The song that made Jack Black “quit” piano
Is anyone coming to Tenacious D looking to hear Jack Black play the most face-melting solo in the world?
No. He does have a lot of musical talent, but whenever he gets onstage with ‘The D’, it’s more about his voice whenever they launch into their best tunes, which normally resides somewhere between the greatest hair metal vocalist you’ve never heard and a more animated version of Chris Farley. But Black does have a lot more musical chops than most people realise as well.
Granted, it’s not like you’d get much of it from listening to every single Tenacious D tune. It’s clear listening to tracks like ‘One Note Song’ that Black isn’t really interested in making the same kind of complicated Steely Dan-esque songs that more sophisticated acts do, but even if he has a fist full of major chords and a good heart, he can normally make anything work for a little while.
And it’s not like his voice is clearly being played for laughs, either. Regardless of how many times his songs tie back to sex or are borderline unintelligible, the amount of vocal support that he has to practise to get in that kind of shape doesn’t come easy. There are vocalists that have been in the game longer than Black has who couldn’t touch what he’s doing now, and whether that’s because of his fantastic technique or him being at one with the rock and roll gods is anyone’s guess.
But regardless of how many times he could rock-ify pop tunes like ‘Wicked Game’ or ‘Baby One More Time’, Black knew all the greatest rock songs of all time all trace back to the guitar. He was never prancing onto the set of School of Rock with a Gibson SG by accident, and while any artist can make a bass guitar or a drumset sound phenomenal, there has always been a touch and go relationship between rock and the piano.
Let’s face it: there’s no real way for anyone to look cool from behind a piano. It’s a far more serious instrument than the rest of the band, and while it’s easy to break it out when someone plays a ballad, does Tenacious D really look like the kind of band that has their own version of ‘Imagine’ or ‘November Rain’ in their system?
Admittedly, Black did take up the piano for a little while, but once he got the tunes he wanted under his belt, that was more than enough for him, saying, “I played, like, a year of piano until I learned the ‘Pink Panther’ theme. That was my goal. Once I was good enough, I quit. Now my music has to have some rock.” And it’s not like he picked a goofy song to start off with or anything.
As much as Peter Sellers was iconically hilarious in the original Pink Panther, the theme is actually a lot more complex than many people realise. Compared to every other iconic movie theme tune, this is the kind of melody that you’d expect coming out of a smoky jazz club, which actually makes it all the more hilarious when it’s used for a detective that’s getting into some of the most ridiculous situations any true private eye has ever seen.
But that’s actually part of the reason why both The Pink Panther series and Black’s level of comedy works so well. Both of them know that they are supposed to create the most over-the-top performances, but if everything around them is being played straight, it makes the funny moments feel all the more hilarious.
