Hi there here say listeners, ed helms here.

I wanted to add this short prologue to the episode because I want to acknowledge a difficult situation.

Since recording this conversation with Rob Reiner and Michael McKeon just a couple of weeks ago, Rob and his wife Michelle have passed away under very sudden and very tragic circumstances.

I want to extend my deepest, heartfelt condolences to their family and all of those who loved them or were lucky enough to be loved by them.

Rob meant so much to so many people, and I count myself among them.

He was a hero of mine, and I don't mean that in an abstract way, but in a very real and literal way, in the way that certain artists shape you and sometimes even before you realize it's happening.

Many of his classic movies.

Emerged just as I was coming of age through the eighties.

This is Spinal Tap, The Princess Bride, When Harry met Sally, Misery, and perhaps most of all, stand by Me.

These movies they didn't just entertain me.

They helped form my storytelling and comedy identity, my sense of flow and tone, my love of difficult but redeemable characters.

Rob Reiner taught me that hard laughs and deep humanity can sit right next to one another, and they very often should.

But he wasn't just a creative inspiration.

He was also a human inspiration.

He was the kind of person you both wanted to be and wanted to be around.

He was warm and generous, gregarious and curious, a legendary conversationalist, and also deeply engaged in social issues.

He cared about making the world a better place, about cultural values, democracy and political integrity.

Rob had a conscience, and he put it to work.

Listening back to this conversation, now, what really jumps out.

At me is how much fun he's having.

He's engaged, playful, generous with his insights, and clearly still delighted by the work even after a lifetime of extraordinary achievement.

I'm incredibly grateful that I had this time with him, and I'm honored to share this conversation with you.

Now.

This episode is, in our own small way, a celebration of Rob Reiner.

He will be profoundly missed, but his voice, his humor, and his spirit will always be with us, and that is quite a gift.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

Welcome to Earsay, the iHeart and Audible Audio Book Club.

I'm Ed Helms and I am the host of another podcast called Snaffo and with Me is the host of yet another podcast.

Here we go again, my dear buddy cal Pen.

Hello, sir, how are you servain?

I'm great, I'm great, You are great?

Can I just say cal Pen is great?

Everybody?

Come on, what a nice thing to say.

I mean, you're freaking funny and delightful and incredibly smart and insightful.

And that's that's a killer combination of traits.

I'm glad I don't have these traits at age eleven.

Again, they were not helpful as an eleven year old, but I do enjoy them as an adult.

Yeah, yeah, that's not uncommon.

A precocious child is actually a very charming adults.

But man, man, are they annoying.

I'm sorry to have dug up that trauma.

All right, I'm gonna name some names here.

I want you to tell me what these names have in common?

Are you ready?

Yep?

Eric Stumpy, Joe Child, Peter James Bond, Mick Shrimpton, Richard Rick, Shrimpton, Joe Mama Besser and Scott Skippy Scuffleton.

More than half sound familiar, and I honestly cannot place it.

Okay, these are all drummers from the band Spinal Tap, who all met their very untimely demise.

In the Spinal Tap lore there was a bizarre gardening accident.

There was I believe some one of them spontaneously combusted, rather dramatic.

This is Spinal Tap is, of course, the pioneering nineteen eighty four mockumentary created by Rob Reiner and starring Reiner along with Christopher Guest, Harry Shearer, and Michael McKeon.

It spoofs the over the top world of rock and roll and heavy metal in the seventies and eighties, and it also spoofs the documentaries that venerate these rock stars.

Kl do you remember watching Spinal Tap a very very long time ago?

And I should also note it was like one of those two am in college kind of things.

Yeah, kind of viewerships of course, huge Chris Guest Rob Reiner fan.

But it has been a while.

I need to revisit.

Yeah, I have to say, Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest and all these guys.

They live in a very special comedy universe, and it's so fun to learn about all of their history together and how their lives kind of interweave and overlap.

And then of course Spinal Tap is its own ecosystem, like they've created an entire mythology around this totally fake band, and it is just beyond hilarious, and I have to say it's very much a part of my own comedy development.

Listeners, if you haven't seen the original nineteen eighty four movie, you should definitely just stop right now and go see it.

It is so damn and hilarious.

But as a refresher, Rob Reiner plays Marty de Berghie, a documentary filmmaker who follows the fictional band Spinal Tap.

Portrayed by Christopher Guest, Michael McKeon and Harry Shearer.

Marty follows Spinal Tap and what I would call a series of escalating mishaps.

It's definitely a cult movie, but one that has left a huge mark on pop culture, not the least of which is the Christopher guest line These go Out to eleven, a version of which made it into the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary in two thousand and two.

That's an accomplishment right there.

Yeah, I know, it's pretty cool if you can like affect the codified language.

I also have to say this movie is widely considered the original mainstream mockumentary, and that of course spawned a vast ecosystem of great movies and television, including all of Christopher Guests subsequent movies like Best in Show and Waiting for Guffman and so many other great ones, and then of course the show I worked on, The Office That was a mockumidating, right.

I fe like The Office and Parks and Rec and all these great mockumentary shows are descendants of Spinal Tap in a way.

That must have been awesome.

Then to have loved Spinal Tap so much and then get to work on The Office in I don't know if saying in the style of is even correct, but like, that's so cool.

