Kyle, I like your white
socks and sandals by the way.
J : Oh good. Okay good. Yeah, It’s a big part of Kyle’s persona really.
White socks and sandals?
K: Yeah, I’ve taken a lot of heat but uh now it’s become kind of a thing.
So, you won’t leave the house without them?
J: What is the heat that you take, do people get really mad at you?
K: People like to remind me what a horrible look it is.
J: But is it? cause you know ninjas have a similar sock you know where it separates the toe, the big toe from the rest of the foot.
K: You know I should go have a look at that.
J: The ninja defence.
Is it ninja inspired?
K: If I just wear sandals I notice my feet get really dirty, so this is really, yeah, this is the perfect combo.
Would you say you’re covering all your bases?
K: I’m covering my bases.
And Jack have you ever been tempted to give it a go yourself?
J: The socks with the toe?
Exactly.
J: Uh, no, but now that you mention that maybe, maybe it would feel good, I’ve never been a big flip flop guy, do they have flip flops from where you come from?
Yeah, they do.
J: Yeah, they annoy my feet, I have kind of granny feet, in that someday they’ll probably have horrible uh …
Bunions?
J: Yeah, funions, I like to call them funions. I don’t have them now but it seems like the shape is going into that direction, I may have to have some kind of surgery to avoid that cause there is nothing less rock’n’roll than bunions.
J : Oh good. Okay good. Yeah, It’s a big part of Kyle’s persona really.
White socks and sandals?
K: Yeah, I’ve taken a lot of heat but uh now it’s become kind of a thing.
So, you won’t leave the house without them?
J: What is the heat that you take, do people get really mad at you?
K: People like to remind me what a horrible look it is.
J: But is it? cause you know ninjas have a similar sock you know where it separates the toe, the big toe from the rest of the foot.
K: You know I should go have a look at that.
J: The ninja defence.
Is it ninja inspired?
K: If I just wear sandals I notice my feet get really dirty, so this is really, yeah, this is the perfect combo.
Would you say you’re covering all your bases?
K: I’m covering my bases.
And Jack have you ever been tempted to give it a go yourself?
J: The socks with the toe?
Exactly.
J: Uh, no, but now that you mention that maybe, maybe it would feel good, I’ve never been a big flip flop guy, do they have flip flops from where you come from?
Yeah, they do.
J: Yeah, they annoy my feet, I have kind of granny feet, in that someday they’ll probably have horrible uh …
Bunions?
J: Yeah, funions, I like to call them funions. I don’t have them now but it seems like the shape is going into that direction, I may have to have some kind of surgery to avoid that cause there is nothing less rock’n’roll than bunions.
I would agree with that
statement actually, trying to think of something less rock’n’roll, nahh
[laughs] … Now I’m noticing right now Jack that you’re squinting, I would say
almost that your eyes are closed, are you especially tired?
J: I had to get up really early for a photo shoot this morning and it was out in the fucking, the sticks cause this photographer was especially particular about the perfect background, and uh, I was driving back here and I was having that kind of drive where you’re battling to stay awake, it’s always dangerous cause you like, really I should pull over and sleep but I can’t I’m late for this thing here.
K: Yeah, you’re late.
J: And I didn’t have a coffee or anything, and I was looking in the, I have a little mini fridge in the seat next to me and there was nothing good in there with you know any zip gibbidim gibbidim gob so I just resorted to slapping myself. I slapped myself a few times, but it’s so scary when you’re driving and you’re like “just stay awake” and it doesn’t matter and it’s like deeeaaahhh …
K: Oh god.
J: you know what I mean and you get that little adrenaline blast in your heart.
Have you seen those videos on youtube with teenagers punching themselves in the face?
J: To stay awake or just for fun?
Just for fun.
J: No.
K: Is that the latest? Can’t keep up with the kids.
Yeah, I think it’s like, if you want to for example pretend that you’ve been bullied or maybe have to … like not go to school then you have to sit there and like really punch yourself really hard in the face several times until like your nose breaks.
J: Oh wow!
It’s really cool and then you put a video of it on youtube, it’s kind of cool.
K: School sucks.
Yeah, it must really suck if you have to punch yourself in the face to avoid it.
J: I wonder if anyone has ever died from a self inflicted punch to the face.
Yeah, well you could do cause I imagine, you know they’ve got that special ninja move apparently that you know, it just sends something to your brain.
J: Yeah, if your nose bone goes to your brain bone that’s the end.
The nose bone to the brain bone?
J: Yeah. It’s the first thing they teach you in ninja school.
It would be like the snuff movie, the youtube snuff movies where kids accidentally punch themselves …
J: I’m trying to think, I feel like I’ve seen someone die on video before, snuff, have you seen any snuff?
K : mmhmm [no]
You’ve never seen a snuff film?
K: No, sounds pretty grisly.
Did you watch that Gaddafi footage?
J: Ah no, that would have been snuffy.
K: Oh no wait, I guess, I did see that.
So, you’ve seen a snuff video, kind of.
J: I saw uh, what’s his name go down, you know when he got hanged.
Who’s that, Saddam?
J: Yeah, Saddam.
What’s that like?
J: So that’s snuff, it was a good snuff.
Good snuff. So…anyway, you haven’t done a, this is your first album since 2006, fair to call this a comeback? Would you feel like it’s a comeback?
J: It’s absolutely a comeback. That is in fact the whole concept, it’s a concept album and the concept is a comeback.
K: Although you know …
J: In fact has there ever been an album where it was more of like, it’s about the comeback. The comeback album?
For yourselves or for other people?
K: LL Cool J?
J: Oh, but he said don’t call it a comeback, we’re saying do call it a comeback.
What about Diary of a Madman, that was kind of a comeback.
J: Was it a comeback?
Well, it was Ozzy, just, he’d been kicked out of the band …
J: No that was his second album, his first album one was Blizzard of Oz.
Oh that’s right.
J: Diary of a Madman was just sort of like more stuff from that first session I think, uh, so no. We are the first real comeback album. Should be a self proclaimed comeback, wait a second, what’s the greatest comeback, oh, it would be Back in Black, where they got a new singer, but that’s different cause you’re coming back with a different band, we’re still the same D, we’re just coming back. Yes, the answer is yes.
This is a comeback.
J: I was just trying to think of other greatest comebacks of all time.
I was thinking Betty White, now that’s a comeback.
K: Betty White?
Well, that woman made a comeback.
J: Was she gone for a while?
She was Betty White, she was the golden girls and then they started dying and then she was like suddenly the hottest thing in the world.
J: Right and then golden palace and then she was gone for like ten years no one knew what she was doing.
Yeah, at least ten years.
J: She didn’t have any shows or anything?
K: Well, golden palace.
I don’t think she was doing …
J: Was that the last thing she did was golden palace?
K: Could have been, I feel like she’s been on the scene …
But not really at the level that she’s at right now.
J: There was like, there was a full campaign, there was an internet campaign to bring her, to get her on Saturday Night Live.
That’s right. So would you say your comeback is bigger than Betty White’s?
K: It’s bigger than Betty White and Jack White combined.
K: This whole thing could backfire on us really, I mean, we’re banking on it but …
J: Well, I mean, what do you mean, what, how could it backfire? If people don’t like the comeback album then the backfire is?
K: You guys didn’t come back!
J: And then we shouldn’t have done a comeback album, we should have just done a regular album and pretended like we didn’t need to come back.
K: Well, in today’s world, I mean, if everything is bouncing around on youtube.
J: It just felt very organic, when we came back to the drawing board and said okay lets write another album with the songs, the first thing we thought was lets write a great comeback song. And then later we were like you know what, lets make a whole comeback album, so that the whole album is still with inspirational jams that make you want to exercise and work out and just be really inspirational and say I can do anything, I can be the best.
I read somewhere that you felt like uh, Rise of the Phoenix was your answer to Eye of the Tiger.
J: Yeah, similar.
So, just kind of like you say, the kind of thing that make you want to jog up and down stairs.
J: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Have you done a lot of exercise while making this record?
J: Uh, I’ve done a fair amount of exercise, uh, believe it or not, I’m pretty fit, I’m pretty strong, uh, underneath the soft exterior lies the heart of a lion. It’s pretty uh, pretty, it’s pretty firm underneath, feel that.
K: Oh my god! Dude.
J: Yeah, it’s mostly natural.
Mostly natural?
K \ J : [laughs and mumble]
J: K we exercise all the time; don’t we?
K : Yeah, I don’t …
J: Weeeellllll you know what I do is, there is a lot of breaks where I’ll take a week of here, two weeks of there, sometimes three weeks or a month of, but then I’ll get back to working out in earnest and I’ll go like a week or two in a row just every day, and then there will be a long period of like “I’ve got other shit to do, I don’t have time to work out”. I’m not one of those guys that’s like, “what, I have to work at seven then I’ll work out at six”. No, I’m a one-thing-a-day kind of guy, working out is the thing I’m gonna do today. Like for instance, this interview - I’m not going to work out today.
I’m sorry!
J: I put everything I have into one thing.
I feel bad.
K: No no, it’s important.
This is more important than his heart?
K: Well, for today.
J: We were thinking of doing an exercise video for like, just encouraging people to exercise, just add it to whatever you’re doing. Like right now, we’re doing an interview but we’re also … doing this the whole time.
Well, we could do this the whole time, do you wanna just do this while we’re talking.
J: Yeah, yeah.
Comon Kyle! You can do it, common! And I’ll do this the whole time, I don’t think it’s gonna be distracting at all.
J: Lets see how long this lasts.
You know I was thinking in terms of someone should do, well Mick Jagger should do an exercise video, you know that video to Start Me Up, the way he dances it’s really aerobic.
J: He’s running around the stage really uh, he’s really showing off in a way, he’s like saying look, I’m very fit, it’s not really about getting the crowd pumped up, it’s more about saying look at me, I’m really, I’m in really good shape, I don’t get winded, I’m not too sweaty and yet I’m running … and they say that amongst all the aging rockers he’s in the best physical condition because of his days of doing yoga in the 60s and 70s and 80s he just kept that yoga practice going and that was his secret to youth, to youth and that’s what me and Kyle are going to start doing.
I was gonna say, how is your yoga practice coming along?
K: I don’t
J: Never?
K: No.
J: You never did any yoga, no downward dog?
K: Well, I dabbled
J: Right, you know downward dog?
K: Yeah
What about you?
J: I’m very good at yoga.
What’s your favorite kind of yoga?
J: Kundalini
Ah, I see.
J: It’s all about the chakras.
Now, which chakra would you say you need to work on the most?
J: The seventh.
What’s that, the genital one?
J: It’s [laughs]
I don’t know, I’m like one two …
J: No I think the genitals is like the first one
Oh it’s the other way, okay.
K: It’s the thousand petal lotus
You need to work on your thousand petal lotus
J: Somebody knows a lot about Kundalini yoga over here! Way more than me in fact, I was kind of just bullshitting but this guy is throwing some real facts around. I better … no, you know, I’ve done some yoga, I, you know, not the hot one but …
Bikram
J: Yeah, I’m more of a Hatha guy
So, going back to the comeback and everything, last time you guys put out a record it was 2006 now it’s 2012, I feel like, it’s only 6 years but 2006 it was a whole different universe really when you think about the changes that have happened since then, so much has changed …
J: Not really.
You don’t think, I mean there was no Justin Bieber in 2006, everyone is on myspace in 2006, so you know, maybe talk to me about where you were then as human beings and where you are now as human beings, and the biggest changes culturally that you think are worth talking about.
J: Wow, 2006, lets get in our hot tub time machine.
K: Yeah
J: What was happening in 2006?
K: Was there youtube in 2006?
Barely
J: I don’t know …
K: Cause it feels youtube was the big demarcation of, of the advancement.
J: Youtube?
K: Yeah. I feel like there was before youtube and after youtube.
J: What were we doing in 2006?
K: I think we were releasing our movie, we were working hard.
J: We were globetrotting and feeling very cocky.
K: yeah, shooting a documentary and …
J: But what about the world, what are we talking about? What were we doing and what was different then now?
Well yeah I mean, Ronnie James Dio - alive, Ronnie James Dio today - not alive.
J: No, that’s true.
Big changes. I wanted to talk about Dio’s passing with you because obviously so important to the last record.
J: Yeah, it’s a bummer. We loved Dio and we were planning on doing another song with Dio for this album which we obviously didn’t get to do so, that was uh, that was depressing. But we got to meet him so there was uh, there is good times to remember. Uh, what else Cage?
What was it like when you met Dio?
K: Ronnie James?
Of course.
K: Well I think, didn’t he ask us to be in his video?
J: He heard that we wrote a song you know on the first album and people said “hey! This band tenacious D is dissing you, they’re saying you… they’re disparaging you” And so he took a listen to it and he said no they’re not, they love me, this is a love song. And he was right, and he reached out to us, we got a note saying “hey, will you be in my music video?” And so “of course” we said, we had to, it’s the least we could do for all the years of inspiration he’s provided. And we went down and met him, and he was the sweetest guy that you could imagine, very warm, very funny and very magical.
K: Yeah, he’s quite diminutive.
J: You’re saying he was very short?
K: Well yeah.
J: Yeah, he was very short, he was probably Prince like in stature. I don’t know if you’ve ever met Prince. Good things come in small packages. Or so I’ve been told.
Was is for you, was it equally magical, Kyle? Meeting Dio?
K: I don’t know if it was magical it just felt like …
J: He was more of a hero of mine, lets be honest Cage
K: It was an honor but lets face it [laughs] yeah he was definitely more a hero of Jack’s.
J: Yeah.
K: I think was ready to [17.52] on that one.
J: Really, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell wasn’t your first album?
K: No, I think I was rocking the Beach Boys, little more poppish.
Which record?
K: I believe it was called Endless Summer, but they were one of those bands, they put out greatest hits [18.17] … every couple of years.
If Brian Wilson and Ronnie James Dio were to go head to head, who do you think would win?
K: Wow, that is peaches and herbs there, that’s apples and oranges.
J: Wait if who? Ronnie James and who?
Brian Wilson.
J: Oh, ridiculous
Ridiculous?
J: Who would win?
Yeah.
J: In a battle of songwriting?
Yeah.
K: I’d probably pick Brian.
J: Well, Ronnie James would definitely have more evil songs, more powerful performance.
K: Might kill him with the pipes.
J: James is the greatest metal singer of all time, Brian Wilson is like the 500.000th best metal singer of all time. He’s like the worst metal singer ever.
K: Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever heard him really go at it.
J: I would like to hear Ronnie James Dio's cover of …
K: Surfin'Safari
Of which one?
K: Surfin'Safari
Well Ronnie James Dio did have a sort of croonerish early career didn't he, in the 50s, he was singing a lot of kind of happy songs, so he might have
actually been able to battle Brian Wilson at his own game.
K: Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, you should youtube it. It's kind of amazing he's wearing like, you know the sort of like the suit, and he has like a bowl haircut, and he's crooning or maybe
it's more of a pompadour what am I thinking, it's a 50s kind of romantic crooning kind of thing he's got going on
J: Is that before Elf?
It's before anything that remotely has any kind of satan in it..
J: wow, and what was the song?
There were several songs, several.
J: I feel like I saw something, I saw this when we were in Australia someone showed me some early Ronnie James, it was kind of baffling.
He went through many lifetimes in one lifetime.
J: He had kind of a Spinal Tapian arc to his career, he had to listen to what the flower people said period.
Speaking of evil, just wondering how your thoughts on Satan have evolved since 2006.
J: The same. I mean, I still think it's pretty funny. Satan, I mean it's really a 1980s phenomenon.
Satan is?
J: Satan in rock. I mean, Black Sabbath was doing it in the 70s but for the most part it blossomed in the 80s, you know, and you couldn't be in rock if you didn't have a devil angle in the 80s almost. Van Halen was able to rock pretty hard without Satan but besides that it was like all the top acts were devil heavy.
I beg to differ, where is the Satan in Def Leppard?
J: Yeah okay, there is another one. But those are rare birds, and also Def Leppard was a girl band. It was for the girls, I mean the dudes were like all right yeah I'll give it up for Def Leppard in a li'l bit, ACDC!!
Kyle, thoughts on Satan? I mean seeing as you're into the Beach Boys, you might be less satanically inclined but … I'd like to hear you guys talk about the devil right now.
J: Well there is no devil in rock and you could say in a way that rock has a, I don't wanna say that it's died but it's definitely taken a back seat to a lot of other genres. It doesn't have nearly the, uh, the pull that
it used to. Like now …
K: It does feel like it's waning
J: Yeah, who's the biggest rock act, it used to be tons of them now there is only of bands that can fill a stadium.
K: Foo Fighters.
J: Yeah, you've got the Foo Fighters, but they're kind of carrying the torch alone. They don't have a lot of other you know …
K: Jack White seems like he's carrying the torch a little bit.
J: Yeah, the big Monsters of Rock of [22.51]
They're carrying the torch together
J: Yeah, they have to, it has to be … it has to be Monsters of Rock
[23.01] and Metallica, and Megadeath and Slayer, just about … I heard that the biggest selling metal band doesn't even exist, it was Metalocalypse, they're the one metal band that actually is on the billboard, one hundred.
J: Really, I didn't even know they had an album
Oh yeah, they totally had an album, and they toured, and they were doing super well and …
J: Do they look like the characters in the cartoon?
Well, it's almost like a Gorillaz set up where they have a screen and then, they have Brandon what's his name and …
J: And they pack them in?
Oh yeah, they were selling out everywhere, so it's almost like you have to have an affiliated cartoon, like an adult swim show in order to like be a rock band or a metal band that's selling on the level that maybe Van Halen, or like Sabbath or Ozzie did in the 80s, you know like …
J: I don't believe that they're as big as Sabbath was in the 80s, I'm not gonna buy that.
I think they're as big as they can be.
J: I need to do some research and get back to this interview because I can't go along with this, that Metalocalypse, is as huge as you say they are, do they sell out like consecutive nights at the staple centre.
Consecutive! uh, well …
J: The big Wembley?
They shut that down, there is no big Wembley anymore!
J: What happened?
They shut it down!
J: They weren't selling enough …
I don't know what happened but they shut it down, I saw my first rock show there actually, Guns'n'Roses, Faith No More, Soundgarden in 1992
J: WOW!
K: Man, what a show.
Oh my god, it was, it altered me. What shows altered you, I mean, I'm sure you've talked about this before with each other, but what was the show that made you into Satan and metal, what
was the show that made you into the Beach Boys, or whatever it may be.
K: Well, I remember my first show was Heart and Robert Palmer.
Together? That's weird!
J: Did he do: might as well face it, you're addicted to love. Did he save that till the encore?
K: No, that was actually before …
J: Oh, it was in the middle of the set
K: No, it was before that song came out.
J: Ah, okay.
K: So he was opening up for Heart. He only had one hit and it was : [singing] You know you like it dudududdu … You like it on top dudududdu didididuu
I don't know that song.
J: [singing]
Ah, that was Robert Palmer?
J: He's an old cover guy …
Did you fancy Ann Wilson or Nancy at that point?
K: Well, I think it was always about Nancy, and then Ann started, starting to blow up a little bit.
J: You don't like that? A little extra?
K: Sometimes. She was cute in the day. So I guess uh, yeah, I don't know if I was altered though by the show, lets see, what show altered me? Mhmm…
J: I saw uh, one of my first shows was Loverboy, I was visiting my cousin Spokane Washington and Loverboy was playing and I didn't know what was good and not good at the time, I was excited to
go to a concert and he was like? "How is everybody doing in Spokaaaaaane!!??" Cause it sounded like cocaine. And the crowd was like "aaaahhhhh!!' And that made me realised all you have to do is yell out
like a drug and then you're like a hero to the people.
Can't imagine there is a lot of cocaine in Spokane though, it doesn't seem like a cocaine town.
J: You'd be surprised, they party over there. But uh, I saw Devo really early on, my brother was an engineer on the Freedom of Choice album, you don't remember Whip It? You don't remember Whip It.
I do.
J: And that was a great fucking show, they had some twisted short film before the concert started and the audience was just fucking lathered up and ready for rock. And they came out with their full concept, you know, the costumes and their crazy modern rock, it was great, that was a great show. But uh, the band that I saw early on that really made me wanna have a band, I saw uh, I saw the Meat Puppets in the 80s while I was in high school, I went down [28.05] Long beach at a little club, and they rocked so fucked hard, the lead singer dude was just staring out into the centre of the audience, like for three songs in a row he didn't move at all except for his hands playing the guitar and staring and singing, he was just staring and I think, I'm pretty sure he was frying on mushrooms but uh, the force of the rock was so good, it was just ooohhhh, and I've had a few experiences like that where you're in the audience and you're like, you're just enjoying it so much, it's washing over you, it feels, it's like a delicious meal or you know, a sexual experience, where you just, you're taking it in, it like "oh, this is just too good" and everyone in the audience is on the same page, you look around and everyone is just smiling ear to ear, that's rare but when that happens it's like, wow that's the fucking, that's the shit right there.
