{"id":6917,"date":"2012-07-24T00:19:39","date_gmt":"2012-07-24T07:19:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/?p=6917"},"modified":"2012-07-24T00:19:39","modified_gmt":"2012-07-24T07:19:39","slug":"tenacious-d","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/2012\/07\/tenacious-d\/","title":{"rendered":"TENACIOUS D"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/h1>\n

TENACIOUS D<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Playing their music for fun and the industry for laughs<\/strong><\/p>\n

How does a comedy duo follow an album that won neither stellar reviews nor sales? Turn it into a joke, of course. Tenacious D\u2019s 2006 film The Pick of Destiny<\/em> and its accompanying soundtrack garnered a lukewarm reception at best, but it has since gained a cult following. After six years, Jack Black and Kyle Gass have returned with their follow-up, Rize of the Fenix<\/em>\u2014rife with self-deprecating jokes about the struggles the band faced releasing the album. \u201cJust because we\u2019re not working on it, doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re not working<\/em> on it,\u201d says Black. \u201cIt\u2019s six years in the making. It wouldn\u2019t be a good sales pitch to say, \u2018Uh, we just worked on it for a few months.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Joining Black and Gass is Foo Fighters\u2019 Dave Grohl, who has played drums on all of their albums, as well as guitarist John Konesky and multi-instrumentalist John Spiker, whom Gass met years earlier. \u201cI said, \u2018You guys come out to Hollywood, and I\u2019ll make you stars,\u2019\u201d Gass remembers. \u201cSo far I haven\u2019t done that. There\u2019s a lot of talent there. It would cost us a lot more to hire Steve Vai or something. It\u2019s a good value. Konesky is probably one of the best guitarists in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Konesky\u2019s rock-star solos and Spiker\u2019s\u00a0massive synths are a bright and shiny counter to Black and Gass\u2019s acoustic guitars and the ever-evolving Tenacious D myth. \u201cWe were conscious of the fact that there was no Satan on the album,\u201d says Black of the character that often cropped up in their earlier work. \u201cWe were like, \u2018What happened?\u2019 There were no druggie references, either. I feel like we really moved into a new phase of the D.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cTenacious D grows up,\u201d agrees Gass.\u00a0But not too much. Around any suggestion of label strife is plenty of innuendo and potty-mouth language, along with thinly veiled Star Wars references and hard-rock guitar noodling. \u201cI guess the thing that keeps on coming up for me is just these songs are better than sex,\u201d says Black. \u201cBut that\u2019s not for everyone. If you don\u2019t like things that are better than orgasms, don\u2019t get the album.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as for the trouble releasing Fenix<\/em>? \u201cEvery word is true,\u201d says Black.\u00a0\u201cDid they really try to block our album, though?\u201d asks Gass.\u00a0\u201cOf course they did. I\u2019m not going to say who \u2018they\u2019 are, I\u2019m not at liberty to say,\u201d says Black. \u201cThat\u2019s for the next album. That\u2019s when we get really specific.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2013Amanda Farah<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

\n<\/strong><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

TENACIOUS D Playing their music for fun and the industry for laughs How does a comedy duo follow an album that won neither stellar reviews nor sales? Turn it into a joke, of course. Tenacious D\u2019s 2006 film The Pick of Destiny and its accompanying soundtrack garnered a lukewarm reception at best, but it has […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6],"tags":[1633,4359,4361,4364,4365,4300,4366,4362,4363,10156,4360],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6917"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6919,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6917\/revisions\/6919"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6917"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6917"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mmusicmag.com\/m\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6917"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}