Jack Black, the self-styled lead singer of Tenacious D, is all for dispelling
a persistent rumour about a band that has, if he’s honest, done practically
nothing to make him a famous name in Hollywood. “There is a misconception
that we have called ourselves the greatest band on earth. People have
marketed us that way,” he explains. “You won’t find it anywhere in the
albums. You won’t find it in any of our songs.”
It’s true, you won’t. The first time the band ever performed in public, at a
place called Al’s Bar in LA in 1994, the only song in their repertoire made
repeated reference to “the best song in the world”. In the dozen years
since, in which they have developed an organic brand of
mock-pomp-acoustic-folk-metal-comedy-rock all their own, Tenacious D’s
shtick has been all about pumping themselves up. If only to save anyone else
the bother. “It’ s not really for us to say,” says Kyle Gass, the band’s
lead guitarist and only other member. “I would say the proof is in the
pudding.”
Black and Gass look like they know a lot about pudding. It’s one of the
reasons they don’t resemble rock stars. The acoustic guitars strapped over
their generous midriffs help to make the point. And however grungily Black
wears his hair, it will never quite make up for Gass’s shortage in that
department. One thing Gass is not short of is shorts, which he wears almost
all the time. Today, in a SoHo tearoom on a sunny afternoon in New York, he
is also in white socks and sandals.
The truth is that Tenacious D are not the greatest band on earth. They are not
even the greatest spoof band on earth. That honour has been bestowed for all
eternity on Spinal Tap. But they are definitely the second greatest
spoofers. The baton was in a sense handed to them directly, if
inadvertently, at that first fateful gig. “Harry Shearer was there,” recalls
Gass. (As Derek Smalls, Shearer plays bass for Tap.) “It was a coffee house,
and he just walked in.”
The D, as they prefer to refer to themselves, first came to global attention
in 1996, when they appeared in Bio-Dome and The Cable Guy. Two years later,
HBO screened three five-minute comic sketches, in two of which bodily fluids
had a, shall we say, seminal role. HBO liked them enough to commission a
short series, each episode featuring two of their songs. There would have
been a whole series “but they wanted to not have us be executive producer”,
says Gass, “We said, ‘No, we’ll just make us a movie.’” In 2001, there was a
debut album, with the classically simple title of Tenacious D, from which
two singles were released: Dio, and a tender feminist tract entitled F***
Her Gently for which, claims Black, they have been “lauded by women’s
groups”. A double DVD, The Complete Masterworks, which includes a memorable
Brixton Academy gig, followed in 2003. Now that one of their number is a
global superstar, here is the movie.
Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny tells of a young Black’s escape from the
zealotry of a father who believes rock music is the work of the devil. (The
father is played by Meat Loaf.) Black fetches up in the promised land of
Hollywood, where on a sidewalk he finds Gass busking his way through Bach’s
Bourrée in E minor. Black’s uninvited vocal contribution is not appreciated,
and they hook up musically only after Gass spots Black being beaten up.
After flopping at their debut gig, their dream of becoming the greatest band
on earth looks doomed, until they learn of a guitar pick that has been
played by all the great music-makers of history, from Mozart to the present
day — cuing the hilarious ribaldry of Classico, in which famous classical
melodies are hitched to a lyric in which every other word begins with F. “I
think they’re heightened versions of ourselves,” says Gass. “Only lowered.”
Both of them Californians, the future Tenacious D first met when Black, aged
16, became a groupie of Tim Robbins’s LA theatre company, the Actors’ Gang.
Gass was the company’s muso. “It was kind of punk-rock theatre,” says Gass.
“Very political.” Black weaselled his way into a show about El Salvador by
impressing Robbins with some musical material. Gass, eight years his senior,
felt threatened. “At first, there was a bit of friction between me and
Kyle.” “But it was definitely an ‘if you can’t beat ’em, join ’ em’
scenario,” adds Gass. “We started jamming.”
