is created by the needle moving more violently.

1:38:48So you have more dramatic peaks and trust for the needle to be passing through and that creates the volume. And so in the cheap record player, the needle will jump out. And so that Ludwig cut is like magical. And so I started assembling all these records. And I when I bought it. So I had to buy a whole bunch of these, what appeared to be very first pressing sealed, hoping that there would be one of the Ludwig versions in there. And then similarly, this is like the legendary, you know, first turquoise pressing of Zeppelin -1. But my favorite version, when I was playing it, is this version here.

1:39:34Did you A, B, the sound, none all the way? I mean, we have masses of copies of these records. But I'm saying you would pick based on what sounded good, not based on what you thought was... What sounded good. What reported to be the best? Yes. You always went by what sounded bad. All my ears. So yeah, with these records, what you have here is in America, I think there are four pressing plants, a pressing Zeppelin one. And each of them have different cutting engineers, all approaching, and this tape is a tricky tape. there's some azimuthist use on Zeppelin one, the production master that was made by Atlantic.

1:40:11And so they're trying to work correct for this. And so all these lacquer cuts are very different and the British ones different. So we must have had about, I don't know, 16, 17 versions of what were you playing them back on? Oh, we were at endpoint, probably the best playbacks of Lave on the planet. And so we're going through these. And what I noticed is these original records, they have a quality to them. There's a quality of the sound. I went, this is what the public heard. This is what excited the public. And I thought, why don't we in this film give the public what they heard in 1969, but on the best copy of that disco on planet earth played back on the best high -fi on planet earth.

1:40:56not hereable other than in your movie today. Yeah, you can't hear this. Yeah, you can't hear this. But it's the truest sound to what was originally intended, because of course, when these were made, when Jimmy's in the band are in the studio, making these records, they completely know that the endpoint is that disc. Yes. The master tape is not going to be distributed. No. And in fact, the master tape is made knowing in mind that all these things are going to be done to it. Yes. So in the case of this example here, Led Zeppelin II. This is this extraordinary cut by Robert Ludwig, which I remember Jimmy saying to me, this is the way to hear Zeppelin II, is this particular pressing.

1:41:33Wow. Now this is made at one of the plants called Presswell. Atlantic when notorious for using bad, impure vinyl to save money. So Atlantic Pressens are traditionally quite noisy. So this one here happened to be what we call a really good clean puck, and it's in one the best pressing plants. And so this one was incredibly clean copy. So what we did is we're presenting this and this is in the film with no equalization, no compression, all we've done is if there's any minor clicks in the transfer, they're manually removed. So you're hearing the music, the way it was intended, the day it came out and we're serving it to like a pineapple cut off the and co -I sliced in half and put on your plate.

1:42:22That's what we're doing musically. And it sounds, I've been listening to Led Zeppelin music for as long as it's been around, and I've never heard it sound like it sounds in the movie, and it's the willing. It is the willing, breathtaking. However you did it, it worked. So for me, when you hear the recordings that are the studio recordings, like Little Richard and Johnny Benet, you're again hearing the original disc was those original lack of cuts as they were done. And if you know a bit about, like, early recording, those 50s records, like the chess records, you know, howling more from things like that or the early rock and roll records.

1:43:07Those cutting engineers were applying reverb as the lack of was being cut. So when you listen to the original Chuck Berry records from the 50s, that's the only way you'll hear that original sound is getting the original records. You can't be... You also sped up often with the Chuck Berry records. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, so I've forgotten about that. Yeah. Because they wanted Chuck's voice to sound younger. So they sped up the records. So there's this enormous amount of like artistry that goes into cutting those records that 50, 60 years later you can't get back to. So what I'm interested in the film is if you want to make a two -hour film about Led Zeppelin and you think a film about Led Zeppelin is worth an audience spending 20 bucks and sitting in a cinema for two hours do not mess with the music.

1:44:00And so my view is we're all here because of this music. So give it to the audience in the purist form you possibly can. And when I go through all the variables, okay, the purist form is what you would have heard the day it came out. When they approved on that test pressing, I went, okay, that's fine. That's the finished article that the public heard. So I'm giving it to you on a system. a copy and a system is beyond anything you could own domestically. If you're doing this story that takes you from 1944 through to when they meet in 68, you're hearing each of those pieces of music that influence them or that they played on like Dolphin.

1:44:43Yeah. You're hearing those records as they were cut in 56, as they were cut in 62, as they were cut in 62. So you're hearing the exact sound of how those records were in business, in each of the years, so that you're taking a musical journey through time, a recording journey through time in the film. There was a damaged piece of film of Jimmy playing acoustic guitar. Where did that come from? He appeared on a BBC TV show called The Julie Felix Show. And she was like a folk singer. They had two tape machines recording the performance, one of which there was some grit or something on the head of the machine and so the recording was damaged that was being made.