It was The Office was a dream in so many, so many ways, which is a whole conversation for another day.

But today we're talking about the new audio book A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, the Story of Spinal Tap.

It's written by Rob Reiner with Christopher Guest, Harry Sheer and Michael McKeon and voiced by Rob Reiner, although they all appear in the audio book as well.

It's a history of how the movie and the band came together, the film Unexpected Afterlife, and how forty years later everyone got the band back together for the sequel, which is out now.

It's called Spinal Tap two.

The end continues, I mean, come on, is that not the best title ever?

It's great.

The audiobook also includes an in universe oral history featuring all the actors as their respective characters.

It's called Smell the Book for the uninitiated.

That's a bit of wordplay on one of Spinal TAP's albums from within the movie, called Smell the Glove, and what that means God only knows.

But this is an absolutely ridiculous and delightful and wonderful component of the audiobook, and it features all of the main players just doing their over the top stick cal I'm super excited for this one.

I get to talk to not one, but two of the core people who made Spinal Tap, and this audiobook happen incredible.

I am jealous.

So I'm just going to get out of here and we'll talk again after the interview's over.

All right, I'll see you later.

Now here to get into a fine line between stupid and clever.

The story of Spinal Tap is the audiobooks author and voice Spinal Tap, creator and director and co star director of stand By Me, When Harry Met Sally, The Princess Bride, and so many more great movies.

Rob Reiner also joining the show.

One of the great comedic actors of all time.

He is, of course, in the movie Spinal Tap, as well as Spinal Tap.

The end continues.

He's incredible in the great show Better Call Saul.

He's in other movies like Best in Show, and just an overwhelming resume of tremendous comedy over so many decades.

Rob Reiner and Michael McKeon, welcome to ear say, it is truly such a pleasure to have you join our audio book club today.

It's a pleasure to be here.

Ed nice to be giant.

Well, of course, Uh, you are part of the incredible team behind Spinal Tap.

Rob, you directed that legendary movie.

Michael, you are part of the band.

This is such a thrill for me because that movie means so much to me.

I remember it came out in nineteen eighty four.

I was ten years old.

I was not aware of it then, but very soon after when it landed at Blockbuster Video, I was like, I'd been hearing about this from the older kids at school, and like, this is a thing I had to and I got it.

I forced my dad to rent it for me, and he was like, what the hell is this?

He was looking at the hard rock picture on the front, and he's like, what what?

Okay, fine, and we get home, we start watching it, and I'll be honest, as like a twelve year old at that time, I don't think I got half of it.

I got half of it.

Yeah, you got exactly half of it, and we know which half.

Yeah, But my dad was howling, he was yeah, And I realized, like, this is important, this is something I have to lad down to, and so of course I just rewatched it over the years, and it's become very much a part of my comedy.

DNA truly, and I want to thank you for that.

Dannata, our pleasure.

You're totally welcome.

Do either of you have a favorite scene from the movie.

I mean, that's an impossible question, but do you does something jump out?

I used to say.

That my favorite thing because I had nothing to do with it, and it's brilliant.

It's about a minute and a half, maybe two minutes.

Rob could Robbie tell me of Chris just soloing on the stage with you know, with all the feedback, and then the violin, and.

My favorite moment in that moment is he picks up the violin and uses it again, you know, but then at one moment he just tools a little the peg.

Yeah, just tunes a peg a little bit too to get it just right.

It's it.

It's great pantomime, noisy pantomime.

I guess you'd call it.

It's fabulous.

Well, my favorite, my favorite scene, and it's become the title of the book that we that we put out called a fine Line between Stupid and Clever, And my favorite line in the movie is a fine line between stupid and clever.

And it's a scene where Spinal Tap is their gig has just been canceled, and they were sitting in the hotel and the lobby there, and all of a sudden, this very big famous rock musician, Duke Fame, walks in and they say hello, and he's a big shot and he's got a manager played by Howard Hessman, and Howard says, listen, I wish I could talk to you guys, but I have to go in the lobby and wait for the limo.

I don't have time to talk.

I love that.

And then he leaves, and then everybody says, what a wanker that Duke Fam.

He's a wanker.

There we used to he used to open for us.

He people booh with.

He was terrible.

And then the manager says, I don't understand Dupe Fame's got it because they had an album that they couldn't release called Smell the Glove, which had a sexist cover and they couldn't release it.

And he says, well, I understand dupe Fame.

He has an album cover where he's naked and there's all these women that are whipping him and something.

And then Tony Hendrew plays the matter says, well, you don't understand the difference is he's the victim.

See in your album, she's the victim because she's on all fours and she's being made to sniff a glove.

And then the guys are like they're puzzled.

Here's oh, I see what they did.

There's a twist they turned around and one guy says, yeah, there's a fine line between stupid, and then Harry says and clever.

And I love that and to me, that's the essence of spinal top, fine line between stupid and clever.

I think you're right.

And it's also something that happened on the moment.

It happened conversational.

I mean, the entire film is improvised, but it was one of those things we were all kind of thinking on this same track and it just kind of spilled out, right.

Yeah.

And it's interesting because we shot the film with one camera.

We shot maybe a scene two or three times.

And it because, like Michael says, it's improvised.