So, it's obviously gonna happen when people listen to this album that you've just made, I wanted to talk to you about the album artwork, in which you've, the artist who ever they may have been, managed to make a phoenix look like a cock and balls, which I don't know if you guys notice that
J: I don't know what you' re talking about … it's kind of like a rorschach test, if that's what you see it says a lot more about you than the artist.
K: Yeah, what made it look like a cock and balls
I don't know, I just never realised how veiny, uh, a phoenix is.
J: A phoenix is? Well, they're flame veins.
Flame veins?
J: But uh, what I think is cool is that the phoenix has a purple head and uh, blue balls.
Which indicates a certain degree of tension within, it's got purple head and the blue balls.
J: Almost ready to burst.
Almost, like you guys with this album.
J: Exactly.
K: There you go, it's the perfect cover, we've figured it out, we've cracked the code.
J: Prepare for the love explosion.
Was it something to do, were you really channeling you know, cock rock as it were, which you know I think is another one of those fading genres of uh, of music.
J: You know what, we didn't put too much thought into the intellectual message of the cover, we just thought, you know it should be a phoenix, and what should the phoenix look like?
What's funny? And that was what we came up with. We came up with a rough sketch of it and we sent it over to this kid who is an incredible painter and he blew our minds with this. When I first saw
his rendering of it because we sent him a very rough sketch of a, you know, it looked like a fucking chicken with a long neck and a mushroom cap head and uh, he sent back that thing and I was first, I looked at
it and I was scared of it. I was like, oh no no no, that's too disturbing, we can't unleash that on the public but then I looked at it again the next day and I was like wait a second, that's beautiful. It had a very profound affect on me that painting because you know, when you look at something and you're like oh no no no, that's too much, then you know you're on to something, you're pushing the boundaries.
K: We had a couple of artists before who had a crack at it, didn't we?
J: Yeah, we didn't, I don't know if we should, well, here it is now. We uh, we sent it out, we sent the rough sketch to a few different artists at the same time to see who came back with the best one, and he was the best.
K: Is that …
J: That's not cool, it's not cool
Well, what other things did they come up with, that weren't quite, were they more …
J: They were all different versions of …
Like a tattoo style phoenix or a chinese phoenix
J: No there were just some more polite, sweeter versions of it and this one was just very real, and terrifying, it looks like the end of the world's penis
Rising again.
J: Yes. The Anti chrenis … the anti cock!
Yeah. Good good.
K: I never thought of that.
J: Someone's gotta give on the heading'
Did you just, no you didn't
J: The A-cock-olypse
K: O my god, you're on fire!
What's up with not being able to spell?
J: A-cock-olypse NOW! [laughs]
K: Oh, you mean the spelling?
Yeah. Is it R. Kelly inspired or something?
J: Does he say Rise with a -z ?
I fell, although there is that movie rize about krumping or something, I don't know.
J: I've always liked phoenix just with a f-e-n-i-x, it also, it looks like penis when it's phoenix like that, but also
K: Did we miss out by not having an extra -e, wouldn't that be, rise of the fe-nix, cause it only has one -e.
J: No, it's right. This is right.
It's not too late.
?: There is precedent for fenix spelled like that.
There is?
?: Yes.
There is?
?: Yeah, that was my first show
J: But rise with a -z you're right it does have a real uh, hip hop flavour to it, which we have never shied away from you know Tenacious D has a very hip hop flavour to it.
K: Yeah we used to think that we had to be.
J: I just like the letter -z and when it's "rise" I think that was a mistake, it should have been a -z all along and phoenix definitely should have an -f.
You're saying you wanna rewrite the dictionary?
J: That's what we were doing.
Maybe you will with this.
J: I think it's more pleasing to look at, and yeah, I guess it's just sort of done. Why didn't we spell it the way it's supposed to be spelled?
K: Yeah…
J: This is better, this is better.
I think it's better.
J: We improved upon it.
K: It's inadequate
You're gonna go to England to perform
J: Yeah, we got too many England dates. We're doing, are we doing Glastonbury? Is that what we're doing?
K: I think so.
J: And we've got three nights at the, at the …. Hammers..?
Donnington as well?
J: Donnington?
Are you doing Hammersmith, are you doing London?
J: Is that what it's called Hammersmith?
Hammersmith is a place in London that has a music venue.
K: Brixton.
Oh, Brixton.
J: That's a lot of England.
K: I think we're more popular in England ... than we are here.
J: We've never done three nights in one spot, we're gonna try three nights there, seems a little cocky.
K: A completely different set each night.
That's challenging.
K: And I think we'll succeed.
J: No we can do it, as long as we keep it to like a half hour set. Do you think people will be upset if we just play the half hour set?
K: You have to cut [35.37]
J: Technically how long do you have to play to be contractually not giving people money back.
Oh, 50 minutes, five zero yeah, in America - I don't know about England.
K: Yeah, that's not very long
J: No. If it's under an hour.
If you stretch out the songs, have a lot of drum solos, is Grohl gonna be performing with you at all, on the live shows?
K: I don't think so.
No, he's just doing the record with you?
J: Yeah
K: We have Bruce Wackerman.
J: An incredible drummer.
K: From uh, Bad Religion.
Ah, nice.
J: He's one of the greatest drummer living.
K: Yeah, he's one of the greatest.
J: But what do we do, we do have to do something different every night, when your plant your flag in a place and you say we're gonna play a lot of nights in a row, it's got to be different every night.
K: We'll go shell game on them.
J: Really? We're just gonna change the order of he songs?
K: We'll change the order.
J: No, no, no, no, no … we got to, put a different, we'll have different stuff, like one night we'll be just like in, oh shit City Hall is coming down tonight.
K: Yeah, yeah.
J: Next night, they'll be like "What!" they fucking played, fucking [36.40] and one just neither of those, and that will be special. They didn't do anything, did they? That's the first night.
I'm glad you guys worked that out. Do you, just wondering, very random question here, have you guys ever been to Burning Man? And do you ever see yourselves there?
J: No, I've never been there and I feel like it's a nudist town out in the middle of the desert.
K: It's nearby
It's near Reno. What's the shreddiest song on your album?
J: I had to get up really early for a photo shoot this morning and it was out in the fucking, the sticks cause this photographer was especially particular about the perfect background, and uh, I was driving back here and I was having that kind of drive where you’re battling to stay awake, it’s always dangerous cause you like, really I should pull over and sleep but I can’t I’m late for this thing here.
K: Yeah, you’re late.
J: And I didn’t have a coffee or anything, and I was looking in the, I have a little mini fridge in the seat next to me and there was nothing good in there with you know any zip gibbidim gibbidim gob so I just resorted to slapping myself. I slapped myself a few times, but it’s so scary when you’re driving and you’re like “just stay awake” and it doesn’t matter and it’s like deeeaaahhh …
K: Oh god.
