Tenacious D

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Tenacious D

Rock group

By their own admission, Tenacious D is part legitimate band and part inspired put-on. The duo, comprised of Jack Black and Kyle Gass, started out in comedy clubs, taking up where Spinal Tap left off, parodying the musical excesses of the hard rock generation of the 1970s and 1980s. However, where Spinal Tap satirized the English side of metal, Tenacious D has instead focused on the pretensions of the genre's post-college slacker fans. Their humor derives from the seriousness with which the duo take their self-created mythology: two chubby nobodies become the greatest rock band in the world. They're not, of course, but their attempts and misfires provide laughs aplenty for their legions of fans.

Lyrically, the duo sends up every hackneyed allusion and half-baked poetic image that groups such as Black Sabbath and Judas Priest have mustered. Moreover, they behave as if they have invested every ounce of their personal beliefs into each contrivance and stage antic. The never-say-die characters Black and Gass portray are self-deluded losers, but make no mistake: It takes genuine talent to simultaneously mock and glorify this genre. Fortunately for rock-comedy fans, the duo possess talent in spades. Often viewed as a junior league John Belushi, Black's intense yet polished vocal histrionics and improvisational ability bring a zany intensity to his mock-rock anthems. The rotund and bald Gass's work on guitar, mostly acoustic, blends supple melodies with hard-driving power chords that any hard rock band would be proud to feature. Together they achieve a tight harmonic blend which allows them to flesh out their acoustic sound with rather pleasing results.

Met Through Tim Robbins

Raised in the Hermosa Beach section of Los Angeles, Jack Black was the child of two "rocket scientists." Indeed, his mother worked on the Hubble Telescope project. Black began acting in television commercials as a teenager and made his film debut in a 1987 management training film titled Manager of the Year—Effective Listening. Black met Kyle Gass on the campus of UCLA while working with actor Tim Robbins's Actor's Gang, an experimental political theater group. Kyle Gass recalled the circumstances for the magazine Death + Taxes: "He was kind of like the new guy—apprentice—whatever. So he was in a show and he had these crazy musical things going on—he didn't play an instrument, but he sang and then did these multi-track tapes on a TEAC. They were great! And I was the music guy for the Actor's Gang. So, I was like, ‘Who is this kid? What is he doing?’" According to Gass, the two wrote a song the very first time they got together. Moreover, he taught Black how to play guitar so they could jam.

Gass, whose father was a fireman and mother a dental hygienist, was raised in the San Francisco suburb of Walnut Creek. A classical guitar prodigy, at the age of 13 he became the youngest-ever graduate from New York's Juilliard School of Music. As an actor in his own right, his first major break came via an appearance in a commercial for 7-UP. Blessed with a quick improvisational wit, Gass had been in Robbins's Actor's Gang program for years by the time Black joined the troupe.

Played in Between Film Gigs

Christening themselves Tenacious D, the duo honed their rock-comedy chops in Los Angeles nightspots, but it was acting that paid the bills for both. In 1992 Black supplied harmony vocals for the songs in Robbins's film Bob Roberts, and took on a variety of supporting roles in such films as Cradle Will Rock, The Cable Guy, and Jesus' Son. Black's breakthrough role came in 2000's High Fidelity, in which he portrayed a character much like his Tenacious D persona, an opinionated, self-delusional rock trivia geek who, surprisingly, can actually sing. The breakout star of the movie, Black went on to star in such mainstream comedy films as Shallow Hal, School of Rock, and Nacho Libre. Once an established star, he also took on a straight dramatic role in the 2005 remake of King Kong.

Gass has also appeared in numerous, though decidedly smaller, acting roles on television and in films with Black, and as a solo supporting player. The portly deadpan comic is at his improvisational best as the narcoleptic disc jockey in the director's cut of Almost Famous. When he's not filming or working with Black, Gass plays bass for an L.A.-based southern rock band called Trainwreck. Yet it is the connection with Tenacious D for which he is most recognized today.

For the Record …

Members include: Jack Black (born Thomas J. Black on August 28, 1969, in Hermosa Beach, CA; married Tanya Hayden, 2006; children: Samuel), lead vocals, rhythm guitar; Kyle Richard Gass (born July 14, 1960, in Walnut Creek, CA), lead guitar, harmony vocals.

Formed group in 1993; recorded sporadically for Epic Records, 2001-06; appeared on HBO's sketch comedy Mr. Show With Bob and David, 1996; starred in their own HBO three-episode series Tenacious D, 1999; as a duo appeared on Saturday Night Live, The Jimmy Kimmel Show, The MTV Music Awards, The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, and the 2006 American Music Awards; starred in the movie Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny, 2006; worldwide tour, 2006-07.

Addresses: Record company—Epic Records, 550 Madison Ave., New York, NY 10022-3211, website: http://www.sonybmgmusic.com. Website—Official artist website: http://www.tenaciousd.com.

During the late 1990s the two received serious notice as a semi-regular feature of HBO's avant-garde comedy series Mr. Show with Bob and David, starring Bob Odenkirk and David Cross. HBO subsequently hired the duo to star in the six-episode sitcom about the band's trials and travails as an open mike act. Compiled on the 2003 disc Tenacious D: The Complete Masterworks, the series crackled with a mixture of ironic satire and slob humor, and featured some of the duo's best early numbers, such as "Explosivo," "Kielbasa," and "Tribute," as well as "Dio," their homage to Black Sabbath's Ronnie James Dio. Their TV run led to their first self-titled album for Epic, which spawned popular video renditions of "Wonderboy" and "Tribute." Filled with smatterings of comedic interplay and smartly fleshed out productions of their best-known songs, the album crested at number 33 on the pop charts, and earned a platinum album award during a 2002 limited tour.

Filmed Their Comedic Legend

Black and Gass were so busy with their respective solo careers that they weren't able to do a follow-up to their successful debut until 2006. The duo had been pitching the idea for a Tenacious D movie for several years, and finally found a script that appealed to them as well as to a studio. Talking to Dan Snierson of Entertainment Weekly, Black explained the evolution of the idea. "We tried to write it with a friend of ours, and there was no inspiration there. … So then we were working with [director] Liam [Lynch] on some short films for the concerts. … And we realized that it should be, plain and simple, the story of Tenacious D, like a biopic, from the beginning to end of our first adventure to become the greatest band on Earth."

Chock-full of cameos by such actors as Tim Robbins, Meatloaf, Amy Poehler, Ben Stiller, Ronnie James Dio, and Nirvana drummer Dave Grohl, Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny didn't thrill critics, many of whom felt it was slight on humor, but fans of the duo turned it into a box office success. Equally important, the film's the soundtrack album hit number eight on the Billboard charts and led to a worldwide tour that featured Tenacious D.

Despite their multimedia success as a band, it is unlikely that Black or Gass will stop taking on solo acting projects. However, they are reluctant to leave the rock lifestyle behind. In an interview with Rolling Stone they were asked by Mark Binelli how much of Tenacious D is two actors playing characters and how much is an exaggeration of their true selves. Black quickly answered, "Seventy-three percent real," before explaining, "That's always been our schtick, is that it's not really a shtick."