“Something magical”: Jack Black on his favourite period of Tenacious D
Every true rock fan knows that some artists are irreplaceable in their respective outfits. Led Zeppelin were never going to stand the test of time without John Bonham, and even though every member of The Beatles had a stellar solo career, the thought of any of them getting together and calling themselves the Fab Four would have never been taken seriously by any of their peers. It’s all about chemistry, and for Jack Black, that applied to even the silliest bands that he knew.
When Black started off his music career, it was never meant to be taken as seriously as Tenacious D eventually became. There was still a lot of humour behind their output, but listening back to their first two albums, they had no right being as layered as they were, almost like having some hard rock band from the 1970s getting resurrected, only this time with even more blatant lyrics about sex and songs that were actually designed to make you laugh.
Although Black could deliver any song that he got his hands on with aplomb, there’s a certain element that Kyle Gass brought to everything that was criminally underrated. After all, every comedian is only as good as his straight man, and Gass was the perfect coil by actually tearing it up on guitar, whether that was being able to play classical guitar for Black to wax poetry over or playing the kind of rhythm part that Black couldn’t have done on his own.
While Black was always searching for the kind of tunes with the right amount of rocket sauce, each of them would be made ten times funnier by Gass putting a comedic jab into the fold. No matter how many times Black decides to ham it up when playing the song ‘Wonderboy’, him talking about his bandmate and hearing Gass’s pathetic ‘THAT’S ME’ in the background is always priceless.
” We were like the most indie of all.”
jack black
Despite the two of them working so well together and going on to achieve great things, Black maintains a soft spot for their early halcyon days. The idea may have blossomed from a small feature spot on Mr Show, but by the time they started to gain traction and thinking of recording an album, the adrenaline rush of having a bunch of people singing along to every filthy word was the real highlight for Black.
Looking back on that time, Black talked about the pre-album days the same way most serious acts talk about the freewheeling days before they get signed, saying, “There was something magical in the time before we had an album, when we were on HBO and before we got a record contract. There’s a couple of years in there where we were famous as a band, and we were able to go and book big rooms and play in rooms all around the country without an album. We were like the most indie of all. Our music is in the air, or on the videotapes. We went to Seattle, and Eddie Vedder came to one of our shows before we had a record.”
While getting revered artists like the Dust Brothers to produce them and Dave Grohl to play the drums on their records may have been interesting; there’s something a lot funnier in hearing them perform as a duo. The whole premise of the joke is that they are going to be the kind of band that will melt people’s faces off, and the idea of them doing so with Simon and Garfunkel-style harmonies and bucketloads of charm is wonderful to see.
As much as they prided themselves on being goofy, there’s something almost poetic about that approach to Tenacious D. They were never lacking in enthusiasm for a second, and even if their songs were never meant to be played on the radio, their success is proof of what can happen when someone is that devoted to their craft.
