“I am a golden god!”: What band was ‘Almost Famous’ based on?
Cinema and music have always been inseparable, going back to the grand orchestral arrangements of the silent film era. In more recent years, Hollywood has even invented its own fictional bands to appear in movies—groups like Spinal Tap, Sex Bob Omb, or Otis Day & the Knights. Although these groups are often little more than invented plot points, they often have their basis in music artists from the real world, as in the case of the cult comedy drama Almost Famous.
Written by and loosely based on the life of journalist Cameron Crowe, Almost Famous tells the tale of a teenage music journalist during the early 1970s. The protagonist, William Miller, is assigned a story by Rolling Stone magazine and is sent out on tour with a group called Stillwater. That band is a work of fiction and does not exist in the real world, with members portrayed in the film by Jason Lee, Billy Crudup, Mark Kozelek, and John Fedevich. However, behind the fictionalised band lay a wealth of real-world rock history.
When hired by Rolling Stone in 1973, Crowe was their youngest contributor, and during his time with the magazine, he encountered some truly legendary artists. Inevitably, the journalist drew upon those experiences when formulating the fictional Stillwater. In fact, Crowe’s very first assignment for the magazine was following Jacksonville blues rock outfit The Allman Brothers Band on tour. Much of the Stillwater story, therefore, harks back to those experiences gained with the Allman Brothers.
Ultimately, Stillwater was an amalgamation of various prominent 1970s rockers. For instance, the scene in which Stillwater’s guitarist, Russell Hammond, declares, “I am a golden god!” was directly inspired by Led Zeppelin frontman Robert Plant, who had made a similar cry from the balcony of a Hollywood hotel at the peak of Zeppelin’s stardom. At different points within the film, the fictional group also draws upon the influences of artists like Lynyrd Skynyrd and even the Eagles.
You cannot have a fictional band without real-life musicians, and the cast and crew of Almost Famous was chock full of iconic names from the world of rock and roll. Peter Frampton, for example, was a technical advisor on the film, providing his expertise on the depths of 1970s rock debauchery. The majority of Stillwater songs in the film, however, were penned by Crowe himself, along with his wife, Nancy Wilson. An icon of hard rock in her own right, through performing with Heart, Wilson had an undeniable impact on the film and its fictional band.
Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready also stepped in to help create the fictional world of Stillwater, playing lead guitar on all of the band’s material. Even outside of Hollywood tales, a rock band containing Nancy Wilson, Peter Frampton, Mike McCready, and the bloke from My Name Is Earl should be enough to drag audiences in.
Although Stillwater in Almost Famous is based upon a plethora of prevalent rockers from the 1970s, there was also a real band using that name during that time. The real Stillwater formed in Georgia in 1973 – around the time that the film is set – and achieved a modest degree of commercial success before folding in 1984.
Still, the filmmakers were forced to pay the defunct Southern rock band for the use of their band name in Almost Famous. “They could have probably done it without permission,” Stillwater guitarist Bobby Golden later shared, “but they probably would have had a bunch of different lawsuits.”
