Jack Black names the song that brought Tenacious D together: “This is the best song in the world”
Although he earned his name in Hollywood, it’s hard to think of anything that Jack Black loves more than rock music.
In fact, he once explained that it’s one of the main reasons he loves to travel to different places, like England, because the aura of existing somewhere so immersed in its own deep-rooted love for music is no match for any other place in the world. As he put it, “People know their rock over there; there’s a lot of encyclopaedic knowledge and a lot more love.”
People who live in these places likely have a natural ability to take these things for granted, as is the case for anyone who’s grown up somewhere and normalised all its whims. But for someone like Black, encountering somewhere with a rich musical history is like stepping into an atmospheric vortex that so few others notice, unless they have an insatiable appetite for it, just like he does.
It’s also one of the reasons why he started up his passion project, Tenacious D. As a duo, the musical camaraderie between Black and Kyle Gass is one of the most comedic musical acts in Hollywood, one that people often see as a gimmick that started as merely a tongue-in-cheek stint between two friends with an intense love for classic rock.
While that’s a huge part of it, it also ran far deeper than that. When it comes to music, Black is one of the most passionate people you could ever possibly come across, and, while Tenacious D started off as something lighthearted and joyful, and an outlet for Black to express his other love, it was also rooted in something heavier – a legitimate escape, both for him and their listeners.
As he once explained to NPR, on the topic of his influences, Led Zeppelin and The Who, “If they can take me on a journey through the clouds, 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. It fills that void for me.”
Whenever Black embarks on a musical journey, whether with Gass or his more recent tribute to Ozzy Osbourne, there’s always an element of transcendence that occurs that “fills the void” that acting never will. And it’s the one thing he’s always found in others, that specific, inexplicable feeling of complete and utter spiritual escapism that can only be found in the greats, like Metallica.
Countless bands and singers inspired Black, especially when it came to picking up his own microphone. But with Metallica, he encountered the blueprint for rock expression, and struck that balance between raw energy, anthemic melodies and big, explosive performances. It was the song ‘One’ that Black and Gass initially bonded over, sparking a musical streak that eventually became its own beast.
“Really, the first song that we bonded over, that I played for Kyle and was like, ‘Check this out, this is the best song in the world,’ it was Metallica’s ‘One’, and maybe there was some Metallica infused in our early days and maybe that translated to us having Metallica in our veins,” Black told Louder.
Foundations like these have always proven the true premise of Black and projects like Tenacious D, and that’s the fact that, rather than imitating their own influences for the gag, they seek to honour and celebrate rock history, bringing new audiences into their world of influences while also breathing a new lease of life into it. One that’s just as fun as when it first entered the scene, to begin with.
