WHERE AND WHEN DID YOU ALL MEET FOR THE FIRST TIME?
Kyle: "We were playing and Dave came between the curtains at [hip LA club] The Viper Room and tried to pretend like he was just a nobody, like, 'Hey guys I love your stuff, have a good show, no big deal that I'm Dave Grohl giving you props before a show..."
Dave: "I just wanted to turn the heat up a little bit and make sure there was something worth watching!"
Jack: "We were freaked out. I think it did give us a little goose. We cranked it up a couple of notches."
Dave: "My friend Pete Stahl, the singer of Scream [Grohl's pre Nirvana band], was working there and you guys were there every Sunday, and he said, 'You have to come and see this band'. I bailed the first three Sundays and then he forced me to come down."

SO BY LEAVING THE HOUSE THAT NIGHT DAVE GROHL SHAPED THE COURSE OF TENACIOUS D'S HISTORY.
Jack: "Well you know they say that if a butterfly flaps its wings in Nigeria in 1922, a thundercloud will form in 1977. But anyway, after the show you were still there and we saw you over by the stairs, and before you could even finish the sentence our manager was like, 'Okay, Tenacious D's here, you like 'em, you've got a record company...' Dave was put in a really awkward situation."
Dave: "I liked them a little, but not like that!"
Jack: "I couldn't have been more mad! Steam was coming out of my ears! And Dave was like, 'Okay guys, see ya!'. But he kept coming back for more!"

DID YOU EVER TOUR TOGETHER BACK THEN?
Dave: "Actually, we wanted to bring you guys out on the road, but before we could do that you went out with another rock band and we were kind of sad. It was this band from Seattle that we used to like when grunge was king! [Pearl Jam]"
Jack: "Wait a second, we only did two shows! That doesn't count as a tour!"
Dave: "But that's like saying I only fucked her once! You can't come back to daddy with dirty dick! But then I knew Tenacious D were gonna be enormous when they opened for us at Universal Amphitheatre. They played 'Fuck Her Gently' and had six or seven thousand people go berserk pre-album! That was under the radar, Cinderella shit!"
Jack: "Sometimes you just strike a chord! People hear a song for the first time and they're blown out of their seats!"
Dave: "Like John Lennon's 'Imagine' or something."

DAVE, HOW DID THEY PERSUADE YOU TO DRUM ON THEIR DEBUT ALBUM?
Dave: "I wasn't really sure what was gonna happen because they'd always been acoustic, so when they said they wanted drums I didn't know if it was gonna be a rock record."
Kyle: "But then you came in and we didn't let you leave for eight or ten hours!"
Jack: "You know what opened the door, though? It was when Dave asked us to do a cameo in the 'Learn To Fly' Video, because then we were able to say, 'Could you do us a little favour?'."
Dave: "And that's the way it's been for the last 10 years! You scratch this and I'll scratch that."
Kyle: "But the ultimate pay off was when Jack dressed up as a woman for you [in the 'Low' video]. You had a boner that entire video!"
Dave: "Well. what are you gonna do? He's hot!"

IT SEEMS LIKE ALL ACTORS WANT TO BE ROCK STARS AND ALL ROCK STARS WANT TO BE ACTORS.
Jack: "Dave could easily have an acting career if he wanted. I imagine you've had many offers."
Dave: "I have had many offers and I've never ever said yes to any of them. 'Singles', that Marky Mark movie about the rock star [er, 'Rock Star'], 'Mission Impossible 3'. 'Talladega Nights..."
Jack: "I bet that was tempting!"
Dave: "But here's the thing: I've always said that I'd never do a movie and that's a sacrifice that I've made for you time and time again. But I got to play Satan in the Tenacious D movie! That's like Kurtz in 'Apocalypse Now!' You can't beat that!"

THE MAKE-UP YOU HAD TO WEAR LOOKS PRETTY INTENSE.
Dave: "Jack came to me and said, 'I want you to know how gnarly the make-up's gonna be! It's gonna be 100 times worse than the 'Tribute' video'. And he was right! You know what got me through it? Jagermeister!"
Jack: "He had to have a hypnotist and psychiatrist to help get him through the pain."
Dave: "The eyeballs are the worst part. But first they get the face on, then they get the back of the neck on. you can't move and you're five hours in. Then they start airbrushing you and you're seven hours in. Then they put the ears on you so you can't fucking hear and finally they put the eyes in so you can't fucking see!
"But it was great because the whole time I sat in the chair and drank Jager and listened to Slayer, Unleashed, Mercyful Fate... I just listened to metal for six hours so when it was like, 'Mr Grohl, you're on', I was just like the devil!"
Jack: "I didn't know that, as an actor, you were preparing with the metal."
Dave: "That's what I do!"

DID YOU EVER IMAGINE, AS A KID, THAT ONE DAY YOU'D BE STARRING IN A HOLLYWOOD MOVIE?
Dave: "The whole thing has been weird. Last night I walked the red carpet for the premiere. And then I sat behind Ronnie James Dio [classic rock icon, who cameos in ' ... The Pick Of Destiny'] and got all nervous when I knew my part was coming."
Kyle: "Really?"
Dave: "Yeah, I was freaking out! I was trying to listen to see if people were laughing, but the music was too loud."
Jack: "Tell me about it. That's the hardest part. When you go to the premiere and you're checking people out, especially if there's people behind you because then you get the feeling that there's people looking at you. looking at yourself! That's why I went in the back row."
Kyle: "But check this out. I shot 'Almost Famous' with [director] Cameron Crowe and found out where the screening was only to go through ihe whole movie and find out my part was cut out!"

