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1:16

Hey,

1:18

everyone. John Heilemann here, and welcome to Helen

1:20

High Water in my podcast about politics and culture

1:23

on the edge of Armageddon. It's

1:25

determined if dubious, committed,

1:28

if cuckoo for cocoa puffs, often wrong,

1:30

but rarely in doubt exercise, in

1:32

elevated gas baggery. Than

1:34

neither rain nor snow nor heat nor gloom

1:37

of night nor the toxic

1:39

rantings of the not house right, a

1:41

president attempting to invalidate legitimate

1:43

election and stage in auto coup complete

1:45

with an armed dissection of the United States capital,

1:48

nor more broadly and arguably

1:50

even more disturbingly. The capture

1:52

of a decent sized chunk of our political, social,

1:54

and civic spheres by a cadre of

1:56

incoherent, insidious, conspiracy,

1:59

adult,

1:59

conspiracy craving, authoritarian worshiping

2:02

lunatics, hustlers, grifters, nihilists, and

2:04

nincompups. None of it. None of

2:06

it has kept us from our duly

2:08

sworn duty and obligations. Giving

2:11

you, our listeners, a fresh episode

2:13

of this podcast week after week after

2:16

week after week. Maybe not

2:18

without fail because, you

2:20

know, hashtag epic fail

2:22

is one of our many models around here, but

2:24

certainly without a pause. We've

2:27

been doing that for more than two years.

2:29

Haven't had a break, all of

2:31

which is to say that I

2:33

am

2:34

plumb shagged out

2:37

and desperately in need of some R and R.

2:39

And with the midterm election now comfortably

2:42

in the rear view mirror in

2:43

our democracy amazingly, if

2:45

I will admit a little unexpectedly, still

2:48

intact. It seems like a

2:50

suitable time for

2:51

the Heilemann Water home office to

2:54

give itself a fucking break.

2:55

So for the next few weeks, that is

2:58

exactly what we are gonna do. And we'll

3:00

see you back here on the other side of the holidays.

3:02

Tanned, rested, refreshed, revitalized, and

3:04

raring to go. Ready

3:06

to get back to cranking out more

3:09

tasty content. In the meantime,

3:12

Don't despair. We're not leaving

3:14

you entirely in the lurch for

3:16

these weeks. To the contrary, every

3:18

Tuesday morning, per usual, you

3:20

will find Hopefully unfamiliar

3:23

episode of the podcast, doing

3:25

the backstroke in your feed, drop

3:27

there by the Abel AI fact totems,

3:29

who'll be mining the store while we're away.

3:32

And while these episodes come

3:34

over the next few weeks, may not be fresh

3:36

or strictly speaking new,

3:38

they will be piping hot, a carefully

3:41

curated series of Helen high water golden

3:43

oldies, which those of you

3:45

who've been around from the start may remember,

3:48

I

3:48

hope fondly. And those of you who

3:50

came along sometime later may never have

3:52

encountered at all. Given

3:54

our focus on politics these past few months and

3:56

our desire not to take a dump on

3:58

your mood of holiday inspired

3:59

good cheer, we've these encore presentations

4:02

will avoid that topic like the plague. And

4:04

focuses dead on culture, technology,

4:06

and such with a run of some of our most favorite

4:08

guests in those realms over the past two years.

4:11

Including this beauty right here,

4:13

which whether or not you've heard it before,

4:15

you will not want to miss. And

4:17

so with that, we

4:18

leave it to it with a

4:19

hearty and heartfelt

4:21

the day

4:26

day.

4:32

Hey, everyone.

4:32

John Isleman Heilemann, and welcome to Helen High

4:34

Water. My podcast from the recount and iHeartRadio

4:36

with big ups to the one and only Riza

4:39

for our dope theme music.

4:41

So

4:43

here we are in the final week of this

4:45

epically terrible, horrible, no good, very

4:47

bad year with Christmas and Hanukkah

4:49

behind us, Kwanza still underway

4:51

and New Year's Day looming alluringly, tantalizingly

4:54

just ahead on the horizon. And

4:56

this podcast craft team of producers, engineers,

4:59

technicians, bookers, researchers, absent

5:01

aquafers, Ayahuasca govlers in

5:03

and out burger aficionados, Jenga

5:06

Masters belly button lint pickers,

5:08

and the kid who's responsible for making sure that

5:10

the host Bongwater is always as pure as

5:12

a mountain stream, all of us

5:14

here on team high water, we faced an existential

5:16

challenge. How on Earth were we ever

5:18

gonna give you? Our dear and faithful listeners

5:21

a final episode of the pod for twenty

5:23

twenty? That seemed adequate to the

5:25

moment. And I don't mind telling you who we

5:27

thought and we thought and we thought and we thought

5:29

and we thought we thought so hard

5:31

at least two of us spraying something And

5:33

for a good long time, we were stumped.

5:35

And then suddenly, lightning struck,

5:38

singing the beard of our executive producer,

5:40

Christian Fiedel, castor or Russell,

5:42

but also having a transformative effect on the

5:44

contents of his head. Normally,

5:46

Fidel's brain is basically a chaotic jumble

5:48

of after Sous from Mal's Little Red book

5:50

and Mark's Dodge copy Hall. Lengthy

5:53

Salil Quiz on Court by Steve Schmidt,

5:55

the Filthiest Limerick you could possibly

5:57

imagine, and the Lifetime stats

5:59

in terms of both goals on the

6:01

field and kilos of cocaine off the

6:03

field scored by the late great Diego

6:06

Maradona. But now, Fidel

6:08

was seized with an idea But what we

6:10

should do for this last episode of Helen High Water for

6:12

twenty twenty. Two words, Fidell

6:15

cried out, tenacious d.

6:17

To which the only sensible reply, came

6:19

from yours truly. Two more words

6:22

said, I? Fuck yes.

6:24

And just like that, here they are. The

6:26

genius mad men behind the genius supergroup

6:28

Tenacious d. Actor singer and

6:30

all around comedic superhero, Jack

6:32

Black. The state of our union is

6:34

rescued. Because there is a

6:36

shining beacon of hope, by the

6:38

name of Joe Biden. Let's

6:41

do this. And Jack's Campadre,

6:43

the musician actor and great a political

6:45

junkie, pile gas. The state

6:47

of the transition is disgraceful.

6:50

It's unprecedented that Don's

6:53

not turned over the keys when he's

6:55

supposed to. And I think that

6:57

it's irresponsible. It's

6:59

unAmerican. And

7:01

it's the one thing we hold dear is

7:03

the peaceful transparency and

7:05

power. And it makes us

7:07

great. Don't make us not great, done.

7:12

If you have to ask who or what Tenacious d

7:14

is or are, it is time to rethink your life

7:16

priorities, founded in nineteen ninety four

7:18

by Jack and Kyle, six years before

7:20

Jack's breakthrough role in high fidelity sent him

7:22

into Hollywood orbit with a string of

7:24

hits including shallow house, school of rock, Nacho

7:27

Libre, Tropic Thunder, and the Kung

7:29

Fu Panda franchise. When he and

7:31

Kyle were just a couple of unknown members of

7:33

the actors gang in LA, Tenacious is

7:35

a musical duo who specialize in

7:37

fusing absurdist, profane, weed

7:39

enhanced comedy with both acoustic and

7:41

heavy metal rock and roll. Some critics

7:44

Tenacious music as Mock Rock.

7:46

Others see them as the spiritual

7:48

descendants of Spinal Tap, and they have

7:50

long referred to themselves as the court gestures

7:52

of rock. But while their lyrics in affect

7:55

are thick with satire, Tenacious has

7:57

always possessed serious musical chops.

7:59

How serious

7:59

you ask? Sirius enough that when

8:02

Jack and Kyle first expanded d

8:04

into a full band for their eponymous

8:06

debut album, they were joined by Dave Groll

8:08

on drums page McConnell of Fish keyboards

8:10

and Warren Fitzgerald of the bundles on guitar.

8:12

When the album came out in two thousand one,

8:14

it went platinum. As did their two thousand three

8:17

live video album, the complete masterworks,

8:19

and the two thousand six soundtrack to their feature

8:22

film debut, Tenacious d, in the

8:24

pick of destiny. Eight years later,

8:26

their cover of the last in line a

8:28

song by former Black Sabbath frontman

8:30

Ronnie James Deo Tenacious d

8:32

a Grammy Award for best

8:34

heavy metal performance. So

8:36

musical cred, check, and

8:38

funniest fuck check. But it wasn't

8:40

until the election of Donald Trump, that's Tenacious' deep

8:42

turn political. mean, sure, they had dabbled in

8:44

activism before twenty sixteen, sets

8:46

of benefits for John Carey and Barack Obama

8:49

supporting the legalization of pod and

8:51

encouraging voter registration. Boycoting

8:53

gigs in Arizona over harsh anti

8:55

immigration laws. But with Trump in

8:57

the White House, Jack and Kyle got to work on

8:59

a full scale protest project

9:01

A twenty one track album and six episode South

9:03

Park style animated YouTube series, and

9:05

a brand new graphic novel, all

9:07

Tenacious D post Apocalypto,

9:11

That title alone would have been enough for me to want

9:13

them on hell in high water. But then something

9:15

even more amazing happened. In lieu of a

9:17

swing state get out the boat tour they had been planning

9:19

for this fall, that COVID made

9:21

Impossible, Jack and Kyle put together

9:23

a cover version of the song Time Warp

9:25

from The Rocky War Picture Show, released

9:27

the video on YouTube, and the thing

9:29

went wildly viral. Due in part to

9:31

the fact that the song kicks ass and

9:33

in part to the eclectic roster of

9:35

celebrities they recruited to sing along, Eric

9:37

Andre, George Take, Lana

9:39

Glaser, Jamie Lee Curtis, John Waters,

9:41

Karen O, King Princess, Phoebe Burgers,

9:43

Reggie Watts, Sarah Heilemann Susan

9:46

Sarandon plus Pete Buttigieg and

9:48

Elizabeth Warren, and well,

9:50

me. At

9:51

the time, I hadn't the famous clue, why in

9:53

god's name, Jack and Kyle, would have ever

9:55

decided to include me, but

9:57

I was beyond psyched when it all went down and

9:59

you know

9:59

what? I still am. So that's one

10:01

thing I wanted to discuss with Tenacious d

10:04

along with their origin story, postapocalyptic

10:06

and the other crazy viral

10:08

TikTok videos that Jack has cranked

10:10

out during our COVID nightmare

10:12

wearing a beard, a cape, a stets in a

10:14

mask, and not very much

10:16

else. So if you were not

10:18

intrigued by this episode by now,

10:20

And if it's not obvious why Fidel's two

10:22

word declaration wasn't clearly spot

10:25

on, then once again, you need to reassess

10:27

your life priorities. But if you're into

10:29

it, and buckle up for a truly

10:31

delightful excursion into the wacky and

10:33

wonderful world of Tenacious d.

10:35

On this final episode of the year,

10:37

on hell in high

10:38

water.

10:50

It's a scary day. Alright.

10:53

Is bleeding.

10:56

Madness takes

10:58

his tone. But

11:01

listen closely. No. For

11:03

very much younger. I

11:07

got to. Okay. Keep

11:09

coming through.

11:36

We're here with Tenacious

11:37

Tenacious Heilemann Water. It's great to have you guys

11:39

hear podcasts and B. Jack Black.