1:45:29The other copy was lost years ago. We have searched high and low for that everywhere, not turned up. So all that survived was that damaged tape. But the sound was undamaged. The sound is phenomenal. And so I went to see Melissa Quintas, who is one of the VFX artists for James camera and avatar and she did some restoration work on film footage for American Epic. And I presented this to her and I said, look, we can't afford the budgets of avatar, but would you in your downtime look and see if you can approve this? And she very kindly spent months and months in her, the few hours she had off making avatar, whatever, water, whatever.

1:46:14She would tinker with this and just literally frame by frame, try and paint out the worst of the lines that were running across it. And what she did is compared to the original tape as a miracle. The original tape would induce like an epileptic fit or something watching it. So she did a phenomenal job. So there's no AI whatsoever in the film. Anything we've done is old school. But what was very touching about is I remember screening the film for Jimmy before the restoration was done. Yeah, sometimes you do these screenings to the group, just in case someone watches something goes, oh, I've actually got a photograph of that, you know?

1:46:55And he watches, I don't mean he turns me, goes, I do hope that stays in the film. That clip, he says, because I imagine when you sell this film, there'll be probably people trying to tell you to take it out, because it was very damaged then. It's still damaged, but it's one of the highlights of the film. It's so out of context of anything we've seen of Jimmy playing, we've never seen anything like that sitting down with an acoustic guitar and killing it, which he does. Yeah. It's breathtaking. Thanks. Yeah, and that's the, that's that folk side, that folk eastern, eastern side. What's the first time you got to see the film on a big screen?

1:47:35Director's Guild. I did a rough cut of the film, it tailored the pandemic and the only way we could screen in front of audience was to submit it to the Venice Film Festival and it wasn't finished, but they accepted it and we opened the festival with it and I took it to the Director's Guild Theatre in Hollywood and I screened it on that giant screen. And what was the experience for you? Oh mind blowing. All the work that we put in getting all those original prints, all the original sound, That's when you see it blown up, makes it all worthwhile. But the thing that was the most mind -blowing was that I took the film to, went to New York and I went with Sony Pictures Classics and screened a film for Tom Bernard, who runs that company in his team.

1:48:24He's like the old Hollywood bosses that I read about in David Nivvins' book. I didn't think people like him existed anymore. They weren't shoot from the hit cover guys. No marketing plans, just like do it, you know? And if they're in, they're in and they go for it. So I screened the film for him and I just made some comment and he went, okay, we want to do this, you know? And he had seen Zeppelin live at the Texas Pop Festival in 69 and his head of sales, a guy called Tom Prattis, it's seen the film, that's the guy that sells the film to all the theaters. He had seen Zeppelin on that first talk to them.

1:48:58So what the chances you were the studio with the two key guys had been to see the group in that period that the film's covering, you know, that early period. So I knew you were in the right place. I just turned to Tom and I said, hey, you know, it'll be really cool, I think, with this. I don't like this normal thing where you ram stuff down people's strokes and there's posters, everything, there's giant marketing thing. That's so unzappling as well. But you're really cool with the films introduced, who's like, is that blame? We're back then. Like it just comes in in the underground on the West Coast and gradually word of mouth spreads.

1:49:33And he took that idea and he ran with it. And he called up and he said, oh, you need to go and screen it for IMAX. And he'd approach to IMAX because IMAX have, I don't know, just a limited number of cinemas around America. I know it's like 500 or something like that, they'd got. And so we turn that to IMAX and I have to screen the film, test screen at iMacs before all the heads of iMacs watch it. I never win my wildest dreams imagined that our movie would be on in iMacs and I'm sitting watching it and it comes up on the screen and I was like, Jesus, this was made for iMacs. He really was. And I know that this is where music films live is in iMacs because you know what it's like, Rick, when you have the musical things, you kind of want to be in that world.

1:50:20Yes. So your dream is to be inside the biggest speaker system and to be completely enveloped. No one wants to listen to music through a teeny transistor, you know what I mean? You want to hear it big. So I'm in there. And of course, all that work we killed ourselves to get our hands on every single film print, every photograph. And everything scanned at this extraordinary high level so it could be literally projected on the Embar -State building. You know? So when I'm getting into IMAX, I was going, thank God we did all that work. because you can blow this thing up, huge. So I'm watching it in there, and amazingly I'm actually saying, we'll do it.

1:50:57So what he had done, which was clever, is we ended up having this exclusive run in I'm Act. So it's a limited number of cinemas. And the whole opening two days sold out. To me as well. So it was like the way Zeppelin was launched. He didn't set up a single review or anything like that, no media. He just invited a bunch of interesting people to come down and watch it in IMAX. These are musicians and film people. And there was no instructions don't post on social media. So they just literally told their friends. So that's how the film got out. It was not done through any campaign. It was just like, play it to a bunch of people and they told other people.

