Turn your amps up to 11, everyone: Spinal Tap are back. After 1984’s classic comedy (or, disastrous documentary, depending on which way you look at it), the heavy metal masterminds – Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest), David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) – have returned in a new doc from returning filmmaker Marty DeBergi (or, Rob Reiner) for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. The results look to be bigger than Stonehenge – certainly the version Spinal Tap had on stage in the first film.
In support of the sequel, all three members of Spinal Tap – and DeBergi – sat down with Empire for a major new interview, talking their disdain for the original doc, their new material, and – as you can read in the extract below – the secret of the band’s longevity, still rocking all these years later:
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What’s the secret to your longevity as a band?
Nigel Tufnel: We’ve had arguments over the years and then made up… Arguments, make up, arguments, make up. But there’s no secret, because there’s no solution for an old friendship.
David St. Hubbins: I think that the more we can leave our egos at the door, the better. But it’s not easy. I carry my ego everywhere, but having a big ego is like having a big dog. You can’t expect other people to feed it for you.
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Marty DiBergi: But you can leave your big dog at the door.
St. Hubbins: Or you can leave it at home.
Tufnel: Or you can not have a dog at all.
Derek Smalls: Or bring him in. Bring him in and feed him.
St. Hubbins: You could bring him in, sure. There are so many ways to deal with a dog. Is that what we’re talking about?
Smalls: I think so.
Tufnel: You can’t give people advice, because everyone’s different, and we’re not perfect, you know, we have ups and downs. We get into fights, and then the fights end, and then we get in another fight.
St. Hubbins: We have peccadillos. We all have peccadilloes.
Tufnel: Well, we had peccadilloes in the old days, but I can’t afford them now.
St. Hubbins: You can’t buy ’em anywhere. They’re not making good peccadilloes.
Tufnel: No, not good ones.