You don't know what's gonna come out on what's you know, it's not going to be matched.

It's not going to write like a script when you say the same things, so different things would come out.

And in that case, the punchline, which is Harry saying and clever is off camera.

Now you normally would you know, you'd focus on that, Yeah, you pick it up.

But we found this in the cutting room and I said, well that works in the tracks and so and it works.

The joke works even though the Punchline's not on camera.

It's the title of this book and audiobook, And I think you're right.

It captures not only what's so fun about the spirit of the movie, but also to me, what you have done as the creators of Spinal Tap is to create these characters that are so oh.

Beautifully stupid, thank you.

They're right at this sort of like nexus of confidence, obliviousness and stupidity.

But to execute that and to improvise that with such precision and consistency takes a profound cleverness.

Well, we had our work cut out for us, because the people we were doing, the people we were embodying, take themselves very very seriously, of course, and if you do that, if you're on the level, that's where the funny comes from.

Because there's something about the audacity of someone who's got a very dim bulb up here telling everyone else what's what, and also their philosophies of life and how deep and profound they are.

Yeah.

Yeah, what's wonderful is we have, you know, these great albums where you know, rock and roll creation and all these very high falutin ideas about these guys thinking about how they've really got a grasp of the way the world works and the universe works.

And to be honest, you know, there were a lot of heavy metal rock musicians that were very upset with us because they did take themselves seriously and they're making fun of us.

You know, that's not right.

You know, we really do make great music and all this stuff, and they do make great music, but it's not as high fallutine as they think it is.

Isn't that the sort of highest compliment though?

Doesn't that mean that you've really punched the button if they're feeling a little agitated at the parody of self importance?

Yeah, I think so, And a lot of them over time got to really dig it.

Sure.

I mean they accepted it and they said, oh, this is really cool and they love the fact that we were making fun, ye know, sincere Form of Flattery and all that.

So I had heard that.

I've read about some of the blowback at the time from people like Ozzy Osbourne and Steven Tyler.

How real was that?

I mean, did they hold grudge for years?

Was this something that affected your lives?

Well, here's the thing.

Blowback used to be a different sized animal than it is now.

We encountered Steven Tyler and this was his thing.

It was like too close, too close, and he would smile a little bit, but mainly it was like this hurts.

It's so close.

Yes, and we heard that Ozzie isn't didn't like it, but it was the same thing.

It was like I felt uncomfortable, yeah, because I felt spied on.

But that came down as they didn't like it, right, and it's like nonsense.

I met Ozzie years later and he was adored the movie and he was great about it.

But now it's like somebody says anything and you'll get thirty thousand people.

Said did you hear that?

Yeah?

Yeah, yeah, So it's a different world.

I mean, the same thing happened with actual Rose and then Slash basically said to him, Oh, it's funny they're making it, and then Axl Rose, Oh yeah, I see, I get what they're doing.

And same thing.

When I first met Sting, he was just you know, hitting with the police and everything, and he said, a listen, I watched this movie over and over.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.

Yeah, you know.

I mean so that was like, you know, a great compliment.

The movie is affectionate and this is what I think elevates certain comedy from other comedy.

You're not really punching down.

There's a genuine affection for these characters, as oblivious as they are and as self important as they are, and you're sort of having fun with their hubris.

But I never felt like there was ridicule baked in there.

And we we're the first generation that grew up on rock and rolls right in the fifties, and we love rock and rolls.

Of course, we all grew up with that, so you know, it was a love of the music and also could find what's funny about it too, exactly, So you know, you try to mix those things.

So when you're sixteen, your favorite band is printed on your forehead.

And it's like it's who you.

Are, and every article of clothing that you wear, that's right, that's right, and it's all about that.

And it's like you look at yourself, what a stupid kid I was?

And boy I was happy.

Yeah, I love the music.

So I was been listening to the Kinks a lot lately.

That's kind of my pet third band.

You know, everybody loved the Beatles, everybody loved the Who and the Stones and all that but the Kinks were always like so.

On the money to me.

And I know I wasn't an English guy, you know from Muswell Hill.

I was this American kid.

But there's something about those days which when you're sixteen, that's what you do.

You take on that coloration, you know, and it stays with or it stays with me.

I showed no signs of growing up.

Amen.

But I just bought A King's album about a week ago, so you know, there you go.

You know, one time I was at this party once for Nick Polgie was his birthday, ninetieth birthday party.

And his stepson, Max is a musician.

He's a guitarist.

Now he plays with Taylor Swift, but he was with Kesha.

He's played with a lot of different bands.

Nick says to me, you know, he's got a spinal tap tattoo on his back.

No, really, get out of here.

I go over to him and I said, Max, Nick told me that you have a spiral tattooth.

He takes down his shirt and in the back he has the cover of Shark Sandwich tattooed to his back, which is the sandwich with a little fin coming out of the Wow.

Yeah.

So yeah, So you talk about having your favorite band tattooed to your forehead.

He literally had a tattoo.

All right, I want to talk a little bit about the creative process.

The audiobook details Schnedling tell us what exactly that is and the role it plays in the sort of writing and execution or even in the origin of the movie.

That's a term that Chris guessed first throughout long time ago.

He referred to the back and forth of improvisation as you're snadling with each other.