11:41

This podcast is gonna be weird

11:43

because you guys are really fucking

11:45

weird, but also because I'm gonna

11:48

spend a ridiculous amount of time talking about the

11:50

time warp. So it's great to have guys hear,

11:52

hi. Hello. Hey. Great to be

11:54

here. Hey, Hunter. I have to take off my

11:56

glasses because just that little bit of

11:58

time warp got my my

12:00

my lens steamed out. Oh my god. Yeah. I got

12:02

it. It works every time. So I'm a switch

12:04

to my readers. So

12:06

here's my my thing. First of all, I wanna

12:08

say, I'm so psyched to help you guys on here.

12:10

We're gonna talk about Tenacious in some

12:12

detail as we get a little deeper into this

12:14

podcast, but I just wanna start off by saying my wife,

12:16

this name Diana, And she was

12:18

a huge Jack Black fan even before

12:20

Tenacious started. But when tenacious d started

12:22

and my wife was very tenacious. Yeah.

12:24

When the band got formed, she was like, this

12:26

is my band. These are

12:28

my guys. I don't even give a shit what they

12:30

sound Tenacious d is my

12:32

jam, and it has been true ever since. Now

12:34

my glasses now my second pair of

12:36

glasses are getting creamy.

12:37

Let me let me ask you a question about Diana

12:40

Tenacious goes back almost to the beginning

12:42

of my career. But if

12:43

she liked me before tenaciously, That

12:46

means she must have seen my first film,

12:48

Bob Roberts. Oh, I didn't

12:50

wanna get into the calendar. Yeah. A

12:52

political satire that I

12:54

had back in ninety one

12:56

ahead of its time. Yes. With Tim Robbins,

12:58

and I will tell you that one of the things

13:00

that this will give you was such a dork I am

13:02

is that for women I used to date, I would make

13:04

them watch Bob Roberts and if they didn't dig it,

13:06

they didn't make the cut in terms of who I wish

13:08

to help this out. It's a

13:10

screening mechanism. I've heard we've been a screening

13:12

mechanism for some

13:14

dudes. Oh, yeah. If you don't wanna get

13:16

if you're not down with me. I remember Flanning.

13:18

He said, listen. Call off the engagement.

13:20

That's it. It's over. So I wanna talk

13:22

about time warp just to start us off here.

13:24

And there's a lot to say about it. I'm

13:26

unusually interested in this, not just because you

13:28

guys were nice enough to ask me to be in it. But

13:30

in this election cycle where

13:33

there was a lot of activity, a lot of

13:35

energy, a lot of, you know, stuff

13:37

going on. But where there

13:39

wasn't the thing that usually a

13:41

campaign ends with, which is like here's Bruce

13:43

Springsteen planned for Bronco on here as you know, so and

13:45

so plan for John Carey and, like, you know,

13:47

big events. I remember going to those last week of the

13:49

campaign. You're out and you're with at the Springsteen

13:51

Show in Ohio with Carrier Obama

13:53

or whatever. None of that stuff happened because of COVID.

13:55

Right? So instead, we had time

13:57

warp, which

13:58

when it came out, it

13:59

went viral really fast. Like

14:02

everybody was jamming

14:04

to it and it was being passed around in people's

14:06

text messages like for a couple days where it

14:08

was everywhere fast. So I

14:10

wanna just talk about it because

14:13

of its virality and how much people were

14:15

rocking out to it. Like, tell me the story of

14:17

how you got to that, not just

14:19

why Rocky horror? Why this song

14:21

is a political song? Why like for

14:23

an election cycle? Like, what just I don't I don't get

14:25

I've read everything written about it, but I don't understand

14:27

the the genesis. John, it's interesting

14:29

that you said you were waiting for the

14:31

Springsteen moment because Jack was telling

14:33

me that, like, where

14:35

is where the, you know, where the

14:37

artist coming out, strong the

14:39

passion. And it did seem like there

14:41

was a big opening. It seems like that

14:43

generation just moved into talk

14:45

show hosts and, you know,

14:47

MSNBC pundits took up the mantle

14:50

of the, hey, let's rally the resistance.

14:52

Sure. Because that used to be for

14:54

the rockers and the artists and the

14:56

musicians. Ritchie havens. You know

14:58

what? Was kind of a the first time we

15:00

did, like, a a fundraiser where we're like, hey,

15:02

let's do something that's to try to help the

15:05

world. Save we've been saving the

15:07

world for a little while now. It

15:09

was after the the horrible tsunami

15:11

back was that, like, ten years

15:13

ago? That was longer. Yeah. Actually, it was

15:15

around that. It was in two thousand four. And and

15:17

we were able just because we were saying, hey,

15:19

let's raise some money for Red Cross and let's

15:21

then some help to the tsunami

15:23

victims. And let's call a bunch of our

15:25

friends and see if they'll jump in with us

15:27

and do a concert to Heilemann. And

15:30

everyone came through. That

15:32

usually would have nothing to do with us. Like, we could

15:34

head back. We had who who do we

15:36

have cage on the bill? He had Josh

15:38

Hammy and Will Crow

15:40

and Will Farrell and He had the

15:42

Pearl Jam guy. He had to better jump

15:44

in. He was, like, these people

15:46

would usually answer the phone. I guess it

15:48

was for a good cause all of a sudden we were partying

15:50

with these legends and -- No. -- and we raised a

15:52

bunch of money and it was a great feeling and

15:54

we could have been Chase in the dragon ever

15:56

since. It's like, you know, every time there's an

15:58

opportunity to save the world, we send up

15:59

the the d signal in the sky, and that's

16:02

a pretty good lineup. Though. This was a time when

16:04

it was like, okay. If ever there was a time to

16:06

save the world, it's when there's orange

16:08

ministers. Democracy was a

16:10

distraction. Balance. But why but why

16:12

time warp. Right? Honestly, it

16:14

was our manager, Michelle

16:16

FlashBlade, because of the jump to the

16:18

left. Well, you know what? I was

16:20

inspired also by You know

16:22

that thing that Jason Reitman

16:24

just did recently where he hired

16:26

all the celebrities to do the at

16:28

home pandemic version

16:30

of Princess bride. Right.

16:32

Not right. Wow. Hollywood to

16:34

buy in and you

16:36

know, film in their backyards and their

16:38

basements and and make their own costumes.

16:40

I was like, how the how the

16:42

genius of it was

16:44

that he had this idea, wouldn't it

16:46

be fun? And I'm telling you what

16:48

you will have to do? And

16:50

that's how you get people to do it.

16:52

If you have something fun and you're not saying,

16:54

hey, whatever you wanna do, just you

16:56

you send us some content and whatever

16:58

you want, You think that's gonna be the

17:00

thing that gets everyone to come and No. You got a

17:02

phone once to do that. So you focus

17:04

them on something fun. So then

17:07

Michelle

17:07

flashley was like, you know, it would be fun,

17:09

rocky horror picture show. And for a minute,

17:11

we

17:11

were thinking we were gonna do a

17:13

whole production of rocky horror horror pictures.

17:16

Yeah. How's that gonna work? And everyone would

17:18

do their stay home version of a

17:20

scene. And then we're like, that's that's not

17:22

thing because they're not gonna make a whole

17:25

movie. No. Like Jason Reppman, that's a

17:27

huge pain in the ass. And then we were like, what's the

17:29

best part of Rocky or Picture

17:31

Show? It's time warp. Oh. That's

17:33

going his hands down, like, That's

17:35

kind of the hit. Yeah. One of the great songs

17:37

in Motion Picture. How can world's its

17:39

degree? So here's the thing. Right?

17:41

I get this call from, I

17:43

don't know, someone saying, if you wanna be in this

17:45

time warp thing. And I was like, fuck yeah. I

17:47

wanna be in this time. Like, sure. No

17:50

problem. Like, I asked a couple people. You guys good idea and everybody's

17:52

like fuck yeah, you should be in this thing. So,

17:54

wait, let's just play that side you guys. I wanna

17:56

hear myself. It's

17:57

just a jump to the left. It's just a jump

17:59

to the left. It's just a jump to the

18:02

left.

18:02

The

18:06

Put your hands on your hip. Put your hands

18:08

on your head. Put your hands on

18:10

your head. So that's Hyilman at

18:12

the end there with hands on

18:14

your And also, Groot with John Waters, one of

18:17

my absolute fucking heroes in the

18:19

world. I I man,

18:22

John Waters alternative filmmaker from Baltimore. I wrote

18:24

a a magazine piece about John Waters when I

18:26

was in college. Wow. And,

18:28

you know, all divine, all of

18:30

the stuff he made It's one my heroes.

18:32

I love that guy and Elizabeth Warren comes

18:34

right between John Waters and me. So anyway, so you guys said,

18:36

hey, would you guys do this thing? I said, sure. So

18:38

I'm on the road at that point making

18:40

the circus and sitting with my crew that I travel around with

18:42

for thirteen weeks of making our show on Showtime.

18:45

And these kids, we started

18:47

talking about Rocky Hor, and I said,

18:49

you know, It's weird. First

18:51

of all, the songs kick ass. Like throughout

18:53

the whole show, they're great songs. They are

18:55

fantastic. Time Warner is a great song, but so

18:57

is the meatloaf cut in there and

18:59

the song. We That's fantastic.

19:01

Our great song. Tim

19:05

Curry was a genius. Right? Stole

19:07

the show. The thing that made Rocky horror

19:09

famous was this element of

19:11

audience participation. Right? People would go there with

19:13

a midnight show and there

19:15

had evolved over the

19:17

relatively brief period between when the movie

19:19

was released in nineteen seventy five

19:21

and, you know, say, by the early eighties

19:23

when this thing had become a cult phenomenon, there

19:25

was a whole routine that had been developed of

19:27

audience participation. Everybody in

19:29

the movie theater had seen the movie all

19:31

the time. That's very true. And their words,

19:33

like, a script, not like literally a

19:35

script handed out, but people knew when they were supposed

19:37

to yell out certain things in the when

19:39

you've reached certain moments in the movie.

19:41

So The whole experience was premised

19:43

on audience participation. That was part

19:45

of what made it really fun. And

19:47

then there was the fact that the audience

19:49

was really tearred from any other kind of audience you'd

19:51

ever seen a movie with. You know, if

19:53

you were like me, a suburban kid

19:56

in Southern California, growing

19:58

up in the late seventies,

19:59

early eighties. This was the

20:01

first time that you would have seen

20:03

a bunch of

20:04

people who were cross dressing, who were

20:07

gender fluid, all in one

20:09

place kind of vividly

20:11

letting their free flag fly and, you know,

20:13

to use the cliche. Right?

20:15

In an awful lot of suburban communities all across the

20:17

country, red states, blue states all over,

20:19

there was a midnight showing of the

20:21

Sakura Picture Show by

20:24

the early nineteen eighties. And if you

20:26

were a teenager, a preteenager, a

20:28

young teenager growing up at that time and you went

20:30

to one of those, it was probably the first time

20:32

you'd seen anything like that.

20:34

And here's the deal why I think it

20:36

was in a kind of inspiring

20:38

sort transformative experience for me and a

20:41

lot of other people. You

20:43

know, if you

20:43

had no particular predisposition towards

20:47

those communities, you walked in the door and were

20:49

like, well, this isn't threatening? This

20:50

isn't scary?

20:52

This is warm and welcoming

20:54

and embracing and fun and witty

20:56

and a little profane and experimental, and

20:59

and people were having a great time.

21:01

And part of why I was so psyched when

21:03

you guys asked you know, reached out and asked

21:05

me to take part of this thing was like, this

21:08

movie actually meant a lot to me at that age.

21:10

Were you like that? You know, we're all basically about the same

21:12

age. Did you go to Akihora when

21:14

you were in your early teens, did you

21:16

have those kind of experiences? Did this

21:18

movie mean as much to

21:20

you as it did to me and a bunch of other people?

