The band Spinal Tap are all about instant gratification. “Tonight I’m gonna rock you tonight,” they howled in their song ‘Tonight I’m Gonna Rock You Tonight‘. “Gimme some money,” they crooned in their anthem ‘Gimme Some Money’. Whether it’s canapes, big bottoms, or unintentionally tiny models of Stonehenge, they want it now.
When it’s come to their new adventure, however, we’ve had to wait a while. Over 40 years, in fact. It’s been that long since 1984’s This Is Spinal Tap, still arguably the funniest spoof documentary of all time, and certainly the loudest. While they've reassembled for live gigs (plus an episode of The Simpsons) in the intervening years, many feared we'd never see them rock again on the big screen. Many feared we’d never see them rock again. But in 2025, finally, we’ll discover what has become of the iconic trio of hair-metal maniacs — David St. Hubbins (Michael McKean), Nigel Tufnel (Christopher Guest) and Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) — and Empire was fortunate enough to bag the first ever interview for the film.
Here, director Rob Reiner, who will also be returning in front of the camera as beleaguered documentarian Marty DiBergi, gives us intel on what to expect. So with no further ado, to borrow a DiBergi catchphrase, let’s boogie…
What was the idea that finally unlocked Spinal Tap II?
It came from a very real place, which was that Tony Hendra, the actor who played Ian Faith, their manager in the movie, passed away. And in reality the guys — Harry, Chris and Michael — hadn’t played together as Tap for 15 years. So we thought, “Maybe there’s something in that, a reunion concert.” And we came up with this idea that Ian Faith had willed his daughter, Hope, this contract that called for one more performance. She thinks initially, “Well, this is not really worth anything, because the band hasn’t played together.” But then some big music star, while screwing around at a sound check, is filmed on an iPhone singing a Tap song, and it goes wild on social media. All of a sudden, the contract is worth something.
You’re reprising the role of documentary-maker Marty DiBergi, the guy behind the likes of Kramer Vs Kramer Vs Godzilla.
He was hoping that the first film would lead to some kind of career in Hollywood, but it didn’t work out. I’ve written a book for Simon & Schuster and I explain what happened to Marty. You know, he couldn’t even get commercials anymore. So he’s been teaching as an assistant at the Ed Wood School of Cinematic Arts. But when he hears that they are going to do another concert, he contacts them and asks if he can document it.
What has the band been up to since disbanding as Tap?
Marty tracks them all down. Nigel has been running a cheese and guitar shop in Berwick-upon-Tweed. He’s also been performing with a local folk band in the village that play penny whistle and mandolin, and he plays electric guitar with them. We show a little clip of that. David St Hubbins has been living in Morro Bay in California, and he’s been writing music for podcasts, particularly this one true-crime podcast called ‘The Trouble With Murder’. He also writes the music that you hear when you’re on hold on the phone. And then we have Derek. Derek is living in London and is now the curator of the New Museum of Glue. He’s curated glue from every country in the world, the whole history of glue, and he shows me around. He’s also been performing with a philharmonic orchestra, and he’s written this kind of symphony about the fact that the devil wears a bad hair piece. It’s called ‘Hell Toupée’.
"The fun thing about it is we’ve known each other for so many years, and you just fall right back into it."
It sounds like they’ve all been busy.
Yeah, they have been busy. You know, Derek’s father used to have a business sanitising phones, and Derek kind of picked up that for a while. It was difficult, though, because most people don’t have landlines anymore, and it’s hard to get people’s cell phones — they won’t just give them to you.
It has to be asked — why a museum of glue?
Tap is a band that’s always breaking apart and coming back together, and Derek always felt that he was the glue that kept everything together. So he was always drawn to glue.
That’s very literal. What was it like shooting again together after four decades?
The fun thing about it is we’ve known each other for so many years, and you just fall right back into it. You know, the whole film is improvised. The dialogue is all improvised. And what Chris Guest calls “schnadling” — we schnadle with each other, you know? It’s just fun. Putting together this movie is like putting together a puzzle with no picture on the box. We’ve got the contours of it, because we have a ten-page outline. But we’ll have a scene that lasts 15 or 20 minutes, that winds up being a minute in the movie. You find the best bits of everything, and you cut them together.
‘Schnadle’ is a fun word.
Yeah, that was Chris’ term. He always said, “You’ve got to get people who are good schnadlers.” People who can do schtick with each other, who can improv and bounce back and forth with each other.
You have cameos from some huge music stars, including Paul McCartney and Elton John. Were they good schnadlers?
They turned out to be. We came up with a good idea for Paul, and he was excited to do it. And we had a great idea for Elton. They’re both terrific in the film, both comfortable just talking off the cuff.
Have Tap evolved their sound at all since we last saw them? Or are they sticking with metal?
Chris Addison plays a concert promoter in the movie. He’s like a cross between Simon Cowell and Simon Fuller — we call him Simon Howler. There’s a line in the movie where he says, “I was fascinated by seeing a group of people that over the years have not evolved either musically or personally. It was kind of an anthropological interest in seeing how that could be.” But, you know, early on they did ‘All The Way Home’ and ‘Cups And Cakes’ and ‘Flower People’. They had other types of song that they did. But then once they hit the heavy-metal lane, they kind of stayed in it. It’s interesting because Lars Ulrich is also in the movie, from Metallica, and they’re still touring. AC/DC are still touring. And Mötley Crüe and Judas Priest. So, you know, it’s still out there.
Finally, what can we expect in the way of new songs?
There’s going to be an album that we did for Interscope, which we’ve finished, and it’ll have a couple of cuts by Elton John and one cut by Paul McCartney — songs that they sing in the film, which aren’t Spinal Tap-type songs, they’re ones that people know. But the rest of them are new. There’s a scene where Henry Diltz, the very famous rock photographer, takes them to a cemetery in New Orleans. Nigel’s like, “Why are we here? All these people are dead.” And Henry says, “Well, you’ve got to get used to this idea. You know, it’s going to happen.” Then Derek has this idea of what it’s going to be like after he dies. So he’s got this song called ‘Rockin’ In The Urn’, which is all about the fact that even after he’s dead, he’s still going to be performing...
Spinal Tap II is coming soon.