Blackboard Jungle

There’s a gob-smacking moment in one of Tenacious D’s shorts, which involves director Liam Lynch (creator of Sifl & Olly and idiot-punk anthem ‘United States of Whatever’) ingesting the band’s collective seminal output – and we don’t mean their groundbreaking material, we mean the hot, salty, sticky stuff. It’s perhaps the only fitting encore for a sketch which features close-ups of Kyle Gass and Jack Black’s agonised, contorted faces as they produce the required, er, liquid refreshment – and it really makes you wonder if the producers of School Of Rock caught this particular vignette before they green-lighted the unleashing of Mr. Black on a classroom of impressionable youths.
In fact, you wonder if they were familiar with any of his work. Surely, the man whose idea of a sweeping, Journey-ish romantic ballad is ‘Fuck Her Gently’ (“I’m gonna hump you sweetly/I’m gonna ball you discreetly”) is not necessarily the one parents want serenading their offspring. But if placing the anarchic comic performer outside of his normal 18-Certificate milieu sounds like a gamble, it’s one that’s paid off massively for everyone involved.
School Of Rock has not only stormed the US box-office, it has seduced a massive demographic sweep.
The cool kids have turned out in force, assured by the presence of Black, currently riding high on the back of several star-making movie turns (High Fidelity, Shallow Hal) and the growing cult success of his band Tenacious D, coupled with the considerable, combined talents of screenwriting wunderkind Mike White (The Good Girl, Chuck & Buck) and indie-god Richard Linklater, the director of such modern cinema classics as Slacker, Before Sunrise and Dazed And Confused.
As an added bonus, the film’s fantastically feelgood salute to those About To Rock has equally dazzled air-guitaring dads and their progenies. Indeed, School’s appeal is so universal that even ChristianityToday has declared that ‘Despite images of heavy metal idolatry…Christian critics are moshing with the rest in the School Of Rock!’ Aside from this providing an early frontrunner for unintentional comedy image of the year, it represents quite a sea-change among the undoubtedly good folk at this particular publication, who only last year took grave offence at Black’s expressed admiration for Jesus (“I like him, ‘cos I’m an Jew in my thirties too, and ’cos he had cool super powers like floating and zapping water into wine with those lasers from his eyes’”).
Be in no doubt then, that it’s hard to argue with School Of Rock, an eminently likable sort of Dangerous Minds in reverse, which utilizes Black’s comedic charms to the max as screen alter-ego Dewey – a man dedicated to ‘Serving society through Rocking’. When a rent crisis forces our hero to work for the ‘Man’ (actually Joan Cusack in uber-school marm mode) he’s unable to leave his belief system behind, and he spends his time as a substitute teacher spreading the joys of ‘rocking out’ among a bunch of privileged, musically gifted kids.
Basically, this is the ultimate paean to all those guitar-wielding losers and never-will-bes who trudge through all weathers – though they may be weary, though their hairlines may recede – towards the nearest jamming session. They’ll never be demi-gods, or even moderately successful, but they will rock forever in their hearts. This movie is for them, though ultimately, they may find the youthful cast’s musicianship humbling.
Needless to say, the role was written specifically for Black by the actor’s friend and one-time neighbour Mike White, with the intention that Black would also write the music. Ultimately, he drafted in help on that front as “It took me and Kyle nine years to get our album finished – the kids would have grown up before I got all the tunes done”, but you’d be forgiven for thinking most of the worship-at-the-altar-of-rock dialogue was spontaneously conceived. Not so, claimed a somewhat jet-lagged, worse-for-wear looking Black (“I’m fucked, man” he confides more than once during the interview) when I caught up with him during a hardcore, whirlwind, if-it’s-Tuesday-it-must-be-Milan promotional tour of Europe.
“Eighty nine percent is all me,” he insists, “and only eleven percent is Mike White. Naw, I’m lying. It was a really tight, really hilarious script. I did help improvise a couple of sections – me with the kids when we were jamming – ‘Let your fingers do the Rocking!’ – that was just dropped in, and there were a couple of improvs me and Richard came up with, but Mike had it nailed already. He knows me pretty well, and knows how I talk.”

At this point, his eyeballs are darting hyperactively from side to side, a frequent occurrence. Even in a relatively subdued state, it quickly becomes clear just how gifted Black is as a physical comedian. He may be sprawled, but no-one has told his facial features – his broad-as-the-moon smile and his lightning-bolt eyebrows continually betray him as a clown, and keep on performing manically with his every utterance. Not the most natural collaborator with cerebral director Richard Linklater you might think, then, but Black was determined from the outset to secure the filmmaker’s services.
“I was already a big Richard Linklater fan,” he enthuses, “When I saw Slacker, I immediately wanted to move to Austin, Texas. I just fell in love with how the place seemed in that film – it seemed like such a groovy bohemian place full of really interesting cracked people. That movie was so full of big ideas and creative shots. And then when he dipped his toe in more commercial waters with Dazed And Confused, he was still able to be cool, and keep that whole independent vibe going. Before Sunrise was awesome, and I liked his cartoon too (Waking Life) – it was pretty heavy, but it was great. And I loved Tape last year. So I already thought he was the man before I signed on.”
Still, for all the talent aboard, at some level he must have been concerned that School Of Rock had the potential to blow his street cred. This is, after all, a movie with children, and sad to say, it’s a genre with an inglorious history. Did he fear it could turn out like Patch Adams with guitars?
“Somehow I ended up missing Patch Adams, so my real template for concern was Kindergarten Cop – that movie with Schwartzy. I had nightmares about that. You’re right –there are only three good movies with kids. There’s Bad News Bears, Willy Wonka and us. I knew that our movie wouldn’t be corny, that much was clear, but I was concerned that it would get perceived that way. That people would see kids and think, ‘Meh’. But I don’t read enough good film scripts to pass something like this up. And I knew that Richard would stop it from taking a toboggan ride down cheese mountain into the ocean of cheesy corn.”
Indeed, contrary to its massive corn potential, School Of Rock retains a distinct edginess. Despite Black’s normal colourful exuberance, the film’s PG-friendly status actually seems to enable his performance, if anything.
“That’s true,” he agrees, “when you can’t drop in the s-bombs and f-bombs, you have to work harder. And they say never work with children or animals, in case they shine that bit brighter than you, but I like to think I took on those kids and beat their adorable-ness with my rocking intensity.”
School, though, is far from the first time that the Tenacious one has worked with children, or indeed, animals. In fact, Jack Black possesses perhaps the most eclectic Hollywood CV you’ve ever seen. Want proof? Name another actor to show up in both Sunday evening, diet Christianity TV mush Touched By An Angel and Pauly Shore’s surf-moron classic Bio-Dome? When not clocking up appearances in every movie from Mars Attacks! to Never Ending Story II(?) to Waterworld (eek!), he’s also been paying the bills by showing up in music videos for Beck and the Foo Fighters.
As you may well surmise from this chequered career path, acting isn’t something for which Jack Black planned extensively. He is, nevertheless, a member of Tim Robbins’ Actor’s Gang, and has consequently appeared in death-penalty meditation Dead Man Walking, anti-Republican satire Bob Roberts and American socialist epic Cradle Will Rock, alongside Tim, John Cusack and whole host of others deemed to be suspicious and un-American by the mainstream US media at the moment (Susan Sarandon has even showed up as the Queen of Hearts on the ‘Un-American 52’ deck of cards recently). Does Jack consider himself as political as some of his mates?
“I’m a little bit involved in politics,” he replies, “I don’t consider myself to be smart enough to talk in detail about US foreign policy and I wish I was more informed. But I know what my gut tells me – and it growls away that ‘Bush is a BAD man’, so I’m involved in this whole anti-Bush ad campaign.”

Ah yes, the moveon.com campaign, which invited people to submit 30-second advertisements that were critical of the President. It should have been a reasonably unproblematic venture, yet Black and a panel of guest judges (including Michael Stipe, Michael Moore and the decidedly non-leftist Moby) have come under fire from the Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox network and several other pro-Bush news outlets for their efforts. The contest was immediately dubbed a search for ‘30 seconds of hate’ (an ironic tribute to George Orwell), and the same enlightened bunch of critics had a neo-con hissy fit upon the shocking discovery that two of the entries had compared the Commander-in-Chief with Adolf Hitler, on matters of foreign policy. Predictably, the adverse publicity has earned the website three million hits to date.
But there is one political cause for which Black will gladly take to the streets, and drag all your arses out with him. Although he can hardly be considered a major rock-god drug-fiend type, especially since a youthful dalliance with cocaine landed him in a school for troubled youth (“Hard drugs don’t agree with me, so it wasn’t a huge thing, but I was 15 at the time, so that was fucked up”), he is nevertheless a militant man when it comes to marijuana.
“Have you ever seen those Reefer Madness kind of movies where a kid takes a puff of a joint and jumps out a window?” he asks, “and they’re just ridiculous pieces of propaganda from the ’40s and ’50s? Well, they’re back. In America right now they are broadcasting commercials and they have kids taking a puff of a joint, and then shooting another kid. Or there’s one at a party where a guy gives a girl a joint and then she’s date-raped. And then there’s this big slogan – ‘Marijuana is the number one date rape drug’. That’s a stupid lie, and someone who has clearly never smoked pot is spending millions of dollars on this stuff, and it’s not helping anyone. Weed doesn’t hurt, and if it eats away at some of your short-term memory, that should be your decision. If I had to pick the worst thing about The Man, it would be these crazy, religious, Republican psychos who are obsessed with controlling what other adults do with their idiot war on drugs.”
For the moment, this struggle with The Man must wait, for the next few months will see Black engaged in the considerably more conformist awards ceremony scene. In fact, he’s already up for a Golden Globe which must have come as something of a shock . “Well, the important thing is that I hear you get tons of free stuff,” he gleefully intones. “So I called up my agent and asked where all my J-Lo gowns and stuff were. And then I get this huge list of designers I can have suits from. So I ended up going with Dolce and Gambini because that just sounded really Italian. Is it Dolce and Gambini, do you know?”
No, it’s Gabanna, I think.
“No way! No way! Gambini sounds much better. Someone should inform them immediately. That’s just ruined it for me.”
Surely all this star treatment will change him – or worse still, could landing a small gold statuette finally force him to choose between being the next Laurence Olivier or the next Ronnie James Dio?
“Now, see that’s not a tough decision. My career may be like a Siamese beast, and while it’s true that I secretly love the musical head better, because movies are always someone else’s stuff, I’d have to go with Olivier ’cos he was on top right until the end, and sadly that’s not the case with Ronnie James. I love Dio, and in his prime there were some great times and glorious music but he never did reach the pinnacle, the heights. Olivier always kicked ass, but Dio – he had the torch of metal, the goblet of rock, and maybe it’s time for him to pass it on.”
Unquestionably, the poodle-haired dark lord could do a lot worse than sending the goblet Jack Black’s way. b

School Of Rock is released February 6