Spinal Tap is back and ready to talk. Just don’t bring up the last movie

I’m a minute into my interview with Spinal Tap and I’ve already angered vocalist David St. Hubbins. Sitting down with the rock trio, which includes lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel and bassist Derek Smalls, I mention what an honor it is to speak to the legendary group.

“Just slow your roll,” Tap’s frontman barks. “You don’t know it’s a real honor until you start. So start, and you’ll find out if it is.”

Not an auspicious beginning to an hour-long conversation with England’s loudest and most punctual band. But a bit of testiness is understandable. On this late July morning at Studio 1 Culver, Tap begins its promotional duties for the long-awaited sequel to 1984’s “This Is Spinal Tap,” the documentary that unwittingly revitalized the pioneering metal group’s career. The world is wondering if lightning will strike twice, so a lot is on the line for Tap. In fact, you can feel the tension as video crews and production personnel dart anxiously through the cavernous studio.

Earlier in the day, I had separately seen each of the band members preparing for our interview, which was to be in character. Michael McKean, 77, sat in a makeup chair, eyes closed, as the wig that transforms him into St. Hubbins was being fussed over. I accidentally bumped into Harry Shearer, 81, in a conference room, not yet fully decked out as Smalls. And, later, Christopher Guest, 77, was spotted pacing around as Tufnel, speaking in the axman’s jabbing working-class English accent to an assistant.

Now, though, as we all sit together in this quiet side room, the guys are fully Tapped in as the fictional band members, focused on the expectations surrounding this forthcoming film. Back in 1984, director Marty DiBergi (better known as Rob Reiner) chronicled the trio during their disastrous American tour, one that seemed to signal the group’s death knell. Instead, Spinal Tap have enjoyed many afterlives, occasionally reuniting before dissolving into acrimony once again.

Consequently, there’s plenty of fan curiosity about “Spinal Tap II: The End Continues” (opening Sept. 12), which follows the behind-the-scenes preparations for Tap’s latest — and maybe last? — comeback show, the group’s first public performance since 2009. It should be a triumphant moment, but there’s one problem: DiBergi has yet to show them the movie.

“Marty’s hiding something,” Smalls says, concerned. He looks to his bandmates for reassurance, his soulful eyes framed by his still fabulously bushy eyebrows.

“I don’t know about that,” replies St. Hubbins, trying to stay positive. Even all these years later, he’s a natural leader hoping to keep this boat from capsizing.“The first film didn’t really portray us in the best light. But I still think it was from a good place. I don’t think he was setting out to do anything wrong.”

“But he managed it, somehow,” Tufnel chimes in. He seems grumpy, like he’s not entirely happy to be here.

In a separate Zoom interview, DiBergi explains why he’s dragging his feet: He’s nervous how Tap will respond.

“They were very upset with the way I portrayed them,” he tells me. “I thought I showed them in a good light but I guess they felt that I showed too many of the warts and not enough of the clear skin.”

Indeed the guys are still salty about how they came off in “This Is Spinal Tap.” Smalls, for one, is tired of people making fun of them for getting lost on the way to the stage during that infamous Cleveland show.

“Many times during that tour, we got to the stage,” Smalls points out, proudly. 

“And as an addendum,” St. Hubbins adds, “if Marty had the information — ‘Oh, you want to go through this door’ — he could have told us.”

If the mighty musical force behind such stone-cold bangers as “Big Bottom” and “Sex Farm” weren’t thrilled at how they were portrayed in the first film, they will not be pleased to learn that, 41 years later, they continue to be captured exhibiting hopelessly moronic behavior. (One of Smalls’ musical contributions to the new film is a song titled “Rockin’ in the Urn,” which is about head-banging after cremation.)

But what’s less expected are the faintest hints of maturity in a band celebrated for stuffing its trousers and mistaking being sexist for being sexy. Have the guys who once wrote “Bitch School” finally become enlightened?

“Well, certainly they’ve changed physically,” DiBergi tells me. “They’re in their 70s now. But as far as their music and their outlook on life, I didn’t see a whole lot of growth there. I talked to their promoter. He said that he was surprised at how little they had grown emotionally or musically. They did grow wrinkles on their face.”

Noticeably, none of the bandmates sit closely together in the room, each in his own chair in a circle staring at one another. Where once they were garish young rockers buried under mascara, now they are garish older rockers, desperately hanging onto their youth. St. Hubbins’ hair is bleached blond, while Tufnel’s makeup does nothing to hide the years. Smalls’ mustache still looks magnificent. The atmosphere is cordial, if not exactly warm.

