I understand that the movie has been mooted for quite some time?

Jack: Mooted? Is that what you said?

Kyle: I don't know what that means.

Jack: Yeah, and he knows everything.

OK, the movie has been in the works for quite some time. Why has it taken so long for it to be made?

Jack: Is that word in the Oxford dictionary? Mooted? but probably not in the one we use?

Kyle: Probably not

Jack: Why did it take so long to be mooted out? It just had to be perfect and all the planets had to align. We didn't want to roll out a stinker we didn't have a time limit, this was our master work so we took our sweetass time about it.

Did it go through many incarnations before you arrived at this story?

Kyle: It did really. We thought we could get away with not writing it, we tried.

Jack: We hired some top writers, some top thunder squad bringers, but they squirted out something that was sub par.  It wasn't bad it was actually pretty good.

Kyle: It would have been a good movie for someone else.

Jack: It was Tenacious D saves the city of Atlantis and the devil is there�

Kyle: Overlords�

Jack: Hot Ninja girls�

Kyle: That actually sounds pretty good�

Jack: But at the time we read it and said 'oh this isn't really our type of sense of humour'.

So we sat for 5 years and didn't do any writing and in the last 3 weeks we wrote it with our friend Liam Lynch, who was the catalyst really, he's a very talented composer and film writer.

The way you write the film - is it the same way you write your music?

Jack: Well me and Kyle will fight a lot about little details, and sometimes I think he's fighting me just because he wants to win something.

Kyle: Have you ever tried to have an orgasm without friction?

Jack: Yeah, exactly.

Kyle: It won't work.

Jack: All the great masterworks if you look back there's probably a lot of friction that lead to it. All those Shakespeare plays he probably had to fight� his silent partner.
[laughs]

Jack: We started with a sentence and this was the breakthrough it took so long to realize. We just had to tell the true tale of 'The D'.  The origin episode.  We'll start before there was a D, you'll see us form the band and then you will see us go on our first epic journey: the quest to become the greatest band on the earth.
So that was it, once we got that everything else fell into place.

Kyle: We have probably never been in an interview when someone hasn't asked "How did you guys get together", so we put it in the movie to answer the questions forever.

How would you describe the music of your band? And who have you ripped off?

Wow! Incendiary question!

Jack: We have been called the heavy metal Simon and Garfunkel. [laughter] But who do we rip off? I've ripped off a little Meatloaf � his theatricality�

Kyle: Probably some Zeplin in there.

Jack: The fat rockers

Kyle: Probably most of the big dinosaurs of rock.  A lot of the chords I use have been used before, you start playing an A and then a D, you're going to run into some songs. It's hard.

For all those rock gods that have inspired you, they must appreciate the gesture because many have given their approval for the film and some are actually in the film?

Jack: Yeah, we got three rock gods.

Kyle: Not too bad

Jack: We got Satan, Sasquatch and Meat Loaf. We also got Ronnie James Dio and Dave Grohl [of the Foo Fighters and ex Nirvana].

And Dave Grohl played�?

Jack: Satan. I don't think he wanted us to say, I think he wanted it to be a secret.

Kyle: Yeah, Too late now!

Kyle, I assume you were a kind teacher to Jack when you taught him how to play the guitar, was he the same about teaching you any camera tips?

Kyle: Yeah, actually Jack's really good; he's good about acting stuff. Most times I would be like "Jack, how should I �? What should I �?"

Jack: [to Kyle] You don't like to take tips from me! He does not like to take tips it's like an older brother taking tips from his younger brother - he bristles, and the rooster tail goes up.

Kyle: No, Jack is pretty generous with his help.

This movie exists in an almost permanent level of excitement.  How do you cope with being so awesome on a daily basis?

Jack: How do we cope with being so awesome?

Kyle: A fine question indeed, I usually feel normal and lame and then I'll go to the coffee shop and then someone will say: "You rock!" and then I remember how awesome I am.

Jack: I mostly stay in my bubble, my golden bubble cage. I just had a son and I took the kid in a couple of days ago to the doctors, and she was measuring him all different places and then she gave him percentages and his head is in the 86% of heads, meaning only 14% of the population has a bigger head than him, he has a huge head! And then she measured my head and she was shocked because I was in the 100% - less than 1% of the world's population has a bigger head than mine.

Kyle: I think that leaves the Elephant man and myself.

Jack: I guess that means I'm pretty full of myself or something, or I have a huge brain.

Is being a dad going to change some of the excesses of the music or the language?

Kyle: Well, we recorded a clean version of this album.

Jack: For the children. Really it's for the adults who want to listen to it but they've got their kid in the car, so there's a version for them.

Kyle: Sometimes it is funnier.

The song 'Fuck Her Gently' has that changed much?

Jack: Oh no, we don't have a clean version of the first album.

