Is it possible to become Jimmy Page? Not literally, of course, but by obsessively collecting, crafting and rehearsing for decades until a musician resembles the Led Zeppelin guitarist in both sound and appearance. And if you manage that feat, will anyone care?
These are the questions posed in “Mr. Jimmy”, a new feature-length documentary film released on September 1 that follows Japanese musician Akio Sakurai as he hones his craft recreating Page’s performances and attempts to find success in the US. Along the way, he joins and then clashes with an American Led Zeppelin tribute band before joining Jason Bonham’s band.
Unlike music documentaries such as “Anvil! The Story of Anvil”, director Peter Michael Dowd plays it straight and avoids highlighting the absurdity and occasional comedy found in the world of Led Zeppelin tribute acts.
Instead, “Mr. Jimmy” is a love letter to one man’s lifelong obsession with Page and Led Zeppelin. The film follows Sakurai in his native Japan as he enlists craftspeople including embroiderers, costume designers, amplifier experts and pickup builders as he attempts to replicate Page’s outfits and stage equipment as closely as possible.
The film’s release in cinemas around the world shines a spotlight on Sakurai, Led Zeppelin’s music and the world of tribute bands. It’s especially impressive that the film was released before “Becoming Led Zeppelin”, another documentary film announced in 2019 about the origins of the band that includes new interviews with Page, Robert Plant and John Paul Jones.
LedZepNews spoke to Sakurai as well as the film’s director, Dowd, to discuss “Mr. Jimmy”, the film’s release and Sakurai’s career. Premium subscribers to the LedZepNews Substack can listen to our full interview with Dowd and read the transcript of it here.
Mr. Jimmy spent years copying Jimmy Page
Sakurai was born in the Japanese city of Tōkamachi and worked for a musical instrument import business in Tokyo for 20 years by day while honing his “Mr. Jimmy” stage persona in the evenings. “I was always getting information about musical instruments and the music scene around the world,” he tells LedZepNews.
He used his music industry connections to build perhaps the world’s most accurate replica of Page’s stage setup, including guitars, amps and outfits. This attention to detail, which is studied at length in the film, helped attract Page himself to attend one of Sakurai’s performances in Tokyo on October 12, 2012.
“It was only a week before that small gig that I knew it could happen,” Sakurai says. “My friend is a Japanese promoter and wanted to show Jimmy Page my performance, but he said he couldn’t promise if he would come.”
“For the DVD and CD release of ‘Celebration Day’, Jimmy Page came to see my show the night he flew to Japan on the British Airways flight from London. Even though he was exhausted from jet lag, he stayed until the end of the two hour show,” Sakurai explains.
“I played in front of the maestro who created the music I played that night, feeling like I was being checked by him,” Sakurai says. “After the show, he said he wanted to talk to us and waited for me to come off the small stage. I didn’t understand English very well, but he kept talking to me with excitement, which was a great compliment from the guitar god. When I asked him, ‘Is it okay for me to continue with your music?’, he replied, ‘Absolutely!’”
The encounter with the man he had spent years emulating encouraged Sakurai to move from Japan to the US, gambling on the hope that he could find an audience for his true-to-life Led Zeppelin replica stage show.
How the filmmaker stumbled upon Mr. Jimmy
It was around this time that Dowd stumbled upon Sakurai, a process that began with a text message from a friend. “They knew I was a huge Led Zeppelin fan and they said ‘Hey Peter, I just saw a Led Zeppelin tribute band in Boston that wasn’t total shit,’” Dowd says.
That band didn’t include Sakurai, but it led to Dowd researching tribute bands as a potential subject for a documentary. “It got my mind going about tribute bands and I found the concept kind of interesting,” he says. “It’s sort of like you can copy a Van Gogh, but then do you also dress like him? Do you also cut off your ear?”
After researching tribute bands online and concluding that most of them aren’t particularly skilled, Dowd stumbled upon a video of Sakurai replicating Led Zeppelin’s Knebworth 1979 concerts.
“I clicked on it and just in a second I knew something was up,” Dowd says, “because he had the blue button down shirt, he had the white linen pants. He had the loafers. The complete outfit of Page from Knebworth August 1979 and I’m thinking ‘Shit, this is amazing.’”
Dowd spent a couple of hours watching videos of Sakurai’s recreation of Page’s performances throughout his career with Led Zeppelin. Eventually, he decided to contact Sakurai.
“I just sent an email to his website, which was totally in Japanese, saying ‘I really don’t know what your story is, but I think it might be something pretty special and I might be the right person to tell it because I recognise all the details because I know this music pretty well.’”
Sakurai’s wife Junko Sakurai sent Dowd a response, which led Dowd on a years-long journey documenting Sakurai’s life: “His wife wrote back, ‘You must be a lucky guy because he’s moving to LA to join Zepagain.’ So at that point, I just thought it was like a sign.”
Dowd and Sakurai joined forces
Dowd began filming Sakurai’s performances in the US with the tribute band Led Zepagain, a surreal experience for the Japanese musician who was adjusting to life in the US at the time.
“When the director, Peter, contacted me about his filmmaking proposal, I didn’t believe it,” Sakurai says. “When I started filming my local show in California, I had no idea of the chaotic drama that would follow.”
“He was able to meet me in Los Angeles. I spoke to him in broken English and quickly realised that Peter is a huge Zeppelin fan like me. That was enough evidence to trust him,” Sakurai adds.
Sakurai remains thankful to the band Led Zepagain for allowing him to join. “I really, really appreciate Led Zepagain’s help to get my visa and for giving me such a great opportunity to play in the US. That’s awesome to me,” he says in a call from a hotel room in the US where he’s on tour with Bonham’s band.