21:22

Or were you just kinda like a really fucking do

21:24

this. Well, for some wrinkle in

21:26

time, I was in New

21:29

York in seventy seven. The

21:31

summer of Sam as a domestic

21:34

exchange student, and that was the first time I saw a

21:36

Rocky War. So I think it I

21:38

don't know if it was one of the first times it

21:40

was getting when the cult thing sort

21:42

of started. I don't know if it was transformative,

21:44

but it was definitely something I never

21:46

forget. I never been to I was

21:48

seventeen and it

21:49

was kinda knocking my socks off. I

21:52

went with my big sister,

21:54

Rachel Siegel, proud

21:56

lesbian and my part of the

21:59

LGBTQ

21:59

community at that time didn't have the

22:02

letters. I don't know why they let little kids

22:04

into the theater because it's it's a raunchy

22:06

fun. It is. But I

22:08

loved it. So and everyone in

22:10

the the sense of community in

22:12

that room was out in

22:15

party. I felt the energy it

22:17

definitely affected me and

22:19

changed

22:19

me. Yeah. I mean,

22:20

it does seem fitting to have

22:22

the time warp for this moment. Right?

22:24

Yeah. Because it really is

22:27

like, a rallying cry for

22:29

the disenfranchised the

22:31

people that feel left out. And it was a

22:33

perfect calling card for these times

22:35

with the jump to the left. It was like, what?

22:37

It fits right in right now. So A

22:39

jump to the left and not a step to the

22:42

right people you know, I heard you say that. Yes. So were you

22:44

surprised at how many people you were able to

22:46

get doing it? Because the list of people who

22:48

ended up doing it was pretty impressive,

22:50

not just you know, lot cool

22:52

people involved from your world.

22:55

John Waters was actually the first --

22:57

Really? -- and the tape. And

22:59

there's always that moment of like No one's gonna send in

23:01

anything. It's like the first one of the party. If it comes to

23:03

your party, you're sure. Nobody when you

23:05

invite people to yeah. And

23:07

then Your halo one Yeah.

23:09

The zero to one was really good. And

23:11

then they started trickling you

23:13

know, actually, John, your first one, do

23:15

you remember the It was it was kind

23:17

of far away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You were very close to being

23:20

cut. Him. Yeah. Thanks. Thank God for me.

23:22

Oprah didn't come through. So

23:24

you got the slot. The second one worked okay,

23:27

though. Right? I mean, it was not right. Oh my god. And as soon as I saw

23:29

the jazz hands, I was like, that's --

23:31

Right. -- on the nuggets. But you guys got, like,

23:33

Phoebe Bridgers and Carano and King Princess and

23:35

all these people who are super you know,

23:37

cool and Sarah Silverman and all of your

23:39

buddies. Right? But then to get

23:41

Elizabeth Warren and Pete

23:43

Buttigieg, that was the gold. Was

23:45

that were you shocked that those two

23:47

decided to participate? I was

23:49

shocked at those two because I

23:51

thought if they did a little bit of research

23:53

on Tenacious Steve. They might have been a little more

23:55

careful of their brand. They don't wanna go

23:57

down, you know. Yeah.

23:59

Good

23:59

of it. Because

24:01

we we we work blue. Let's put it that

24:03

way. But but I was really stoked

24:05

because I I love them both. Big fans of me

24:07

or Pete. I mean, yeah, big fans of both,

24:10

but me. Pete. It's Kyle, you

24:12

you turned me on to mayor Pete. I didn't know about

24:14

the suggestion though, so he said, look,

24:16

this guy's always gonna be the smartest

24:18

guy in the room right here.

24:20

He always was the smartest guy in the room,

24:23

and and I was always pulling for

24:25

Elizabeth Warren. So, like, we got

24:28

our two big heroes. And I I have to

24:30

give credit. Kyle called it for

24:32

a for a John

24:34

Heilman Heilemann I was

24:35

like, let me out his work. And once again,

24:38

Kyle called it, you are a badass. And

24:40

you were one of the first names that came up when

24:42

we were like, okay. So we'll

24:44

go for Neil Young. We'll

24:46

go for and Kyle's like John

24:48

Holland. Who? Oh,

24:50

I'm a hero. And then we're like, yeah.

24:52

Did it did make sense because you are on the front

24:54

lines and kicking ass. Are you the are you

24:56

representing all pundits? Do do

24:58

we have any other Well, I

24:59

don't think that I certainly don't think I do, but

25:02

I will say when I asked who

25:04

was invited, I was a little

25:06

surprised that there were all these cool people. You know,

25:08

people wait cooler than me. I'm, like, Reggie Watts is on this

25:10

thing and, like, you know -- Yeah. -- Eric Andre and

25:12

Alana Glacier, all these people, and I'm, like, okay, these

25:14

people are really cool. And then there's a

25:16

couple of former Democratic candidates who

25:18

might be like cabinet secretaries at Biden

25:20

wins. And I'm like, so who else is in from

25:22

my business? And they're like, no. No. You're the

25:24

only one. And I was, like, I'm the only one. Well, now now I

25:26

really wanna be on this bucket thing. I wanna

25:28

end on this time warp discussion just by asking you

25:30

guys, like, so it comes out

25:32

And like I said, I was, I mean, I

25:34

was psyched that it got so much

25:38

millions of people have watched it. It

25:40

was

25:40

all over the place and I just had a

25:42

ambient sense of it because everyone was texting

25:44

me and people I hadn't talked to in a long time

25:47

were like, man, you're in this fucking video. It's really cool. I'm like, did you

25:49

know you're in this video? Yeah. I know I'm in the video.

25:51

Thanks. But, like, it it's

25:53

spread like I have not been part of

25:55

very many viral things where it

25:57

really, like, was, like, genuine virality. Were you

25:59

guys surprised by how fast, how

26:01

much it spread like wildfire and the kind of

26:03

immediate reaction to it? I wasn't

26:05

surprised as much as just satisfied

26:07

because that I mean, it was mission accomplished.

26:09

Yeah. That's what we were going for.

26:11

We were doing it, and it worked, and we were

26:13

like, yes. It was designed to work I

26:15

mean, like, we had a

26:17

publicist. I mean, we had someone --

26:19

Sure.

26:19

-- working the phones

26:20

and stuff. Yeah. And we had a plan

26:22

on the release. It

26:24

wasn't

26:24

catches, catch can. It would Yeah.

26:27

But you know the thing is the thing is with

26:29

viral things though is you can have all the publicists in the

26:31

world trying to shit. And if it's not really if it's

26:33

not really hooky and really catchy and doesn't hit the

26:35

moment. Right? Doesn't matter how many publishers you have

26:37

on it. It's and you can't force a viral.

26:39

Right? Either it hits or it doesn't. That's

26:41

true. That's true. And I will say, though, that

26:43

it came together kinda fast. From the

26:45

moment that we recorded it to

26:47

the

26:47

moment that we had all the cameos

26:50

in it was only I feel like it

26:52

was only about a week. We got

26:54

that together fast. I

26:55

think so many good

26:58

things happen. Fast in organic and in the

27:00

moment. It was fast. And I gotta say, actually,

27:02

to your point, I will say, Tim

27:04

Curry and the rest of the

27:06

cast, or some portion of the cast that Raki

27:08

Hor did, around the same time your

27:10

guys thing came out. They did a zoom

27:12

one of these things for the Wisconsin Democratic

27:15

Party where they did the whole Rocky

27:17

River Picture Show right around the same

27:19

time, and I think it got obviously got way

27:21

less attention than your time warp did they

27:23

performed the whole thing. It had, like, set the green in

27:25

it and Rosario Dawson and some various

27:27

people who did the whole thing. But Tim Curry was

27:29

in it, and I gotta say, I think Tim Curry is and

27:31

Richard O'Brien, your imitation of Richard O'Brien,

27:34

Jack, very strong. Very,

27:36

very strong. You you look a little like less like a

27:38

heroin addict than he did in that movie. A

27:40

little less. But it was

27:42

bad. You shredded those vocals,

27:44

boy. Yeah. Well, it was a little out of my

27:46

range, which is that leads to the

27:48

strong vocal

27:50

sometimes if it's a little too high, you have to You gotta

27:52

read. You gotta read. It's a good book. I just

27:54

wanna know with you guys before we go to break. How

27:56

much do you think that the warp actually just

27:58

was what won it for Biden. When I think about

28:00

what was decisive in the final weeks

28:02

of the campaign, I'm gonna write the book

28:04

about this, and I'm gonna say time warp was like one of

28:06

the key factors. Is that name of the

28:09

book? John time warp. Could

28:11

be. That's crazy. Is it happening

28:13

here? It'd be. Right of where? Get a

28:15

chance to the left. The

28:16

Tenacious d story. Look,

28:18

this is embarrassing to admit, but

28:20

that was part of our calculation. It

28:22

was like, okay. If we rock

28:25

hard enough, we can save the

28:27

world. Once that's always our our

28:29

motivation. I know. And that's always In our

28:31

mind, we're thinking in the back of our mind, while we're

28:33

making time warp the video, If

28:35

Biden wins, people are gonna point to

28:37

us, and then there might be a tick or tape parade

28:39

just for d for

28:41

saving

28:41

the world. Now looking back on

28:44

it, I don't think we get as much credit as,

28:46

like, Dwayne the Rock Johnson who

28:48

threw minute post up

28:50

on Instagram, which shackles

28:52

my hackles a little bit that he can

28:54

swoop in, give the endorsement to and

28:56

now he can do a victory lap and take credit.

28:58

But that's not what this is about.

29:01

Right cage No. No. We're all in the same

29:03

team. Jackal says hackles. Alright. We're

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apply. What was

33:25

I thinking? All this

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33:30

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33:33

Spreading

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Congratulations on the thing to

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33:48

I've been seeing things black

33:51

and white.

34:01

That was tenacious d from their

34:04

most recent album postapocalyptic,

34:06

which we're gonna talk about here. And that song is

34:08

called Colors.

34:10

And it is sung by ostensibly

34:12

Donald Trump Junior. No. I mean, it's done great.

34:14

The character and the the character is Donald Trump.

34:16

It's sung by Jack Black, of course. But

34:18

but by itself we wish you a thing. Right.

34:20

It's kinda like the conception shape speech

34:23

we wish that his father

34:26

would would What's strange though because we're kinda leading that was

34:28

like, I think that's our lead single if

34:30

there was one. Well, it was definitely the

34:32

message of

34:34

the whole rock up. It's Don Junior, basically

34:36

realizing that he's lived a terrible, immoral,

34:38

horrible life, and that he was, like, actually, wants

34:40

to promote the United Colors of

34:42

Bennon. Basically, is, like, that's what that

34:44

that's what that is. Right? It's the epiphany

34:46

moment for a soulless,

34:48

heartless scumbag who suddenly

34:50

looks up and goes, wait, I regret

34:52

it all. Let me tell you what I really feel.

