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Spinal Tap is back after fifteen years of silence and gearing up for the epic sequel, ‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues.’ Here, Esquire caught up with legendary rock gods Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls for a no-holds-barred Q&A. The reunited band calls out Sabrina Carpenter for stealing from them, weighs in on icons like Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, Elton John, and Sir Paul McCartney, their struggles with TikTok, and explains why Questlove turned down the drummer gig, all before offering one final piece of advice: "please rock responsibly."

Watch ‘Spinal Tap II: The End Continues’ in theaters September 12th.

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Transcript
00:00Give us a G.
00:03That's not a G.
00:06That's not a G.
00:07It is. It's close.
00:09That sounds okay.
00:23Yes, we're going to do it again.
00:24Shall we do it right?
00:25That's right, we're going to get it right this time.
00:27Yes.
00:29We're back.
00:31Fill us in.
00:33What have you been up to?
00:35Oh, my God.
00:35Oh, well, what have we been up to?
00:44Oh, so much stuff.
00:46Water under and over the bridge.
00:49Yeah, that's right.
00:50We spent a long time not speaking.
00:53Fifteen years without speaking.
00:55Fifteen years, no communication.
00:57Frankly, I rather enjoyed it.
00:59So we decided to put the past behind us and embrace the future.
01:03And here we are.
01:04With the future of Hannibal's.
01:05When they implied that there might be a small margin of profit for us, we all became a lot happier about it.
01:13But at the beginning, it was all kicking and screaming, I think.
01:16How would you describe your new sound?
01:19I'd say it was the old sound.
01:21Same as the old sound, really, yeah.
01:22But louder.
01:23Much louder, yeah.
01:24They have these new devices you can attach to anything, make it louder.
01:28Well, not anything.
01:29Well, listen, if you'd have a really tiny voice, a tiny sound like a cricket yodeling.
01:35Such as?
01:36A cricket yodeling.
01:37Such as?
01:38A cricket yodeling.
01:39See, now if I said it louder.
01:40No, it makes it sound like what it would sound like.
01:41Well, I don't know.
01:42Give us a G.
01:46That's not G.
01:48That's not G.
01:50It is.
01:50It is.
01:51It's close.
01:51It sounds okay.
01:52Nigel, tell me, what is on your rider these days?
02:06Ah, well, we don't have individual riders, really.
02:10We have a band rider from the old days.
02:14And there are certain things I just don't want any part of.
02:18I don't like old meat that's, let's say, it's been laying out for a month or something.
02:24And it's turned green and has little bugs on it.
02:28No.
02:28No, thank you.
02:29Draw the line.
02:30It's up there.
02:30Yeah, I don't want any part of that.
02:33David, what's the status of your relationship with Janine?
02:37You know, Janine and I were on the same path for so long.
02:42One of us had to take a break and an exit ramp.
02:46And in this case, it was her.
02:48And my life was turned upside down and shaken out until the change fell out of my pockets.
02:53So it was a while curing myself of that issue.
02:57But now things are fine.
02:59She's living her life.
03:00I'm proud of her for doing what she felt was right.
03:04But I really don't want to discuss it any further until the book comes out.
03:08Nigel, I feel like you did make a face when I asked about it.
03:10Oh, yeah.
03:11Well, you know, we never were close.
03:16We were...
03:16Except that one night.
03:22Onward.
03:23Leave it there.
03:24Derek?
03:25Yes?
03:25Have you been doing any gardening lately?
03:27I don't do any gardening.
03:29I'm basically an indoors person now.
03:32One of my fascinations is glue.
03:36People would always say, Derek, you're the glue of the band.
03:39Bass players are usually the glue of the band.
03:42And it got me thinking and it got me exploring glue.
03:45And so I have this little museum in London called the New Museum of Glue
03:51because I thought there must have been an old one way back when.
03:55I'm basically a glue master now, I would say.
03:59And have you overcome your internet addiction?
04:03No, you know, what I found out is that they follow you.
04:07And there's no cure for the internet addiction better than being followed.
04:13Is there any pressure from the label or management side
04:16for you all to keep up with TikTok or Instagram?
04:20Yes, and you're giving me a headache just thinking about it.
04:23You keep coming at us and saying,
04:24you've got to do a TikTok and a bim-bam and a boom-boom.
04:27Yeah, I get these emails saying, with a little video saying,
04:31can you do this dance?
04:32Will you do this dance for us?
04:34And it happens ten times a day, these little dances.
04:37I can't remember how to do the dances.
04:40By the time I see them, there's a seven-year-old girl
04:43doing a little dance with little ears on,
04:45doing some hopping dance.
04:47And I can't remember how to do it.
04:51So by the time I turn on my phone,
04:53I've forgotten how, and so I can't do it.
04:56We're horizontal people.
04:58Yes.
04:59In a vertical world.
05:00That's true.
05:00Yes, and that's true as well.
