Jack Black. Kyle Gass. At a glance, they're nothing more than two ordinary “schlubs” belonging more in a 7-Eleven than on the cover of a magazine. But together, theY form Tenacious D, the self-proclaimed “Greatest Band in the World.” Yes sir, things are certainly sitting pretty for “The D,” and with the release of their new movie, it seems like the world is nothing more than a shiny six-string at their disposal. SNMag Recently Caught Up with "The D" at their hotel in West Hollywood for a Three-sided jam session the likes of which had never been seen...just KG, JB and ME!
So guys, I saw the movie. It was awesome. It was amazing. But I couldn’t help but wonder how much of the movie was actually factually true. If I were to guess, I’d say 96 percent was pure truth and the rest was outside influence.
Kyle: I would say it was closer to 87 percent true. It’s hard to know. But I guess that’s what happens when you fit an entire epic story into a 90-minute movie. And honestly, even if it wasn’t factual, it was still emotionally true.
Jack: The entire thing is totally true, except that my parents were completely supporting of my rocking. We tweaked that to make the movie more of a drama.
Jack, did your father really resemble Meatloaf?
Jack: Not as heavy. But yeah, Meatloaf definitely looks like he’s from my family. He could easily be an uncle or something.
Seeing as how Pick of Destiny tells the tale of your inspirado for rock and the beginnings of the band, were there any parts of the journey that were too personal or too extreme to put up on the silver screen?
Jack: No. In fact, let’s face it. We exaggerated. We embellished a little bit to make it more exciting.
Kyle: I don’t think I was really a fraud, like I was in the movie.
Jack: No!
Kyle: But I think that I did abuse my status over Jack.
Jack: I don’t think you did. Maybe I was a little too innocent. Gullible. Now that I think about it, you son of a bitch, maybe you did manipulate me…all the way to the top of the charts! Yeah!!
Did you guys really meet while rocking out on a boardwalk, like you did in the movie?
Kyle: No.
Jack: But he did really mold me from a lump of coal and crunched me into a diamond.
Kyle: That’s true. I did actually play out on the streets to try and make some serious coin.
Jack: He was a buster, for real...and he did teach me to rock.
Kyle: Yeah, I really did teach Jack to play the guitar.
Now guys, there were a lot of great cameos in the movie, from Meatloaf to Ben Stiller to Tim Robbins. Were these people begging to be in the movie or did you have to ask them?
Jack: They weren’t necessarily begging, but they were right on the prescipice. It was easy to tip them over the edge and into our world.
Kyle: Ben was actually the executive producer of the movie, so he definitely wanted to help.
So Stiller didn’t have to beg?
Jack: Honestly, Ben is the one we came closest to begging.
Kyle: Should we tell him who was originally going to play it?
Jack: I don’t think we should.
Do it.
Jack: Alright, we’re not supposed to tell you, but we originally wanted Will Ferrell for that part. We were talking to Will and he was like, “I think I can fit this into my schedule.” And we were like, “Dude, that’s not good enough. Look, no hard feelings, but we’re gonna get someone who can really, absolutely guarantee us that they can be here. But, let’s work together again on the sequel.”
Kyle: Then we went to Ben.
Jack: Ben had known that we’d gone to Will Ferrell. So we were like, “We rethought this Ben. I don’t think Will is the guy.”
Kyle: Hahahaha!!!
Jack: But, in reality, Ben was the guy. The whole thing worked out to be a blessing. It would have been a totally different take on the role if Will had done it. Ben just brought a certain…
Kyle: Commitment?
Jack: …gravitas! An itensity that the scene really needed. He weaves the tale and he worked that scene like a maestro.
Was there anyone else, anyone at all, that you guys didn’t want to let into the movie?
Kyle: Not really, dude. Any of our friends who were like, “Uh, dude…can you do me a favor? I need to do this movie…for my insurance.” We kind of came through to anyone who came to us begging, they got in. But only our friends! They had to be in our basin of friends.
Kyle: There was also one friend who told us that her baby would
probably die otherwise…
probably die otherwise…
Jack: Kyle, don’t get specific.
Be it booze or buds or magic mushrooms, it seems like there’s a lot of drug use running rampant in the movie. Was it difficult to get this stuff approved or did you just slip something in some studio big wig’s drink?
Jack: If anything, I think New Line wanted to go even more dirtier and further and more hardcore. They never trembled because, from the beginning, they were like, “We’re going R, all the way. So, let’s REALLY go R!”
Kyle: Once they commit to the R-rating…
Jack: You better go fucking R!
Kyle: …you can pretty much do anything. There’s virtually no sex or violence in the movie
Jack: And we could say as many “fucks” as we wanted. The only thing they were hard on was the erection, even though it was covered in stretched tighty whities. If you didn’t know, there is in fact an erection rule that says you’re only allowed to show flaccid cock.
Wow. Do you think that non-D fans will still be able to get into this movie?
Kyle: I think there might be a tendency to think, “Who do these guys think they are?!” If you don’t
know, then why are you supposed to care?
know, then why are you supposed to care?
Jack: And that’s why we made the movie an origin episode, so you could see our amazing tale from the very beginnings. If you didn't before, you’ll absolutely know what we’re all about. Are people going to care what these two fat schlubs are rocking about? I would say yes, but in the same exact way that they cared about the HBO show. I mean, we didn’t just take it from where the spot where the HBO show left off, saying “You already know us! Now let’s do this thing!”
Personally, I caught a slew of stuff still reflecting the TV show and the last CD too.
Jack: There’s a lot of stuff that newbies will be watching, thinking, “Why is everyone laughing?” But that’s okay. Those people will probably just laugh because everyone else is laughing, “Oh! Hahahahahaha! Now I get it!” A lot of times, I’ll start laughing just because other people’s laughing sounds funny.
Jack: There’s a lot of stuff that newbies will be watching, thinking, “Why is everyone laughing?” But that’s okay. Those people will probably just laugh because everyone else is laughing, “Oh! Hahahahahaha! Now I get it!” A lot of times, I’ll start laughing just because other people’s laughing sounds funny.
Kyle: You know who nailed me on that? I was watching a live taping of Mr. Show and Maynard from Tool was sitting next to me watching and laughing at something. So, I started laughing too. He looked over at me and said, “What were you laughing at?” And he had caught me.
Jack: Mother fucker.
Kyle: It’s stayed with me to this day. Why did I let him catch me?! I should have said something!!
Jack: I feel bad for catching people in that. I’m not going to say who, but one time I caught this dude while we were talking about sports and the greatest coaches of all time. He was like, “Phil Jackson, the greatest of all time, better than Red Arbuckle.” I was like, “The best in any sport?” He said, “I think so.” So, I said, “Not better than Pepe Le Gran, the soccer coach. He won eight titles.” He was like, “Yeah,Pepe Le Gran was pretty great” and I was like, “Dude, there’s no Pepe Le Gran.”
Kyle: Hahahaha! Ooohhhhh, my God! That’s so mean!
Jack: “Would you at least agree with me that Pepe Le Gran is the greatest? Well, you know what? Tough. He’s not real.”
So, you’ve got the movie coming out and you've also got the album soundtrack. That said, are we going to have to wait another five years for some new tunes?
Jack: Well, Kyle’s saying we’ve got an album coming out in 2008, a covers record.
Kyle: Yeah, covers. All of our favorite rockers.
Jack: The thing is, they still all have to be funny, don’t they? We can’t just put out fucking not funny covers.
Kyle: Yeah, let’s just forget that idea. We should probably go to work immediately on the next album.
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