That was 20 years ago. At that point, Black couldn’t play an instrument; Gass
was classically trained. “He’s the youngest ever graduate of Juilliard music
school,” says Black. “The philharmonic of literally every major city in the
world was fine-wining and dining him to come and play classical string
guitar, and he opted for a road less travelled, that of a
vagabond-musician-entertainer-actor-troubadour, if you will.” Gass, in due
course, taught Black to play. “He picked it up pretty fast, although there
were some trying times. There was one period when he would just play the
same three chords on the guitar. You don’t want to squelch his inspiration,
but, goddamn it, it drove me insane.”
Gass’s gift for pastiche makes a perfect match for Black’s mock-heroic lyrics.
Songs such as Explosivo, The Road and Wonderboy “mostly laugh at people who
are singing really self-important songs, or songs about how hard it is to be
a rock star, which is hilarious to me”. It took several years for them to
land that first gig. They didn’t even have a name at the time and let the
audience decide from a menu of options, including Pets or Meat, Balboa’s
Biblical Theatre and The Axe Lords Featuring Gorgazon’s Mischief, “which was
my personal favourite,” says Gass. “But we did like Tenacious D the best, so
we put it at the end, where usually you get the most votes.” “It did not get
the most votes,” recalls Black, “but we forced it through.”
The rise of Tenacious D has run in parallel with the rise of Jack Black. His
inimitable gift for pretending to take himself very seriously first snared
an international audience in the film High Fidelity, in which he played a
militant record-store rock snob. From Shallow Hal through King Kong to Nacho
Libre, he has specialised in fantasists in the grip of a ridiculous
conviction, none more so than in School of Rock, in which his character
achieves his dream of rock stardom with a bunch of schoolchildren. “If you
look at all my movies, they’re pretty much a lot of me,” he says. “I’m not
one of those chameleons.”
Did Gass have issues with a rock movie that had no co-starring role for
himself? “I was a little concerned, I guess. It just seemed like maybe he
was cashing in a little rock cred. But then I saw it, and I loved it.
Initially, it was, ‘You’re doing a rock movie with kids?’ The worst part was
that one of the extras actually looked like me.” “Kyle,” adds Black, “has
said that about half the movies I’ve agreed to do: ‘Bad move career-wise,
dude. Don’t do it.’”
Now Gass finally has a movie of his own, we must address the age-old question
of why, present company excepted, actors can’t rock and rockers can’t act.
“Why are there so few doctor/lawyers?” asks Black. “They’re specialised. Why
have we been able to pass? I think it’s just sheer talent.”
It’s a surprise to hear that so outwardly confident a band suffer from
performance anxiety. Before they go on stage, confides Gass, Black will
sometimes make up to three loo visits. He was especially nervous at a
benefit gig in 2003, when they shared the bill with Tap. At the end, they
dueted on Big Bottom. “They were a little bummed,” recalls Black. “They had
their kids there when we were singing our dirty lyrics. That seems absurd.
Guys, come on.”
Occasionally, they have essayed something with a little more lyrical
sophistication. They even wrote a political song for the film, but intuited
it had no place in their comic world-view. It kept its berth on the
soundtrack album, though. It’s called The Government Totally Sucks. Black is
ambivalent about coming out against the neo-cons. “What good does it do?
Literally every celebrity in America came out anti-Bush in full force before
the last election. It might have actually hurt. I think the best thing I can
do for anti-Bush is just to say nothing.” Gass thinks people say, “‘Who are
Barbra Streisand and Warren Beatty supporting? I’m going for the other guy
because they’re so annoying.’”
Bush will be gone in another couple of years, however. What is the future for
Tenacious D, beyond the five-date tour of the UK in their diary? They are
not prolific songwriters. At the going rate, their next album won’t appear
until Gass is in his fifties.
“I’m going to say one really bad sequel, and that’s it,” he says.
“A really bad album,” says Black, “and a really bad sequel.” “Oh, God, just
butt loads of cash,” says Gass. “We’re just going to back up the truck.”
The album Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny is released on Nov 13; the film
opens on Nov 24. The band tour the UK from Dec 11
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