‘My Led Zeppelin road trip was counted as a class credit’: Cameron Crowe on the interview that changed everything

<p>In an extract from his new memoir, the writer and film-maker reflects on how as a teenager he managed to bag the exclusive of a lifetime</p><p>• ‘Rock stars would be like, Yeah, bring the kid in’: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/oct/11/cameron-crowe-interview-wild-years-teen-music-journalist-the-uncool">read an interview</a> with Cameron Crowe</p><p>There was always something slightly forbidden about Led Zeppelin. They were darker than the other bands and they had a command of mystique. You didn’t see a slew of interviews with them; you barely saw any at all. They famously hated Rolling Stone. The rumour was that Jimmy Page and [Rolling Stone co-founder] Jann Wenner had tangled over a girl in London. The magazine trashed their first album. I&nbsp;had, however, interviewed Led Zeppelin for the Los Angeles Times. It was a kind of maiden voyage into the mainstream for the band, and two years later, as they were about to release their album<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/feb/19/led-zeppelin-physical-graffiti-remastered-review"> Physical Graffiti</a>, I was invited on the road with them by Danny Goldberg, the band’s publicist and an executive at the label they’d started, Swan Song.</p><p>The key to getting Zeppelin on the cover of Rolling Stone was always going to be Jimmy Page. I would interview the other members first, and if Page still refused, Robert Plant would be on the cover by himself. Surely that prospect would lure Page into the idea of a group shot. Or maybe he would scuttle the whole endeavour. That was possible too, perhaps&nbsp;probable.</p> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2025/oct/11/director-cameron-crowe-memoir-the-uncool-led-zeppelin-road-trip">Continue reading...</a>