<\/p>\n
Rob Reiner had a secret weapon on the set of \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap.\u201d<\/p>\n
The dialogue in the mockumentary centered around a fictional British heavy metal band was almost entirely improvised. But before they started rolling, director Reiner (who also played documentarian Marty Di Bergi in the film) talked to the art department about funny props that they could work into the outlines they had for each scene.<\/p>\n
Over the next 40 years, one of those props became a symbol of rock hedonism and pure volume: the guitar amp that goes to eleven. \u201cIt\u2019s just this crazy idea that we had of a band that\u2019s so loud that they even want it to go past 10,\u201d Reiner said in an interview with The Washington Post.<\/p>\n
At the time, Reiner didn\u2019t know the phrase \u201cgo to eleven\u201d would eventually appear in amplifier ads, in casual conversation and any time something was cranked up to the max. Upon release in 1984, \u201cThis is Spinal Tap\u201d received rave reviews for the meatheaded performances and realistically silly hard rock, but it grossed less than $5 million. Still, the movie would become a cult classic, as rock bands from Led Zeppelin to Metallica said that the film\u2019s ridiculousness wasn\u2019t so far from the real thing \u2014 and has now finally prompted a sequel, \u201cSpinal II: The End Continues,\u201d which comes out this weekend. Meanwhile, the \u201celeven\u201d phrase accrued enough legitimacy that in 2018 it was added to the Oxford English Dictionary.<\/p>\n
\u201cI won\u2019t be surprised if there are people using it nowadays who have never seen \u2018Spinal Tap\u2019 [and] don\u2019t really know what it\u2019s from,\u201d said Craig Leyland, the dictionary\u2019s head of new words. \u201cThey\u2019re not quoting the film necessarily. They are using this phrase because it\u2019s become part of the language.\u201d<\/p>\n
Much of what makes the \u201cgo to eleven\u201d scene unforgettable is how Christopher Guest, as Spinal Tap\u2019s lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel, improvised the conversation with Reiner\u2019s Di Bergi about the amp. When asked why the amp can\u2019t just be louder and the highest volume is 10, Tufnel pauses and responds with the confidence of a naive child: \u201cThese go to eleven<\/i>.\u201d Reiner immediately thought the line was a keeper.<\/p>\n
\u201cI knew it was funny the minute he did it,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cMy father [Carl Reiner] used to do a routine with Mel Brooks called \u2018The 2000 Year Old Man\u2019 and \u2026 whenever my father could paint Mel into a corner where his mind would start racing all over the place, he would come up with some of the funniest things. I knew that if I stuck [Guest] in a place that he was uncomfortable, something funny would come out.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Leyland\u2019s team was compiling examples for the dictionary entry, the earliest usage they found outside the film was in 1987 from the British music newspaper Sounds, which said that several amplifiers all \u201cappear to be turned up to eleven.\u201d The phrase remained a big part of amplifier talk for a while. In the early 1990s, Marshall Amplifiers had Guest in a series of ads for the JCM-900 amp \u2014 which had a gain knob that went up to 20, directly inspired by the film.<\/p>\n
The posters<\/a> included a photo of Guest-as-Nigel, with the quote, \u201cNow it goes to 20, that\u2019s 9 louder, innit?\u201d But even before the Spinal Tap ad campaign, Marshall was noticing the influence of \u201cSpinal Tap\u201d and trying to figure out how to contribute. \u201cThe \u2018go to eleven\u2019 scene has gone on to cement Marshall as a cultural icon,\u201d said Steph Carter, the director of culture marketing for the 63-year-old company. \u201cIt\u2019s kind of become a symbol of the ultimate loudness and that rock and roll attitude.\u201d<\/p>\n About 50 miles from London in Milton Keynes, England, Marshall\u2019s offices contain a small museum section. Its most prized artifact is an amp where all of the knobs go to eleven (though Carter can\u2019t confirm if it\u2019s the real one from the movie).<\/b><\/p>\n Other companies such as Soldano and Friedman have also released amps that go up to eleven on the volume or gain knobs as a nod to the film. Dave Friedman, the owner of the latter brand, had one suggestion for the \u201cSpinal Tap\u201d sequel: \u201cThey should have made it go to 12.