We knew this was a great story and were surprised it hadn’t been told in film before. How, back in 1960, the owner of a tiny West London music shop, Jim Marshall and his assistant Ken Bran attempted to build a DIY guitar amplifier. With limited knowledge of electronics they soldered together a bunch of valves and wires then invited a young promising 18 year old guitarist called Pete Townshend to plug in his guitar. Suddenly from that little workshop came the most extraordinary overcooked, distorted roar. But the most important thing was that it was loud, very loud. The rest is history.
We took the idea to to the BBC and they loved it. If only all commissioning attempts were like this! We then embarked on a very entertaining journey meeting and interviewing most of our rock heroes. Jo Whiley narrated it for us. Most memorable moment? Spending an hour in a room with lemmy!