You just kind of riffing, riffing with each other.

You know where that where that what that word means exactly or where it can It's a made up word, just a made up word.

Okay, here's a great story.

You got you like this.

So we've been trying there's a guy in prison in in that's not the funny part, not so far, not so far.

But there's a guy in prison in Texas.

His name is Nan and Williams.

And this guy has been in we've been trying to get out for a long time.

He's a great guy.

He's in there for crime he didn't commit.

He's got three master's degrees, he's written books, he teaches all these young inmates, and he asked me, he said, you know, I send me a book, send me one of the books, you know, fine line between stupid.

So I sent him the book.

We talked about it and he read some You know, these kids, they don't know who's spiled happens.

They don't know who I am, they don't know any of it, but they're listening to it and they picked up on schnadling.

Says, hey, what's that We stopped, and they start, we gotta start snadling with each other.

So you got these prisoners down and down in Houston snadling.

I love it.

That's awesome.

That's therapeutic for sure.

Oh man, that's fantastic.

Yeah.

Yeah, So schnadling is essentially improvisation.

There's an anecdote in the audiobook about a video shoot that you guys are doing, and the schnadaling sort of starts during a.

Like an over shot.

There all everybody's lying on the floor.

Yeah, we were doing a takeoff of our debut.

Yeah, this was a takeoff of Midnight Special was part of a TV show that had a satire of all kinds of different things on television.

You know, we had sitcoms and telethons and commercials, and one of the things we did was this midnight special.

I came out as Wolfman Jack and I introduced for the first time Spinal Tap, England's loudest band, and they came out and they played a song called rock and Roll nutt or pore of it was live and part of it was kind of an MTV video, like cheezy video, yeah, really cheap.

And there was one part where they had this, I guess a foger or a smoke, a b smoke or something, and it kept leaking hot oil on them.

Yeah, and we had them on the floor.

We were trying to do like a Buzzby Berkeley kind of thing with the legs going, you know, right.

But you're getting like a medieval torture, the torture yeah, h yeah, yeah, of some sort.

But they started, you know, they started making fun and they started, you know, schnadling, they started doing stick and those characters.

And then we said, Jesus, these guys, we should find something else for them to do, not just lie on the floor and get hot oil board on them.

Although although that's all that's a conversation.

Another conversation that's fabulous.

Now, when you guys are schneedling, especially while the camera is rolling, are you breaking a lot?

Are there any bad laughers in your group?

Well, there were a few scenes that ended slightly early, and Paul Benedict, who was one of the great guys ever, who plays the hotel clerk, and he gets into a contractant with Tony who's making cracks about his sexuality and everything.

And it's like Paul comes in for a day and just lays all of us out.

He's so brilliant, so funny.

Tony Hendris, the manager, is always carrying around this cricket bat, so he puts the cricket bat up on the counter while he's talking to the guy get these rooms straightened out, and Paul, the hotel clerk, just points to the bat and he goes, well, you can't take that to your room, and Tony goes, innocently enough, why not, And Paul said, well, it's enormous, that's all there was to it.

It makes no sense, no, but the little story that we told ourselves in our heads at that moment started laughing before he even got the rest of the word out.

And there's no reason why that's so brilliantly funny, but it was.

And Fred Willard also had away.

He was one of the best improvisers.

And you can see in this one scene where he's telling him about the gig they're going to play on the Army base, and you can see Chris Guest kind of ducking behind somebody because he's starting to go and you just want to rule the take.

And there was one that I actually went and that was Chris totally surprised me.

He's playing a piano, very quiet, kind of classical piece, and I go, that's interesting, you know, that's something very different from what you normally play.

He says, well, it's you know, it's a classic comedy Mozart and Bacchus called mock piece.

It's in D D minor, which I think is the saddest of all keys, and it's just simple lines intertwined.

And I said, well, what do you call this?

He says, lick my love pump, and I went, I went, we had to do that all scene over and see.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I was notorious on the office for ruining takes, for laughing, and there were, like you described, Chris, there's a scene in a Christmas episode where Steve Krell is being so funny that I have to duck behind a plant, and I'm behind the plant for the majority of the scene.

But it's part of what's.

So fun and frustrating about improvisation, right, is that the best stuff can get ruined so easily.

Yeah, yeah, I mean that's how things happen in a good improvisational company.

And there are a few, and there have been many over the years.

The mistake you can make is to look for that punchline instead of living in the scene.

Yes, because that's amen some of the Peter Bonders is one of the best improvisers I ever saw, and I never saw him crack a joke or anything like it.

He just existed in the scene.

Anything he was doing was completely absurd.

But he took it dead seriously and he was hilarious and he would never break in a million years.

That is the secret.

Yeah, just to take take it all dead seriously, take it all bitch, and not chase the not chase the punchlines.

There are a lot of scenes that feel in the movie completely improvised, Like.

They're all improvised.

Every all the dialogue is improvised completely.

I guess that's my question.

Like there's the talking about the drummers that have died, and Chris breaks in that, by the way, on the vomit line, yes, which I think, which he says, and he starts to chuckle, but he saves it.

Yeah, and he keeps it in character more or less right, just enough, But.

I love it.

It's just a little glimpse under the veil.