J: you know what I mean and you get that little adrenaline blast in your heart.
Have you seen those videos on youtube with teenagers punching themselves in the face?
J: To stay awake or just for fun?
Just for fun.
J: No.
K: Is that the latest? Can’t keep up with the kids.
Yeah, I think it’s like, if you want to for example pretend that you’ve been bullied or maybe have to … like not go to school then you have to sit there and like really punch yourself really hard in the face several times until like your nose breaks.
J: Oh wow!
It’s really cool and then you put a video of it on youtube, it’s kind of cool.
K: School sucks.
Yeah, it must really suck if you have to punch yourself in the face to avoid it.
J: I wonder if anyone has ever died from a self inflicted punch to the face.
Yeah, well you could do cause I imagine, you know they’ve got that special ninja move apparently that you know, it just sends something to your brain.
J: Yeah, if your nose bone goes to your brain bone that’s the end.
The nose bone to the brain bone?
J: Yeah. It’s the first thing they teach you in ninja school.
It would be like the snuff movie, the youtube snuff movies where kids accidentally punch themselves …
J: I’m trying to think, I feel like I’ve seen someone die on video before, snuff, have you seen any snuff?
K : mmhmm [no]
You’ve never seen a snuff film?
K: No, sounds pretty grisly.
Did you watch that Gaddafi footage?
J: Ah no, that would have been snuffy.
K: Oh no wait, I guess, I did see that.
So, you’ve seen a snuff video, kind of.
J: I saw uh, what’s his name go down, you know when he got hanged.
Who’s that, Saddam?
J: Yeah, Saddam.
What’s that like?
J: So that’s snuff, it was a good snuff.
Good snuff. So…anyway, you haven’t done a, this is your first album since 2006, fair to call this a comeback? Would you feel like it’s a comeback?
J: It’s absolutely a comeback. That is in fact the whole concept, it’s a concept album and the concept is a comeback.
K: Although you know …
J: In fact has there ever been an album where it was more of like, it’s about the comeback. The comeback album?
For yourselves or for other people?
K: LL Cool J?
J: Oh, but he said don’t call it a comeback, we’re saying do call it a comeback.
What about Diary of a Madman, that was kind of a comeback.
J: Was it a comeback?
Well, it was Ozzy, just, he’d been kicked out of the band …
J: No that was his second album, his first album one was Blizzard of Oz.
Oh that’s right.
J: Diary of a Madman was just sort of like more stuff from that first session I think, uh, so no. We are the first real comeback album. Should be a self proclaimed comeback, wait a second, what’s the greatest comeback, oh, it would be Back in Black, where they got a new singer, but that’s different cause you’re coming back with a different band, we’re still the same D, we’re just coming back. Yes, the answer is yes.
This is a comeback.
J: I was just trying to think of other greatest comebacks of all time.
I was thinking Betty White, now that’s a comeback.
K: Betty White?
Well, that woman made a comeback.
J: Was she gone for a while?
She was Betty White, she was the golden girls and then they started dying and then she was like suddenly the hottest thing in the world.
J: Right and then golden palace and then she was gone for like ten years no one knew what she was doing.
Yeah, at least ten years.
J: She didn’t have any shows or anything?
K: Well, golden palace.
I don’t think she was doing …
J: Was that the last thing she did was golden palace?
K: Could have been, I feel like she’s been on the scene …
But not really at the level that she’s at right now.
J: There was like, there was a full campaign, there was an internet campaign to bring her, to get her on Saturday Night Live.
That’s right. So would you say your comeback is bigger than Betty White’s?
K: It’s bigger than Betty White and Jack White combined.
K: This whole thing could backfire on us really, I mean, we’re banking on it but …
J: Well, I mean, what do you mean, what, how could it backfire? If people don’t like the comeback album then the backfire is?
K: You guys didn’t come back!
J: And then we shouldn’t have done a comeback album, we should have just done a regular album and pretended like we didn’t need to come back.
K: Well, in today’s world, I mean, if everything is bouncing around on youtube.
J: It just felt very organic, when we came back to the drawing board and said okay lets write another album with the songs, the first thing we thought was lets write a great comeback song. And then later we were like you know what, lets make a whole comeback album, so that the whole album is still with inspirational jams that make you want to exercise and work out and just be really inspirational and say I can do anything, I can be the best.
I read somewhere that you felt like uh, Rise of the Phoenix was your answer to Eye of the Tiger.
J: Yeah, similar.
So, just kind of like you say, the kind of thing that make you want to jog up and down stairs.
J: Yeah, exactly, exactly.
Have you done a lot of exercise while making this record?
J: Uh, I’ve done a fair amount of exercise, uh, believe it or not, I’m pretty fit, I’m pretty strong, uh, underneath the soft exterior lies the heart of a lion. It’s pretty uh, pretty, it’s pretty firm underneath, feel that.
K: Oh my god! Dude.
J: Yeah, it’s mostly natural.
Mostly natural?
K \ J : [laughs and mumble]
J: K we exercise all the time; don’t we?
K : Yeah, I don’t …
J: Weeeellllll you know what I do is, there is a lot of breaks where I’ll take a week of here, two weeks of there, sometimes three weeks or a month of, but then I’ll get back to working out in earnest and I’ll go like a week or two in a row just every day, and then there will be a long period of like “I’ve got other shit to do, I don’t have time to work out”. I’m not one of those guys that’s like, “what, I have to work at seven then I’ll work out at six”. No, I’m a one-thing-a-day kind of guy, working out is the thing I’m gonna do today. Like for instance, this interview - I’m not going to work out today.
I’m sorry!
J: I put everything I have into one thing.
I feel bad.
K: No no, it’s important.
This is more important than his heart?
K: Well, for today.
J: We were thinking of doing an exercise video for like, just encouraging people to exercise, just add it to whatever you’re doing. Like right now, we’re doing an interview but we’re also … doing this the whole time.
Well, we could do this the whole time, do you wanna just do this while we’re talking.
J: Yeah, yeah.
Comon Kyle! You can do it, common! And I’ll do this the whole time, I don’t think it’s gonna be distracting at all.
J: Lets see how long this lasts.
You know I was thinking in terms of someone should do, well Mick Jagger should do an exercise video, you know that video to Start Me Up, the way he dances it’s really aerobic.
J: He’s running around the stage really uh, he’s really showing off in a way, he’s like saying look, I’m very fit, it’s not really about getting the crowd pumped up, it’s more about saying look at me, I’m really, I’m in really good shape, I don’t get winded, I’m not too sweaty and yet I’m running … and they say that amongst all the aging rockers he’s in the best physical condition because of his days of doing yoga in the 60s and 70s and 80s he just kept that yoga practice going and that was his secret to youth, to youth and that’s what me and Kyle are going to start doing.
I was gonna say, how is your yoga practice coming along?
K: I don’t
J: Never?
K: No.
J: You never did any yoga, no downward dog?
