No fictional band has persevered and prospered like Spinal Tap. For more than four decades, they’ve walked a fine line between fiction and reality so skillfully that people prefer the invented band members playing their satirical songs. You can’t have one without the other. We’ve fully bought into the act, something no one foresaw back in 1984.
The evolution of Spinal Tap from cult movie invention into real-life band is a surreal and endearing cinematic story — one that went to 11 and paved the way for the new sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.
Out Sept. 12, Spinal Tap II begins when the daughter of Spinal Tap's contentious late manager inherits what she thinks is a worthless contract requiring the dormant band to do one more gig. But after a video clip of Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood dueting on the bass-heavy "Big Bottom" goes viral, a Tap buzz reignites. The unexpected reunion — the group's first in 15 years — renews their classic squabbling while nodding at contemporary music industry nonsense.
"Well, once someone really forces you into it, a good time could be had, you know?" vocalist and guitarist David St. Hubbins (actor Michael McKean, in character) tells GRAMMY.com. "Sometimes you go kicking and screaming into a new, or sort of a stale, environment, and you say, Well, make the best of it, and then it's okay."
Director Rob Reiner and actors McKean,Christopher Guest, and Harry Shearer — portraying filmmaker Marty DiBergi, and Spinal Tap members David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls — are the key original players delivering this sequel. Some supporting ones like Fran Drescher and Paul Shaffer get cameos to show us where their characters wound up.
When that original quartet (along with keyboardist David Kaff as Viv Savage and drummer Ric Parnell as Mick Shrimpton, both now deceased), set out to make the famed first mockumentary, it took them four years to bring their vision to life. They even made a short film as a sort of rough draft.
The fictional 1984 documentary This Is Spinal Tap followed the titular hard rock band during their calamitous, alleged final tour — getting lost on the way to perform, stage prop fails, hapless antics, and a fatal succession of drummers — and became a cult hit. The film brilliantly satirized the unglamorous side of rock ‘n roll via the group’s own buffoonery. It gave us original songs like "Sex Farm," "Heavy Duty," and "Stonehenge" (with its epically comic concert fail), along with immortal lines like "This one goes to 11" and "There’s a fine line between stupid and clever."
This Is Spinal Tap was a hoot but also hit too close to home for many musicians. Sting reportedly told Reiner that whenever he watched it, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. General audiences the world over embraced that dichotomy, giving decades of life to the film and its hapless rockers. Some fans have even written about Tap albums that were mentioned but don’t actually exist.
Spinal Tap had gigged around L.A. prior to filming to perfect their shtick, though the group truly took flight after This Is Spinal Tap hit theaters. Following a mini U.S. tour in ‘84, McKean and Shearer (that is, guitarist/vocalist St. Hubbins and bassist Smalls) participated with real-life rockers on the Hear ‘n Aid song "Stars" — the heavy metal version of "We Are The World."
Spinal Tap reunited in 1992, 2000, 2007 and 2009; they released three more albums (Break Like The Wind, Back From The Dead, and the new The End Continues); performed on "The Simpsons," had their own "Behind The Music" special, embarked on an acoustic tour, and played the Live Earth and Glastonbury festivals. Acoustic shows aside, they've always been in character.
Spinal Tap has laid low since 2009, although Smalls released his 2018 solo album Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing) and did a couple of orchestral concerts.
Chris Addison, Kerry Godliman, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer in 'Spinal Tap II' | Photo: Bleecker Street/Kyle Kaplan
This week, Spinal Tap returns for one last hurrah, or so we think. There’s the sequel, a new dual autobiography (from the band’s and actors’ points of view), a fresh soundtrack album, and even a limited edition Liquid Death water pack.
In Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, filmmaker Marty DiBergi reunites the estranged lads for one big final concert in New Orleans. The decades since This Is Spinal Tap have seen the quartet explore a variety of vocations; most recently, David now composes music for murder podcasts, Nigel owns a cheese shop, and Derek runs the New Museum Of Glue. Unsure of the band's draw so many years later, a sleazy, vapid concert promoter (who admits he has a disability where he can’t actually hear music) suggests maybe one or two of them actually die at the show to secure their legacy and sales.
"It was originally called the Under Duress tour," Tufnel chimes in. "Only one show, but we wound up having a mixed good time."
Tap does most of their press in character, and the three American actors slip easily into their British personas. David, Nigel and Derek feel like real people with distinct personalities and their trademark banter. When it’s suggested that Spinal Tap II could be shown in 4D to really capture the majesty of "Stonehenge" with Elton John live in the movie’s climactic concert sequence, Tufnel says he doesn’t know what that looks like.
"4D is the same as 3D except you go back in time," remarks St. Hubbins. "There are two Ds for each eye," quips Smalls.
The "Spinal Tap Moment" — when something goes terribly wrong onstage, or off — has also become entrenched in popular culture. St. Hubbins does not mind the term: "It positively became known as that because everyone's had mishaps."