05:02We're in a whole new landscape of music these days.
05:04Yeah.
05:05What do you think of the music you're hearing on the radio?
05:07I don't listen.
05:08Radio?
05:08I don't even have a radio.
05:10Yeah.
05:10I've heard about them.
05:11It's a wireless.
05:12You have a wireless.
05:13I've seen it.
05:14Oh, the wireless, yeah.
05:14Yeah, yeah, yeah.
05:15I don't listen to music on the radio.
05:17I have internet, they call it, and I hear music on that.
05:21I've been listening to a lot of poker music lately,
05:23which just has a great beat.
05:27You know, a lot of people say, well, where's the drumming?
05:30They say, it's in the air.
05:33Well, didn't you create power poker?
05:35I tried to, yeah, but we ran out of power.
05:37Can I bounce some of the big names of today off of you?
05:42All right.
05:42Yes.
05:43Be gentle.
05:43You may bang the big names of today.
05:45Again, be gentle.
05:47What does she say name?
05:48Taylor Swift.
05:50Correct.
05:51Great.
05:51Taylor Swift.
05:52She can sing, and she can play and dance.
05:55She's got boots on a lot.
05:57She wears these boots.
05:58It's a great selection of boots, yeah.
06:00I like them mainly for the boots.
06:02Yeah.
06:02If I had legs like that, I wear boots bloody well, too, all the time, yeah.
06:06Well, that's you, aren't you?
06:08Sabrina Carpenter.
06:09Tiny.
06:10Not so tiny you could hold her up in your hand like this comfortably.
06:15But she stole from us.
06:17What?
06:17She did what?
06:18Oh, yeah.
06:18She's a photograph of her on her new record.
06:22She's on all fours.
06:23Oh, yeah, yeah.
06:24Just like Smell the Glove record, yeah, where there's a woman on all fours.
06:28Of course, that was only described.
06:29We never actually printed that up.
06:31Oh, yeah.
06:31Well, yeah, but in my mind, it was printed up, you know.
06:36Well, also in Sabrina Carpenter's mind.
06:38That's right, yeah.
06:39Last one, Lady Gaga.
06:40She's small as well.
06:42She's quite little.
06:43Yeah.
06:43But she's a dynamo.
06:44She's really impressive, you know.
06:47And it'll be fun to play with her one day.
06:49I like it, yeah.
06:49Great, yeah.
06:50She'd invite us.
06:52What can you tell us about performing with Elton John?
06:54How did it even come to be?
06:56He was in town in New Orleans where we were playing.
06:59And he said, yeah, he'd love to drop by and meet us.
07:02He came in.
07:03We sang with him a bit.
07:05And we said, would you like to do Stonehenge with us at the big show?
07:09And he said, I'll clear my calendar.
07:11By that, he meant he wasn't doing anything.
07:13And so he came in.
07:15He played with us.
07:16And except for certain things, it went very well.
07:19Elton bloody John.
07:20I know, yeah.
07:21I hear Sir Paul as a fan of music and your writing.
07:23Is there any greater compliment than that?
07:26Well, David has a little bit of a difference.
07:28No, we won't go into that.
07:29We won't go into that.
07:30I think he's a fine artiste.
07:32I love the man personally.
07:34I don't really.
07:36But he's obviously a talented bloke.
07:39He and I have a few differences.
07:42Eventually, we'll get over them because we will never see each other again.
07:46And we'll just move on from there.
07:47A greater pleasure for us, I think, would be finally to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
07:54Right.
07:54I don't like to say that.
07:56Well, you just said it.
07:57But I did.
07:57And let it be said that I did.
08:00Let it be.
08:01See, you're plugging his stuff already.
08:02No, I'm not.
08:02I said let it be said.
08:04That's how I say it.
08:05What does the future of Spiletap look like?
08:07Is there a future?
08:08What's next?
08:09What does our future look like?
08:13Hmm.
08:14It's a calendar with a lot of days on it.
08:16That's how Vorkapik would look at it.
08:18I don't know.
08:18Kind of a montage.
08:19I don't know the answer to that.
08:20Pages flying off the calendar.
08:21It's a mystery.
08:22Yeah, it's true.
08:23It's a big question mark.
08:24You know, the world and life, it's all made up of corners.
08:28And we can't see around corners, no matter how hard we try.
08:32Well, you can if you walk and just turn the corner.
08:34No, then you're not looking around the corner.
08:37You've turned the corner.
08:38What I'm saying is, who knows?
08:40Anything could happen, Dave.
08:41Yeah.
08:42Any last advice for fans or aspiring musicians?
08:45I would boil it down to three words.
08:47Please rock responsibly.
08:51Follow your dreams.
08:53And maybe get a dog to help you follow them.
08:56Right, yeah.
08:57Especially if your eyesight is fading.
08:59Yeah.
09:00Or if you can't hear.
09:01Yeah.
09:04Or if you can't hear.
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