34:54

Right? Well, he's destroyed the world in

34:56

our post

34:58

apocalyptic warning Rockoper, as

34:59

we apprehended him and stopped him and

35:01

saved the world, he says, wait,

35:03

before you let

35:06

me die. And

35:08

he sings this song to us to show

35:10

that he's seen the light and he's come

35:12

around and he's no longer gonna be a

35:14

purveyor of

35:16

evil darkness. More like And I griped. But it's all a

35:18

ruse. In the end, he was just singing that

35:20

song to to make us think he was

35:22

turning over a new leaf,

35:24

but really it was it

35:26

was part of his master plan

35:28

to

35:28

still figure out So I

35:30

wanna get to post apocalyptic in a minute because

35:32

it's, like, your most political thing and we're gonna

35:34

talk about it. But before we do that, I wanna just

35:36

talk about the d. You guys have

35:38

become in some ways in some circle

35:40

totally iconic. I mean, it was part of me that thinks you guys are a really serious band. You'd

35:42

wanna grammy. Right? You know, like, there

35:45

you're up a real band. And

35:47

another part of you, there's like a little bit of a

35:50

spinal tap flavor to what you guys have been have

35:52

done. Right? There's a comedic kind of element

35:54

to it. So there's oh,

35:56

the Jack's got the Grammy. He's showing

35:58

it. What was Mike? I just moved What

36:00

is that doing? Sitting precariously

36:02

on the That's it. I wanna see. What are the odds? Jack keeps that

36:04

with him at all times. I I

36:06

wanna make it into, like, a gold road. That's sort

36:08

of, like, a whip it out moment right there from

36:10

Jack Black. But just

36:12

walk walk our listeners

36:14

through a little bit of the story of how this

36:16

coupling came to be. And

36:18

and just

36:18

and talk about the nature of this project. Well,

36:21

Our story begins way back

36:23

in nineteen eighty six.

36:26

I was a young theater nerd.

36:28

In high school. And I heard about this theater troop,

36:31

the actor's gang, which was

36:33

led by Tim Robbins, was

36:35

like a political activist theater

36:38

group, and they they had this vibe

36:41

and this reputation just being

36:43

cool and radical and

36:46

They were like the chili pepper. You you wanted to you wanna

36:48

be a an actor's gang member if you

36:50

were a young actor in LA. And I went

36:52

and saw a production of

36:56

freaks. That was the name of the play. And Kyle was in there,

37:00

and it was mind blowing. And

37:02

then what was the other

37:04

one, carnage? How did you help? And I just wanted to be in

37:06

there so badly. And Kyle didn't know that I

37:08

existed, but I was, like,

37:10

kind of a groupie,

37:12

if you will, of of the actor's

37:14

gang. Yeah. We didn't expect but then I didn't know

37:16

the next stage with the sexual favors,

37:18

but I was really into the actor's

37:20

gang. And We had

37:22

a mutual friend named Bob White,

37:24

and I went over to to Bob's

37:26

house one time. And Kyle

37:28

was there, serenading a a

37:30

gorgeous actress Cynthia

37:33

Edinger. And he didn't still

37:35

didn't know that I existed. It actually took

37:37

a few years before Kyle knew

37:39

that I existed I got into the actors gang

37:42

production of a show called The Big

37:43

Show, and I started to write some

37:46

music for that play, and I think

37:48

that's the first time I was on his radar,

37:50

but not as a friend. As a

37:52

foe. As a rival. We

37:54

started off as rivals. Yeah. That was kind of the

37:56

music guy in the theater

37:58

company and this young

38:00

kid. Some crazy chops was And there's some,

38:02

like, Edinburgh piece of this. Right? That was

38:04

kind of our bonding thing. We only

38:06

went nine. Eighty nine

38:07

Edinburgh Festival. Edinburgh

38:10

Theatre Festival. The actors gang takes

38:12

the troop over there. We climbed Arthur's

38:15

seat. Remember that night, we got drunk and slammed at

38:17

the top of that mountain. Yes.

38:20

And we had a great show there

38:22

in Edinburgh, Scotland.

38:24

If any, actors out there have never been. Make that your

38:26

mecca. Put that on your bucket list because it is

38:28

an incredible experience. The

38:30

whole city theater

38:32

night and day. Twenty four hours a day and did, like,

38:34

every, like, barbershop and

38:36

and pub turns into

38:38

a theater. But

38:39

anyway, then we took the show to New York and got

38:41

the worst review I've ever read in

38:43

the New York Times. Freak

38:46

rich just tore us a new one. And

38:48

it was such a horrible mean

38:51

review -- Mhmm. -- that it

38:53

stopped being a bad review to

38:56

turned into a hilarious review because it was, like, wow. This is, like, a badge

38:58

of honor now. It's because it's, like, the worst

39:00

review ever written -- Frank. -- and

39:02

the the writing. It became

39:05

yeah, it became sort of a a rallying cry, and we had a

39:07

great run there at the Joseph Pat

39:09

public theater. But

39:12

from that experience -- Yeah. -- Kyle, at some

39:14

point, said maybe this kid's alright.

39:16

And you took me under He was

39:18

the classic. Can't beat him join him. I

39:21

knew I was up against some some pretty serious

39:24

talent. And I was like, I gotta I gotta get

39:26

with this kid. This kid looks

39:28

like

39:28

money. So you were

39:29

just looking like an idol maker.

39:32

You're gonna you're gonna shape me. Yeah.

39:34

Yes. But in in my mind,

39:36

I had found a best friend. I

39:38

like the I

39:40

like the I like the notion of Kyle's basically playing

39:42

the Simon Cowell here. He sees Jack Black

39:44

and stuff. No. And I'm Nadine Martin.

39:46

And Jack is the Jerry Lewis. Well, that's a good I like that. I like that's a good

39:49

that's a good right Like, listen to this funny kid.

39:51

I like the notion that Kyle saw something

39:53

in Jack before the rest world

39:56

even did because we're gonna we're gonna get we're gonna talk about high fidelity momentarily, which

39:58

is movie to change my life, a

39:59

book, Nick Hornby, someone I know, wrote that book,

40:02

but we'll get there because two thousand is a big year

40:04

for you guys because that movie comes out

40:06

and you guys signed with Epic.

40:08

But at some

40:08

point early, you're like, Kyle, like, saw

40:10

it. He saw the spark. He said, Jack Black,

40:13

this guy's gonna be I can make him

40:15

a star. He can ride on my coattails. Let's go. Right.

40:18

The truth is that Jack was he

40:20

was the thing. And there was Not

40:22

a competition, but you were pretty sought after pretty early. I was

40:25

not the only suitor. Well, I had a

40:27

little heat off of Bob

40:30

Roberts. But I didn't really

40:32

have the career going until Tenacious

40:34

HSD, but really I mean,

40:36

I had, like, little gigs. But throughout

40:38

the nineties, we smoked a ton of weed

40:41

and just worked on our craft. You know that

40:43

thing they say about the ten thousand hours

40:45

to become a a true

40:47

master the way the Beatles did in

40:50

That's what we did. And aisles apartment,

40:52

we called it the cockroach as it was

40:54

a shithole. Back when you could

40:56

be bad because of obviously pre

40:58

internet and everything. And it took us ten

41:00

thousand hours to write

41:02

one song. True. That's that's what the weed does. That's that's like ten

41:04

thousand hours of being stoned. You got you

41:06

got a really good, but it's a ten thousand hours and

41:08

we got one song written because we

41:10

were really a lot of

41:12

extension eighty four to two thousand. Yeah. You

41:14

know, spinal tap was eighty

41:16

four. And I have to say that was kind of

41:18

a very I was kinda like knew what I wanted to do after

41:20

that. I wanted to do the music with

41:22

the funny somehow, and

41:24

I always loved duos as well.

41:26

I'm like, your Simon and

41:28

Garfunkel's and your Evelyn brothers and

41:30

the like. What about your Smucker's

41:32

brother's cage? Like the Smucker's brothers to sleep

41:34

on the Smell bro. I won't. They were

41:36

able Sure. That was if

41:38

we're talking about postapocalyptic

41:40

and Time Warner, they were doing

41:42

the comedy, music,

41:44

and politics. And I think

41:46

first, I don't know if anyone who really did

41:48

it like those two did. We're showing our age here. We

41:50

have midpoint names, mother's brother. Anybody

41:52

under fifties like this mother's brother who knows

41:54

what is that. They were an essential oyster in the Vietnam era. Am

41:56

I right here? Of course. Of course. Of course. Of

41:58

course. I was there. I was watching.

42:00

He's a

42:02

kid. I'm so old. I watched the Beatles on at Sullivan. That's

42:04

how old I am. Yeah. Get it's true.

42:06

So you guys you signed a

42:09

record deal with that big record That

42:11

was did the HBO show. The HBO show.

42:14

Right. Late night, it's kinda huge. And it

42:16

was weird that we didn't have a record. Because

42:18

Bob O'Rourke and David Cross of

42:20

Mister Show They were

42:22

the trailblazers of the

42:24

alternative comedy scene. Because

42:26

in Seattle, you

42:27

had alternative rock with

42:30

Nirvana burgeoning, And in

42:32

Hollywood, you had mister show -- Mhmm. -- that were

42:34

like the Nirvana of of

42:36

comedy at at the

42:38

time. In my mind -- Yeah. There was kind of

42:40

a movement It was a

42:42

destination. It and and anytime

42:44

mister show is taping, everyone

42:46

would come to watch in in the

42:48

live audience. Because it was you could feel it their electric

42:50

energy. Now people don't really

42:52

know and

42:52

remember the power of mister show, but at

42:54

the time it was like, holy shit. These

42:58

guys are the next, you know -- Yeah. -- Monty Python. Oden Kirkel,

43:00

though, of course, people do just because of

43:02

breaking bad and better call Saul, you

43:04

know. That's the most amazing. Oden Kirkel

43:06

has a fucking has a like, that's

43:08

You know, an amazing kind of currency.

43:10

What an amazing career that guys have? Yeah.

43:12

But before now that's become who he

43:14

is, and it's like, wait. I don't know.

43:16

Yeah. That's good. No. He's the Us. The writer, funny

43:19

producer guy. Yeah. Better call saw

43:21

it's pretty damn entertaining. And a

43:23

lot of his things that he's

43:25

done. But Super Sky. So we

43:27

were playing a little gig in

43:29

a downtown bar called

43:32

Al's bar. Friend of our Steve

43:34

Moremarko of the Abe

43:36

Lincoln story asked us if we wanted

43:38

to open for them. And we're like, yeah,

43:40

we only have one song. We have

43:42

a tribute. We'd love to play it.

43:44

And we played our one song. I think they're like twelve drunken people in the audience.

43:46

And in my memory banks,

43:50

we just blew the lid off of that bar.

43:52

But, anyway, one of the twelve

43:54

people in the audience was David Cross.

43:57

And he he talked to us after he was like, hey, I left

43:59

that

43:59

song. Do you guys wanna open for a

44:02

mister show? And we're like

44:04

who? Yeah. Because

44:05

we're taking all offers

44:07

right now. And we're,

44:10

like, sure, an opportunity someone wants us

44:12

to play anywhere. Yes. And

44:14

we went and opened for mister

44:16

show live at a

44:19

theater in Santa Monica. And

44:21

we realized, oh, these guys are actually happening. This is like

44:23

a real thing. And then it

44:25

wasn't long after that that they said, hey, we

44:27

wanna produce a tenacious d

44:30

we were gonna be on their show first off

44:32

at HBO. And we're like, hell yeah. This is

44:35

blowing up. So

44:37

we got a credit, Bob and David, for kind

44:39

of discovering tenaciously. They Tenacious

44:42

that's our big break. So, again, I I

44:44

go back to, you know, you signed the record deal

44:46

with Epic. Right? The first album

44:48

comes at two thousand. The studio Tenacious

44:50

comes out in two thousand one. You

44:52

guys have pickup destiny in

44:55

two thousand six. You

44:56

win the Grammy in twenty fifteen, this is like a,

44:58

you know, a slow build. Right? A little

45:01

bit of, like, you know, cult

45:04

status. Jack's movie career is taken off and he's getting all kinds of love and all

45:06

kinds of fame. But this thing has never been far from

45:08

you guys. Right? This has always been like, I

45:10

think of people like Jack's famous and he's a

45:14

movie star. People like, oh, But the more you dive into you

45:16

guys have been really kinda like, you know,

45:18

doing it step by

45:19

step. You know, the Grammy in

45:21

twenty

45:21

fifteen is really after

45:24

when you started the band, and you

45:26

finally, like, achieved the pinnacle and Jack can now

45:28

carry that statuette around with him everywhere he'd got I

45:30

know he does. It's funny how you can really always

45:33

talk shit about the Grammy's and how

45:35

they're the most inaccurate of

45:37

all the

45:38

award shows. And award shows are dumb

45:40

to begin with. But once you win

45:41

one -- Yeah. -- for some reason.

45:44

It goes first in your bio. Jack is

45:46

tongue kissing the Grammy right now. Let

45:48

the Oh, my God. He's got to be going

45:50

in the Grammy phone. Come on.

45:52

It's the is there only a piece of the egot?

45:54

Yeah. I I think we can get a Tony,

45:56

though. How hard could that be? Now that Frank Rich

45:58

isn't doing is doing theater you guys might be to

45:59

do better on Broadway than the last time. What do you

46:02

think post apocalyptic? Well, that's

46:04

the question. I wanna get to

46:06

post apocalyptic. I

46:07

I wanna hear about it because I I just went

46:09

through a very quick version of the tenacious

46:11

deep career. No one would have said

46:13

that you

46:14

guys were a political group. Until Trump

46:16

gets elected. Right? And again,

46:18

the way I understand this story is

46:20

Trump gets elected and you guys decide, you're

46:22

gonna do a political project, which becomes

46:25

a

46:25

series of YouTube shorts

46:27

that ultimately get knitted together in a kind

46:29

of movie. It's a art album.

46:32

It's a graphic novel now. Right? So in the last

46:34

couple years, the postapocalyptic has

46:36

been the center of

46:37

your creative output, and it's very

46:39

political. And and I think

46:41

Trump inspired so I I would love you guys to just

46:43

talk a little bit about Trump's election changed your direction

46:46

because you haven't done anything, please. You know, the truth

46:48

is this is our first

46:50

political work

46:52

you know, we've we've never done any any political music

46:54

or or content before, but

46:56

we have supported campaigns. Like,

46:58

we did a concert to benefit John

47:02

Carey But, yeah, we had never written any songs directly

47:04

pointed towards

47:05

politics because it never felt

47:07

like genuine

47:08

or or authentic to do

47:11

that. Like our brand. No. It just is it seemed like

47:13

it would be boring to anyone. Yeah. We're

47:15

singing about politics. No. Leave

47:17

that to, you know, the Pearl Gems, a

47:20

a little more earnest kind of writing

47:22

musician. But this time,

47:24

it was like

47:26

holy shit could really be the

47:28

end of civil conflict. This is Trump, you mean? Trump's election.

47:30

When Trump gets elected, because it's

47:32

all a joke until he wins.

47:35

Well, the escalator first. I mean Well, the

47:38

escalator, he was a joke. And all the

47:40

Canadians and all the pundits were celebrating

47:42

because it was like, we get a

47:44

clown to point at and laugh at

47:46

for, you know, the whole run up to the

47:48

election. I remember when when

47:50

John Stewart and Steven

47:52

Colbert were we're celebrating, jumping up and down like,

47:54

yes, nothing could provide

47:56

us more material

47:57

and gold than

47:59

this clown trotting out

48:02

and being a dumbass for nine months. We're

48:04

gonna be we're gonna be

48:06

set with our material.

48:08

And

48:08

it was hilarious until it

48:10

wasn't. And then once he won with fun in games until someone gets elected.

48:12

And yeah. And he won

48:14

with a, you know we all

48:16

know.

48:17

It was the the incredible terrifying

48:20

racism and

48:20

support of it, and

48:23

then achieving an eye

48:24

out of racism, let them know. I'm the least

48:26

racist in the in the world.

48:29

Oh, yeah. It was time for

48:31

us to say, fuck

48:32

the brand. Let's do something

48:34

to just speak out. You know

48:36

what it is? At a certain point, you go,

48:38

this is gonna sound a little dramatic, but

48:40

you think about Nazi

48:42

Germany and you think about the

48:45

shame that that country had to go through

48:47

for decades after that

48:50

whole episode

48:50

in dark chapter of

48:54

world's history. And you think, did anyone in Germany even

48:56

try to fucking eat, stop? And

48:58

yes. And the people that did

49:00

speak out and say, this guy's an asshole, don't put me

49:02

with this guy. Like Bertold

49:04

Brecht is a playwright, not to

49:06

compare us to Bertold Brecht. Guys, a

49:08

genius. Essentially, what I think of what I think about

49:10

Tenacious, Steve. Bertold Brecht the first thing that comes to Yes.

49:12

It's always what I'm saying. We have brechtian

49:14

elements to our rut feeder

49:16

in the rut but our alienation devices.

49:18

Tenacious point is if there's

49:21

a piece shit running your country, let your

49:23

voice be heard, say something, do

49:25

something so that, you know,

49:27

your your kids and your grandkids can

49:29

say, yeah, my parents had nothing to

49:31

do that regime. In case you wanna go fucking live in another part of the

49:34

world someday, you wanna be able to

49:36

say, hey,

49:38

Don't confuse me with those fucking q and on meds. Fuck

49:40

you. What were you doing? So I I saw

49:42

this, you know, when I when postapocalyptic comes

49:46

out, I I was just trying to think about how

49:48

to describe what you guys did. You know, you rewrote it, directed, you drew it,

49:50

voice acted. It's an animated

49:51

thing about a postapocalyptic landscape,

49:54

you know, hell in high water

49:56

this podcast. We kind of sprung out of this

49:58

notion that in twenty twenty America felt like

49:59

really was in time, you know, between the pandemic

50:02

and the politics and the

50:04

Trump and racial justice, protests, and sometimes riots, and all

50:06

the shit in the recession, that this felt

50:08

like like more than ever

50:10

in in

50:12

my lifetime, like the end could be nigh. Right? You know, people were like, have

50:14

been in this dark apocalyptic

50:16

moment. And that's why when I saw a post

50:18

apocalyptic, I was like, oh, these guys are in

50:20

sync with a podcast.

50:22

Right? Hell and high water. You know, it's like

50:24

we're not just hell or high water here. We're hell and

50:26

high water here. So if there's some Yeah. I noticed

50:28

some shit's going on. Right?

50:30

And so you guys have know, Mad Max. It's

50:33

like a little Matrix y. It's

50:35

got kind of a post global

50:37

warming, post nuclear war.

50:40

Penis shaped monsters and cave women and space

50:43

colonists and Nazis and Klansman and Donald

50:45

Trump Junior. It's everything you

50:48

need to really get a picture of what a landscape would look

50:50

like you guys have went a little fucking bonkers

50:52

on this thing, but it's pretty compelling.

50:56

Well, yeah. Thanks. It was definitely it

50:59

seemed like we were going out on a

51:01

limb a little bit for us. The

51:03

DIY element of it was pretty satisfying.

51:06

Yeah. It was a lot of work for Jack. But

51:08

When we were first talking about it, like Trump wins

51:10

and we're like, okay, what are we gonna do? We gotta do

51:14

apocalyptic rock opera about this

51:16

time. Because we

51:16

had a whole other plan for what

51:19

our our next album was gonna be.

51:21

We had to scrap that because everything seems irrelevant

51:23

when the world is about to

51:25

end. So we wrote that

51:27

first song Hope. And it wasn't clear yet what we

51:29

were gonna do with this rock opera, you know, are we

51:32

gonna make a movie? And then

51:34

we decided pretty early on, no, let's do

51:36

an animated series

51:38

because that way, we don't actually have to

51:40

film all of this impossible shit

51:43

because it would have been like

51:45

a two hundred million dollar budgeted

51:48

Roland Emrick

51:48

disaster moving to do it.

51:51

Right? So and, also, we're getting older,

51:53

and we don't really like the way we look on

51:55

film. So it's, like, let's do a

51:58

cartoon on look however the hell we want. I'm thinking more Michael Bay,

51:59

frankly. But, okay. Sure. Rolling America's We're

52:02

like, hey. This is gonna

52:04

be huge.

52:04

Obviously, HBO is gonna

52:07

want it. So we'll give them first dibs since we have history

52:09

with them. Yeah. And they were like, yeah,

52:12

hard pass. Yeah. And they

52:14

were like, good. We

52:16

didn't wanna do it with you anyway. Your yesterday's

52:18

news. Take it for the

52:20

Netflix. Your Netflix Eve, and we've got a little

52:22

something hot off the grid

52:24

of pass. And

52:24

then we got the the message pretty quickly that no one wanted to

52:26

make our rated ex political rock opera. Oh,

52:29

that's the part. I forgot the rated export. It's

52:31

also a little not safe for

52:34

work this thing. Right? That's the thing. Yeah. Yeah. So our dreams

52:36

of having, like, the Matt

52:38

Granning art team come in and

52:40

do all of the work for us, went out

52:42

the window and

52:44

cage was like a huge

52:46

fan

52:46

of my doodles. Yeah. I've always

52:48

been

52:48

a fan of the doodles. I was very funny,

52:50

doodler. And I'm like, I think

52:52

this is telling the story. It's so funny the

52:54

way it is. Maybe we don't need I

52:56

didn't even want any color. I wanted

52:58

it to be total just primitive,

53:01

just sketch drawings,

53:02

but even more DIY.

53:04

So, yeah, we were like, okay.

53:06

I think this works. We're not

53:08

gonna let this stop us. We're gonna we're gonna make it, but

53:11

it's gonna be way cheaper than

53:13

we had anticipated keep thinking, like,

53:15

though, when you mentioned the Matt Graining animation team coming

53:18

in, I know people who have no Matt Graining from,

53:20

obviously, from the Simpsons and

53:22

Futurama, whatever, the original

53:22

migrating thing is you guys, I'm sure know, life and hell, which

53:24

is really my favorite. Yeah. The greatest. That that

53:27

this has a little more of a life and

53:29

health and Heilemann. Weekly. You

53:31

know, with Jeff. Akbar and Jeff. Yeah. Akbar

53:33

and Jeff and and Binky and Bongo and,

53:35

like, you know, those that's like the bear that's like

53:37

a very simple piece of animation. That's a little bit

53:40

more like what this looks like. But but then

53:42

Weekly. Matt Grainy. That we all

53:44

knew and loved. Back to me. We're dropping

53:46

these cultural references here that no one it's

53:48

like a That's like a smother's brother's reference right there.

53:50

So the Matt Granting, life and hell, like, what? So are

53:52

you guys are you guys happy with

53:56

how So as I said a second ago, you guys made the videos. You put

53:58

them on YouTube. You strung them together. It's like

54:00

an hour long movie now. Right?

54:02

The post apocalyptic movie.

54:04

Now you guys nicely sent me the the

54:06

graphic novel, which I have not yet fully immersed

54:08

myself in it, but it looks fucking cool. That came

54:10

out just a couple months ago. Right? Yes. And also if

54:12

you notice when you do crack

54:14

it open -- Yeah. -- on the first page, it

54:16

tells you how to go to tenacious

54:18

d dot com and and click the link so you

54:20

can listen along while you read

54:22

it. It's like a little children's picture

54:24

book in that way,

54:25

and it plays

54:26

the songs along with the

54:28

pictures that you're you're looking at. But, yeah, it was a lot of work,

54:31

dude. I spent literally

54:33

hundreds of hours drawing

54:35

pictures, maybe thousands thousand

54:38

hours. See, the pictures get better

54:40

as the show progresses. It was And

54:42

we we did it episodic to

54:46

I I imagine the way Cervantes did

54:48

Don Quixote. Yes. But you guys are a

54:50

little captured. You guys are a little Don Quixote.

54:52

Right? That's the other thing about Kyle

54:55

and Jacky have a little bit of a donky hoodie kind of one of you

54:57

guys is the donkey. I'm not sure

54:59

which. Yes. Wanted to

55:02

go. No. Oh, channel

55:04

punza. There is the There is

55:06

that element of us chasing

55:08

dragons that are actually

55:10

just windmills. The

55:11

self proclaimed greatest band in the world. We

55:13

have we do have a little donkey, hottea, and

55:15

our sauce. Mhmm. I I guess my I guess my

55:17

question before, like, we leave topic and take

55:19

a little break. My last question about this is like, okay. So postapocalyptic

55:21

two years, you know,

55:24

multimedia extravaganza,

55:24

extravaganza Obviously,

55:27

Amazon, Hulu, HBO, Netflix all

55:29

cursing themselves. Now that they've seen what

55:31

a kind of Are

55:33

they Culture

55:34

dominating phenomenon postapocalyptic

55:36

guys become? I think they are.

55:39

You

55:39

know,

55:40

now Trump gets beat. Right?

55:42

So do

55:43

we feel like the apocalyptic moment is now past? I

55:45

mean, or or do we feel like there's

55:47

still with COVID, we'll talk about this more,

55:49

but you guys kind of

55:52

think man, this was

55:52

great for the last couple years of the Trump era, but now

55:55

we're headed into brighter days, or do you think that

55:57

the world's because of COVID and other things still

55:59

gonna be kind of

55:59

on edge and receptive

56:02

to this kind of message. Hey,

56:04

Sanjay. We're still in the race.

56:06

Gotcha. We got the Iran. He wants to go

56:08

there. We got all kinds of

56:10

weird plants. Because once again, we're in the same situation. Trump

56:12

looks like a fucking clown. Let's all

56:14

laugh because he's a lame duck. There's

56:16

never been a

56:18

lame duck. But in the

56:20

meantime, he continues to

56:22

march on with his fucking devious plan.

56:24

That over till he's gone.

56:26

With his nuclear

56:28

football, And then you know the sad thing is after he's

56:30

gone, he's not gone. Well, take

56:32

his passport. That's

56:33

what I say. Hit

56:36

that passport. Not

56:37

gonna be done with Trumpism. There's seventy million

56:39

people that that that buying it. I don't

56:41

know how many what percentage those people are queuing

56:43

on it. They're still freaking It's a dangerous

56:45

group. A lot of people here every lot of

56:47

people very happy Joe Biden won. A lot of

56:49

people very happy that he's gonna end up getting eighty

56:52

million votes. But Trump, you know,

56:54

still got seventy

56:54

three million, seventy four million he got. Wasn't it would've been the second

56:56

most ever. And the main thing, he also got, like,

56:58

a ten million more than he got last time. Even

57:01

after watching this guy with his

57:04

corruption and his stupidity and his

57:06

incompetence, there's still more

57:08

people voted for him than they than four

57:10

years ago, it's the eternal

57:12

head scratcher of, like, why? When

57:14

it seems so apparent to so many

57:17

of us, I don't say

57:17

the numbers to speak for themselves.

57:20

So we

57:20

could keep on doing postapocalyptic for

57:22

another forty years, unfortunately, probably

57:26

because But, you know, the politics of blame and hatred,

57:28

they're as strong as they've ever been, so

57:30

the growth industry. I'd like to

57:32

move on

57:33

to the next album. We're gonna

57:35

have to see how the work is not done. Alright. This is a good time to take a

57:37

break and pay some more bills at the podcast. You're listening to

57:39

Helen High Water with

57:42

Jack, Black, and Kyle Gas, tenacious d. Goddamn it.

57:44

I wanted to do this podcast for really forever.

57:46

It's part of the reason

57:47

I just got actually launched Heilemann Water was

57:49

because I thought there was a

57:51

chance that we'd it's nice to see

57:53

the come on and see here we are. I should be garbage. Right. We'll have some soap here. We'll be right

57:56

back. Yeah.

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59:19

It's time

59:20

to be

59:22

a hero, a

59:24

hero with a mask. Not this

59:27

guy

59:27

this kind.

59:36

Be a

59:44

hero. We're

59:46

at

59:54

So

59:55

that is a a little Jack Black doing a viral

59:57

mask public service announcement, I

59:59

guess.

59:59

Jack that's out on on every social

1:00:02

platform. And

1:00:04

again, watch by a bajillion people. I will say there are

1:00:06

three characters in this. If you haven't seen it, you

1:00:08

gotta go look at Jack's Instagram and

1:00:10

it's like really part

1:00:12

two because at the beginning of the

1:00:14

COVID quarantine injected a

1:00:16

shirtless dance that took TikTok

1:00:18

by storm. And then this

1:00:20

thing

1:00:20

came out a little later also on TikTok

1:00:22

and again available Instagram and other social platforms. And

1:00:24

I'll say in both of them there are

1:00:26

two important characters. One is Jack Black

1:00:28

and the second is Jack Black's belly.

1:00:30

And

1:00:31

then also a very itty bitty like speedo

1:00:33

in both cases. Like, not a lot of

1:00:35

not a lot of coverage in terms of the

1:00:37

short pants that you're wearing. And

1:00:40

then the the mask is obviously a huge part of the of the mask PSA. So

1:00:42

I ask you an any bitty speedo covering

1:00:46

of significant

1:00:48

package. Yeah. I'll leave that to everyone's imagination and I

1:00:50

don't know what to say about it except I do

1:00:52

want to ask you about it though because I wanna

1:00:54

talk about COVID here in this last part

1:00:57

of the podcast. I mean, those

1:00:59

are both artifacts of the COVID quarantine era, you know, where a lot of

1:01:01

artists and celebrities of your ilk have

1:01:04

taken to these social

1:01:06

media platforms. And have done things that

1:01:08

have gone wildly viral in video. And

1:01:10

those two things I just mentioned, the

1:01:12

TikTok videos, the first, the quarantine dance, and

1:01:14

then the

1:01:16

Mask PSA, went

1:01:16

wildly viral. So, like, what inspired you to decide to take up

1:01:18

most of your clothes and film yourself

1:01:21

for

1:01:21

the purposes

1:01:22

of the TikTok. You

1:01:25

know, there's an element of just public

1:01:27

service announcement and how can you make that

1:01:29

fun and

1:01:30

weirdly an element of politics

1:01:32

there shouldn't be any politics involved, but I guess that's

1:01:34

my bleeding heart, left wing liver outside coming out. But

1:01:37

I'd be lying if I didn't say there

1:01:39

was

1:01:39

a a little bit of

1:01:42

desperation for attention. That's a that's

1:01:44

a separate attention disorder. I got

1:01:46

a little bit of a disorder.

1:01:50

It's a

1:01:52

It's

1:01:52

part of why we do what we do. If we see

1:01:54

an opportunity to resonate on

1:01:56

any platform, why won't you jump

1:01:58

at it? And if

1:01:59

you can a good cause at the same time and all

1:02:01

the Heilemann. I was just gonna say, yeah,

1:02:04

they were anal explosive as opposed

1:02:06

to anal

1:02:08

retentive. Whereas we wanna show our shit. Everybody,

1:02:10

not keep it

1:02:11

in. I don't think I ever heard that before.

1:02:13

And I think Yeah. No. No. I'd rather not have to hear

1:02:16

it again. But talk

1:02:18

just I wanna hear with you guys. This is one of the things

1:02:20

that most interested me when we went into

1:02:22

quarantine. Right? When we went into lockdown

1:02:25

back last March. Was everything stopped, right, in the

1:02:28

creative fields, whether it's television, movies,

1:02:30

music, like, you guys are planning to do a

1:02:32

big tour. This fall. You guys are

1:02:34

gonna be out with an agency. You guys are gonna

1:02:36

tour around and go from Iowa and and,

1:02:38

you know, spend the fall touring and and

1:02:40

try to help the the cause of beating Trump and all

1:02:42

that got shut down. In some ways, time warp is

1:02:44

kind of a result of the

1:02:46

fact that you couldn't tour. Right? You couldn't go out

1:02:48

and play live gigs. So I really

1:02:50

just wanna throw it open to

1:02:52

you guys. What has it been like

1:02:54

being artists, you

1:02:55

know, as musicians with the

1:02:58

band, but also Jacky in television and

1:03:00

film, like, what's it been like dealing with the the restrictions that

1:03:02

COVID has imposed on your industries

1:03:04

and your creativity and your

1:03:06

capacity to earn money and and and do the shit you

1:03:08

love? I mean, like this has been a pretty

1:03:10

fucking hard time for a lot of people in the creative

1:03:12

fields. Well, I mean,

1:03:14

obviously,

1:03:14

all the filming

1:03:16

has been on hold. I haven't done anything,

1:03:18

but

1:03:19

Strangely, I I've enjoyed the time

1:03:21

at home with the family. I'm already

1:03:23

kind of in my golden

1:03:25

celebrity bubble anyway. So it's

1:03:28

not actually that big a change

1:03:30

because I always hide in here

1:03:32

--

1:03:32

Yeah. -- like edge? Yeah. I the

1:03:34

strangely, it hasn't been that much

1:03:36

different except for the lack of touring. But

1:03:39

it has been a challenge and a

1:03:41

good one though to kind

1:03:43

of stay creative and you know, nothing

1:03:45

keeps you from writing, and

1:03:46

nothing keeps you

1:03:47

from playing. Well, the in fairness

1:03:49

though, cage, we do

1:03:51

our best writing when we're together over at the rehearsal space, and

1:03:53

we haven't been able to jam together because mainly

1:03:56

because I'm too paranoid. Casey's gonna say,

1:03:58

apparently, I look like a

1:03:59

germ to Have you guys not seen

1:04:02

each other? Have you guys not been in each other's physical

1:04:04

presence since the start of the COVID?

1:04:06

I came over

1:04:06

to Kyle's house for his birthday.

1:04:09

Jack dropped the Cadillac off. I

1:04:11

gave Kyle a Cadillac a pandemic

1:04:13

Cadillac. These Elvis types do.

1:04:15

You know? But in fairness,

1:04:17

he was turning sixty. It was a

1:04:19

big one. And I wanted to do something special for Kyle, so I went

1:04:21

over to his house with

1:04:23

a nineteen sixty I've

1:04:25

got OCD --

1:04:26

Sure. -- Cadillac s

1:04:28

series, and I dropped the keys

1:04:30

over to look at the look on his fucking

1:04:33

face. Why didn't you cream is jeans. I

1:04:35

was gonna ask you to describe the look on his face, but you

1:04:37

went right to something else. I was hoping for man

1:04:39

tears, but at least there was a little

1:04:41

I was moved. I I

1:04:44

immediately wrote a song about it within

1:04:46

days. It was a

1:04:46

great song, and you posted it on your

1:04:49

socials, and I appreciate it. Thank

1:04:51

you. That's a pretty good deal. Jack, black.

1:04:54

Well, it got Beackel.

1:04:56

Sound like a Beatles gem, honestly.

1:04:58

That's weird. Wait. Sing sing that way. I wanna hear that again. Sing a little bit later

1:05:00

on. Oh, Jack, Black. Well,

1:05:03

he

1:05:03

got me, Cadillac. Now

1:05:06

I don't think I'm going back anymore.

