June 28, 1984

Saw a movie - Spinal Tap. Kind of depressing. I mean it was depressing in that it was true about a lot of shit.

-From GET IN THE VAN, Henry Rollins' published diaries from his years in Black Flag

This Is Spinal Tap, the brainchild of Rob Reiner and Christopher Guest, is still the most hilarious, and most accurate, movie about being in band. Whether you’re in a metal, hard rock, punk, alternative, or folk band, it hits the nail right on the head. Although the film initially didn’t do well at the box office, it was oddly both right on time as heavy metal was having a big comeback in the ‘80’s, and ahead of its time as well.

As evidenced by Henry’s diary entry, many musicians watching Tap for the first time found the movie was too accurate, and too close to home. Monster Magnet’s Dave Wyndorf told the L.A. Times, “I’ve seen rock bands cry watching Spinal Tap. Not laugh – cry. That’s how real it is.”

As Eddie Van Halen told Guitar World, “The first time I saw it, it wasn’t funny at all…Everything in that movie happened to me…nobody showing up for things, the air force base gigs, the guy who couldn’t get out of his pod. All that stuff is real. So the first time I saw it, everyone was laughing, and I was sitting there thinking, ‘This isn’t funny.’”

Spinal Tap is usually a litmus test for bands. Once the original shock wore off, a lot of musicians learned to roll with the punches and laugh at the film, while bands that have no sense of humor usually stay grumpy about it. I recall reading in a British metal magazine that The Cult hated Spinal Tap because the English press thought The Cult were funnier.

Who could forget the infamous Stonehenge scene? Black Sabbath had the indignity of touring with a huge Stonehenge set that Tap hilariously parodied, except Sabbath’s stones were so ridiculously huge they couldn’t fit them in many of the venues (years later, Sabbath guitarist Tony Iommi told Guitar World they eventually dumped the Stonehenge monstrosity “on a dock somewhere.”).

And the indignity of having to open for a puppet show isn’t so far fetched. Newsweek reported that when REO Speedwagon were past their prime they once ended up sharing the bill with a ventriloquist in Mexico. As Harry Shearer, who played Tap bassist Derek Smalls, told Mojo, “The closer we got to the real thing, the closer the real thing dared to get to us. Reality was calling our bluff at every step.”

Spinal Tap was a hell of a debut for both Guest and Reiner as filmmakers, and they both went on to make great movies since. The fact that Spinal Tap was both right on time and ahead of its time, and still taps a nerve after all these years, is a testament to the movie’s brilliance.