anderswolleck

Liam Lynch is one of the few people in the world to own a cloned cat. After the death of his cat Lynch brought a biopsy sample from inside his cat to a special facility and for the price of a new car, he got what he believes to be nearly the exact same cat. Now one may think that is the weirdest thing this guy has ever done but thats until you see Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny which he co-wrote and directed. Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny is the wild drug filled journey of how Kyle Gass and Jack Black got together and formed the worlds awesomest hard rock band, Tenacious D. Though a disappointment at the box office last year, the film is fantastic with hysterical performances by Meat Loaf, Dave Grohl and everyones favorite MC, Paul F. Tompkins.

Lynch was previously best known for creating the cult MTV series Sifl & Olly and in 2005 he directed the hysterical concert film, Sarah Silverman: Jesus Is Magic. Currently he is one of the busiest people on earth. He has a podcast which is filled with nutty things and like all renaissance he has a million things going on. I got a chance to talk with the elusive Mr. Lynch about the upcoming Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny DVD.

Buy the DVD of Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny

Daniel Robert Epstein: What are you up to today?

Liam Lynch: Today, Im doing two things at once. In my office Im working on an animation for my podcast, Lynchland. The animation is in several layers because Im compositing myself in with 3D animated characters so I have two computers going and theyre both rendering the same animation. One is rendering the character and then another is rendering the character but he has a piece of greenscreen in his hand so I can make it look like Im inside of his hand.

Then out in my recording studio, Im writing a script for Universal. Over the weekend I have been thinking and thinking and getting it all in my head and I finally hit that point where I had too much in my head and it was time to take the big poop [laughs]. I needed some serious downloading so I bought two big stacks of index cards and I just started writing out all these scenes, not even in the right order. Just every possible thing I could think of about this story and then I spent the weekend arranging it like a giant outline on the entire floor of my recording studio. Then I can pace back and forth in front of it and realize something like Oh this doesnt connect with that. Ill crumble up one of the note cards, rewrite it a different way and put it back in that spot. If I need to get away from that then Ill go in and work on the animation for a while. Then I come back out and Ive solved that problem while Ive been doing the animation. If youre mixing or mastering an album you should always leave the room every 15 or 20 minutes to refresh your ears.

DRE: Yeah, I pace a lot when Im writing.

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

DRE: Whats the Universal movie?

Liam: Its called Original Finn and its a 3D animated movie. I cant tell you the story or anything because Im still writing it.

DRE: Is it about an Irishman?

Liam: The character was Irish but its not about an Irishman. Its not a story about a man who meets a leprechaun.

DRE: [laughs] I know youre not a marketer or anything like that but do you have any insight into why Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny didnt open at all?

Liam: Yeah I do. Its frustrating because its not a bad movie. It didnt not do good because its a bad movie.

DRE: I thought it was very good movie.

Liam: Yeah, its just a dumb, fun, rocking, crazy film. Theres a phrase in the industry that if a movie does bad at the box office in its second weekend its the directors fault. If the movie does bad its first weekend its the studios fault. Thats because if a movie does bad before people even know what it is, whether its good or bad, then they did not advertise it right.

DRE: So you feel that this movie didnt get advertised right?

Liam: 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. Its not a movie you release on a holiday against all these huge, blockbuster, holiday films, which seems like a no brainer. You dont put it out against Happy Feet and the new 007 and Borat and all these Santa Claus movies. It didnt have a chance up against them. The date killed it and there were terrible trailers that didnt sell it for what it was. They didnt 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.

DRE: Another thing is sometimes they say Some movies just arent for critics.

Liam: 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. Its like Monty Python, where you either dont get it or you can quote it. We knew that if you dont like Tenacious D, youre not going to like the Tenacious D movie. You might like Jack Black, but this is Tenacious D.

DRE: I didnt see the trailers; did they try and sell it like Nacho Libre or something?

Liam: Not even. It was difficult because it was such an R movie that so many of the funniest scenes werent allowed to be in the trailers. So right from the get go that was tough but theres 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. Weve 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, Im not going to go see that. It doesnt look like its a D movie. You know what I mean?

DRE: I know exactly what you mean.

Liam: 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 thats like doing well in one state in America [laughs].

DRE: Im sure many of the things youre a fan of werent initially well received.

Liam: Lots of things. There are so many great films that dont get a chance because the studio doesnt sell them right. Im mad that happened to us but Spinal Tap is a cult classic and that grossed like four million dollars. It doesnt matter because we were trying to make something that we would love no matter how it does. We knew that it wasnt for everybody and we didnt want to dumb it down or make it too much for the general public.

DRE: How did you come up with the idea for the Pick of Destiny?

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

DRE: Yeah, it has something to do with Jesus.

Liam: 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.

DRE: All the greats [laughs].

Liam: 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, Whats 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.

DRE: The film was delayed a bit because you shot a new ending, what was it originally?

Liam: We had a musical ending and we wanted to have a scene with Dave Grohl playing Satan but he wasnt available at the time and thats 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 didnt 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.

DRE: The movie has some references to the HBO show, what made you want to include that?

Liam: It was important for several reasons. We didnt want to undo anything the HBO episodes had done because thats the thing that people know and cherish. Thats part of the history of the D and thats part of them feeling like they know the D.

DRE: Its canon as we say.

Liam: Yeah. So we didnt want to step on any of that. We imagined that this all happened a year or two before the HBO episodes start.

DRE: Oh really? I didnt even think about that.

Liam: 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. Thats why we have that moment at the beginning where theyre in the apartment. Tenacious D fans know that apartment. Most of the people in the world didnt see the HBO episodes so we needed to educate them.

DRE: I know that when it comes to stuff like this everyone asks if you guys were high when you guys wrote this stuff and the response is always No, of course not. I would love it if you said this movie was written in-between bong hits.

Liam: I never smoked while writing this film. Im not kidding you.

DRE: Fine, fine, say it.

Liam: I swear to God we were not high while we in this endeavor. It was too much work. Youre 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.

DRE: Oh my God.

Liam: Yeah, its hard to do a Tenacious D movie and not be Bill and Teds 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 theyre 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 its a dream sequence or its Jack on mushrooms.

DRE: Are you into the same things as Jack is like Dio?

Liam: I am. Im 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 couldnt believe the voice on this guy because hes a smaller sized man and then he opens his mouth and it is like fucking devils tongue whipping your ears.

DRE: It must have been great getting to do things like direct Meat Loaf singing a song you co-wrote.

Liam: Hell yeah. Also I got to play a lot. When Dave Grohl is Satan, Im playing all those guitars youre hearing.

DRE: Did you have to get sold to New Line or were Jack and Kyle This is the guy so thats it?

Liam: We all pitched the movie to New Line because we all wrote it together. But Jack did tell them Liams directed so many things for us and its 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 dont want to contaminate it. They were so cool through the whole thing. The studio wasnt breathing down our necks. They werent 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.

DRE: Sarah Silverman told me that she met you just because the two of you know a lot of the same people. Is that how you met Jack and Kyle as well?

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

DRE: Oh wait! Have you heard anything about Sifl & Olly DVDs?

Liam: No, its been so frustrating. Weve been trying to get the rights away from MTV so that we can sell it. Theyre 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 theyre 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, Lets 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.

DRE: People will always ask you what its like to work with Jack, but besides Kyles amazing facial expressions and guitar, what is his gift?

Liam: 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. Hes 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 doesnt 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, Thats stupid. Why dont you just do this? Then we would get mad because we knew he was totally right. A lot of people think that Kyles the straight man but is actually a super animated human being. Its just that Jacks face is like an octopus on speed.

by Daniel Robert Epstein

SG Username: AndersWolleck