I feel much more comfortable in the comedy realm. I think that was Jack’s kind of thrust at the time. When you guys talk about how you’d written an earnest song, one of your first songs, and then you realize that you should lean into the comedy and lean into your personality, is there a sadness over not being super serious?

We spoke with Black and Gass about the project, moments of doubt, the impact of “Hollywood Jack’s” film success, the creative DNA they share with Kanye, and why you never rent a house in Joshua Tree without NBA League Pass. The project, which you can download now, is the latest act of powerful and effective legend reinforcement by a band that has charmed, worked, and wished themselves into the hearts and minds of millions. They’re also surfing nostalgia waves while talking up Tenacious D: The Road to Redunktion, an Audible Original Words + Music project, that takes fans through the band’s origins, peaks, and valleys with the help of archive audio from early in their run.

On a break in between legs of their latest tour, the hard rocking and hilarious folk metal duo best known for “Tribute,” “Fuck Her Gently,” and the film Pick Of Destiny is triumphant yet hungry for more, working on a new album and promoting a fiber bar capable of enabling the “perfect deuce,” according to Black. “We were presenting ourselves as the greatest band on earth, but we were also a total catastrophe,” Jack Black tells us, recounting how he and bandmate Kyle Gass didn’t know how to plug in their amps early in their careers. “Fake it till you make it” is an oft-used phrase, but it was also an operating philosophy for Tenacious D.

Jack black kyle kiss from a rose