“A spiritual feeling”: Jack Black’s five favourite bands of all time
There is an old adage that every actor wishes they were a musician, and every musician wants to be an actor. However, as a master of multitasking, Jack Black managed to make a name for himself both in the acting world and in the world of rock and roll. If you look back over the career of the California, you will find that many of his roles centred around music, from the record store snob of High Fidelity to the rock-obsessed opportunist in School of Rock.
If you need any further proof of Black’s rock and roll credentials, you only need to look at his work with legendary comedy rock duo Tenacious D alongside Kyle Gass. With this outfit, Black has taken every opportunity to express his adoration for rock music, penning some beloved tracks like ‘Tribute’ and confirming his reputation as a bonafide music nerd. In fact, the actor once revealed, “I don’t have any real spirituality in my life – I’m kind of an atheist – but when music can take me to the highest heights, it’s almost like a spiritual feeling,” he said. “It fills that void for me.”
That sense of rock being a religion certainly rings true when examining Black’s work over the years. While the actor has appeared in his fair share of disappointing films, he seems to flourish most in those projects that involve music in some capacity. Of course, School of Rock remains one of his most iconic roles. By all accounts, though, Black might as well have been playing himself in that film, as the musical opinions expressed by Mr Schneebly certainly seem to align with his own.
As somebody who has spent decades obsessing over rock and roll, Jack Black certainly has a degree of authority over the subject. Over the years, the actor has voiced his appreciation for countless groups, in addition to denouncing the state of rock music in the modern age. Although his heart will always lie in the hard rock of groups like AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, Black’s music taste is far more diverse than he often gets credited with.
Jack Black’s five favourite bands:
The Beatles
There are few bands with the same kind of universal appeal as The Beatles. Through their near-flawless discography, Liverpool’s favourite sons changed the world of pop and rock music indefinitely. Hence, it is only right that Jack Black holds a colossal amount of respect for the Fab Four. In fact, Black even got the chance to play a version of his hero, Paul McCartney, in a particularly strange scene from 2007’s Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
Explaining his love for The Beatles, Black once told Rolling Stone that few names can stand up to their legendary reputation. “When you think about rock at its origin,” he shared, “and you think of the Beatles and millions of kids screaming as loud as they can and running as fast as they can towards the Beatles, there’s no one who is that kind of lightning rod, who commands that kind of power and has that kind of creative magma.”
Black Sabbath
Upon listening to the various records Black has made as one-half of Tenacious D, his appreciation for the pioneering hard rock of Black Sabbath should be obvious. His appreciation for the Birmingham band runs so deep that his vocal style has often attempted to mirror that of Ozzy Osbourne. Reportedly, it was listening to Osbourne that first inspired Black to follow the path of rock and roll.
As opposed to their most popular recordings, however, Black’s favourite work by Sabbath comes in the form of their underrated compilation record We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll. Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, he said, “Ozzy is the most haunting, evil, kick-ass vocalist in history. Hands down,” adding, “This album [We Sold Our Souls for Rock ‘n’ Roll] is a capsule of a romantic time when Satan was real. You were going to hell, but you didn’t care because it rocked so fuckin’ hard.”
Yes
Progressive rock often gets a bad rap within the context of rock and roll, particularly from hard rock obsessives like Jack Black. Nevertheless, the actor seems to have warmed to the complex style over the years, particularly the Jon Anderson-led outfit Yes. The band became something of a phenomenon during their 1970s heyday, transcending the prog scene to achieve mainstream success with records like Fragile.
For Black, this success was hardly surprising. Although progressive rock might not align itself too closely with the music that inspired Black to form Tenacious D, he could not help but bask in the excellence of their playing. “I loved Yes,” he once told The Howard Stern Show, “They were the masters of their instruments. No one could touch them for musicianship. They were all like masterclass Juilliard-trained.”
Radiohead
Another exemplar of Black’s broad musical taste, the disciple of rock also holds a special place in his heart for the unique and profound work of Thom Yorke and Radiohead. The Oxfordshire outfit managed to transcend all trends during their 1990s heyday, simultaneously releasing some of the greatest albums of all time in the form of OK Computer, The Bends and Kid A. They might not have the same adrenaline as Black Sabbath, but Black loves them nonetheless.
“If you want concept,” he said in a 2000 interview, “You go OK Computer. But if you wanna rock — if you want straight-up fuckin’ songs — you go The Bends. The first few listens, I was like, ‘I don’t understand…My brain’s not computing…’ Then it clicked in: ‘Ohhhh, I see! It’s the best band in the history of rock!’” High praise indeed.
Led Zeppelin
While Jack Black loves every group on this list, his utter adoration for Led Zeppelin trounces them all. As progenitors of the hard rock style, Zeppelin were vitally important in paving the way for countless future generations of rock, and Black certainly attempted to follow in their footsteps. “Led Zeppelin,” he once said, “the greatest rock and roll band of all time. Better than the Beatles, better than The Stones.”
“And if you don’t agree with me,” he continued, “that’s because you haven’t done the Zeppelin marathon. It’s when you sit your ass down and listen to all nine Zeppelin albums in a row. The jams of Led Zeppelin are second to none.” His love for the band is plainly evident in his work with Tenacious D, as well as in School of Rock, one of the very few films that Zeppelin allowed their work to be used in.
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