1:05:08

No. Oh my god.

1:05:10

That's so great. You

1:05:11

got a CMO

1:05:14

singing that playing guitar on the back of this convertible convertible

1:05:16

as it drives by So the with the

1:05:18

advent of Instagram, there's no never a

1:05:20

reason not to

1:05:22

be creative. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. I'm on. Well, that's the thing. So

1:05:24

it's interesting because I hear, like, for example,

1:05:26

my friend, Rizana, who did the the the

1:05:28

theme music for

1:05:30

this podcast he says that, like,

1:05:32

the COVID's been great for him creatively.

1:05:34

He's like, I've been working on breaks. I've been working on

1:05:36

beats. I've had more time to focus on

1:05:38

the production inside than I've had in a really long time. And and he's like, I've

1:05:40

been more productive in the last six, nine months than

1:05:42

I've been for years. So

1:05:44

III think a lot of

1:05:46

people obviously are feel hindered by this and a

1:05:48

lot of people who do live pre performance and live production are

1:05:50

obviously held back. And there's a lot of television

1:05:52

things that we somehow managed

1:05:54

to get the circus made, but there's a

1:05:56

ton of scripted shows that I

1:05:58

loved, like billions, my friends work on and they

1:06:00

can't figure out how the COVID thing and how to get

1:06:02

it done. But

1:06:02

I do think for some people, it's kind of a fertile period

1:06:04

of focus like writers and and

1:06:06

others who don't have to be engaged

1:06:09

in the large collaborative enterprise of,

1:06:11

like, making a movie or making a television show. But if you can just

1:06:13

do your work at home on your own -- Yeah. --

1:06:15

whether it's writing something or working on on production

1:06:17

or whatever, it seems like some people are thriving in

1:06:19

this environment too. I totally

1:06:22

agree. It's

1:06:22

forced to a lot of people into

1:06:24

some kind of extra creative mode.

1:06:26

Just

1:06:26

having to

1:06:27

be by themselves. It's

1:06:28

gonna be interesting to see what happens in twenty twenty one. It could be

1:06:31

a a real renaissance. There could be

1:06:33

some great, great, great music coming out. I'm

1:06:35

I'm looking forward to that. I

1:06:37

wish I was

1:06:38

like Rizzo, though, and I've

1:06:40

been writing some of the best music of my

1:06:42

life. That's not really the case. Well,

1:06:44

I've been some of the best covers of our lives.

1:06:47

We have had some fun, and we have we

1:06:49

have had some some cool. We we're pretty

1:06:51

lucky. And trying to think

1:06:53

of a great jam to help rock the

1:06:55

vote for Georgia. I mean, we could

1:06:58

just keep on pushing Time

1:06:59

Warner, but it feels like Georgia should

1:07:02

have something special,

1:07:04

and it's so weird how this one

1:07:06

tiny little part of the world is

1:07:08

gonna have so much attention on it a

1:07:10

little bit. Not sequential. Not just for America,

1:07:13

For the world -- Yes. -- Kyle said something the other day to me. He said, should

1:07:15

we do something for Georgia? Should we do something

1:07:17

for Georgia? Are you in? I'm like, I'm

1:07:20

I do wanna

1:07:20

ask you this though, Jack, about TikTok. Right?

1:07:23

Heilemann, a new platform for you. Right? Yeah.

1:07:25

Kyle made a point earlier about how, like, you know, Tenacious

1:07:27

has a as a presence in the world. You have

1:07:29

a presence in the world

1:07:31

that's adjacent to it and and very large. Right? I mean, you you

1:07:33

you bet a pretty big exhibitionist for a pretty long time,

1:07:35

but these platforms seem like kind of made for

1:07:37

you. Yeah. I know.

1:07:39

It's weird. But TikTok

1:07:40

feels very Jack Black friendly. I know because

1:07:42

I have a super short attention span.

1:07:44

So sort of short attention

1:07:46

span theater just fits right in

1:07:49

with my brand in a way. I got

1:07:51

a little ADHD in my sauce. I got

1:07:53

a

1:07:53

little OCD in my soup.

1:07:55

So working in in

1:07:57

fifteen second chunks, I can party with that all day.

1:07:59

It has

1:07:59

presented a strange opportunity to connect with

1:08:02

a larger audience and it's been kind

1:08:04

of fun. Well, also, I will say the other thing

1:08:06

for you is something that came

1:08:08

through in the time warp video, but that's true of these

1:08:10

TikTok videos that a lot of people

1:08:12

comment to me about. I'll say this in the best in the most

1:08:14

straightforward way I can. People like, they really admire your

1:08:16

body positivity. Mhmm. You don't give a shit. You're

1:08:18

like, I'm just like, well, there's no vanity in

1:08:21

your body, John. No. I I again,

1:08:23

I I appreciate it. And I and I I get a lot of people have a lot of positive feedback about it. It's like,

1:08:25

you know, like, that dude just does not care. There's no he's

1:08:28

not trying

1:08:30

to conform some particular stereotype of what a celebrity should look like, he isn't give a

1:08:32

shit. He's having fun and

1:08:34

is, you know, unabashed about

1:08:37

being willing to get pretty close to

1:08:39

naked in some of these spaces. It's how big a difference it

1:08:41

is though, a tight red speedo. It's

1:08:43

only like an

1:08:46

ounce of material

1:08:48

between that and the full monty. I actually

1:08:50

am very aware of my body I'm self conscious and

1:08:54

insecure about it. I think a part of that exhibitionism

1:08:56

is like a a form of therapy.

1:08:58

Like, I'm trying to get over something.

1:09:02

Like, if I -- Yeah. -- jump into the deep end of

1:09:04

that kind of an arm. Of the bull,

1:09:06

maybe I'll get over my own body issues.

1:09:09

But

1:09:09

I also am aware of the fact that that shock value that's gonna create

1:09:12

because

1:09:15

create

1:09:16

in a way, we're

1:09:18

in the business of humiliation. And if you're willing to go there, you can have an impact.

1:09:23

her

1:09:26

What

1:09:26

do you think, cage? What what is it with the body

1:09:28

the body? Well, it's been

1:09:30

tough for me because, you know,

1:09:32

Jack and I have always competed, we've

1:09:35

always kind of had weight issues

1:09:37

and kinda tried

1:09:38

to lose it. And and

1:09:40

then Jack came into

1:09:42

full self acceptance mode, and it kind of put me back on my heels. So now

1:09:44

I

1:09:45

have to accept

1:09:47

too, I suppose.

1:09:48

have to say except to i suppose

1:09:51

I know. But

1:09:51

well, Kyle, you you've actually been winning the battle

1:09:53

of the bulge. But now with the news,

1:09:56

there is no battle anymore. Now

1:09:58

we Right. That's their safe

1:10:00

battle. There's still

1:10:02

no fat shaming anymore. We can't do it. Well, here's the thing, though. I have I

1:10:07

have a builder. Exposed myself, and

1:10:09

it's been like, oh, isn't he brave? Because he's a plus size model in

1:10:12

this body centric world. Everyone's

1:10:14

wants to have a perfect body.

1:10:16

But But

1:10:18

the truth is, I've been working out like a madman. I've

1:10:20

been swimming more laps than I

1:10:22

ever have. So underneath this

1:10:25

layer of cushion, there's a lot of muscles. Well, you

1:10:28

know, I'm actually proud of my weird

1:10:30

body because even though I'm pretty hefty,

1:10:32

I also have

1:10:35

some flexibility and some some

1:10:36

musculature. Well, you can see that in the TikTok video

1:10:38

when you hurl yourself into the pool. Like, there's a it's

1:10:41

a it's, you know, there's a lot of

1:10:43

trajectory you were flying at there

1:10:46

like a weak man could not fling himself that far into

1:10:48

the pool. There's strength on it. Have you seen

1:10:51

the Russian dancing, the Jack? Oh, yes. I've

1:10:53

seen that Ted is That's

1:10:55

so impressive. Yes. That's insane. Thing. You

1:10:57

know, I have to say though, sometimes I

1:10:59

see people that are on the heavier

1:11:00

side,

1:11:01

and I I

1:11:04

find them very

1:11:04

attractive. And then if I see them lose a lot

1:11:06

of weight, sometimes I'll be like, good for them,

1:11:09

but

1:11:10

I

1:11:11

kinda missed it. Generally told me

1:11:13

to stop losing weight because it was diminishing returns. Well, I

1:11:15

think Kyle's perfect weight

1:11:18

is around two sixteen.

1:11:20

Lean and mean in two sixteen. And KJ is like, no, dude. I wanna

1:11:22

get back to my high school weight one eighty six. I'm like, I don't think that's

1:11:27

it, bro. I'm clinically obese. For god's sake. You you think that

1:11:29

You guys both look fucking perfect to me. I swear

1:11:31

to god, you

1:11:34

both look fix things. Thank you, John. And

1:11:36

you know what? I don't appreciate.

1:11:38

And I'm it's

1:11:40

weird because I

1:11:42

am a fan of his this did

1:11:44

real time with Bill Mar. I think he's real I

1:11:46

think he's brilliant. I think, you know, he makes great points. I

1:11:50

I think he's actually

1:11:52

a better oratorth than a

1:11:54

comedian. I don't find him particularly hilarious, but I do get

1:11:56

blown away on

1:11:59

on the reg. By his points that he

1:12:01

makes and he thinks outside the box and it says things that you're not supposed to say and I appreciate that.

1:12:04

But

1:12:07

Uh-oh. about fat people. It

1:12:09

makes my blood boil. It's a

1:12:11

kind of racism. You

1:12:15

can't

1:12:15

call it racism, but it comes from the same place. It's

1:12:17

like a characteristic like homophobia. Yeah.

1:12:19

It's your issue. It's not really

1:12:21

actually, it's not like racism or

1:12:24

homophobia because if you have an eating

1:12:26

disorder and you can't stop eating, it's more like alcoholism and you wouldn't go on an addiction.

1:12:28

Wouldn't go shaming someone for

1:12:30

a disease or for something, and

1:12:34

it's like fuck you man. It

1:12:36

actually I I get pretty passionate

1:12:38

about it. When he I I

1:12:40

turn off the show and I

1:12:42

I do love the

1:12:43

show from time to time, but I have I have to had to

1:12:45

phase him out because of his fat shaming.

1:12:47

Mhmm. You know what I'm talking about, John? Are you

1:12:49

aware of his deal? I have a bit on that

1:12:52

show on on many occasions. And

1:12:54

they have always treated me very well, but I have noted the thing that you are talking about and It's Rob. That big fan

1:12:56

of it. Because people are struggling out

1:12:58

there and he's got this cockiness, like,

1:13:03

they're lazy.

1:13:03

Be more like me,

1:13:05

date supermodels, and be,

1:13:07

you know, an asshole.

1:13:09

I don't know. No. It's

1:13:11

it's character. It's character. Lack of

1:13:13

character. Sorry. I should probably change

1:13:16

subjects because I

1:13:18

like that. Be like me. No. III

1:13:21

like this. I like this com I like this. I

1:13:23

I like I said, I it's

1:13:25

spicy. I mean,

1:13:26

it's not I'm not kidding when I that lot people wrote who or out the thing and

1:13:28

and people just loved it. And

1:13:30

and, you know, Jack, you get

1:13:34

and you know jackie you get your list

1:13:35

in that thing. And it's just it's just I find, you know, people

1:13:38

yeah. It doesn't have to be exactly brave.

