Licensed Unheard John Bonham Audio Features from Trailer for Documentary “Being Led Zeppelin”

One day after the 44th anniversary of their breakup, the first trailer for an authorized documentary about Led Zeppelin was released.

title be a zeppelinThe documentary has been years in the making, with director Bernard MacMahon helming the project following his successful 2017 exploration of American roots music. American epic.

The project, which involves its three surviving members (singer Robert Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones), was brought to Cannes in 2019 and was in the post-production stages.

“When I see what Bernard has done visually and aurally, he has achieved something extraordinary. American epicI knew he was qualified to tell our story,” Page said at the time.

“It’s time for us to tell our own story in our own words for the first time, and I think this film will really bring that story to life,” Jones added.

Hype for the project first picked up when a version in production screened at the Venice Film Festival and received a 10-minute standing ovation. McMahon later noted that the team behind the film “spent years designing the film to be experienced on the big screen with the best possible sound.”

Such meticulous attention to sonic detail is essential for a project of this caliber, which follows the band’s (including late drummer John Bonham) rise through the 1960s British music scene playing small clubs. The film follows their fateful rehearsal in 1968 that changed their career, culminating in their first U.S. tour in 1970 and turning them into rock stars.

Led Zeppelin finally disbanded on December 4, 1980, after Bonham’s unexpected death a few months earlier. Now, nearly 44 years after their disbandment, the official trailer for the upcoming documentary has been released, featuring never-before-heard archival interviews with Bonham himself.

Set to the soundtrack of 1969’s “Whole Lotta Love,” the trailer showcases visuals of the band’s ever-changing career, interspersed with recent interviews with surviving band members. “The first time we played together, it was amazing,” Bonham says at the end of the trailer. “It’s like a gift from heaven, isn’t it?”

“We spent five years flying back and forth across the Atlantic, scouring attics and basements for rare, unseen film footage, photographs and music recordings,” writer and producer Allison McGurty said in a press release The manuscript said of the production of the film. “We then used custom technology to transfer each piece of media so that in IMAX these 55-year-old clips and music look and sound as if they came out of the lab yesterday.”

be a zeppelin It is scheduled to be released in IMAX theaters on February 7.