K: Well, I dabbled
J: Right, you know downward dog?
K: Yeah
What about you?
J: I’m very good at yoga.
What’s your favorite kind of yoga?
J: Kundalini
Ah, I see.
J: It’s all about the chakras.
Now, which chakra would you say you need to work on the most?
J: The seventh.
What’s that, the genital one?
J: It’s [laughs]
I don’t know, I’m like one two …
J: No I think the genitals is like the first one
Oh it’s the other way, okay.
K: It’s the thousand petal lotus
You need to work on your thousand petal lotus
J: Somebody knows a lot about Kundalini yoga over here! Way more than me in fact, I was kind of just bullshitting but this guy is throwing some real facts around. I better … no, you know, I’ve done some yoga, I, you know, not the hot one but …
Bikram
J: Yeah, I’m more of a Hatha guy
So, going back to the comeback and everything, last time you guys put out a record it was 2006 now it’s 2012, I feel like, it’s only 6 years but 2006 it was a whole different universe really when you think about the changes that have happened since then, so much has changed …
J: Not really.
You don’t think, I mean there was no Justin Bieber in 2006, everyone is on myspace in 2006, so you know, maybe talk to me about where you were then as human beings and where you are now as human beings, and the biggest changes culturally that you think are worth talking about.
J: Wow, 2006, lets get in our hot tub time machine.
K: Yeah
J: What was happening in 2006?
K: Was there youtube in 2006?
Barely
J: I don’t know …
K: Cause it feels youtube was the big demarcation of, of the advancement.
J: Youtube?
K: Yeah. I feel like there was before youtube and after youtube.
J: What were we doing in 2006?
K: I think we were releasing our movie, we were working hard.
J: We were globetrotting and feeling very cocky.
K: yeah, shooting a documentary and …
J: But what about the world, what are we talking about? What were we doing and what was different then now?
Well yeah I mean, Ronnie James Dio - alive, Ronnie James Dio today - not alive.
J: No, that’s true.
Big changes. I wanted to talk about Dio’s passing with you because obviously so important to the last record.
J: Yeah, it’s a bummer. We loved Dio and we were planning on doing another song with Dio for this album which we obviously didn’t get to do so, that was uh, that was depressing. But we got to meet him so there was uh, there is good times to remember. Uh, what else Cage?
What was it like when you met Dio?
K: Ronnie James?
Of course.
K: Well I think, didn’t he ask us to be in his video?
J: He heard that we wrote a song you know on the first album and people said “hey! This band tenacious D is dissing you, they’re saying you… they’re disparaging you” And so he took a listen to it and he said no they’re not, they love me, this is a love song. And he was right, and he reached out to us, we got a note saying “hey, will you be in my music video?” And so “of course” we said, we had to, it’s the least we could do for all the years of inspiration he’s provided. And we went down and met him, and he was the sweetest guy that you could imagine, very warm, very funny and very magical.
K: Yeah, he’s quite diminutive.
J: You’re saying he was very short?
K: Well yeah.
J: Yeah, he was very short, he was probably Prince like in stature. I don’t know if you’ve ever met Prince. Good things come in small packages. Or so I’ve been told.
Was is for you, was it equally magical, Kyle? Meeting Dio?
K: I don’t know if it was magical it just felt like …
J: He was more of a hero of mine, lets be honest Cage
K: It was an honor but lets face it [laughs] yeah he was definitely more a hero of Jack’s.
J: Yeah.
K: I think was ready to [17.52] on that one.
J: Really, Black Sabbath, Heaven and Hell wasn’t your first album?
K: No, I think I was rocking the Beach Boys, little more poppish.
Which record?
K: I believe it was called Endless Summer, but they were one of those bands, they put out greatest hits [18.17] … every couple of years.
If Brian Wilson and Ronnie James Dio were to go head to head, who do you think would win?
K: Wow, that is peaches and herbs there, that’s apples and oranges.
J: Wait if who? Ronnie James and who?
Brian Wilson.
J: Oh, ridiculous
Ridiculous?
J: Who would win?
Yeah.
J: In a battle of songwriting?
Yeah.
K: I’d probably pick Brian.
J: Well, Ronnie James would definitely have more evil songs, more powerful performance.
K: Might kill him with the pipes.
J: James is the greatest metal singer of all time, Brian Wilson is like the 500.000th best metal singer of all time. He’s like the worst metal singer ever.
K: Yeah I don’t think I’ve ever heard him really go at it.
J: I would like to hear Ronnie James Dio's cover of …
K: Surfin'Safari
Of which one?
K: Surfin'Safari
Well Ronnie James Dio did have a sort of croonerish early career didn't he, in the 50s, he was singing a lot of kind of happy songs, so he might have
actually been able to battle Brian Wilson at his own game.
K: Wow, I didn't know that.
Yeah, you should youtube it. It's kind of amazing he's wearing like, you know the sort of like the suit, and he has like a bowl haircut, and he's crooning or maybe
it's more of a pompadour what am I thinking, it's a 50s kind of romantic crooning kind of thing he's got going on
J: Is that before Elf?
It's before anything that remotely has any kind of satan in it..
J: wow, and what was the song?
There were several songs, several.
J: I feel like I saw something, I saw this when we were in Australia someone showed me some early Ronnie James, it was kind of baffling.
He went through many lifetimes in one lifetime.
J: He had kind of a Spinal Tapian arc to his career, he had to listen to what the flower people said period.
Speaking of evil, just wondering how your thoughts on Satan have evolved since 2006.
J: The same. I mean, I still think it's pretty funny. Satan, I mean it's really a 1980s phenomenon.
Satan is?
J: Satan in rock. I mean, Black Sabbath was doing it in the 70s but for the most part it blossomed in the 80s, you know, and you couldn't be in rock if you didn't have a devil angle in the 80s almost. Van Halen was able to rock pretty hard without Satan but besides that it was like all the top acts were devil heavy.
I beg to differ, where is the Satan in Def Leppard?
J: Yeah okay, there is another one. But those are rare birds, and also Def Leppard was a girl band. It was for the girls, I mean the dudes were like all right yeah I'll give it up for Def Leppard in a li'l bit, ACDC!!
Kyle, thoughts on Satan? I mean seeing as you're into the Beach Boys, you might be less satanically inclined but … I'd like to hear you guys talk about the devil right now.
J: Well there is no devil in rock and you could say in a way that rock has a, I don't wanna say that it's died but it's definitely taken a back seat to a lot of other genres. It doesn't have nearly the, uh, the pull that
it used to. Like now …
K: It does feel like it's waning
J: Yeah, who's the biggest rock act, it used to be tons of them now there is only of bands that can fill a stadium.
K: Foo Fighters.
J: Yeah, you've got the Foo Fighters, but they're kind of carrying the torch alone. They don't have a lot of other you know …
K: Jack White seems like he's carrying the torch a little bit.
J: Yeah, the big Monsters of Rock of [22.51]
They're carrying the torch together
J: Yeah, they have to, it has to be … it has to be Monsters of Rock
[23.01] and Metallica, and Megadeath and Slayer, just about … I heard that the biggest selling metal band doesn't even exist, it was Metalocalypse, they're the one metal band that actually is on the billboard, one hundred.