1:13:41

That's not really the word that It's just

1:13:43

that people are like, you know, it's like the dude's really comfortable in his own skin. That's

1:13:45

fucking cool. That's what I that was the general

1:13:47

pie the positivity around it that I heard

1:13:49

a lot of people commenting on, and and

1:13:51

and that was before I had really totally

1:13:53

rocked these TikTok videos. And I'm like, well, you know, you wanna see a special deal. You wanna see him really embracing it.

1:13:56

Take a look at this thing because

1:13:58

he's thrown himself into the pool in

1:13:59

slow motion. In

1:14:02

mid air. That's a, you know, there's a degree of body comfort to do with that. III would never might

1:14:04

cover one of my body to do that

1:14:06

on on TikTok. So more more power to

1:14:08

you. I

1:14:11

just wanna end here because I wanna come to to something that's gonna be this

1:14:14

is not a tenacious d question. I apologize because it's

1:14:16

something I raised earlier and

1:14:18

I gotta come back to earlier.

1:14:21

I could talk for two days about high fidelity about that movie. As I

1:14:23

said, two thousand was a year you guys signed with Epic and you had

1:14:25

high fidelity. Come on, high fidelity is kind of the

1:14:27

first big breakthrough part you.

1:14:31

Right? Is that true? For your career. Right? And I love that movie,

1:14:33

man. I love I I it said

1:14:35

I knew Nick Hornby when he wrote fever pitch

1:14:37

and high fidelity. I lived in London at the time,

1:14:39

and III mean, I

1:14:41

love those books and they were great. And then the movie came out and I thought, man, they're gonna fuck this

1:14:43

up by Americanizing it,

1:14:47

but they didn't and it was great and, you know, everyone. And

1:14:49

it's just like one of my favorite movies. It's one of those. I they should Bill Simmons should have me come on

1:14:51

the rewatchables because it's one of those movies

1:14:54

I'd probably seen a hundred times, you

1:14:56

know. And I it was

1:14:58

the first time I think you really in my consciousness Barry in that would love to

1:15:00

just hear you talk a little

1:15:03

bit

1:15:03

about being in it And

1:15:06

here both of you guys talk about

1:15:08

the conceit of that thing as we bring this into

1:15:10

a close, which is like your top five records, which

1:15:12

of course is the record label that QSAC announces

1:15:14

he's starting and you guys do a lot of

1:15:16

list making in the record shop in that movie. But Jack,

1:15:19

just tell me a little bit about high fidelity of

1:15:21

what it meant to you and in your life and

1:15:23

career. So me and Kyle were doing Tenacious and

1:15:26

it was getting pretty intense

1:15:28

around ninety

1:15:31

eight, ninety nine, and it was

1:15:33

heating up. So John Cusick, who wrote and

1:15:35

starred in

1:15:40

high fidelity, offered me that role. He

1:15:42

was like, hey, you know, Steven Frerears is directing

1:15:44

it, and we want

1:15:47

you to play Barry and

1:15:49

I read it and my first instinct was like, oh, I don't think I

1:15:51

wanna do it because it's about rock and roll and

1:15:55

it's about music. And I got this thing

1:15:57

going with Tenacious d where I actually am a musician and I actually am in that

1:15:59

world and and to make

1:16:02

a movie, like, you wouldn't wanna

1:16:04

see you wouldn't wanna see some

1:16:07

musician that you love going and

1:16:09

making a movie, acting like a musician. I

1:16:11

I felt like in a weird way

1:16:13

it would diminish that other part. But at

1:16:15

the end of the day, I was like,

1:16:17

I love Stephen Frears, and I love John

1:16:20

Kuzak, and and I'm gonna take

1:16:22

the plunge even though I'm afraid of of what it might do to tenacious deep. And I'm glad did

1:16:24

because it was a,

1:16:27

you know, a career a

1:16:31

milestone for me and opened up a lot of opportunities

1:16:33

and changed my life. But, yeah,

1:16:35

there was a

1:16:36

lot of trepidation

1:16:38

going into it after that. do something.

1:16:40

I was like, wait a second. Am

1:16:42

I afraid for good reasons? Or is

1:16:46

it am I just missing an opportunity. Well, you've made the right

1:16:48

choice there. First of all, the movie is fucking great.

1:16:50

And I just think for music fans, I think that's

1:16:52

the thing is it. You know? It's a movie that,

1:16:54

like, in the same way, I'm gonna say something

1:16:57

and that will only make sense to you if

1:16:59

you're a baseball movie.

1:17:00

Right? It's not about the details, although

1:17:02

the details are right, but it's just like,

1:17:07

it gets in this existential way, it gets like what

1:17:09

baseball, the appeal of baseball, the people who love

1:17:11

baseball. Just the whole movie

1:17:13

is structured in a way that feels like someone who's

1:17:15

a baseball fan, who loves baseball, who's like made a

1:17:18

baseball movie. And that's not true of all baseball

1:17:20

movies. High fidelity is like a

1:17:22

music movie for people who are music

1:17:24

fans. It captured that thing that Nick Hornby captioned the

1:17:26

book, which is like what it's like to be obsessed with music, what it's like to

1:17:28

be someone who hangs out in a record shop, what it's like to

1:17:30

be someone who's constantly making a list in their head all

1:17:34

a time about what their top five desert island

1:17:36

discs are or what the top five

1:17:38

songs you play about your funeral or

1:17:41

whatever it is. Like, that's a very,

1:17:43

like, gets getting the

1:17:43

gestalt of being a music fan. And I think like being in

1:17:45

a movie like that if you were someone who

1:17:48

had a musical aspiration is actually good for

1:17:50

you. Right? It's because it's very much of

1:17:52

the spirit doesn't feel like

1:17:54

an outsider's view of music. It feels like a fan's movie that understands

1:17:57

fandom and understands

1:17:59

like what Music obsession

1:18:02

and compulsion is all about, and also just a kind of well executed film. It's like really fun. Music fans

1:18:05

love that

1:18:08

movie. Right? Yeah. So I can imagine

1:18:10

the trepidation, but I'm glad you ended up making it. And I do ask you, as you sit here now, what's

1:18:12

your let's do

1:18:15

your top five. Right? There's

1:18:17

a lot of different kinds of top fives you

1:18:19

can do, but this is a good moment. Top five records

1:18:21

for celebrating the end of the Trump era. Jack Black -- Oh,

1:18:23

no. -- oh, man.

1:18:26

You

1:18:26

know, the song that

1:18:28

came to mind for me,

1:18:30

and I posted, like, a

1:18:32

clip of it, was from

1:18:34

The Wiz. Can you feel a brand new day

1:18:37

with incredible performances

1:18:38

by Diana Ross and

1:18:42

a young Michael Jackson? Pre

1:18:44

off the wall. So

1:18:46

he's like

1:18:47

just popping. And, you know, hair,

1:18:48

the

1:18:51

musical, home for all the breeze and home for all

1:18:53

the buzzing bees. So there's another

1:18:55

one. I just want

1:18:58

celebration and, like, freedom.

1:19:00

From

1:19:00

tyranny music. Those two are the only ones that are springing to

1:19:03

Oh,

1:19:03

yeah. You can throw you. We'll make a

1:19:05

good joint list here. Interall for a

1:19:07

friend came to mind. Don't

1:19:10

know why. It's just Is that

1:19:12

a fom fom fom fom fom fom

1:19:14

fom fom f. That's here's here's

1:19:17

the clown. What funeral funeral for

1:19:19

your friends? Yeah. That's

1:19:26

a scam. The whole

1:19:26

side. Yeah. What are great rips and orders where

1:19:32

it's like, it's time to

1:19:34

party and celebrate because it it's sort of

1:19:37

a

1:19:38

a funny thumb in your

1:19:40

nose at his end run at the

1:19:42

YMCA song that comes tomorrow. You got through that. Yes. That was YMCA,

1:19:47

that great victory lap songs where you're kinda rubbing their nose

1:19:49

in it. It feels like a guilty

1:19:51

pleasure. So that's four.

1:19:54

What's our last one cage? Back

1:19:56

in the USSR. No. No. No.

1:19:58

C'mad, cynical. It don't be so cynical. The

1:20:01

guys leave it. I'm I'm just gonna put time warp on the list.

1:20:04

Yeah. Yeah. The tenacious d cover

1:20:06

of time warp, which will be

1:20:08

remembered as bus song

1:20:10

in the fall of twenty twenty, by all right patriotic,

1:20:12

god fearing, flag loving,

1:20:14

Americans. People will be like,

1:20:16

what do I think of when I

1:20:18

think about the fall twenty twenty? I think

1:20:21

about fucking time warp. I think about rocking out to that

1:20:23

thing. I think about the way that Kyle hit that

1:20:25

second verse with the

1:20:27

little special effects with

1:20:30

the red eyes on the video. That was

1:20:32

nice. I mean, you guys

1:20:34

somehow managed to get

1:20:36

Halloween and cross

1:20:38

dressing and anti Trump all into one amazingly compelling

1:20:40

package, and it's sort

1:20:41

of like postapocalyptic. There's a lot going

1:20:43

on there. Just in that, you know,

1:20:45

it's like the South Park thing and

1:20:48

the apocalyptic overtones

1:20:50

and the rock and roll and it's a video and it's album and it's a graphic novel.

1:20:52

It's like, you know, makes me think

1:20:54

about my dad who used to use this

1:20:59

term, he would

1:20:59

refer to something as oblivant. And that would be like, what's, you

1:21:02

know, what's that? And he would say it's a military

1:21:04

term, and it means ten pounds of shit

1:21:06

in a five pound bag. And he meant

1:21:08

it in

1:21:09

the best possible way. I've been where ten pounds of shit in a five pound bagman, you know, my

1:21:11

cup over flow with. To

1:21:14

some extent, that's how I

1:21:16

feel about

1:21:18

postapocalyptic, and it is definitely the way I feel about

1:21:21

Time Warner. Let it mark that five list, but I like to

1:21:23

we're gonna publish that pop top five list, and we're gonna

1:21:25

make a playlist out of them and put it on spotify.

1:21:27

Mhmm. And people will be like, oh, man, that is cool. You guys

1:21:29

thank you for doing this. Thank you. You were like

1:21:31

a fucking delight. I

1:21:34

honestly could sit here with you guys. All day longer. Hey. I did this whole you

1:21:36

know what he's saying. Yeah. I

1:21:38

know what you say. We see.

1:21:41

Love it. Thank

1:21:44

you, John. Great. Good to see you on. Good

1:21:46

to see you bless you. Let's do it again. See you, man. Thanks for having us.

1:21:48

thanks for happiness And

1:21:50

a big Thank you to Tenacious d for being with us here

1:21:52

on the final episode of the year of

1:21:54

Helen High Water. Helen High Water is a

1:21:57

podcast from the recount and IHeartRadio.

1:21:59

Thanks again to Jack Black and Kyle

1:22:01

Gas for being here with us. If

1:22:03

you like this episode and who wouldn't, please subscribe to the podcast and a fabulous,

1:22:07

nice, wonderful, delight full ecstatic rating

1:22:09

for us in the Apple Podcast app, helps people find out what we're doing over here. I am your host and

1:22:11

the executive editor of

1:22:14

the recount, John Heilemann,

1:22:17

Grace Weinstein is a co creator of

1:22:19

Helen High Water. Olia Jackson engineered the podcast, Justin Chormel and Diana wrote and handled the

1:22:21

research. Stephanie Stender is

1:22:23

our post producer Sarry

1:22:26

Software is our producer,

1:22:28

and the aforementioned Christian Fiedel,

1:22:30

castor Russell, is our executive producer.