After marking the movie’s 25th anniversary last month, Cameron Crowe is continuing to unpack the traumatic inspiration behind Almost Famous .

The Oscar winner, whose memoir The Uncool is now available, said he “broke down” while recording the part of his audio book that touched on the Allman Brothers Band frontman Gregg Allman , who inspired the film’s rockstar character Russell Hammond ( Billy Crudup ).

“I had a real wound that was still there from this violent thing that happened between us when he took all the tapes back,” he recalled to USA Today , decades after interviewing Allman for Rolling Stone . “He threatened me vaguely; he called me a cop that worked for the FBI. He was like, ‘Who do you think you are? How old are you? You’re 16?’ I just remember being scare

See Full Page