We’re going to assume that anyone clicking on this article knows that “This Is Spinal Tap” is the greatest rock and roll film of all time, that its long-awaited sequel “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” is being released in theaters today (Friday, Sept. 12), and, in a telling statement on its vast influence, features appearances from Elton John — who even performs “Stonehenge” with the group — Paul McCartney, Metallica’s Lars Ulrich, Questlove and more.
The sequel brings the bandmembers, who are now well past retirement age, together for one more concert. It’s not because they want to — the bandmembers hadn’t spoken in 15 years, for a reason that becomes clear late in the film — but because of a contractual obligation.
In the intervening years, singer-guitarist David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) has created music for advertisements; lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) has opened a combination cheese and guitar shop with his girlfriend; and bassist Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer), who always considered himself the “glue” holding the band together, has opened a glue museum. Director Marty DiBergi (Rob Reiner, with whom we spoke about both Tap films over the summer) has returned to follow the bandmembers, along with new drummer DD Crockett, to New Orleans, where they prepare for and ultimately perform that reunion concert.
But enough of our yakkin’! See the film and read the hilarious interview below — which took place Wednesday over Zoom, with the actors fully in character, accents and all — and come back on Sunday when we’ll publish our long-lost 1991 interview with the band.
What has the reaction to your long-awaited return been like?
David St. Hubbins: Well, we sold out a rather large hall in New Orleans last year, so that was our return, officially. And now we’ve got this film coming out, which we’re going to see tonight — we’ve never seen it. Of course, Marty DiBergi, the director, he’s seen it many times.
Marty DiBergi: I’m a bit nervous, to be honest.
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Nigel Tufnel: You should be.
DiBergi: I mean, I hope they like it. They weren’t all that thrilled with the first one initially.
Derek Smalls: To put it mildly.
DiBergi: So I’m hoping this goes better.
Why wouldn’t you give them a private screening to save them the awkwardness of seeing it in front of so many people?
Smalls: That’s a great question.
St. Hubbins: I think the implication was that he wanted to wait until it was too late. Well, I’m casting aspersions —
DiBergi: And I just received some of those aspersions. But my feeling was, I think it’s better if they see it in front of an audience because that way they’ll get the full impact of it.
St. Hubbins: [Harrumphing] Well, yes, we’re looking forward to it.
Marty, will you be sitting with the band as they watch the film at the screening tonight?
DiBergi: Well, I won’t be sitting next to them. But I will be interviewing them after the film to get their reaction, so the people who go to the theater in IMAX, they’ll be able to see that Q&A interview. So they’ll be getting the reaction of the guys.
Tufnel: What would happen if we left midway through the film? Could you still have a Q&A, as you like to call it?
Smalls: You would just have a Q.
DiBergi: If you left midway through the film, I would think that you probably didn’t like it.
Tufnel: Well, let’s say I had to go to the loo …
Smalls: If you went to the loo and came back, that’s how you’d know.
St. Hubbins: No one goes to the loo forever.
Tufnel: Some people do.
DiBergi: It depends.
St. Hubbins: If you were wearing Depends, you wouldn’t have to go to the loo at all.
Well, setting aside the film, does this return feel like a vindication, like the world has finally caught up with you?
Smalls: It feels more like syndication than vindication.
DiBergi: To be honest, they were kind of forced back into playing with each other. They hadn’t played together for 15 years.
St. Hubbins: We hadn’t spoken!
DiBergi: They hadn’t spoken to each other in 15 years, and it was only because of a contract that Hope Faith inherited from her father, Ian, who was their [late] manager, that called for one more concert. So they were kind of forced, in a way, back into playing with each other.
St. Hubbins: It was a blissful reunion, kicking and screaming.
Smalls: It’s like a shotgun marriage.
Well, considering that you haven’t seen the film, this is a bit of spoiler —
Tufnel: Then why are you telling us if you don’t want to spoil it?
And it’s probably something you’ve discussed amongst yourselves, but the source of the differences between David and Nigel and why you didn’t speak for 15 years — have you forgiven each other?
St. Hubbins: Look, we know what went down between us and amongst us. Everything’s on the table now. And all is forgiven, because why not? We haven’t got that much time to fart around. We can actually maybe have a bit of peace and quiet… and noise!
DiBergi: And I’m going to apologize right here now to Derek because he said something in confidence to me and I have to admit I put it in the film. I just wanted to prepare Derek for that.
St. Hubbins: Anyone else you need to apologize to?
Nigel, did your experience in music help to make you a good cheese shop owner?
Tufnel: [The two disciplines] don’t meet, necessarily, although I have guitars in my cheese shop. There’s a barter system where you might come in, let’s say, with a Vox guitar and you have got your eye on an Edam [cheese], maybe, and we talk and maybe it works out and we do a trade. They walk out happy; I don’t go anywhere and I’m still happy. So that’s the way it works.
Smalls: Would you do that for a banjo?
Tufnel: No, I wouldn’t do it with a banjo.