Mr. Jimmy relies on an army of skilled craftspeople
As well as filming Sakurai performing in the US, “Mr. Jimmy” also includes fascinating scenes of Sakurai in Japan meeting craftspeople to help him develop his on-stage outfits and musical equipment.
It’s in these scenes that viewers truly comprehend Sakurai’s obsession. Crafting a replica poppy jacket that’s simply “good enough” clearly won’t cut it. Sakurai, armed with a remote control and footage of Page performing on stage, directs costume designer Rie Nakahara to perfect the jacket. For Sakurai, every single millimetre and embroidered thread counts.
“Whenever I see the costumes in films, I notice every tiny detail, for example when the shoulder is slightly different,” Sakurai says. The replica poppy jacket shown in the film still has room for improvement, he explains. “I would say it’s done, but it’s not completely done yet. Every time I go back to Japan, I talk with the designer and change tiny details.”
Sakurai’s version of Page’s iconic black dragon suit is perhaps the most striking example of his dedication to recreating Page’s outfits. “The black dragon suit was the hardest design,” Sakurai says. “Only one or two people in Japan can do the embroidery by hand. It’s a traditional design and Ms Kiyomi Osawa, she is over 80 years old and is in this film. She designed this black dragon suit. It was really difficult to meet her in person and ask her to work on that costume. It was really hard. It cost so much to design everything.”
Dowd enjoyed shooting these scenes which show both Sakurai’s enthusiasm and the craftspeople’s skills. “It gave me the chance to almost make a mini documentary on each of these amazing Japanese tradesmen and women,” he says.
One scene shows Sakurai meeting Toshio Suzuki, a Japanese amplifier expert, as the pair experiment with soldering different components into Sakurai’s amps in an attempt to perfect Page’s guitar tone.
“I think I filmed him soldering for five hours,” Dowd says. “I loved it, it was painful to cut it down because I loved all the nuance, all the details. At one point they were soldering in power cables, whether shielded versus unshielded made a difference to the tone. It was just on the edge of insanity but you loved it.”
Mr. Jimmy left Led Zepagain
Sakurai’s outfits and equipment are emblematic of his wider approach, which is to mirror Page’s music as closely as possible. This desire is the source of a divide between Sakurai and his bandmates in Led Zepagain. For Sakurai, simply playing a setlist of Led Zeppelin covers in a standard tribute act format is a sacrilege. But for Led Zepagain, attempting to perform hours-long note-perfect Led Zeppelin recreations is a surefire way to bore audiences in the US.
The band is initially receptive to Sakurai’s advice and urging to perfectly mirror Led Zeppelin’s performances, but the film covers off-screen disagreements between the men which result in Sakurai leaving the band.
“That was a really hard time,” Sakurai says. “It was a confusing and complicated feeling to publish that moment to an audience.”
A source of the tension is likely found in the cultural differences between the US and Japan around appreciating music, something expressed in the film by drummer Dick Kitahata who remarks that Japanese people can’t match the US enthusiasm for music. “To compensate for that, we have to pay attention to the details,” he says.
Sakurai agrees, telling LedZepNews that “rock and roll was born and grew up in the US. so there is a really good conversation between the performers and the audience, there is a lot of emotion, passion and energy.”
“But it is a good point that Japanese people really focus on listening to their music. For instance, they never stand up during a performance because there are other people behind them,” he continues.
Mr. Jimmy now performs with Jason Bonham’s band
The film ends with footage of Sakurai auditioning and then joining Bonham’s band, a fitting end to a decades-long journey. Sakurai joining Bonham’s band gave Dowd’s film an upbeat ending, something that seemed unlikely after Sakurai had left Led Zepagain and struggled to start his own band in the US.
“There was about a year when Jimmy had left Led Zepagain, tried to form his own band, had a really difficult time there, and had absolutely nothing going on,” Dowd says. “I was left with a film that was either going to have a really down, bleak ending, or just be incomplete.”
“When he got the gig, we all cried for Akio because he had worked so hard to get there,” Dowd says.
Despite the welcome news that Sakurai had joined Bonham’s band, Dowd’s film crew were running low on funding to finish shooting.
“I think at that point I was totally broke. But it was like a miracle. I got in the mail a Bank of America credit card offering and I was like, ‘Guys, we’re going to Australia. Put it all on the credit card,’” Dowd recalls.
Led Zeppelin allowed the use of its music in the film
Another stroke of luck came when Led Zeppelin approved the use of its music in the film. No original material by the band is featured, instead Led Zeppelin signed off on live covers by Sakurai and Led Zepagain to be included.
According to Dowd, Led Zeppelin’s record label initially suggested that he uses alternative songs because of the remote chance that the band signs off on the use of its own music.
“It all came down minutes before our world premiere at South by Southwest,” Dowd says. “We got the approval. Of course, my phone had died, so I didn’t even get the message, I think, until after the fact.”
“But I think I literally fell to my knees and cried like a little baby. It was that meaningful because otherwise I would just be able to show the movie to my Grandma every Christmas on my couch or something like that.”
Mr. Jimmy’s journey continues
For Sakurai, the film is a well-earned moment in the spotlight which highlights his remarkable career. But despite this recognition, he’s adamant that his journey to replicate Page hasn’t been completed.
“My Jimmy Page quest never ends,” he says. And when asked about the phenomenon of people mistaking Sakurai for Page in photographs, the Japanese musician becomes reflective.
“The more I chase him, the more I realise I am not like him at all. He’s too cool,” he says. “I really want to become like him, but I never could be.”
The film is now opening in cinemas worldwide, and interested readers can find screenings through the film’s official website.
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