After breaking records at IMAX theaters, the brand new Led Zeppelin documentary, Becoming Led Zeppelin, will be hitting theaters this Valentine's Day, just in time to cozy up for a “Whole Lotta Love” with your significant other.
LISTEN NOW: Race Taylor talks with 'Becoming Led Zeppelin' writer and director Bernard McMahon
Written and directed by Bernard McMahon, along with screenwriter and producer Allison McGourty, Becoming Led Zeppelin, as WCBS-FM’s Race Taylor explains, is the prequel to Led Zeppelin’s iconic 1976 concert film, The Song Remains The Same, featuring never-before-seen footage and interviews from “an era well before cell phones. Hard to imagine, right?”
With Bernard on the line, Race wondered how he managed to get arguably the most guarded band in the world to open up for the film. “You do it through hard work, and self-belief,” he explains. “We've done these films called ‘American Epic’ with Robert Redford, which were on the first blues, gospel and country records in 10 years -- putting that together -- and I wanted to make another music film.”
“When I was 12 years old,” McMahon explains, “I'd read this little paperback book just called ‘Led Zeppelin,’ by a guy called Howard Meyler. It's been out of print for decades, and I didn't know anything about the band's music, but I love this story. I found it really inspiring, about four kids trying to make their way in the music business, and, you know, they just felt like kids like me.”
“They kind of knew when they met in this rehearsal room this was something special,” he adds, “and they applied all these things they'd learned in their trials and tribulations in the music biz, going, you know, ‘We're not going to do singles, we're gonna own the album. We're going to do things our own way.’”
Further detailing the role Led Zeppelin’s record label played at the time, he says they dictated “Nothing. In fact, all the label did was kind of mess it up, then basically by putting out stupid press releases saying how big a deal they'd been signed for, which really wasn't actually that much spread over five albums or whatever it was. Literally, their success was despite what everyone was doing. So, this was a really inspiring message for me as a kid.”
"I read that book twice,” says McMahon, “and a lot of what I was doing as a filmmaker and what I've done in my life was inspired by some of the lessons I learned in that book. So, I said to my writing partner and producer, Allison McGourty, ‘I'd like to take this story to the big screen, to the cinema, because I think it will be inspiring to other kids. It will show them how to do stuff.’ Plus, and most importantly, it's got this amazing soundtrack. So if you have something like South Pacific,, and the message of that musical is racial tolerance, and then you've got these amazing songs by Roger and Hammerstein. This is the film, the Led Zeppelin story. The message is, ‘This is how you can do things as a kid if you persevere with your goals,' and it has this amazing soundtrack of Led Zeppelin I and II, which is every bit as great as Roger and Hammerstein.”
Made with the full cooperation of the band, Becoming Led Zeppelin premiered in the UK, US, and Canada on February 7, 2025, and is set for a wider release on February 14. Check your local listings for showtimes.
Listen to Race's full Interview with Bernard McMahon above, and stay tuned for more conversations with your favorite stars and artists right here on Audacy.