1:51:36And how's it doing so far? I'm kind of embarrassed to say in a way, but I mean, IMAX said it's their most successful music release of all time. Wow. Beautiful. Yeah. Beautiful and it deserves it. Oh thanks, yeah. I mean, what I'm hearing is a lot of people going to see the film two, three, four times. Well it's like you listen to Led Zeppelin 2 a million times. Why wouldn't you go see the movie over and over? Well, it makes perfect sense. Do you know that's the funny thing about the film? Obviously I'm working intensely in Zeppelin 1 and Zeppelin 2. I'll confide here what my hope was. When I made the film, that's why you've got these full songs and there's so much work on just giving you the pure sound.

1:52:22You know the way you get a fix and there's something you want to hear and you have a handkering to listen to, I might be beyond say, or howling wool for all the new or dolls or whatever it might be, or the beastie boys. I thought if you have that yen once a month to go to Erleys Eppelin one and two, I thought I'd love if I could make a film that could equally fulfill that yen. Yes. If I wanted to go into that zone, I could put the albums on and blast them, or I could watch this film for two hours and get all that music with the visuals and everything in a company. And that could be an equally appealing pop proposition.

1:53:03Absolutely. The communication breakdown footage is incredible because the reception is so non -plust. Tell me about when did you first see that footage? One of the tenets of the story, I mean, it's a journey to America. This is at American Quest, so as you said, it's like in Britain and in Europe, initially, a certain audience had been non -plus by Zeppelin and did not know it to make of them. So I came across this footage that had been shot for this French show called Tutansen. And when I looked at the footage, I thought I'd go to the facility, the Tutansen archives, and I went there and I got all the rushes for this.

1:53:49And some footage that hadn't been seen before, everything was shot. So if you look at the film, if there's a performance that is in the movie that has been seen, a number of people have spotted this already, it's completely re -cut with different camera angles. So you're not looking at what's seen anything that is in a form that's been seen before. Yes. So we've looked at it as like film directors going, you know, but this is the Hollywood movie. I would be hitting him the bass player on this cube. The broadcasters missed the cues. Yes. You know, and you see all the time, the singer starts singing, they're still looking at the drama.

1:54:26You know what I mean? So we are using the footage to correct for anything like that. So you're getting this super impactful form. So I was going through the rashes and I noticed these kids in the audience with their fingers in their ears. Yeah. And there's a woman with a baby in her arms. She's holding a baby and she's next to her husband. And the band are blaring away and she's just shaking her head and just horror. Look, people look bored. Yeah, they're completely bored. And the band are just, they're going through. Yeah. They're going like gangbusters. Yeah. So what I was able to do was I was able to get these additional camera angles where I could pan across the audience.

1:55:07And if you look how it's cut, I've got other camera angles from behind the grids, which confirm those kids with their fingers in there, they're still there. Yeah. Particularly in IMX, you can see that it's not a... You can see what the band is seeing. You can see the lack of reaction. Exactly. And so what was wonderful about it was, it was like, this perfectly, it was like, the whole film is constructed like a Hollywood musical in that the songs are used to advance the story. So they're not getting it over. What are they singing? Communication breakdown. When Jimmy goes to try and get the deal in America, what are you hearing?

1:55:40Your time is going to come. So all the songs are kind of chosen to work this way. But the thing in the film that was the joy was in terms of getting the story across. So they're playing for this European audience, with their fingers and their ears that aren't getting it. Then they get on the plane and they go to the West Coast of America, which is where Jimmy had envisaged. This was where this group was gonna take off. And he saw that as the future. Yeah, this was where it was about the long shows, albums, not singles in all this business. And he's on his way out there. When they get to the film, And this is the thing Jimmy told me when I first presented to him, he goes, it's all about that film or show.

1:56:25We had this warm up show in LA, but we were all sick with flu at the whiskey ago, but he said the film or was the make -up break show. And he said, if that show hadn't worked, it wouldn't have happened. This was where it happened. And he said, because we were hitting dead center in the counterculture. Yeah. And it was like, here it is. And the world would have spread out one way or the other. And it was like, boom. And then, interestingly, totally independently, Robert Plarm said to me, he said, that Peter Grant had come up to him before the show and he said, you better be good tonight. He said, because if you don't cut it here, it's over.

1:57:04That's in the film, Robert says that. Amazing. You know, so it was all on that show. And so what's brilliant? What are they playing there? Communication breakdown, the second time. And you normally wouldn't use it sometimes, but that version... It tells a story. Yeah, it tells a... it's ferocious. Yes. It's absolutely almost Ramones intensity performance. Yeah. And it gets over. How would you say each of the band members deal with the legacy of Lens Eppelund? You know, it's interesting. This isn't for me to speak for them. What is for me is to put across in a film what they're telling me and what they're telling me is also informed as a filmmaker, but as I said 175 background interviews.

1:57:51I'm trying to be in a position when Robert Platt says one sentence to me in a five hour interview, I know that's important because I've spoken to all the people he grew up with. We don't often deliver some of our most important things in giant monologues. Sometimes one passing comment might allude to an enormously important thing, so you have to do that background to know what you're listening to. And that background is, you can be talking to me and we're speaking English, but unless I really have looked into your background, for example, I don't necessarily understand everything you're telling me.

1:58:30I've got to know what you mean, you know? And so if I've done that research, hopefully, when you're telling me something. So I think in terms of this, my sense of it was off the top of my head, these guys striking me as musicians, professional musicians first and foremost. I have no sense of that this was done for self -aggrandestment or to make money. I think the principal motivator was to make music and to try and make music in the least messed with way possible. To have the most ability to pursue these ideas in the purist form, in a collaborative collective whole. There's a point where John Paul Jones in the film says, when he gets to pain -worn, they're all about to start rehearsing properly.

1:59:23And he goes, we didn't want to be on TV. We just wanted to make music really badly. And that made it been different than a lot of other bands at that time. I think it's very different from a lot of other bands. Because a lot of other bands, they all know each other. So they've all sat in front of the TV, sat in what's the Beatles come on the Ed Sullivan show, or they've gone to see the Sex Pistols, or whatever their entry point is, or Black Flag, or whatever it might be. And there's this element of like, you know, posing in front of the mirror with your hair brush singing, you know, and reading about his things and magazines.

2:00:01What's interesting about these guys is that you have two of them that are so fundamental, are seriously professionals, even though they're so young, they're professional studio musicians. And John Paul Jones was telling me his day was get up super early in the morning, go to say Abbey Road or wherever. And I think the first session might be as early as 8am and that was Jingles. Then there would be three sessions a day and your session was considered total failing unless you got three songs fully in the can. I've never asked why it was three. You thought it be two for single lose three. So whether it was the who the kinks or lulu three songs and that's in a three hour session and you have three of those a day, then he was writing arrangements and so he would go home at night and be up until the small hours writing arrangements for the next day or the day after some driver would pick those up, then he'd be off the crack I could've done.

2:01:04Mad hours. And he was doing that I think like six days a week. I'd, you know. Professionals. Serious professionals. So you've got half of Led Zeppelin coming in as that. Then you have two other guys coming in that are from a really like the beating hearts of the band, because they're from the West Midlands. So that's the home of Shakespeare. That's the home of Tolkien. So that's in those guys' bloods. I mean, that's the epicenter of British culture, Robert and John Bonham come from. People in Britain, London, where I grew, will try and tell you not. But it is. When you go there, you go, this is our well -spring here, up there.

2:01:49Anyway, these guys are coming in. They had worked so hard. Some of the mid teens, they are every day out there trying to get gigs playing gigs, meeting in bands, all this business. So when they get their first... I mean, Robert had... The Robert had made singles. He'd gone into London made singles, but they were brief moments, this would happen, and then the single wouldn't be promoted or it wouldn't take off. Anything 19. And he's 19. So when he comes in to this run with this 24 -year -old and 23 -year -old, top -student musicians, I think the way that Leipzig's episode of the music group was shaped by the experience session guys.

2:02:28Yeah, like... like as John Paul Dones said, it was like, you don't arrange songs in a studio, you come knowing exactly what you're gonna do, studio time is money, you come in and you've got it worked out. So my sense of it with them is like, despite the extraordinary flamboyance of the music and the wildness of it, the biting feeling I have of this is that these are like kind of like master craftsmen. Yeah. And it's hard to reconcile that with the appearance and the long hair and the things. And this was like a gig. This was a music gig. It just happened to be a music gig that was enormously successful.

2:03:09More importantly, enormously influential. Yes. I think that's the thing that's probably more important than the fact to guess was that it was influential. So I got the impression it was about all about music with them, which is why the film, and that probably a little book I made me feel like. This is why the film is very focused on the music they can, they're making of the music is because in the time I had the pleasure of spending in their company, no one ever talked about money or awards or anything like that. None of that stuff came out. I just didn't seem to register tours all about music.

2:03:43I think that probably was been the huge missing part of the story. And you know, it's that the fundamental part is it was done for music. And it says very telling when Jonesy says that comment like we wanted to play music really bad. How many people say that? I don't think most people say that. I don't think people in infuse saying that. You know, I just want to play music really bad. They're not really like anyone else I've encountered.

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