Smalls: That’s discriminatory.
Tufnel: It is, and I’m proud of it.
What would be the ultimate guitar you could get for a trade-in, and the ultimate cheese?
Tufnel: If someone came in with a 1958 or ’59 Gibson Les Paul sunburst, I’d give them the entire shop. They’d have the papers, they’d have the lease, they’d have the whatever.
I don’t want to make any spoilers for people, but —
Tufnel: You’re spoiling it for us, so keep spoiling it. The important thing is that you spoil everything.
DiBergi: By this point, the cheese is spoiled.
But would they get your wife as well as the shop?
St. Hubbins: Ooh.
Tufnel: Well, first of all, you’re incredibly rude to say that, because I don’t really know you, even though you’ve got a pad of paper there. And she’s not my wife. Aside from that, you’re like a bloodhound. You’re right on the trail.
St. Hubbins: He’s a newspaper man.
Tufnel: That’s a special breed.
St. Hubbins: He’s got that little card in his hat that says “Press” and everything.
Smalls: Does anyone ever actually press where it says “press”?
A lot of veteran bands stay together even though they don’t like each other, but you haven’t. Do you find that absence has made the heart grow fonder, or the opposite?
St. Hubbins: Do you expect us to compare ourselves with the lives of other bands that we don’t know? We know the inside workings of who we are, and we don’t know what it’s like for Foghat these days.
DiBergi: Or Oasis.
St. Hubbins: Oasis, younger and younger bands like that. We’re just finding out that some of these bands exist at all.
Tufnel: But if you take any group that’s put together, no matter what they do, there’s always going to be people who disagree. When they were doing the Enigma machine during World War II [when Allied code-breakers successfully deciphered secret Nazi communications], they had these people in the countryside working on this thing, you know — well, not you literally would know — and they would bicker. It’s only later that you read about it.
DiBergi: [Chief code-breaker] Alan Turing, I think he didn’t get along with a lot of people.
Tufnel: Someone would say, “Hey, that’s rubbish what you’ve just decoded” and he’d say “Blow me!”
Smalls: He invented that thing that we use every day now in music, right? The Turing fork.
DiBergi: No, that’s a tuning fork. That’s a different thing.
But do you feel that —
St. Hubbins: Look, you could spend all day spouting truisms about rock’s rich pageantry.
Tufnel: Let’s not have him do that.
St. Hubbins: No, I’m not saying he may do it.
Smalls: He could.
Tufnel: He may not.
St. Hubbins: But I’m saying that we could all do that and be none the wiser.
What did you think of Elton John’s performance in the film?
St. Hubbins: He nailed it, nailed it.
Tufnel: He’s a great musician, he’s a great singer. He can do that beautifully.
He sang both David and Nigel’s parts during “Stonehenge,” which is no mean feat.
Tufnel: It was a mean feat, actually — it was quite mean, because I like singing my part. But he said to us, “It would be great if I could sing the whole thing.” We said, look, you’re who you are, you can do it.
St. Hubbins: And he knew who he was.
Smalls: Still does.
DiBergi: After all, he’s been knighted, and these guys haven’t been knighted.
Tufnel: You had to bring that up!
St. Hubbins: No one wants to talk about that.
DiBergi: I believe that you deserve to be knighted.
Smalls: Well, thank you. I think you deserve to be knighted.
DiBergi: But I’m not British.
Smalls: Well, just in theory.
On the subject of knights, what did you think of Paul McCartney’s performance? David, you didn’t seem that thrilled with it.
St. Hubbins: Listen, his version of “Cups and Cakes” is now my favorite version of “Cups and Cakes.” I think he does a great job, I think he’s a lovely man — generally — and a fantastic artiste, as we know. But we just… we got off on the wrong foot, kind of rubbed each other the wrong way. I don’t want to talk about it.
So the two of you were like chalk and cheese, you’re saying?
St. Hubbins: I don’t know what that means.
That’s a British expression. I thought you were British?
Tufnel: Where do you live? Brooklyn? You heard that somewhere in Brooklyn, that chalk doesn’t get along with cheese.
Speaking of knights, how do you think Sir Elton and Sir Paul’s respective legacies hold up to yours?
St. Hubbins: Oh, well, listen, we’re realistic. we know that we are marginal in a lot of ways: marketing, fame, success, money —
Smalls: Women.
St. Hubbins: Yes, women. I could go on and on. In fact, I have. Now I’m done.
How is DD Crockett, the new drummer? Is she still with us or has she joined the long legacy of deceased Spinal Tap drummers?
DiBergi: We left that vague because it’s like, let the audience decide.
Smalls: I know personally that she still has all her tattoos.
DiBergi: No matter where she is, she still has those tats.
St. Hubbins: She takes them everywhere.
Did working with a female drummer change your opinions about women in general, as opposed to some of the perspectives in songs like “Bitch School” or the “Smell the Glove” album cover?
