Brit Music Scene

Led Zeppelin Refuse Offers To Have Tracks Featured In ‘Guitar Hero’ & ‘Rock Band’

by Dave Parrack on July 6th, 2008

The Rock Band and Guitar Hero games have proved to be massively popular over the past couple of years, not only for the developers and publishers, but also for the artists featured in the games, who have seen a massive rise in publicity and record sales as a result.

When the first Guitar Hero game was being made, Harmonix, the game’s developers, reportedly had to beg artists to allow their songs to be used, and even then, most of the bands would only allow a cover to be used, rather than the original recording.

Then when the second game was released, and sold in huge quantities on the Playstation 2 and Xbox 360, artists started to see the appeal of having their tracks played by millions of gamers around the world.

By the time Guitar Hero 3, and Rock Band were released, artists started approaching the developers asking to be featured as they realised that having a track in the game could massively increase the band’s fan base. And now we have Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, a version of the game purely based around Steven Tyler’s band.

However, don’t expect to be playing Guitar Hero: Led Zeppelin any time soon, or even seeing any Led Zeppelin tracks in Rock Band, as they have categorically said no to being featured.

According to The Wall Street Journal, despite being one of the most sought-after bands by both Activision and MTV, Led Zeppelin have repeatedly turned down offers for their music to be featured.

Peter Mensch, a partner at Q Prime Management, which manages Jimmy Page, the guitarist for the legendary British rockers, explains that the band aren’t happy allowing outsiders to have access to their master recordings, something that is almost a necessity for the games.

However, it can be worked around, as The Sex Pistols proved in Guitar Hero III. When they were asked to provide the master recordings for Anarchy In The UK, it was discovered that the tapes had gone missing. Rather than give up though, John Lydon and the boys just recorded a new version for the game.

I would love the chance to pretend to be Jimmy Page in one of the games, but it seems in the same way that led Zeppelin are unwilling to reunite for a world tour, they are also unwilling to give gamers a chance to play their songs. I suppose I’d better stick to my copy of Mothership and my trusty air guitar then.

[Photo Source: digiyesica at Flickr]

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POSTED IN: Announcements, Artists, Gossip, Led Zeppelin, News, Op Ed, Rock