Liam Lynch

I pace all the time too. It’s good though. I think pacing is like meditating because you put your body on autopilot. Your legs are just walking your brain around while it’s thinking. It’s like meditation. All meditation is when you forget about your body and you’re all head. That’s why right before you go to bed at night you have all those ideas. Pacing is probably the only exercise I get.

It’s called Original Finn and it’s a 3D animated movie. I can’t tell you the story or anything because I’m still writing it.

The character was Irish but it’s not about an Irishman. It’s not a story about a man who meets a leprechaun.

Yeah I do. It’s frustrating because it’s not a bad movie. It didn’t not do good because it’s a bad movie.

Yeah, it’s just a dumb, fun, rocking, crazy film. There’s a phrase in the industry that if a movie does bad at the box office in its second weekend it’s the director’s fault. If the movie does bad its first weekend it’s the studio’s fault. That’s because if a movie does bad before people even know what it is, whether it’s good or bad, then they did not advertise it right.

They thought this movie was golden; everything went so unbelievably great until it came time for marketing this thing. In my opinion they screwed it up. It’s not a movie you release on a holiday against all these huge, blockbuster, holiday films, which seems like a no brainer. You don’t put it out against Happy Feet and the new 007 and Borat and all these Santa Claus movies. It didn’t have a chance up against them. The date killed it and there were terrible trailers that didn’t sell it for what it was. They didn’t show what it really was about. The other thing was that they put it in fewer theaters than they should have. It was frustrating because we felt like we made a great movie that was sold terribly.

Well, we knew from the start that the reviews would be right down the middle. Everything I love is that way. Everything that I love are those love it or hate it or type things. It’s like Monty Python, where you either don’t get it or you can quote it. We knew that if you don’t like Tenacious D, you’re not going to like the Tenacious D movie. You might like Jack Black, but this is Tenacious D.

Not even. It was difficult because it was such an R movie that so many of the funniest scenes weren’t allowed to be in the trailers. So right from the get go that was tough but there’s a million ways around that. I felt that they were trying to go for the broad market. I think that their attitude was, “Look, the Tenacious D fans are already going to go see this movie. We’ve got to advertise to the non-Tenacious D fans.” So all of the advertising went that way and I think even a lot of Tenacious D fans were like, “I’m not going to go see that. It doesn’t look like it’s a D movie.” You know what I mean?

So they missed out. I would get emails from the fans that did see the film saying that they had seen it four or five times because they had such a great time. The movie did well in other countries because they had different trailers and even different posters. It did great in England but that’s like doing well in one state in America [laughs].

Lots of things. There are so many great films that don’t get a chance because the studio doesn’t sell them right. I’m mad that happened to us but Spinal Tap is a cult classic and that grossed like four million dollars. It doesn’t matter because we were trying to make something that we would love no matter how it does. We knew that it wasn’t for everybody and we didn’t want to dumb it down or make it too much for the general public.

Kyle had been in this play about the Spear of Destiny which is a real thing.

Yeah, it was the spear that they stabbed him in the side with on the cross to see if he was dead or not. From that day on that spear tip became this really powerful thing. Everyone that carried it into battle won like Alexander the Great and Napoleon and Hitler had it.

Yeah [laughs]. For those who wanted to conquer, it was an object of desire because it was like having the power of God. So we were like, “What’s the Satan version of that?” We knew it would have to be something for the rock world. Anyone who has the Pick of Destiny has the power of Satan and becomes a rock god. I believe what started it all off was the HBO episode where Jack flicks his guitar pick into the crowd and loses it.

We had a musical ending and we wanted to have a scene with Dave Grohl playing Satan but he wasn’t available at the time and that’s partly why we had a different ending. It was hard because we kept ramping up our ending with a break-in, a heist, an escape and then a fucking car chase. Then we have to keep topping it and making things get bigger and bigger. Then when we tested it people wanted the ending that we wanted originally which was a big rock off with Satan. But we didn’t want to do that without Dave. We went back to square one and New Line was great about wanting the ending we did because it got good test scores. We went back to the drawing board and we wrote that last song together. Dave was then available so we went back in and shot it.

It was important for several reasons. We didn’t want to undo anything the HBO episodes had done because that’s the thing that people know and cherish. That’s part of the history of the D and that’s part of them feeling like they know the D.

Yeah. So we didn’t want to step on any of that. We imagined that this all happened a year or two before the HBO episodes start.

