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Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny in our magazines

THE MOVIE: Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny

THE STARS:
Jack Black • Kyle Gass • Tim Robbins
DIRECTOR: Liam Lynch

THE CONCEPT:
In 1994 Jack Black and Kyle Gass met each other in Tim Robbins acting company, and joined forces to create the rock duo Tenacious D. This movie had been described by Black and Gass as a biopic, although some liberties have definitely been taken with their story.

U.S. RELEASE: November 22 2006, Nationwide
• Rated: R

THE COMMENTS:

LIAM LYNCH:
“Tim Robbins introduced Jack and Kyle; there would be no Tenacious D if it weren’t for Tim Robbins. He started The Actors Gang out here in LA, and Kyle was a member, this was in 1989, and when Jack was really trying to be an actor, he wanted to be in this acting troop; he eventually got in. Kyle could play the guitar and Jack was jealous. Kyle taught Jack how to play guitar, and they instantly became Tenacious D.”

JACK BLACK on writing the movie knowing a lot of the audience wouldn’t know of Tenacious D:
“That’s why we did the origin of the group. The movie is like the origin episode of a comic book, where you start before there was a Tenacious D, because if we would have started in the middle of our existence then people would have had to do a lot of catching up.”

LYNCH on whether he thinks Tenacious D are satirists:
“They’re Satanists! To me, they have a classic chemistry that you will see in every single duo; and that goes from Laurel and Hardy to Abbot and Costello, which is ‘the guy that moves a lot and the guy that doesn’t.’ It’s this funny animated one and the straight one, and it’s a winning combination.”

BLACK:
“I don’t think there is any real satire in there. I guess we make fun of Satan, we make fun of the devil in rock a little bit.”

KYLE GASS:
“I think it’s balancing between some hard rocking and having fun with the form, the lyrics. I think our commitment to the rock is funny to me, we definitely play on the Black Sabbath and the Satan thing, which when you look back seems really funny, but you don’t think there’s any irony in those guys. But now I think when we do it, hopefully it appears funny.”

LYNCH:
“We wrote this together, so it’s different than a lot of movies with actors. We all knew what the scenes were, and it was my job to keep things under control, it was my job to see the whole picture as we were doing it, obviously get all my shots together, and to give them a chance to do what was on paper, but also to go past that.”

BLACK on why Tenacious D is the greatest rock band in the world:
“We have never said that we are the greatest rock band in the world. Other people have said it, and it’s always flattering, but the reason we are great I think is because of our chemistry. We’re like thunder and lightning, together we’re ten times the rock beast that we are alone, ten times as powerful, like a rock transformer!”

Written by Judy Sloane. Back to top

Visit the official Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny site
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Feature © 2006 Visual Imagination Limited.
Not for reproduction.

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