There seems to be a resurgence in independent record stores nowadays as chain retailers continue to fold. Tower Records was one of the biggest music chains around from 1960 to 2000, and many famous musicians have an attachment to the store. Actor Colin Hanks began working on a documentary about Tower Records in 2008, two years after it declared bankruptcy. The documentary All Things Must Pass debuted at South by Southwest this week. The director talked about the film, which took so long to make because of funding issues, prior to a screening. He mentioned two big music names -- Elton John and Dave Grohl -- as supporters of the record store, Billboard noted.
"We only had so much money, so we had to be surgical with who we spoke to and why," Hanks said. "With Elton, it was him going to the store. When we found the footage, we said, 'OK, I know that he cares about Tower Records,' and can ask him if he'd be in the movie."
And Hanks could not pass up the opportunity to interview Grohl because the Foo Fighters frontman worked at Tower Records before hitting it big with Nirvana. He was rocking a pretty interesting haircut as well back then.
"Anecdotes are great, but they don't push narrative. Dave Grohl knocked off two things: He works in the store before he is famous and he also gave us a great bit about his haircut, so that works with our bit on the dress codes at the time," Hanks added.
Guns N' Roses guitarist Slash also worked at a Tower store.
"I worked at Tower Video, but that was before Guns N' Roses started," he said. "I'd gotten busted stealing records at Tower Records and it's so funny because I became a manager at Tower Video. They just never remembered that I was that guy with the armful of cassettes and records that they caught me stealing."
The doc also features interviews with record label executives David Geffen and Jim Urie as well as Tower Records founder Russ Solomon.