St. Hubbins: There’s no conflict, really. Besides, she’s one of the blokes, I guess you could say, but she’s also all girl, a rock and roll animal girl — for her, there’s no “I” in girl, just a lot of “R”s.
Smalls: “GRRRRRL.”
Tufnel: She likes singing those songs.
Smalls: And to tell the truth, before we hired her, we actually did ask her to smell a glove, and she did.
St. Hubbins: I was not invited to that.
Tufnel: I was not there.
Smalls: Well, it was a private moment.
There are new songs in the film?
DiBergi: There’s a song that Derek introduces in the film called “Rockin’ in the Urn.”
St. Hubbins: It’s a song that jumps the life-death boundaries in a lovely and charming way.
Tufnel: Yeah, it speaks about things — I mean, he’s sitting here, he could say it — but things that people were afraid to discuss before, which is what happens after, and he tells you what’s going to happen after.
Smalls: I do, indeed.
Are you going to tell us what happens?
Tufnel: I’m not going to tell you, I’ll tell everyone else.
Smalls: But seriously, it’s about, you know, if you’re in this business, you’re in it for the love of music. And why should that end just because your pulse has stopped?
Tufnel: Just because someone has signed a death certificate, so what?
Smalls: So bloody what?
Tufnel: Keep plugging in, even when you’re in the urn. Keep on singing. Keep on rocking.
Smalls: If for no other reason than to entertain the other urns.
That’s beautiful. Who are some contemporary artists that you particularly admire or like?
St. Hubbins: Oh, we like a lot of groups that have been together for a long time. Pearl Jam, they’ve been together for nearly 40 years, I think.
DiBergi: Do you like Dua Lipa?
St. Hubbins: I’ve never leaped one.
Smalls: There’s nothing like the sound of Dua Lipa in the morning.
St. Hubbins: I keep thinking that someday we’ll come across the next George Formby. [British singer-actor popular in the 1930s and ’40 who died in 1961.] But we’ve been waiting a long time for another one.
Tufnel: His dad actually had the same name.
DiBergi: That’s George Foreman. [Late, legendary boxer who had five sons, all named George.]
This is another slightly awkward question —
Smalls: For you or for us?
Well, for all of us. But it feels like Marty has a much bigger role this time, he even almost feels like the star of the film —
Tufnel: You’re just reading that! You’re just reading that off your piece of paper. You’re not thinking it.
St. Hubbins: But he wrote it down himself.
Smalls: Did Marty write that?
St. Hubbins: I’m the star of this film!
DiBergi: [Uncomfortably] To me, I’m the fly on the wall. Now, sometimes the fly gets in front of the camera, but most of the time I’m just trying to document what I see going on. And the only reason I’m in the film is because I saw Martin Scorsese in “The Last Waltz” and he interviewed the band. But I don’t ever think of myself as a star of any magnitude.
St. Hubbins: We’re with you on that.
If there were to be a biopic about Spinal Tap, who would play your characters?
Tufnel: Have you ever seen the [James] Bond movies?
Yes.
Tufnel: Good. I was just wondering if you had. I like those. They’re quite exciting.
St. Hubbins: He was asking you something specific.
Tufnel: OK, fair enough. Do you know who Ned Glass is? [Character actor from the ‘40s and ‘50s who died in 1984.] He would have been good to play me.
DiBergi: Ned Glass wasn’t in Bond movies! He was in “West Side Story.”
St. Hubbins: He’s long gone.
Tufnel: Then I would say Michael Caine.
St. Hubbins: Jude Law.
Smalls: Rob Lowe.
Marty?
DiBergi: Oh, uh… Ruh — [laughing too hard to continue speaking]
Tufnel: Oh, you think it’s funny, do you?
St. Hubbins: You always go to Russ Tamblyn, don’t you?
Smalls: He’s breaking himself up.
St. Hubbins: He’s doing that special kind of trembling meditation he does.
DiBergi: Robert Q. Lewis! [1950s-era actor and TV/radio host]
St. Hubbins: We waited all that time for that?
Tufnel: Not long enough! Wait — [to interviewer, whose wife had briefly ducked into the room] I saw a woman leaving! Behind you — I saw a woman!
St. Hubbins: Someone has left you.
Can you blame her?
St. Hubbins: She had a suitcase with her!
Smalls: And a gun.
Tufnel: She left a note!
OK, this has been lovely. Are there any questions I should have asked you that I haven’t?
Tufnel: Yes! My question is, are you going to take a nap now? Because it seems like that wouldn’t be the worst thing in history.
[Sighs audibly]
DiBergi: Are you Jewish?
St. Hubbins: He didn’t say “oy.”
Tufnel: Beethoven used to say that all the time.
St. Hubbins: Thank you for playing “Who’s Jewish?”
Tufnel: Yes, but we’ve been given the signal …
St. Hubbins: Yeah, they’re pulling us out of here.
Well, thank you, gentlemen.
Tufnel: Yes, this has been lovely. In some fashion …
From Variety US