But then there are scenes like the legendary amp that goes to eleven, which clearly was prep.

Oh yeah, well, yeah, we had the we had the prop.

We knew that we were going to have an AMP that went to eleven, but we didn't know how we were going to get to it, or how it was going.

To be revealed, or what we were or how you feature something this big, yeah in a movie that's a documentary, or what.

We were going to say about it.

And my favorite moment in there is Chris is showing me around all the different guitars and then he shows me this amp that goes up to eleven and I said, well, I don't see why do you have it to go well?

He said, well it's one louder, isn't it.

I said, well, yeah, but I mean couldn't you make the top number be ten and just make that a little louder?

And he had no answer for that.

I hit him with something that I basically painted him into a corner.

He made a long, long pause and he goes, well, this goes to eleven.

Yeah, he had no answer for.

The honesty of his performance in that moment is so perfect.

There's another little tiny moment that Chris does.

It's when we're in the airport and Janine has taken over the management of the band and she's laying out all this shit about you know, astrology is telling us to go to this city and not this one.

She's rearranging everything and Chris, who was wearing a cowboy hat for the only moment in the film he's wearing that, She says, have you got this?

And he just, without even really looking at her, he kind of tilts his head and holds up the same thing she's reading it from and.

Then puts it down.

And think about that moment that just says everything, how about you go to hell, but without actually saying it, and don't worry about me, I'm out of here anyway.

It's great.

Laden that's fabulous.

There's one moment, I have to know if it was improvised.

And it's the fabulous scene with Bruno Kirby as the limo driver, and I know that what you shot was actually much longer than what made the movie.

But the bit where he starts to go off on Frank Sinatra and the window between the limo driver cab and the passenger section just slowly rises.

Yeah, I think that was one of you guys just did that or something.

No.

I think going into the scene we said, when he starts going on about stuff, just shut.

Him out of the world.

Yeah, but we didn't know where.

So funny, it's just so funny, and Bruno Kirby's reaction was perfect.

Yeah, there's an outtake of scene where we get his character really high and he winds up singing my way into a chunk of pizza and in his underwear, in his underwear, and then he passes out.

He nearly killed him.

So missed the desk by like this much in the hotel room.

Wow, but it was awfully funny.

But it was just, oh, if we go there, we'll be there for ten minutes.

Yeah, we had some great stuff that wound up.

As they say on the cutting room floor.

My favorite thing was and it's it just it was a great joke, great stuff, but it just took too long to unfold.

There was a band that opened for Spinal Tap at one point called The Dose, which was kind of a punk band, and the lead singer was Sherry Currey from from the Runaways.

And you see then Nigel and her are kind of noodling a little bit, and the next scene Nigel has a herpie sore on his lip and we don't make much of it.

The next thing you see David, you know, played by Michael, and he's also making out with her, and the next and Viv and the next scene herpee story.

It makes it way all the way around.

And then there's a band meeting where five of them are sitting around deciding they're gonna vote whether or not they're going to keep The Dose on the tour.

And before there's four guys with herpee stories.

They saying, I think we should draw I think so, and the drummers.

The only guy without a herpe story, he says, I think they're gonna think them.

But it just took so long, and the only remnant, the only thing left is there's a scene where you see Nigel and David, they both have herpe st.

We never explain it, no, and it gets a laugh for some reason.

I don't know.

I never know to this day why I got that laugh.

For one reason, there's this little undercurrent about how close Sneigel and David really are and always.

Have been, you know.

Uh, and it's God.

So you're saying it's a gay thing, that's what you're saying.

I'm saying it's it's a gray area.

It's a gay area.

But Richard Curtis, the wonderful screenwriter and director, I've met him, and he said, you know, Spinal TAP's my favorite romantic comedy.

He says, it's got it's got the same structure.

It's you guys belong together, and you know, everything else in the world is kind of a distraction because you're looking for that moment when you were two little assholes on the street corner playing skiffle music, you know, and so it.

Was like, Okay.

Ricky Gervay said the same exact thing when I interviewed him.

He said, it's a romantic comedy.

I love that.

I hadn't thought of that.

So Spinal Tap is obviously a parody band.

The songs are insanely funny, but they're not exactly a joke themselves.

Let's let's listen to a clip.

Okay, So the songs are hilarious, but they're also objectively great songs.

That was the goal.

The goal was the humor would come out in the lyrics, never in the music.

They're all great musicians, they all take it seriously, and the music is good, like you say, so, we never wanted the music to be the thing that got the laughs.

It was always the lyrics.

I'm just curious how you arrived at that.

I remember a debate we had on the Office.

My character was in a production of Sweeney Todd in the World of the Office, and there was a debate in pre production at Scranton Community Theater do we want these actors to be bad and for it to sort of be silly?

And I felt very passionately that even community theater actors are oftentimes extremely talented and they're extremely committed, and that that isn't what's funny about the scene.

It's it's a very tricky line to walk because they can't be sensational actors, sure, but they can be adequate, proficient.

I mean you're not.

Finding humor in how bad they are.

No, but Chris Guess made this thing about community theatical waiting for Guffman, of course, and it's kind of perfect because they're, you know, they're doing their thing.

But it's just like the line that we have to tread with Spinal Tap.

We love what they do, but we also can make fun of it.

Yeah, I have the book and the audiobook, and obviously this podcast is about the audiobook.

Both the book and the audiobook contain this fabulous kind of little surprise at the end Smell the book, which is the oral history of Spinal Tap, where you guys basically just live inside the mythology and make up new memories.

As you go, and it's wild.

After all these years, it just it feels like all these fake stories have just taken on the weight of actual rock and roll cannon.

Before we started the first film, we had a bible.

I mean, we knew who these characters were, because when you're improvising, especially David and Nigel, if they were kids together from Squatney, they have to have shared experiences and so we improvised.

But we also have the background of knowing who left the band, who joined the band, we knew all those things.

Yeah, so we could we could riff off of that rather than just have to make all that up.

Right.

We did do a little cramming right before we did the interviews for the book, where we said, let's go over this again.

Okay, yeah, are we going to get to lesson Mary Chiswick or whatever?

You know, there are three dozen names we can pick up, you know, we can throw in of course, and we all shared this history.

We weren't going to get to it all, but it's nice to have it there.

Yeah, like a Giddyon Bible pretty much.

Sure, when you're in those sort of schnadling moments, do you find yourself in a flow state?

Ever?

Do you ever find that?

It just you feel like, oh, this is definitely gonna make the final cut.

This is the I never know.

I never know what's going to make the final club.

All I know is just stay in the moment.

Stay in the moment, because I'm working with brilliant minds and brilliant comedians and brilliant improvisers, and something's gonna come out and I don't know what it's gonna be.

I never know.

So it's been forty years since the original Spinal Tap forty one actually forty one now yeah, or.

Is the spinal theft people would call the golden anniversary.

So finally with the film sequel out now Spinal Tap two, The End Continues, which is just one of the greatest comedy movie titles of all time.

I'm wondering, after such a definitive first film, talk about some of the challenges and opportunities that presented themselves in revisiting these characters.

Was it truly effortless kind of slipping back into.

This, Well?

Did it take a lot?

The effortless part was the way we interacted with each other that always is there.

We always had fun with that.

But the idea of doing a sequel to something that we all said, no, we've done it, let it be.

It's a high bar, you know, it's a really high bar, and we're old.

But as we talked, something came out of it that was very real, which is, first of all, the guys hadn't played together in fifteen years, so we said, well, what's that about?

Is there bad blood?

Are they not talking?

What's going on?

And then the idea of older people still touring or still performing that was out there.

Paul McCartney was in the movie.

He's still performing.

You see the stones, you see so who is out there doing it?

And the Eagles and Oasis back together, So that's a real thing.

And then we had to think, well, what's the reason why weren't they talking and what's the reason that throws them back together.

Once we had that, we said, okay, it's a story that could stand on its own.

You don't have to have seen the first one.

Obviously better if you have, you'll get some of the references.

But if you haven't.

And we had screenings where half the people had never seen the first one and they they went with this, they thought this was great.

Yeah, well huge, congrats on just the universe that you've created and now expanded on even further with Spinal Tap two.

It's it is a hell of a treat and I hope you make maybe at least three or four more.

Do you have it in here's the thing and we can tell you because it's not a secret.

No, well, it's been released to the press that after we finished Spy Tap Too, The end continues.

We were approached by the Heritage Foundation in England to do a concert at Stonehenge, at the actual Stonehenge, Oh my god.

And so it was an impossible thing not to say yes to.

And we got together.

We went over to England and did a concert in front of in front of this Stonehenge and you know this.

Eric Clapton came on and performed, and Shanaiah Twain came on.

And my favorite thing, bel though, was Josh Grobin sings a Bitch School And it's worth the price of admission.

Yeah, yeah, it's pretty amazing.

Yeah yeah, will that be that'll come out next year?

That'll be visible next year?

Oh fantastic.

Yeah.

And that one's called it's called Spinal Tap at Stonehenge, the final finale per But don't give away the ending, rob No, I'm not, I won't do that.

Isn't redundancy always funny?

Listen.

We wrote a song called tonight I'm gonna rocket tonight.

How do you think we feel about that?

Yeah?

There it is.

Okay, we're gonna take a quick break, but we'll be right back.

All right.

We're gonna jump into a section of the interview called plot twist, where I'm just gonna just fire.

At you some questions.

All right, Spidal tabs infamous custom Amps famously went one louder to eleven.

What in your lives have you turned up to eleven?

That's a good question.

Milee's your time.

It's approaching one hundred percent, and I'm delighted.

You've turned it down to eleven.

No, no, no, I just listened.

Rob and I are the same age.

We've all been doing a lot of things for a long time, and it's like really appreciating that.

It sounds very corny, very hallmark, but I really do think that me not doing much of anything on a really nice day is.

Better than anything that's fabulous.

Listen.

I'm probably of the four of us, I would say the most driven.

I'm crazy driven, and in my mind, I haven't gotten the eleven yet.

I mean as close as I ever got with you.

Know it's a cliche, but you're the birth of your children.

I mean that is like, ooh, that can't get doesn't get any better.

But in terms of my work and stuff, I still feel like there's an eleven out there somewhere.

Amazing.

Oh I love that.

Two very different answers, Yes, all right.

The band had numerous spinal tap moments, like getting lost backstage or the monumental Stone Hinge prop being extremely tiny.

Have you experienced a moment in your professional or personal life that felt like a true spinal tap moment?

Eighteen eighty four, when the film came out, we played a handful of cities, and some of them, the New York, LA Chicago, and Boston were really well attended.

Boston was huge, but the film played for a year in Boston.

It became like this is what we when we go to the movies, this is what we do.

So we were really kind of hot.

And we played it a place called the Channel Club.

And I've had this corroborated by people who were there, said, man, I was there the.

Night you played, and it did.

It really rain on the stage?

And yeah it did.

It was this terrible storm outside and the stage was drenched and we're there with electric instruments and I'm wearing boxing shoes, wearing boxing shoes which have this little kind of you know, just the thickness of Barbara Walter's skin.

Yeah, and it was like, well, if we go here, at least we were a hit in this town, you know.

But it really was it was like and Chris and I are looking at each other, going good bye.

Maybe wait, so this is your spinal tap moment in your life?

Is also an actual spinal tap?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I mean we've I've had little things.

Uh, you know when we did all the way with this play that I did in New York, what we did in Cambridge.

First, by the way, I loved that play.

Oh, thank you, thank you, ye that was great, and Bryan Cranston played LBJ.

The first scene is he's having this vision about what what I'm no, I'm the president.

All of a sudden, Jfksman killed, I'm the president.

What am I going to do?

How am I to do this?

And then his desk rises out of the floor and he goes behind his desk and begins the scene proper with other people.

Well, opening night, it got halfway up it's stone in and so they said, well, maybe we're going to reboots.

So everybody's standing on the stage and they lower it again and bring it up again, and then it just breaks and he goes, Gugu no yeah, And so then it's like dealing with that, but those are in the moments they're happening.

It's horrible stuff, but you know what, tomorrow and I will come back and try it again, you know, that's all you can do.

Amen.

Well for me, I mean, I've had a million of those kind of things on stage where stuff goes wrong, but one that just popped in my head.

I was in the Summer Theater in Plymouth, Massachusetts, and Albert Brooks was in the company with me.

We were doing a production of Mary Mary, you know, which is a comedy, and we're eighteen years old.

We're playing people in their forties with the corn starch and the hair and all this stuff.

And you know, they had shows once a week.

You know, they turned the show over every week.

So you do a show for a week, you take the set down, put the other set back up.

And they didn't get the set quite ready for the first performance of Mary Mary.

And Albert and I are on stage and we're doing, you know, back and forth, back and forth, and then he goes to make an exit and there was supposed to be some sque eight stairs, and he just he just went off the edge and gone in.

In other words, I opened the door, he walked out the door and just disappeared.

Oh no, And then he comes back.

He comes back in.

His head was just on the floor above the thing and he and he goes bye bye like this, and he had a wife.

So yeah, those those kind of things happen.

I love the best, all right.

One of my favorite little tidbits in the audio book describes how the creative team used Grimsby card h yes, which were cards with the stern news anchor Roger Grimsby's headshot on one side.

Yes, Harry Shearer was going with a woman who worked at ABC News at the time, and Roger Grimson was a broadcaster.

He was on camera and they had a whole stack of like promotional cards where they had picture Roger Grimsby on the front and was empty on the back.

We used these cards.

We had a big bulletin board and anytime we have a scene that we thought, well this could work, we put it up on the pulling board and it got to be where if we had an idea and we thought maybe it was good or should it be in the movie or not, we would say does this merit a Grimsby?

In other words, should we commit this to a Grimsby?

And so if it did, if it got on the board, it was a Grimsey.

When we did the sequel, Michael goes, where did you get those pictures, Michael, you.

Got I just grabbed it off the internet.

He got off the internet.

There was a picture ros A Grimsey and the had a whole stack of so we could, you know, keep the tradition alized.

Oh that's fabulous.

I feel like somebody needs to sell Grimsby cards to screenwriters.

Oh my god, the money will come rolling in.

Yeah, I mean, what a million dollar idea.

Oh guy, this is our next adventure, this is our next step.

Here we go all right, Well, you know it's it is such a fun, clever creative technique.

Do you have either of you have an unexpected or unusual method in your own creative process.

God, I don't know.

I wouldn't even know how to begin to describe where things come from.

I just have to keep remembering to breathe, you know, because sometimes if you're kind of waiting for something to happen, you kind of lose the reality because a real person is going to be breathing.

I've just sometimes I got to remind myself okay, and it just helps you stay with them.

I don't know, I don't have any other style.

That's a hell of a good answer.

I've always liked making these guys laugh and and they they know I'm a soft.

Touch when it and he does all the time.

I mean, that's the thing about Michael and his brain.

Will you know, all three of them, their brains work in different ways, but very fast, and they come at comedy in different ways, and you just never know how it's going to work.

I'm you know, I'm George Burns, I'm you know, I'm my dad to mel Brooks.

I tried to you know, I'm the straight guy hopefully get the best out of them.

And it's pretty easy when you're working with them.

I'm telling you it's pretty easy.

They come prepared to get goodwood on the ball every time.

Amen.

You guys have incredible chemistry.

And it is so fun to see it still, just to see those sparks flying forty years later.

It's it's just as alive as it ever was.

It's it's so so great.

Now.

Last question, what are you listening to or reading right now?

And and or what's next on your list?

I'm reading the new Mark Twain autobiography, which is just thick and amazing.

I'm sorry, the new He just put out a new one.

No, no, not the new and it's not an autobiography.

It's Ron Chernow's biography.

Oh oh fabulous, and it is.

It's it's amazing.

And what am I listening to?

I'm listening to a couple of things.

I got a book called Consciousness.

What is Consciousness?

So this is fascinating and so I listened to it at night.

It puts me right to sleep bad.

I can tell.

It's a really good book.

But I lose consciousness.

It should be called unconsciousness.

Unconsciousness, yes, yeah, but it's a cool book.

And yeah, I listened to I listened to a lot of different kinds of things.

I'll tell you my favorite guy.

There's a guy named Bill Homewood, like home h O M E.

Wood Homewood, British guy.

And he did a fifty two hour unabridged reading of the counter Monte Cristo.

It's one of the greatest things I've ever heard.

It was.

It's like, I can't wait to get in the car and just drive nowhere just so I can listen to this and do nothing but this.

He's brilliant.

He also did The Three Musketeers and Tom Jones and a couple of other things like that.

Wait, how long did that take you to listen to fifty.

Two hours Michael.

Do you listen to books more than you read them, or do you read more than you listen.

I'm starting to listen more than I read, but I still love to just park myself with a book.

But at night, you know, if I'm kind of trying to chill out, I'll plug into something like that.

And there's a woman named Shanade Dixon who does most of Dickens and it's amazing Shaned Dickens, you should call her so amazing.

And Maria Marghleys also does a great there's a lot of great Dickson stuff.

You know.

I love blues music, I love country music, I love bluegrass.

I like to watch Instagram and what I like about it because I'm old.

They you know, in TikTok, they'll give you two seconds, they'll give you a full performance of somebody.

So if like Billy Strings comes on, I'm like, oh good, I can hear a whole Billy Strings number.

Or if it's Linda Ronstat harmonizing with Dolly Parton and Emulou Harris, you know, I'll listen to all that or Christable whoever it is, and I love I will just listen to those kinds of things.

That's what I love listening to.

And any blues guitars go from one.

To the other amazing.

Yeah, we're in the same sort of musical loops there.

I love it.

Any audio books or books, well books Right now, you see, I'm in the midst of finishing up a book based on this podcast that I did last year about the jeffk assassinations called Who Killed jeffk We.

Did it on iHeartRadio with so with Solo Dad O'Brien.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, and it got like ten million downloads and people like this.

So Simon and Schuster asked us if we would write a book, so we started working on it, the two guys that I work with on the podcast.

So I've been writing on that.

So I still I'm reading.

There's a book that came out about what happened to Darthy cle Gallen, and so I just keep reading more and more stuff about that.

Right now, I'm kind of still immersed in that world.

Wow, that's a good one.

That's a juicy one.

Well, Rob Reiner, Michael McKeon, it was truly excellent having you on Earsay.

Thank you so much for coming on.

Thanks for having us.

Yeah, thank you, Ed, thanks for having us on.

Yeah, absolutely anytime.

Yeah, I wish we could.

Wish we'd just be hanging out having a beer right now.

We're allowed to you.

I'm going to continue hanging out.

You just might not be there.

You'll just keep talking into your microphone for the next forty five minutes.

Well, truly a pleasure, guys, Thanks a lot, Thanks a lot.

Well, that was awesome.

This was like such a.

Dream for me to just pick their brains and hear so many of the stories.

As a person that works in comedy, I just love to hear how other people's brains work, Yeah, and like and how their process works, and especially material that I've appreciated so deeply for so many years.

Just to get under the hood and just see how that sausage is made.

It's really a privilege.

Especially when it makes you laugh.

Yeah.

I just find such joy in being able to go into the brains of other weirdos in the best way possible.

As a weirdo.

Yes, exactly.

It's fun to learn about other weirdos totally, and you and I are very proud to be Weirdoh.

Yes, of course, it's a badge of honor.

All right, well you can find the new audio book A fine line between stupid and clever, the story of Spinal Tap at Audible.

Thank you for tuning into this episode of Earsay, the Audible and iHeart Audio Book Club.

On the next episode, we're diving into a supernatural romance co authored by Nicholas Sparks and m Night Shamalan.

There's a haunted house, a ghost love story, a mystery that must be solved.

You don't want to miss this.

Yeah that sounds quite saucy.

Yeah, extremely Yeah.

Well we'll see you then and if you had fun with us today, consider following the show wherever you listen.

Hearsay, the Audible and iHeart Audio Book Club is a production of Iheart's Ruby Studio.

We're your hosts.

Ed Helms and Kelpenn.

Our executive producer is Matt Schultz, with theme music and post production by Marcus Bagala.

For Ruby Studio.

Our managing EP is Matt Romano, our EP of post production is Matt Stillo.

Our production coordinator is Abby Aguilar.

And of course a big thank you to our friends at Audible.

Don't forget you can listen to what we're listening to on the Audible app or at audible dot com.

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Visit audible dot com slash ar say.

Until next time, Thanks for listening.

Foo,