J: Really, I didn't even know they had an album
Oh yeah, they totally had an album, and they toured, and they were doing super well and …
J: Do they look like the characters in the cartoon?
Well, it's almost like a Gorillaz set up where they have a screen and then, they have Brandon what's his name and …
J: And they pack them in?
Oh yeah, they were selling out everywhere, so it's almost like you have to have an affiliated cartoon, like an adult swim show in order to like be a rock band or a metal band that's selling on the level that maybe Van Halen, or like Sabbath or Ozzie did in the 80s, you know like …
J: I don't believe that they're as big as Sabbath was in the 80s, I'm not gonna buy that.
I think they're as big as they can be.
J: I need to do some research and get back to this interview because I can't go along with this, that Metalocalypse, is as huge as you say they are, do they sell out like consecutive nights at the staple centre.
Consecutive! uh, well …
J: The big Wembley?
They shut that down, there is no big Wembley anymore!
J: What happened?
They shut it down!
J: They weren't selling enough …
I don't know what happened but they shut it down, I saw my first rock show there actually, Guns'n'Roses, Faith No More, Soundgarden in 1992
J: WOW!
K: Man, what a show.
Oh my god, it was, it altered me. What shows altered you, I mean, I'm sure you've talked about this before with each other, but what was the show that made you into Satan and metal, what
was the show that made you into the Beach Boys, or whatever it may be.
K: Well, I remember my first show was Heart and Robert Palmer.
Together? That's weird!
J: Did he do: might as well face it, you're addicted to love. Did he save that till the encore?
K: No, that was actually before …
J: Oh, it was in the middle of the set
K: No, it was before that song came out.
J: Ah, okay.
K: So he was opening up for Heart. He only had one hit and it was : [singing] You know you like it dudududdu … You like it on top dudududdu didididuu
I don't know that song.
J: [singing]
Ah, that was Robert Palmer?
J: He's an old cover guy …
Did you fancy Ann Wilson or Nancy at that point?
K: Well, I think it was always about Nancy, and then Ann started, starting to blow up a little bit.
J: You don't like that? A little extra?
K: Sometimes. She was cute in the day. So I guess uh, yeah, I don't know if I was altered though by the show, lets see, what show altered me? Mhmm…
J: I saw uh, one of my first shows was Loverboy, I was visiting my cousin Spokane Washington and Loverboy was playing and I didn't know what was good and not good at the time, I was excited to
go to a concert and he was like? "How is everybody doing in Spokaaaaaane!!??" Cause it sounded like cocaine. And the crowd was like "aaaahhhhh!!' And that made me realised all you have to do is yell out
like a drug and then you're like a hero to the people.
Can't imagine there is a lot of cocaine in Spokane though, it doesn't seem like a cocaine town.
J: You'd be surprised, they party over there. But uh, I saw Devo really early on, my brother was an engineer on the Freedom of Choice album, you don't remember Whip It? You don't remember Whip It.
I do.
J: And that was a great fucking show, they had some twisted short film before the concert started and the audience was just fucking lathered up and ready for rock. And they came out with their full concept, you know, the costumes and their crazy modern rock, it was great, that was a great show. But uh, the band that I saw early on that really made me wanna have a band, I saw uh, I saw the Meat Puppets in the 80s while I was in high school, I went down [28.05] Long beach at a little club, and they rocked so fucked hard, the lead singer dude was just staring out into the centre of the audience, like for three songs in a row he didn't move at all except for his hands playing the guitar and staring and singing, he was just staring and I think, I'm pretty sure he was frying on mushrooms but uh, the force of the rock was so good, it was just ooohhhh, and I've had a few experiences like that where you're in the audience and you're like, you're just enjoying it so much, it's washing over you, it feels, it's like a delicious meal or you know, a sexual experience, where you just, you're taking it in, it like "oh, this is just too good" and everyone in the audience is on the same page, you look around and everyone is just smiling ear to ear, that's rare but when that happens it's like, wow that's the fucking, that's the shit right there.
So, it's obviously gonna happen when people listen to this album that you've just made, I wanted to talk to you about the album artwork, in which you've, the artist who ever they may have been, managed to make a phoenix look like a cock and balls, which I don't know if you guys notice that
J: I don't know what you' re talking about … it's kind of like a rorschach test, if that's what you see it says a lot more about you than the artist.
K: Yeah, what made it look like a cock and balls
I don't know, I just never realised how veiny, uh, a phoenix is.
J: A phoenix is? Well, they're flame veins.
Flame veins?
J: But uh, what I think is cool is that the phoenix has a purple head and uh, blue balls.
Which indicates a certain degree of tension within, it's got purple head and the blue balls.
J: Almost ready to burst.
Almost, like you guys with this album.
J: Exactly.
K: There you go, it's the perfect cover, we've figured it out, we've cracked the code.
J: Prepare for the love explosion.
Was it something to do, were you really channeling you know, cock rock as it were, which you know I think is another one of those fading genres of uh, of music.
J: You know what, we didn't put too much thought into the intellectual message of the cover, we just thought, you know it should be a phoenix, and what should the phoenix look like?
What's funny? And that was what we came up with. We came up with a rough sketch of it and we sent it over to this kid who is an incredible painter and he blew our minds with this. When I first saw
his rendering of it because we sent him a very rough sketch of a, you know, it looked like a fucking chicken with a long neck and a mushroom cap head and uh, he sent back that thing and I was first, I looked at
it and I was scared of it. I was like, oh no no no, that's too disturbing, we can't unleash that on the public but then I looked at it again the next day and I was like wait a second, that's beautiful. It had a very profound affect on me that painting because you know, when you look at something and you're like oh no no no, that's too much, then you know you're on to something, you're pushing the boundaries.
K: We had a couple of artists before who had a crack at it, didn't we?
J: Yeah, we didn't, I don't know if we should, well, here it is now. We uh, we sent it out, we sent the rough sketch to a few different artists at the same time to see who came back with the best one, and he was the best.
K: Is that …
J: That's not cool, it's not cool
Well, what other things did they come up with, that weren't quite, were they more …
J: They were all different versions of …
Like a tattoo style phoenix or a chinese phoenix
J: No there were just some more polite, sweeter versions of it and this one was just very real, and terrifying, it looks like the end of the world's penis
Rising again.
J: Yes. The Anti chrenis … the anti cock!
Yeah. Good good.
K: I never thought of that.
J: Someone's gotta give on the heading'
Did you just, no you didn't
J: The A-cock-olypse
K: O my god, you're on fire!
What's up with not being able to spell?
J: A-cock-olypse NOW! [laughs]
K: Oh, you mean the spelling?
Yeah. Is it R. Kelly inspired or something?
J: Does he say Rise with a -z ?
I fell, although there is that movie rize about krumping or something, I don't know.