IS IT EQUALLY STRANGE FOR TENACIOUS D TO BE HANGING OUT WITH DAVE GROHL?
Dave: "You can't possibly think it's weird hanging out with me!"
Kyle: "Yes I can! When I think Nirvana's drummer is our drummer then it's weird and I'll never get over that."

SURELY YOU GET LESS STAR·STRUCK NOW YOU'RE SUCCESSFUL?
Kyle: "Yeah. now they're our bitches!"
Jack: "But I do feel like we're kind of visiting from the actors' party. I never feel totally at home."
Dave: "Which is weird because so many musicians look up to Tenacious D."
Jack: "I don't know dude. there's some actors who have some kick ass songs. Have you heard [Borat's] 'Throw The Jew Down The Well'?"
Kyle: "When I first saw Borat. I was like, 'Well he's done it! It's not worth us even trying.'"
Jack: "Yeah, fucked-up timing. We're finally unleashing our masterpiece and right before it comes out, the 'Star Wars' of comedy comes out!"
Kyle: "And our first album came out two days before 9/11! It was like. 'Now let's celebrate some rock comedy with the worst tragedy in American history'."

WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE CURRENT ROCK SCENE?
Jack: "I like a couple of Muse songs. but I'm pretty old school when it comes to my metal. Who's the metal right now? Who's carrying the metal torch?"
Dave: "The real metal torch is being carried by Mastodon. You know about Mastodon? They're the kings! Riding high, first class! They're the best metal band."
Kyle: "What makes them the best metal band?"
Dave: "Riffs! Beards!"
Jack: "There was a really good metal album recently called Probot... Hey what do you think of the Wolfmother?
Dave: "I like the Wolfmother. But I've only really heard the 'Woman' song. We played a show with them actually, at an Australian festival."

WHAT'S THE BEST BAND YOU'VE EVER SEEN?
Dave: "Ever? Bad Brains."
Jack: "They just played the farewell to CBGBs."
Dave: "I played there with Scream in '87 or something. It was a fucking dump! It was gross!"
Kyle: "When was your first Nirvana show?"
Dave: "That was in Olympia, Washington in front of six or seven hundred people."

AND NOW TENACIOUS D ARE DOING TWO NIGHTS AT UNIVERSAL AMPHITHEATRE, WHERE YOU OPENED FOR FOO FIGHTERS.
Kyle: "Yeah, we were hoping to sell out in 30 seconds, but there's still a lot of tickets available."
Dave: "What's going on with [Kyle's other band] Trainwreck?"
Kyle: "We're actually gonna be touring a few dates in between D because Jack doesn't like to sing for a lot of dates in a row. But it's hard living in the shadow of Jack Black. I go out and do gigs and realise just how unpopular I am."
Jack: "But weirdly, this tour is haemorrhaging cash. Even if we sell out the whole tour, we're really not making any money."
Dave: "Welcome to my fucking world brother! For us to do an acoustic show costs $70,000!"
Jack: "You've gotta sell quite a few cum rags to make up for the loss, but everyone has to buy more than one because how many times are you gonna use a cum rag before you need a new one? Maybe five?
"We've got a full production this time, with a full band and some pyrotechnics. Well, fake flames. The show has a concept: it starts off in Kyle's apartment, taking a nap on the power couch, then we wake up and there's an auditorium full of people in Kyle's living room so we wake up and rock 'em! Then me and Kyle die in his apartment and we're transported to hell. And it's fucking 3-D; deep and huge! It looks kinda shitty, like, the volcanoes are made of tin foil, but it's still hell."

WOULD TENACIOUS D EVER GIVE UP ACTING TO BE PROPER ROCK STARS?
Jack: "No. I'm pretty happy the way it is right now,"
Dave: "But how do you compare performance in front of a camera to performance in front of a audience?"
Jack: "Audience is way more fun. When you play live you get a little bit more leeway, but when you're acting you have to be pretty precise. But it's more the lifestyle because when you're doing a tour you only have to work for two or three hours a day. With a movie you gotta wake up at the crack and sometimes before the crack ...of dawn."

WHO'S THE BIGGEST DlCKHEAD YOU'VE MET IN HOLLYWOOD?
Jack: "You want me to name some names?"

YES.
Dave: "You're talking to the guy who told Johnny Rotten [Sex Pistols] to eat a cock."

NOT IN THOSE WORDS, BUT HE WAS A DICK.
Kyle: "I'm glad you're saying that because we were using him in part of our movie and at the last second he pulled out unless we gave him a million dollars or something stupid. He's just trying to be more outrageous and he's run out of outrageous."

ALL THE BEST ROCK BANDS DESCEND INTO DRUGS AND MUTUAL LOATHING. WHAT'S GOING TO HAPPEN TO TENACIOUS D?
Kyle: "You know what's gonna do us in? Carbs! We're gonna carb ourselves to death and it's not gonna be glamorous. There's gonna be no vomit choking, our veins will just shrivel up and we'll have massive heart attacks."

DAVE, IS THERE ANY ADVICE YOU CAN GIVE THEM AS A TOURING ROCK BAND?
Dave: "Stay away from needles guys!"

Words: Morat