By Karl Quinn

Copyright smh

An audience with Spinal Tap

In the 40 years between the release of This Is Spinal Tap and the making of its sequel, the fictional band has collected some very real, and very high-profile, musician fans. And two of them were tapped (ahem) for The End Continues: Paul McCartney and Elton John (Sirs both).

The former wanders into a recording studio in New Orleans while the band is trying out a new number, and offers some suggestions about how to improve the song. Needless to say, David St Hubbins is none too impressed.

McCartney joins the band in the studio, and eventually on stage, for a rendition of Cups and Cakes, the B-side to (Listen to) The Flower People, the band’s debut single, recorded in 1967 during a brief flirtation with psychedelia. Their scenes are priceless, and way more than cameos.

But when I ask St Hubbins about the McCartney incident, he bristles.

“I’m really tired of talking about this, really,” he says. “It was not a match made in heaven, put it that way.”

“He was a man, not a match,” says Smalls.

“I know that,” says St Hubbins, tetchily. “But I’d just like to move on from it. We had a few disagreements. But you know what? He did do a lovely version of Cups and Cakes and he’s recorded it for us. All is forgiven.”

There was, it turns out, quite a lot to forgive. Bad blood is why Tap had not played live together for 15 years. Contractual obligation – the daughter of their late former manager inherited a signed note that required them to play one last show – is why they finally came together for a single concert in New Orleans, as recorded by DiBergi in The End Continues.

“It’s been a mixed bag, really,” St Hubbins says of the reunion. “I mean, we had a lot of fun, and we had a few hiccups along the way, some personality problems, but we’ve worked everything out, pretty much, except for the lawsuits.”

“It wasn’t our choice to do this in the first place,” adds Smalls. “It was foisted, or forced-ed, upon us.”

“But once we got together, you know, we sort of rolled on because we’ve done this so much,” says Tufnel. “You get the groove, you have a little bicker and then you go and have a little bicky as well.”

“And you wear these little things these days, these in-ear monitors,” says Smalls. “It really helps because you can turn it up so that you’re only hearing what you’re playing and you can ignore the other people.”

“If there’s ever a squabble between two members of the group, and I’m not one of them, I just crank it down and I go into a world of my own,” adds St Hubbins.

They’ve each been in a world of their own for the past 15 years: St Hubbins composing soundtrack and on-hold music, Smalls running a glue museum, and Tufnel as proprietor, with his partner Moira, of a cheese (and guitar) shop.

They’re getting on now, the Tapsters. So I ask Nigel, given a choice between a career on the road or a career in cheese, which do you find more satisfying?

“I don’t think you have to choose, really,” he says. “I mean, we came down to New Orleans to do the show and then I went back to the cheese shop with Moira. And if we were to do another gig – and there are rumours that we might – then, you know, she’ll handle the cheese shop while I do the gig.

“I love both of them. They’re very different things, obviously. The road doesn’t smell the same as the cheese shop.”

“Sometimes it does,” says St Hubbins.

“The buses smell like that occasionally,” Tufnel agrees.

“Especially when the drummer doesn’t remember, ‘you’re not supposed to do that’,” St Hubbins says. “At 3.30 in the morning the atmosphere is thick.”

“There’s a big sign [on the tour bus] that says, ‘No poo please’,” Tufnel helpfully elaborates. “And for the drummer it’s as if it said, ‘Please poo’.”

“It’s as if the sign said, ‘Do not read sign’,” says St Hubbins.

“But if you go into a cheese shop, you’d know what to expect,” Tufnel says, coming full wheel, as it were. “A Stilton, a cheddar, Edam, whatever.”

“Maybe the drummer thought he was in a hotel,” observes Smalls.

“A moving hotel?” Tufnel asks.

“Yeah. The Stilton.”

Spinal Tap II: The End Continues is in cinemas from September 25. A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, $36.99, Simon & Schuster, is out now.

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