Fellow industry vets Sir Elton John and Sir Paul McCartney both appear in Spinal Tap II. Smalls notes, "I think in retrospect, Sir Paul is going to regard him dropping in on us and getting that cold reception from David as his Spinal Tap moment." The two are currently not speaking after the famed Beatle offered St. Hubbins some ill-taken musical advice.
"I did embarrass Sir Elton, though," admits St. Hubbins. "I told him — it's a true thing — that I had run into a bloke who works at the Troubadour and that Elton owes them one more show from 1971. He fell short, so he's got to drag his ass back to West Hollywood just one more time."
Witticisms aside, the trio can also be sincere, and thoughtfully consider the strength of classic rock nostalgia. "What's going on now is not really very interesting, so people want to turn back [to the past]," explains Smalls.
"Rock and roll keeps reinventing itself, using the same spare parts that they left behind," moans St. Hubbins. "All of a sudden, we've got machines playing all the bass parts, machines playing all the drum parts, and AutoTune helping out with everything else."
"People are scared that it's all going to be done by AI," says Smalls. "So they're going, No, no, no, we want the real thing, as dirty and as messy as it might be. It’s real, and that's us."
As one classic Tap lyric declares, "The more it stays the same, the less it changes." But the music industry has changed over the last 15 years. "You don't talk about units anymore," notes St. Hubbins. "You used to talk about units because there were LPs, then there were cassettes, and then…"
"It’s been since the Middle Ages they’ve had eunuchs," interjects Tufnel.
"Units," corrects his bandmate. "Now it's streams, yeah? A stream is one thing. It's a body of water with lily pads flowing by. What does it mean? It's nonsense."
Marketing has changed too. Within the world of the film, Spinal Tap's 1984 album Smell The Glove — with its infamous cover featuring a collared woman on all fours with a glove held to her nose — was censored and replaced with an all-black cover, years before Metallica did it on purpose. Spinal Tap was told their cover was sexist, whereas one by rival Duke Fame, featuring him in bondage at the mercy of women, was sexy. ("He’s the victim.")
Sabrina Carpenter's recently released Man’s Best Friend — the cover for which features the singer on all fours in a tight dress with her hair being pulled by an anonymous man — begged some of the same questions. Is it sexy? Sexist? Was she inspired by Tap?
"Oh yes, to all three questions," St. Hubbins replies enthusiastically. "It's theft," grouses Tufnel.
"No, it's not theft," counters St. Hubbins. "It's a tribute. Listen, I prefer to look at it as a tribute."
"Look, if it's such a tribute," fumes Smalls, "where's the bloody glove?"
Both in and out of character, Spinal Tap are actually solid musicians, singers and songwriters. During one moment in Spinal Tap II, the trio breaks into a beautifully harmonious a capella bit. Their oddball contrasts haven’t changed: Smalls later presents a new song, "Rockin’ In The Urn," about post-cremation rock star afterlife, to lower the bar.
After many famous drummers skittishly back out — some Spinal Tap drummers are known to spontaneously explode, others die in equally bizarre ways — Spinal Tap II showcases spunky spitfire Didi Crockett (a.k.a. real-life drummer Valerie Franco), the group’s first female drummer and member.
Crockett, a lifelong Tap fan, smashes and bashes the kit with aplomb.
Drummer issues aside, Tap has been judicious with their sporadic reunions, and their fans always return. When asked about their eternal appeal, they can’t quite place their fingers on it.
"I think they know that we're humans," muses Tufnel. "I don't mean it like a UFO thing. They see in us what real people are like. We're not pretending to be something we're not."
"You're saying they see themselves in us?" asks Smalls.
"No, they're seeing us in us," clarifies Tufnel.
"They might see us in them," offers St. Hubbins.
"Maybe us as well," concludes Tufnel, cluelessly.
With a bevy of long-running farewell tours going on, one wonders why few rockers actually retire.
"If you play for a living, and that's what you do, you've got to play. You don't want to stop playing," Tufnel says. "You might think for a minute, I've had it with this, but really you want to keep playing because that's the most fun. Simple as that, simple as that."
"We get to do what other people dream of doing, and then we do it," says Smalls. "Then we dream about being them." But, he admits, "That's a bit of a letdown."
The (mostly) septuagenarian Tap has done a lot: Released many albums, toured the world, made movies, even released a book. Tufnel ponders that no one has played a full gig in a space station.
"There was that astronaut that played the guitar briefly, but that was just, you know, like a folk gig," says Tufnel. "[I want] a real gig with the drummer, bass player, two guitars." Smalls suggests that they would play their guitars upside down: "Instruments don't have gravity."
No fictional band has persevered and prospered like Spinal Tap. For more than four decades, they’ve walked a fine line between fiction and reality so skillfully that people prefer the invented band members playing their satirical songs. You can’t have one without the other. We’ve fully bought into the act, something no one foresaw back in 1984.