\u201d<\/p>\n But returning director Reiner and the band weren\u2019t looking to repeat the glories of the first time, so there\u2019s no mention of it in the sequel.<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s a bit of a push to not over-rehash the original jokes,\u201d said Beau Harrison, the prop master for \u201cSpinal Tap II.\u201d \u201cAt times, we\u2019d even pull out stuff or reference stuff [from the original] and Rob or the guys would be like, \u2018No, we want to move on from that. We want different stuff.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The \u201cgo to eleven\u201d bit did appear in a teaser trailer<\/a>, though, in which knobs on a Marshall amp are turned up to eleven, before the volume control is pushed all the way up to infinity. Carter said the amp in the teaser was custom-made by Marshall.<\/p>\n Christopher Guest\u2019s guitar tech, Thom Lowry, who also worked with members of Foreigner and Black Sabbath, thinks that the \u201cgo to eleven\u201d scene has remained relevant because it can be emblematic of anyone\u2019s delusion to be larger than life, particularly musicians. (Guest himself did not comment.)<\/p>\n \u201cIf the amp goes to 11, it\u2019s really not going to go louder than the max that the amp is [already] going to go to,\u201d Lowry said. \u201cThe numbers are really irrelevant. It would be like looking at your kitchen faucet and having hot or very hot on it.\u201d<\/p>\n These days, a kitchen faucet that goes to eleven wouldn\u2019t be out of the question. The Oxford English Dictionary cited a 2008 tweet where a Nevada dad wrote<\/a> about how he needs \u201cto take it to 11\u201d at the gym and a 2015 financial guide <\/a>which explained that an \u201ceconomic collapse is an economic depression cranked up to eleven,\u201d plus there were other uses in magazines, newspapers and books that didn\u2019t make it into the entry, according to Leyland. And on 11\/11\/11, \u201cthe Nigel Tufnel Day Appreciation Society and Quilting Bee\u201d declared a holiday<\/a> after the quote, reportedly celebrated by doing regular stuff cranked up \u2014 you guessed it \u2014 to eleven.<\/p>\n The instinctual, goofy clarity of the quote almost feels like it predates the movie. That feeling is familiar to Reiner, having directed many films with quotes that have had extended lives, such as \u201cWhen Harry Met Sally\u201d (\u201cI\u2019ll have what she\u2019s having\u201d) and \u201cA Few Good Men\u201d (\u201cYou can\u2019t handle the truth\u201d) and \u201cThe Princess Bride\u201d (too many to name).<\/p>\n \u201cThere\u2019s barely a day that goes by that I don\u2019t hear somebody say \u2018Well, let\u2019s turn this up to 11. Oh, this goes up to eleven.\u2019 I\u2019m watching sports and they\u2019ll say something like that,\u201d Reiner said. \u201cIt\u2019s a weird thing to know that something you created as just a little gag all of a sudden becomes part of the lexicon.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source www.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rob Reiner had a secret weapon on the set of \u201cThis Is Spinal Tap.\u201d The dialogue in the mockumentary centered around a fictional British heavy metal band was almost entirely improvised. But before they started rolling, director Reiner (who also played documentarian Marty Di Bergi in the film) talked to the art department about funny […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1946120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[370692,350182,370697,370696,370693,370694,326209,359403,326210,370695],"class_list":["post-2018991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-carl-reiner","tag-christopher-guest","tag-craig-leyland","tag-director-reiner","tag-marshall-amplifiers","tag-marty-di-bergi","tag-nigel-tufnel","tag-rob-reiner","tag-spinal-tap","tag-steph-carter"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Lloyd-native-nominated-for-6-IBMA-awards.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2018991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2018991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2018991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2018991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2018991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}