THE PICK OF DESTINY
HIGHWAY TO HELL
Ronnie James Dio, Meat Loaf, Dave Grohl and a bunch of Hollywood A-listers? This the unhinged story of Tenacious D’s cult “comedy rock opera”, The Pick Of Destiny
WORDS: JOE DALY
By the early 2000s, Hollywood could not ignore Tenacious D and Tenacious D could not ignore Hollywood. The early TV appearances, the success of their self-titled debut album, rapturously received live shows – it was time for the D to dive in and make a movie.
That movie would be Tenacious D In The Pick Of Destiny. Released in November 2006 and directed by musician/film-maker Liam Lynch, it centred around two metal-worshipping misfits on a cross-country quest to obtain the titular pick – amythical rock and roll totem that transforms whoever holds it into a rock god. Though it tanked at the box office, today the film enjoys a second life among a niche but dedicated fanbase. Here is the story behind the movie by the people who created it:
Jack Black: ‘We toured the first album for years… And then we were like, ‘OK, what’s next for the D?’ And it seemed obvious. Well, the next step is we need to make a movie.”
Kyle
Gass: “Anybody that’s making a movie, you start out and you want to make the greatest motion picture that’s ever been made because that’s where you’re at.”
Jack: “No one had ever done a great comedy rock opera, and there are some fucking great rock operas in the history of rock and we wanted to put ourselves up in there.”
Kyle: “And we sat down for five years and didn’t do any writing and then in the last three weeks, we wrote it. Liam Lynch was the catalyst really, a friend that’s a talented composer and filmmaker.”