Elton John Writes Article About The Making Of 'Rocketman'

Elton John has penned an article for The Guardian detailing the making of his new biopic, Rocketman.

In it, the singer reveals that he fought hard for the film's R-rating. "Some studios wanted to tone down the sex and drugs so the film would get a PG-13 rating. But I just haven’t led a PG-13 rated life," he wrote. "I didn’t want a film packed with drugs and sex, but equally, everyone knows I had quite a lot of both during the 70s and 80s, so there didn’t seem to be much point in making a movie that implied that after every gig, I’d quietly gone back to my hotel room with only a glass of warm milk and the Gideon’s Bible for company."

John also writes that some studios weren't sold on the movie's more surreal elements, hoping instead for a more traditional biopic. "Some studios wanted us to lose the fantasy element and make a more straightforward biopic, but that was missing the point," he said. "Like I said, I lived in my own head a lot as a kid. And when my career took off, it took off in such a way that it almost didn’t seem real to me. I wasn’t an overnight success by any means – I’d been slogging around the clubs, making records, writing songs with Bernie and trying to sell them to people who weren’t interested in four or five years before anything big happened. But when it happened, it went off like a missile: there’s a moment in Rocketman when I’m playing onstage in the Troubadour club in LA and everything in the room starts levitating, me included, and honestly, that’s what it felt like."

CREDITS: Billboard - Bonnie Stiernberg

Robert Plant Launching 'Digging Deep' Podcast in June

The pod will explore the singer's solo career and years in Led Zeppelin.

Robert Plant is launching a career retrospective podcast, Digging Deep, on June 3. The rock icon announced the news on Friday, explaining, "I'm going to be picking out some songs from here and there along the way, mixing constant shifts in sound and in tension." In a one-minute teaser Plant describes going back and listening to some of the songs he's recorded during his five-decade career and marveling at them, finding the players in the room to be, "out of sight... they found me to be something that they hadn't been used to dealing with."

The podcast promises to uncover the "moments, people and places that have inspired some of his most treasured music." At press time it was not known how many episodes the pod will run.

The podcast announcement comes on the heels of news earlier this month that a Led Zeppelin "in their own words" documentary with new interviews from Plant, guitarist Jimmy Page and bassist John Paul Jones and directed by Bernard MacMahon (American Epic) is in the works. Plant is on the road this summer playing a series of festival dates and amphitheater shows in support of his 2017 Carry Fire album. Billboard / Gil Kaufman