This interview (with Rob Reiner) goes to 11

0:00KCRW sponsors include Netflix presenting Remarkably Bright Creatures. Now nominated for three Emmy Awards including Outstanding Movie. Starring Emmy Award nominated lead actress Sally Field. Screen Rant hails Remarkably Bright Creatures, a stunning emotionally resonant film. From KCRW Santa Monica and KCRW.com, it's The Treatment.

0:31It's The Treatment. I'm Elvis Mitchell. You can also hear the show at KCRW.com slash The Treatment. I don't know what Marty DeBerge's first film is, but I know that my guest, Rob Reiner, made his directorial debut and pioneered a genre at the same time, the mockumentary, which is This Is Spinal Tap. Since 1984, he's made a film basically every other year. And his films are mostly about, not about people falling in love, but people staying together. And his newest film, Spinal Tap 2, The End Continues, is about that. First of all, Rob, thanks so much for being here. Elvis, thank you so much for having me.

1:07But your films really are about how do people stay together. When you look at The Sure Thing or American President or When Harry Met Sally, it's not about people getting together but staying together. Yeah. And this film is kind of about that too, isn't it? Well, you know, it's interesting because I talked to Ricky Gervais about this film. And, you know, first of all, he said it was his favorite comedy of all time. It still is to this day. And he admitted the fact that he had stolen the idea of this documentary format that he used, you know, for The Office. But he said at the core of this thing, it's really a romantic story.

1:44It's a romantic comedy because, yes, it's a satire. It's a satire of rock and roll. It's a satire of rock and roll movies and documentaries. But at the core of it is this relationship between Nigel and David. And they've known each other since they're little boys. And they bonded at that point. And they started making music together. And no matter what happens, whether there's fights, there's arguments, there's disruptions in the relationship, they always come back together because they're bound together with the music. And that's really the story of Spinal Tap To The End Continues. It's all about the whole premise of it is that in reality, we took from reality, which is the guys hadn't played together in 15 years.

2:27And so we created this thing of they hadn't spoken to each other. Maybe there was bad blood between them. And then there's a contract that calls for one last performance. now it's a it's a contract that's inherited by uh ian faith their manager and played by the inimitable tony hendr who's passed away and the idea is that his daughter inherited this contract hope faith and she feels that it's a worthless contract because they hadn't played together in 15 years but what happens is and we took this from real life we remembered that kate bush had had a resurgence when one of her songs was played on Stranger Things.

3:09And so we had this idea that - Running up that hill. That's right. That's right. And we had this idea that a big, famous musician, a big-time musician, would be screwing around at a sound check, would be singing Big Bottom. Somebody would catch it on an iPhone. They'd throw it up on TikTok. And, you know, it goes viral. And now, all of a sudden, this contract is worth it so now she makes good on and says they have to perform so now they're forced back together after 15 years of not talking to each other and we explore what is the reason for that why did that happen and can they come back together again and if you remember at the first one and this is spinal tap there was a schism between david and and nigel and then there was this wonderful, you know, return when Nigel comes back and David says, come on on stage, you know, and they get reunited there.

4:04So it is, in a way, at the core of it, kind of a love story between these two guys. So many of your movies are about people, it's about what it takes to stay together. And I wonder where that comes from for you, because thematically, it's so much of what you've done as if it's a narrative that's drawn you back over and over again. Yeah, well, Well, it's interesting you say that because my parents, before they both passed away, my mother passed away first. They were married for 65 years and they went through stuff. You know, there was, you know, like every marriage, you know, you go through things.

4:36They went through things, but they stayed married for 65 years. And I remember they were celebrating their 60th anniversary. And somebody asked my mother, said, well, what is the secret? What do you what keeps you together? and she said, you have to find someone who can stand you. Not somebody that you can put up with, but somebody who can stand you. And basically what it is, you find people that you, no matter what they do, you still like to hang out with them. That's funny you say that because so many of these films that you've made about testing these relationships, to me even goes back to the sure thing.

5:12I mean, about these relationships being tested, but at these stress points. Yes. It's almost like the second act break. I mean, I think about the American president. For me, that relationship isn't as much about Martin Sheen and Michael Douglas as it is. It's about Michael Douglas and Annette Bening. Right. And these sort of stress points. And at some point, somebody has to tell somebody the truth. Yes. And how you come back from that. Yes, and how you come back. I made a film called The Story of Us. It's that great version of classical gas, a stripped-down version of that. That's right. It's interesting that you mention that.

5:44And I'll tell you a little story about classical gas. but that was a story about two people who'd been married for 15 years and people had always asked me why don't you do a sequel to when harry met sally didn't i said no no i've done that this was a look at a marriage after 15 years and the the tagline was can a marriage of 15 years survive and so we looked at all of the problems that they had and the things that were tearing them apart but ultimately they chose to fight to be together and they did and so i wanted to tell you this one little story about classical gas. Eric Clapton did the score for that film, and he was great.

6:23I just wanted his guitar, and the whole score is just his guitar. He came to the studio with a gut string and a steel guitar, and he just put all the tracks down. The only temp track I had was Classical Gas by Mason Williams, and I knew that because I used to work as... You grew up with him, basically, with his Smothers Brothers. I was one of the writers on the Smothers Brothers, and Mason was the head writer. So I put that in for a montage that I had of this marriage, 15 years of marriage. And Eric said, let me try it. Let me see if I can come up with something that could replace that. And he tried, and it was great what he did.

7:01And at the end, he said, you know, what you have in there is better. That classical piece, I can't top it. He was so cool because it was his score. It was all his music, but he was okay with classical gas being in there. It's a treat. My guest whose mom didn't say, I'll have what he's having as a way to keep the marriage together, is director Rob Reiner, who's made, again, a film almost every year since 1984. His newest of those films is Spinal Tap 2, The End Continues. You can see the show at kcrw.com. But he brought this up, and I want to get to this, because I also think music is key to your films.

7:37not just that version of that song or the Eric Clapton score, but I'm thinking about you bringing in Mark Knopfler to do the score for. And Mark Knopfler did a brilliant score for The Princess Bride. And by the way, we were talking earlier about Bobby Columbia, who was a good friend of mine, was a former drummer from Blood, Sweat & Tears and produced... Jago Pastore's first album. So many great, great albums. He was the one who turned me on to Mark Knopfler. he said you got to meet this guy he also turned me on to harry connick jr who did the music when harry met sally so he was he's always been my touchstone to you know to the to the world of music and he said you got to listen to mark knoffler and he's scored a couple of pictures at that point he did a thing i think called local hero and comfort and joy right so he says uh mark says to me uh okay i'm happy to do it he had never done any kind of uh classical score these are small independent Irish films.

8:37Yes, yes. He'd never done anything with a big orchestra. He used a Sinclair. He had a keyboard player that was in Dire Straits that he worked with. And the only actual live instrument is Mark's guitar. But Mark said to me before doing it, he says, I'll do it, but I need to have that hat that you wore in This Is Spinal Tap, which said the USS Oral Sea. It was a Navy cap, a baseball cap. He says, I have to see that somewhere in the movie. And I said, well, this thing takes place in days of yore. I mean, there's no place for it. But then I realized there's the wraparound element to it where the grandfather, played by Peter Falk, is reading to his grandson the book.

9:24And I put the hat. If you'll notice, you'll see the hat hanging from a lamp in the background. So that was his proviso that I had to have that hat. Music has always been a part of your storytelling. And I wonder at what point when you're starting to sit down to do a movie, you say, I'm going to need this song and this song and this song because the needle drops. I mean, my God, you changed the title of the body to Stand By Me and gave it an emotional inner life by just choosing that song. Yes. Well, Stand By Me was my favorite song. I mean, I love Stand By Me. Benny King sang it, and it was written by Lieber and Stoller, two of the greatest rock and roll songs.

