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Harry Shearer discusses the real-life musical adventures of the mock rockers
Sean Axmaker
Special to MSN Music
Actor, author, composer, musician, radio show host, pundit, the voice of what must be half of the population of "The Simpsons" -- by any measure, Harry Shearer is one busy fellow and talented artist. Yet after all these years, he's still best known for a heavy metal parody that has taken on a life of its own: Derek Smalls, the bass player for Spinal Tap.
Related: See photos of Spinal Tap throughout their career
To celebrate the 25th Anniversary of "This Is Spinal Tap," Shearer reunited with his partners in parody, Christopher Guest and Michael McKean, to put out another Spinal Tap album and hit the road in support. But instead of touring in character, the trio shed the fiction and jammed together on acoustic versions of songs they originally wrote for their alter egos (including the Folksmen from "A Mighty Wind"). The final night of their 30-city tour was preserved and released on DVD: "Unwigged & Unplugged: An Evening With Christopher Guest, Michael McKean & Harry Shearer." Harry Shearer took time from his insanely busy schedule to talk about the concert, the music and the legacy of Spinal Tap.
MSN Music: Did you ever expect heavy metal to have such resilience 25 years after "This Is Spinal Tap"?
Harry Shearer: Well, I think the idea of Spinal Tap was to prevent it from having that kind of resilience, so I'm as amazed as the next guy. I think everybody's surprised that various musical genres tend to outlive their moment for one reason or another. Heavy metal has been as resilient in its own way, if not more so, than neo-punk or neo-soul or any of the neo revivals of earlier genres, but it speaks to something deep within the adolescent boy, I guess. Like Howard Stern.
And somehow those adolescent boys keep their adolescence well into middle age.
Yes, and I think that's why women are so bewildered by men.
How hard was it to write a song that is both parody and a legitimate song in a genre that is defined by theatricality and excess, where many of the songs already border on parody?
Strictly speaking, parody is what "Weird" Al [Yankovic] does -- and does very well -- where you take an existing song and redo it. These are original songs, but they are satirical in the sense that we're not serious about it. We're making fun, as you say, of a genre that is known for its bombast and its pomposity. Very often people think you have to exaggerate something to make fun of it, and so they end up doing something that's sort of ludicrous, and I don't mean the hip-hop artist. We weren't trying to exaggerate so much as distill what we perceived to be the funny parts of that style of music and then place it in the context of this band that you found funny, which made it OK to laugh at it. And we're trying to be inside that line: Yes, you really could believe these guys would get up and perform a song called "Sex Farm." It didn't stretch credulity.
In fact, Spinal Tap has crossed over from a satirical take on heavy metal to become a member of the fraternity.
It's weird. We've now been doing Spinal Tap for longer than, in the movie, Spinal Tap had been doing Spinal Tap. That's a truly frightening thought. But yes, we've been accepted into the fraternity in just ever-surprising ways to me. Everybody in the business now knows that we really do play, so they don't regard us as outside mockers, and we share that strange and wonderful affinity for, you know, if all else were equal, I'd rather just be here playing. And, every once in a while, we feel like there's a reason to come out with a record, just like a real old heavy metal band would. So yeah, life imitates art more and more, I find.
And in stranger and stranger ways. In the documentary "Rattle and Hum," I couldn't stop laughing when U2 visit Elvis' grave because Spinal Tap had essentially parodied the event before it ever even happened.
I didn't realize they did that. This comes as wonderful news to me; that's pretty remarkable. Do we think that was an odd homage to us?
I don't think so. At the time, I don't think Bono and the Edge had a sense of humor.
(Laughs) I had no idea. I'm gobsmacked to hear that. That's great.
What was your background as a musician before Spinal Tap?
I studied classical piano for eight years, and I took a year of theory and composition. All of that I ran away from as soon as I possibly could, and I picked up the bass because I wanted to play an instrument that I could play my way, that is to say, by ear. All that sort of stuck. But I'd basically just been playing bass for fun until Spinal Tap came along. I'd never been in a band. I had played a little bit with my first wife, who was a singer as well, but aside from that I was just a recreational bass player, if there is such a thing. It sounds odd to say those words together: recreational bass player.
There is a long tradition of satire through song. Are there any songwriters or performers who you look back on for inspiration or some kind of benchmark?
I don't know about Christopher, because Christopher grew up partly in England, but Michael and I had twin inspirations in Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer. Stan was sort of the "Weird" Al of his day, in that he took existing songs and mocked them, and then grew into a satirical artist who wrote original songs that were very sharp and very political. And Tom Lehrer was famous in his day for really rollicking, wonderful satirical songs on a wide range of topics.
SpinalTap_Gary GershoffRetna
You and Michael McKean both managed to include your spouses [Judith Owen and Annette O'Toole] in the "Unwigged & Unplugged" concert. Don't you fear this could be like the Beatles all over again, breaking up over Yoko and Linda?
I think we're about 20 years too old for that.
In this "unplugged tour," you rework some songs completely. It reminds me of Bob Dylan reimagining his songs in new registers and rhythms in concert. Is this Spinal Tap's Dylan phase?
That would be the first time I've ever heard Spinal Tap and Bob Dylan mentioned in the same sentence, so I'm going to say yes, no matter what the question was.
Now that the Beatles have their own "Rock Band" video game, what do think of "Spinal Tap: Rock Band"?
There is a Spinal Tap song in "Rock Band II," so it's already out there. And there's a whole bunch more that are coming out in "Rock Band," and there's one that's coming out in "Lego Rock Band," so it's too late. That damage has already been done.
Related: See photos of Spinal Tap throughout their career |
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Sean Axmaker is a film critic for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a DVD columnist for MSN Entertainment and a contributing writer for GreenCine.com, Turner Classic Movies Online, Parallax View and Asian Cult Cinema, among other publications. Find links to all of this and more on his shamelessly self-promoting blog.