J: I've always liked phoenix just with a f-e-n-i-x, it also, it looks like penis when it's phoenix like that, but also
K: Did we miss out by not having an extra -e, wouldn't that be, rise of the fe-nix, cause it only has one -e.
J: No, it's right. This is right.
It's not too late.
?: There is precedent for fenix spelled like that.
There is?
?: Yes.
There is?
?: Yeah, that was my first show
J: But rise with a -z you're right it does have a real uh, hip hop flavour to it, which we have never shied away from you know Tenacious D has a very hip hop flavour to it.
K: Yeah we used to think that we had to be.
J: I just like the letter -z and when it's "rise" I think that was a mistake, it should have been a -z all along and phoenix definitely should have an -f.
You're saying you wanna rewrite the dictionary?
J: That's what we were doing.
Maybe you will with this.
J: I think it's more pleasing to look at, and yeah, I guess it's just sort of done. Why didn't we spell it the way it's supposed to be spelled?
K: Yeah…
J: This is better, this is better.
I think it's better.
J: We improved upon it.
K: It's inadequate
You're gonna go to England to perform
J: Yeah, we got too many England dates. We're doing, are we doing Glastonbury? Is that what we're doing?
K: I think so.
J: And we've got three nights at the, at the …. Hammers..?
Donnington as well?
J: Donnington?
Are you doing Hammersmith, are you doing London?
J: Is that what it's called Hammersmith?
Hammersmith is a place in London that has a music venue.
K: Brixton.
Oh, Brixton.
J: That's a lot of England.
K: I think we're more popular in England ... than we are here.
J: We've never done three nights in one spot, we're gonna try three nights there, seems a little cocky.
K: A completely different set each night.
That's challenging.
K: And I think we'll succeed.
J: No we can do it, as long as we keep it to like a half hour set. Do you think people will be upset if we just play the half hour set?
K: You have to cut [35.37]
J: Technically how long do you have to play to be contractually not giving people money back.
Oh, 50 minutes, five zero yeah, in America - I don't know about England.
K: Yeah, that's not very long
J: No. If it's under an hour.
If you stretch out the songs, have a lot of drum solos, is Grohl gonna be performing with you at all, on the live shows?
K: I don't think so.
No, he's just doing the record with you?
J: Yeah
K: We have Bruce Wackerman.
J: An incredible drummer.
K: From uh, Bad Religion.
Ah, nice.
J: He's one of the greatest drummer living.
K: Yeah, he's one of the greatest.
J: But what do we do, we do have to do something different every night, when your plant your flag in a place and you say we're gonna play a lot of nights in a row, it's got to be different every night.
K: We'll go shell game on them.
J: Really? We're just gonna change the order of he songs?
K: We'll change the order.
J: No, no, no, no, no … we got to, put a different, we'll have different stuff, like one night we'll be just like in, oh shit City Hall is coming down tonight.
K: Yeah, yeah.
J: Next night, they'll be like "What!" they fucking played, fucking [36.40] and one just neither of those, and that will be special. They didn't do anything, did they? That's the first night.
I'm glad you guys worked that out. Do you, just wondering, very random question here, have you guys ever been to Burning Man? And do you ever see yourselves there?
J: No, I've never been there and I feel like it's a nudist town out in the middle of the desert.
K: It's nearby
It's near Reno. What's the shreddiest song on your album?
J: Probably Rise of the Fenix. The only song really with a solo though is Rock is Dead. That's the only time when we really unleash the power of shredding although we've got a really tasty section in Death Star. But it's not shred heavy, it's shreddy light. Which is good. I think.
K: Yeah we don't want to draw focus away from us too much.
J: The story behind the album is that the D's last effort was not as successful as the first one. So we have to circle the wagons and say hey man. If we're gonna do this thing we gotta fuckin face some demons. We gotta come back from the dead, basically. And add to that, we don't have to just do it for ourselves. We have to actually save rock n roll. because rock n roll lets face it has died. Is it too late to put some CPR on this guys ass? To fucking put some electric shocks to his heart valves? We're basically creating a Frankensteins monster out oft his thing and seeing if it works. Its also us saying there's no point in doing it if we're not the best. I do not care about being good. I only care about being the best. What we set out to do was make the best album of the year, be the best rock band in the world and then fuckin take it around the world and toot our horn about it. Right kage? isn't that the story?
What's the song "low hanging fruit" about?
K: Yeah we don't want to draw focus away from us too much.
J: The story behind the album is that the D's last effort was not as successful as the first one. So we have to circle the wagons and say hey man. If we're gonna do this thing we gotta fuckin face some demons. We gotta come back from the dead, basically. And add to that, we don't have to just do it for ourselves. We have to actually save rock n roll. because rock n roll lets face it has died. Is it too late to put some CPR on this guys ass? To fucking put some electric shocks to his heart valves? We're basically creating a Frankensteins monster out oft his thing and seeing if it works. Its also us saying there's no point in doing it if we're not the best. I do not care about being good. I only care about being the best. What we set out to do was make the best album of the year, be the best rock band in the world and then fuckin take it around the world and toot our horn about it. Right kage? isn't that the story?
What's the song "low hanging fruit" about?
J: Low Hanging Fruit is definitely about sex but that's part of the come back. We're back. and its kind of a mid life crisis album. That's what its really about. And the album cover obviously has some of that too. Why would you put a big flaming boner on your album unless you had some weird middle aged insecurity? We've embraced it.
You're also re-embracing ass sex, I see?
J: What are you talking about?
There's a song on the album called "They fucked our asses".
K: That was not literal. That was metaphoric.
J: That was the least about sex.
Well my assistant's father is an astrologer and he ran your chart Jack and it said you are a cancer moon and possibly bisexual.
K: I never felt those vibes from you!
J: Doesn't mean I'm not, just means you're not the one I choose to give my cock to.
J: Doesn't mean I'm not, just means you're not the one I choose to give my cock to.
One more question - what are your thoughts on Justin Bieber? He really stands for something in terms of being an antithesis to what you stand for.
J: He's flaming out. He's going to burn really bright for another couple of months and then he will be gone. I refuse to say we are the antithesis of Justin Beebs because we've got lasting personality. We have been here for nigh on twelve years.
K: Do you think he has lasting powers?
J: He seems energetic but he's gotta grow up and make that transition.Who is the guy from N Sync who made the transition…Limbersnake. Ask him how did you do it.
K: Or maybe we take Beebs under our wing.
J: I think that's our next album. Tenacious B. Tenacious Beebs.
K: We could probably learn things . He's a good dancer
So what makes a really good air guitarist?
K: I would say commitment. When you don't actually have a guitar you better be committed.
J: And don't overdo it. Keep it subtle. If you're doing this all the time (makes shreddy hand movements) people are going to lose interest. Also, don't underestimate the power of the face muscles. Make it look painful sometimes. Throw in a little pain with your pleasure.
Whats the best guitar solo in rock history?
J: Eruption. Why are you even asking.
K: Elliot Easton
J: Oh yeah that is a good one. wha wha wah whaaaa…That is a close one. Its so compact. its really short.
How long is it?
J: Three bars.