Yeah, we never really wanted to step on any of that stuff. The only thing that changed really was how they met Lee [played by Jason Reed]. But Lee was just a character in one episode and we wanted to make him more of a friend to the D. It was also for people who never saw an HBO episode and were just fans of Jack Black and are going to see the new Jack Black movie. It was to educate them on what the D are. That’s why we have that moment at the beginning where they’re in the apartment. Tenacious D fans know that apartment. Most of the people in the world didn’t see the HBO episodes so we needed to educate them.

I never smoked while writing this film. I’m not kidding you.

I swear to God we were not high while we in this endeavor. It was too much work. You’re also talking about a year and a half of constant writing. Jack and I wrote three scripts that were completely different movies before Pick of Destiny.

Yeah, it’s hard to do a Tenacious D movie and not be Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, The Blues Brothers, Cheech and Chong, Wayne and Garth, Bob and Doug McKenzie. We wanted to find that balance of them being real world underdogs but still have an air of mysticism around them. It was hard finding the right way of going in and out of the things that are really happening to them and things that they wish were happening to them. Other people have written scripts for a D movie before us and they were all rejected because of that. It was too much like Bill and Ted with aliens landing and having them on a spaceship with Sasquatch.

What I love about the D is that they’re the everyman and they have those big dreams of wanting to be awesome. So it was important to keep their feet in reality but when we do have the fun, crazy moments it’s a dream sequence or it’s Jack on mushrooms.

I am. I’m not as fanatic about it as he is but I am a massive rock fan. Being in the studio with Dio was magical. He blew my mind with his voice. I couldn’t believe the voice on this guy because he’s a smaller sized man and then he opens his mouth and it is like fucking devil’s tongue whipping your ears.

Hell yeah. Also I got to play a lot. When Dave Grohl is Satan, I’m playing all those guitars you’re hearing.

We all pitched the movie to New Line because we all wrote it together. But Jack did tell them “Liam’s directed so many things for us and it’s always been great. We would really like him to direct this if you choose to make it.” They were like, “We know you guys know what this is even more than we do so we don’t want to contaminate it.” They were so cool through the whole thing. The studio wasn’t breathing down our necks. They weren’t coming down to the set to check on us. We were always on schedule, always on budget and it was just perfect, all the way through until it came time to sell it.

No, not at all. I met them in the late 90’s which I was doing Sifl & Olly for MTV.

No, it’s been so frustrating. We’ve been trying to get the rights away from MTV so that we can sell it. They’re not doing anything with them. We did so many shows with them and they had some shows that were only on for two or three episodes and they’re out on DVD and we did like 80 episodes of Sifl & Olly.

So I was doing that show and the D was doing the HBO show and we had a lot of common fans. People on our message boards were talking about Tenacious D and people on their message boards were talking about Sifl & Olly. Finally I saw an HBO episode and then I started to do shoutouts to the D on Sifl & Olly. Then I went and saw them play at an open mike night thing at Largo. Afterwards I went and introduced myself to Jack and we hit it off and we talked for a while. Back then I would go back and forth between LA and Nashville. Jack gave me his number and I gave him my number and he said, “Let’s go out to eat sometime.” Then he called me a couple times while I was in Nashville and we just really hit it off. When I came back to LA, he took me to dinner and we had a really good time. Then he was like, “Do you want to go out to dinner tomorrow too?” [laughs] We went out every night that week. It was the way you meet somebody that becomes your friend. We were friends for a year or so before we ever worked together. They would go on MADtv and then when they were done Jack would come over my house and we would play videogames from like seven at night until six in the morning. We did that a lot. Then I did the short films for them and the music videos. I worked with Jack a lot separately too. I shot and directed his episode of MTV Diaries. We have a song together in School of Rock.

The truth is that Kyle is super, fucking funny. He really is. I think if people meet Jack and Kyle in person they would think that Jack was a lot mellower and quiet in person and that Kyle is a lot more talkative and funny. He’s also incredibly grumpy, to a degree that has to be appreciated and in awe of. He has a gift for sarcasm that is amazing. But as far as our work, he is the best sounding board. He doesn’t want to sit and write all night like Jack and I would. But Jack and I would work every single night, then we would take it to Kyle and he would read through it and be like, “That’s stupid. Why don’t you just do this?” Then we would get mad because we knew he was totally right. A lot of people think that Kyle’s the straight man but is actually a super animated human being. It’s just that Jack’s face is like an octopus on speed.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck