Last month, it looked like Jack Black was done with Tenacious D, his long-running comedy-rock duo. At a show in Sydney a few weeks ago, Black’s Tenacious D bandmate Kyle Gass joked about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, which had only just happened the day before. The Sydney show was on Gass’ birthday, so Black led the crowd in singing “Happy Birthday.” When Black asked Gass to make a wish, Gass said, “Don’t miss Trump next time.” After that, all hell broke loose.
When video of that Trump joke went viral, Australian Senator Ralph Babet demanded that Tenacious D be “departed immediately.” The next day, Jack Black said in a statement that he’d been “blindsided” by Kyle Gass’ joke. He went on to write, “After much reflection, I no longer feel it is appropriate to continue the Tenacious D tour, and all future creative plans are on hold.” Plenty of fans looked at this as Black throwing his friend under the bus. Gass put up an apology post on Instagram, but he deleted it a few days later.
In any case, Jack Black now says that we haven’t seen the end of Tenacious D. Black is one of the stars of the new video-game movie Borderlands, and he appeared at its premiere last night. During the event, as Variety reports, Black had this to say about Tenacious D: “We need to take a break. Everybody needs a break sometime. And we’ll be back.”
When Variety editor Marc Malkin asked Black whether he’s talked to Kyle Gass since the cancellation of that Australian tour, Black said, “Yeah, we’re friends. That hasn’t changed. These things take time sometimes… And we’ll be back when it feels right.” He also pointed out that he was wearing the pick from the Tenacious D movie The Pick Of Destiny: “Look what I wore today: I wore the Pick Of Destiny. I love Tenacious D. It’s probably my favorite job, if you can call it that. It’s a work of art; it’s my baby.”
In other Tenacious D news, Dave Grohl, one of that band’s longtime friends and collaborators, played an acoustic cover of the Tenacious D song “Tribute” at a Foo Fighters show in Denver last Thursday. When that song appeared on the D’s self-titled 2001 album, it had Grohl on drums. Grohl couldn’t remember how the whole thing went, but he tried. Here’s the fan footage:
