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Big Black
Jack Black, Black Sabbath, and the Jews-for-Jesus school of rock
BY PETER KEOUGH

What ruined rock and roll? According to Dewey Finn, the struggling rock-and-roller played by Jack Black in School of Rock, who finds himself shaping a classroom full of rich kids into kick-ass metal bands, rock sold its soul to MTV. Which, of course, didn’t stop Black himself from showing up at the recent MTV award ceremonies dressed like Michael Jackson in a funny stunt that almost upstaged the notorious Britney-Madonna kiss. Overall, however, Black, the whirligig embodiment of social impropriety in films such as Jesus’ Son, High Fidelity, and Orange County, was not impressed with the ceremony.

"I thought it was pretty lame, to tell you the truth. Chris Rock did a good job and his monologue was funny. I thought he was really funny the first time he hosted, but that was a lot to live up to. But aside from Madonna’s make-out session, it was pretty dry."

Was he tempted to lock lips with Justin Timberlake? "That would have topped it," says Black. "But you know, there’s a double standard. It’s all right for women to make out, in fact it’s sexy, but if men make out it’s just disgusting. What is that about? How come women don’t go, ‘Yeah, oh that is hot!’ If a dude makes out with a dude, good luck getting a job. I think it would be the end of my career."

On the other hand, for an out-there kind of guy like Black, working in a kids’ picture like School of Rock might also have career-altering implications. Both for him and for indie director Richard Linklater (Slacker). "It’s new territory for Richard, for sure," says Black. "I’ve already been dealing with some mainstream movies so it’s not a jump in that respect. It’s a kids’ movie, but with Mike White [Chuck and Buck] writing it, I knew it was going to be cool. And I had already been feeling like I should do some kind of kids’ thing, even though I’m pretty raunchy — with my band, anyway, I have a comedy routine that I do — we work pretty blue."

His band, the hilarious Spinal Tap-like Tenacious D, has a Tipper-sticker on the label. "Yeah, I’ve got the parental advisory on the CD, but it’s also very childish. That’s part of my energy — I’m kind of a kid. A lot of kids want my autograph and I was like, ‘Something is going on here, I should do something for the kids.’ I’d like to do something good because most kids’ movies are lame, and there used to be some good ones like Bad News Bears. That’s just a great flick and what’s-his-name, Walter Matthau — amazing performance. And when you see that performance you don’t say, ‘Oh yeah, he did a kids’ movie.’ You just go, ‘Man, he kicks ass,’ and he was kind of rough on the kids and you know you love him, and you see how good he is with the kids in the end."

Where Matthau’s curmudgeon had baseball to reach his charges, Black’s slacker has rock and roll. Not surprisingly, the parents in School forbid their kids to listen to the stuff, something Black can relate to. "My mom went through this Jew for Jesus phase. She’d be embarrassed if she reads this — whatever, everyone has their searching. She had this tape where this preacher was talking about the evils of rock and how Satan was going to corrupt your children: ‘For instance, let me show you an example, this is a song by the band called Blue Oyster Cult,’ and he’d play a snippet of it. He was anti-Blue Oyster Cult, Black Sabbath, and somehow Todd Rundgren got in there as one of the purveyors of Satan’s teachings. All it did for me was turn me on to some great music that I didn’t even know about until I heard it and got really into heavy metal.

"The Christian tape did the dirty work for me. If I ever meet that preacher I have to thank him for turning me on to all those great bands."

School of Rock opens this Friday. See "Film Listings" for details.

 


Issue Date: October 3 - 9, 2003
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