Comedy rockers Spinal Tap now have amps that go up to infinity as they aim to put the record straight in new movie. The trio believe they were made to look like fools in the classic first film, but admit they can no longer do backflips on stage as the years advance.
SPINAL Tap’s amps famously went up to 11 but, now they’re losing their hearing, they have to go a little higher. The legendary hard rock trio reunite after 15 years – due to legal obligation – in new movie Spinal Tap II along with a new LP. And they’ve found something bigger and better than the first film.
Guitarist Nigel Tufnel spilled: “Marshall (amps) has made for me an amplifier and if you look at the dials, it now goes to Infinity. Just think about that for a moment. Think about infinity – oh, my God, that’s literally infinity.”
Nigel is fascinated to see how his new infinity amps work: “I tinker. Lots of times I break them because I don’t really know how to do that work. I haven’t been trained, but it’s interesting to open things up, see all the wires and move them about a bit.”
Spinal Tap became a laughing stock after the first film but the new one attempts to put the record straight.
“I think we were bloody angry because it made us seem as if everything we ever did was rubbish and went wrong in some way,” moaned Nigel. “Marty DiBergi, the director, picked these things to show, but there was a lot of stuff he didn’t show, like when we didn’t get lost or when we weren’t having a row.”
One of the most famous scenes from the original movie is Nigel complaining about the tiny bread served to him as part of his backstage rider, which he insists was again exaggerated for comic effect.
“This is a staple of tour nightmares when people have a rider,” he explained. “‘This is what we want. After the show, we want milk or vodka.’ It’s always messed up. The bigger the band, the more it fucks up, really. This has happened to everyone. It did happen to us, yes, but it was on film, so it’s exaggerated, you see? That was Marty’s choice. We weren’t involved in the editing. We did a show the next night, and everything was perfect.”
Nigel has been working in a cheese shop since the band split and spends most his time bird watching: “I like hearing them in the morning. We watch them fly around, (his partner) Moira and I. We’re not official bird watchers because we don’t really know the names of all of them, but we like to look at them as we walk down the lane to the cheese shop. It’s a quiet kind of life.
“I have guitars at my cheese shop. You can come in and trade guitars for cheese, or vice versa. If you bring in some cheese, I might trade you one of the guitars on the wall.”
The new film features Elton John and Paul McCartney, and features all the classic Spinal Tap hits.
Sadly age is catching up with the Big Bottom hitmakers so more shows are unlikely after this movie. “We’re old people,” Nigel told Guitar World. “I don’t know that many people at the age of 100 are going out and doing gigs. People who are 82 are going out. That’s not a hundred, is it? So you do learn a few things when you get older. You can’t do backward flips, for instance….We’re bloody old. It’s weird, isn’t it?” Spinal II: The End Continues is out now.
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