Who is in your fantasy band - dead or alive? And who is playing what? Bass, drums, singing, lead guitar?

Kyle: Good question

Jack: Mozart on bass

Kyle: Beethoven on keys

Jack: Bach on the clavichord

Kyle: On drums I'm going to pick the first cave man. And say 'Dude you're on it!'  There are lots of great musicians so I don't know.

Jack: You've got to go Hendrix on the electric.

Kyle: That's good, I'd like Jacko Pastorius on bass

Jack: Isn't he a jazz guy?

Kyle: Yeah, kind of a fusion band!.

Jack: That's horrible.

Kyle: I think we've got the best drummer going; we've got this guy - Brookes Wackerman.

Jack: His name is Wackerman!

Kyle: His whole family plays the drums and their name is Wackerman!

Jack: For real!

Kyle: The weird thing is I wouldn't be in my own fantasy band.

Jack: You wouldn't be in the band?

Kyle: I would just be watching.

What can fans expect from your UK tour?

Jack: In the past we've gone on tour just me and Kyle with no production whatsoever just to hoard all the money possible, this time we're going all out, we're actually losing money on the tour.
Because we want to give back to the fans.

Kyle: We're thinking it'll be like the great Pink Floyd, the Wall.

Jack: It's going to be better than The Wall! Do you think The Wall lost money? [laughter]

Kyle: We're going to build our own instruments.

Jack: It starts off in Kyle's apartment, and then it ends up in Hell, we have recreated the entire landscape of hell.

Kyle: And then we pick up a band in hell.  Because we are in hell and we have our choice of any musicians.

Jack: It's kind of theatrical, there will be a movie and Liam [Lynch] is going to direct the movie.

Kyle: We were able to get Colonel Sanders on drums.

Jack: Dude, I don't know if we should say who the whole band is.

Kyle: He killed a billion chicken people!

Jack: That is enough don't start telling people things.

Kyle: Ok that's it.

Do you think children's education is lacking proper attention to the classics?

Jack: I am up on the children's education now, I bet you there's probably more attention on the Classics here in England. I have heard when you live in California people say "You can't have your kids go to school in LA, you've got to take them to New York" and when you're in New York they all say "You can't have your kids learn anything in New York, you've got to send them to London"

Kyle: I think there's way too many rules on children.  They usually turn out OK.

Jack: Why is it always for the children, all the charities "you have got to do it for the kids?"

[laughs]

With reference to the language, I wonder how some of the straight-laced American people have reacted to the album's lyrics?  Have people protested again your music?

Kyle: I remember when we were here at the Brixton Academy, we actually hired a priest to go out and complain because we thought that was important.

Jack: We wanted protest but they never came so we hired one.

Kyle: "Stay Out! Sinners stay out!"

Jack: You've made it if you can get a priest out there so we hired one and he got attacked, someone throw something at his head.

A Tenacious D fan?

Jack: Yeah unfortunately we've got some rowdy fans.

Kyle: You can't pick your fans.

Jack: We don't condone that kind of violence, but we have stopped hiring priests.

Kyle: I even ran over a paparazzi guy this morning at the airport.

Jack: He did, as soon as we came of the plane he was there taking pictures and Kyle you went into security mode.

Kyle: Yeah, a lot of times I'm pretending to go into security mode but I'm actually just trying to get into the picture.

Would you pass on the gift of rock to your children?

Kyle: Is it a gift?

Jack: It is a gift.

Kyle: Wrap it up.

Jack: The thing is the kids seem like they rebel against what the parents try to push on them, I'm going to pretend like I don't want him to hear the rock, I'm going to listen to it only in my private chambers, and he will hear the echoes and ask, "What is that you where listing to Papa?", "Nothing my son you are not ready for the rock" and that's how he'll get into it.

Kyle: I like that

Is it equally important to appeal to your existing fans, but also people who are coming to Tenacious D fresh?

Kyle: It was actually a pretty big deal, because we're going: "well, should we start in the middle of this thing and the fans will know what is going on". But I think if just the fans came we would probably only make 10 thousand dollars on it so we had to broaden it out.

Jack: That's not true - we would make over a million dollars.  But that's not enough that's a big flop.

Jack, in School of Rock you made the kids swear an allegiance to the band before they go on stage did you make Kyle do the same?

Kyle: Did Jack make me swear to be in his band? I think you have that reversed.

Jack: You have crossed the line now.

Kyle: We kicked around the idea of band tattoos.  And then we got scared of the needles.

What do you think of rock music today?

Jack: There are some good bands, it is not really an exciting scene like it was in the olden times, or even in the early 90's. There are no real movement now, am I out of touch?

Kyle: There is movement.

Jack: I like some bands, there are still some good bands coming out of Detroit, Michigan, Perth Australia and� I'm kidding! I just wanted to say an obscure one.