Bring it on home Led Zep's first biopic

How were the famously interview-shy rock gods persuaded to take part in a film about their early success with the band telling their own story?

- Robin Denselow

Bernard MacMahon says he knew he was taking a massive risk. The Irish-British film-maker and his Scottish partner Allison McGourty had spent 10 months researching a film about that massively successful but elusive rock band Led Zeppelin. They put together a storyboard, listened to every interview they could find, and started to dig out archive film to tell the story of the band's early years in the late 60s.

That was when Jimmy Page, a successful session guitarist, joined the Yardbirds, then wanted to create a band of his own. He signed up John Paul Jones, another virtuoso session star, and two little-known West Midlands musicians: the wildly inventive drummer John Bonham and singer Robert Plant. Overlooked in Britain, Led Zeppelin found fame in America, where they became celebrities through their live shows.

The film-makers' research was funded, says MacMahon, on the understanding it was incredibly likely the group might say they were not interested. After all, Led Zeppelin had always refused most interviews or TV appearances -let alone an authorised film biography in which the three surviving members would appear.