“Spinal Tap II” reveals that they now live in different parts of the globe — St. Hubbins in Morro Bay, Calif.; Tufnel in Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northern England; Smalls in London — and haven’t spoken since the last comeback tour. Still, they try to be philosophical about the unspoken friction between them.

“We last played together before all this in 2009,” St. Hubbins explains. “A lot has happened since then. That tour didn’t end terribly well. It’s a personal thing — we’ve worked it out, we’ve managed to forget most of it. So we did have a lot of time to be apart and to think, ‘How did we get here? Do we like it here? Would we like to go somewhere else — is there a taxi that can take us there?’”

Nonetheless, the guys know how lucky they are. Never mind how many of their drummers have died along the way. (In “Spinal Tap II,” their attempts to recruit all-stars like Questlove and Lars Ulrich go nowhere because everyone is too scared to sign up for the gig.) So many of their peers are now gone. A week before we speak, Ozzy Osbourne succumbed to a fatal heart attack. Not that Tap ever resorted to biting the head off a bat.

“We had doves,” St. Hubbins points out. “We didn’t bite them. Some of them bit us.”

“We killed them,” notes Smalls.

“Well, that was an accident,” St. Hubbins says. “They suffocated — that was a packing issue. Should have used more peanuts.”

It’s a remarkable thing to be alive long enough to see this once-derided band finally getting its due. But as “Spinal Tap II” demonstrates, metal bands get respectable if they last long enough, which might explain why Elton John and Paul McCartney show up in the new film to pay tribute.

Even the reviewers have gotten kinder, although St. Hubbins has little nice to say about the press, recalling his least-favorite question a journalist ever asked him: What’s the meaning of life?

“It was all I could do to keep from slapping her for even asking that,” he grumbles. “It was just a sneaky, ultra-personal question, because I do know the meaning of life but I’m not going to tell anyone. Work it out yourself.”

They’re happier reminiscing about the band’s early days, when childhood chums St. Hubbins and Tufnel first formed as the Thamesmen, later bringing on Smalls.

“David was always the restless one,” recalls Tufnel. “He was always searching for something to write about. Derek was always the quiet one. He’d nod a lot and we’d think, ‘He must know the answer.’ It turned out he had a neck thing — but he knows when to say things and when not to.”

Rock ’n’ roll, of course, isn’t just Tap’s abiding passion but also one of its principal lyrical concerns. “Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight,” “Heavy Duty” and “The Majesty of Rock” saluted the glory of power chords and swaggering attitude. The band has also recorded its fair share of songs about fame and Stonehenge, but the trio have largely shied away from politics. During these dark, divisive days, has there been a temptation to sing about the state of the world?

“I would consider writing a song telling people that we’re not going to write any songs about politics,” St. Hubbins counters. “That would be useful — then people would stop asking questions like that. No offense.”

Is this something that comes up a lot with journalists?

“Never,” he replies. “You’re the first. But we’re drawing the line there.”

“Can I ask a question?” Tufnel interjects, confused. “This has begun? The interview?”

Of the three musicians, Tufnel seems the most different since the first film. Now happily operating a small cheese shop and living contentedly with his girlfriend, he mostly avoids the spotlight. But when asked what he’d tell his younger self, he gets alarmed. “If the older us is going back [in time], the younger one would probably have a heart attack — it’s a frightening idea,” he says.

Some will accuse Spinal Tap of going for a cynical cash grab with this new film, which will be accompanied by a new album and a written oral history, “A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap.” But the band strenuously denies that accusation.

“That doesn’t apply to us,” Tufnel says.

“Because there’s no cash,” Smalls admits.

Tufnel nods. “There’s no cash involved in our careers, basically.”

And in regard to whether this latest reunion will stick, previous ones certainly didn’t. But you can’t keep a good made-up rock band down.

“It’s better and worse than a family,” Tufnel says of Tap’s bond, “because you have closeness — and the tension and the resentment and the hatred.”

“The thing that’s different about this family,” St. Hubbins adds, “is there’s no one richer than us who’s going to leave us any money. Families often have that to look forward to.”

“Everybody in the world is richer than us,” Tufnel declares, which gets a surprised laugh out of McKean. Not St. Hubbins, but McKean, who seems delighted by his longtime partner. Perhaps Spinal Tap’s musical heyday is over, but they can still crack each other up. Who knows: Maybe these guys have a future in comedy.

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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.