9:59Originally, the Drifters are really Benny King. Yes, Benny King and the Drifters. and then Benny King sang that song. And it just, I always loved that song. And I thought this really works. I mean, it was called The Body. The film was called The Body. It's not that they have a Sharshan Kredip in that collection. Yes, in the same collection. And I thought The Body is going to sound like a horror movie. It's going to sound like a Stephen King thing. And it's the furthest thing from that. It's about these four boys who have this experience that brings them all together. And the idea that you stand by somebody that you care about and they bolster you.

10:33They give you strength to be able to find because this little boy thinks his father doesn't love him. And then his friendship with Chris helps him get through all this. So Stand By Me was always my favorite. And what's interesting is that I hosted a thing at Carnegie Hall. It was a tribute to Lieber and Stoller. It was a fundraiser for cancer research. And they asked me if I would host it. And I said, absolutely. And they got Benny King and they got Donald Fagan from Steely Dan and, you know, Natalie Cole. They had a great group of people singing their songs. And Benny King came up to me and said, I want to thank you.

11:15I said, what? He said, you put that song in the movie. It was the exact recording. It was not a, you know, a redo or anything. It was the exact recording. and the initial recording had gone number one 25 years earlier and because of the film it went to number one again on the charts that song went to number one version of that that version of the song went to number one and he was always so grateful and he sang it and it was great and then i told libra store i said i'm not gonna do this i'm not gonna host this thing unless i get to sing. So, you know, they did a lot of coasters, songs, you know.

11:55You know, Poison Ivy and Yakety-Yak. I did, I sang Poison Ivy. Did you? Yeah. Yeah, I sang Poison Ivy and I had backup singers. It was great. You did the harmony? So which part did you do? No, I did. You did the lead? I played the lead. Yeah, yeah. Of course you did. You're the director. You get to do anything you want to do. They said I could do it. So, my musical debut happened at Carnegie Hall. Well, his musical debut is at Carnegie Hall. His first film was, this is Spinal Tap. He does everything, my guest Rob Reiner. We're going to take a break and talk more about his musical career and his career in musical movies after a break.

12:32It's The Treatment. More that comes. Stay with us. Stay tuned. I just learned that water is good from my guest Rob Reiner. It's very good. It's very good. Apparently, I think hydrating is a really good use. You need to be hydrated. We do, especially for this conversation. It's The Treatment. We're talking about his career, which happens to include the new film Spinal Tap 2, the end continues. I want to ask you, what do you think Marty DeBerge's backstory is? Because I've always wanted to know. Well, I can tell you because I've read it. I've read it. We have a book coming out on the same day as the film, which is on September 12th.

13:06And the book is called, it's a two-sided book, actually. The front side is called A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever, which is a line from the first film. And it's all about the making of the first film and the second. And then if you flip the book over, the other side is called Smell the Book. And in Smell the Book, it's an interview. Marty DeBerge interviews the three members, David, Nigel, and Derek. And so it's an interview. But Marty basically started out, first of all, he did a little short film that was done during the St. Gennaro's Feast in the Bronx. and he caught his sister kissing behind a statue of the saint, and you could see a little bit of her breast.

13:57And that was a big thing in the neighborhood. It went all over. Everybody was playing that at parties, and so Marty tried to use that to get into film school, and he applied to USC and UCLA and NYU. Got turned down by everybody. but he did get accepted into the ed wood school of the cinematic arts and if you know about ed wood he's a brilliant filmmaker who made i changed my sex yeah he made plan nine from outer space which is one of the great movies of all time and marty learned it isn't he and so when he came out he got a job in production he was a production assistant for uh industrial films and things like that and eventually started making local commercials and he was the go-to guy for local commercials and uh then he got a real job as a commercial director for purina dog chow where you see the dog running uh with a chuck wagon and trying to find uh the food chasing the yeah trying to find the food and then that didn't work out but he when he got the chance to do Spinal Tap.

15:07That was a big break for him because he loves Spinal Tap and it was an opportunity to make a real full-length film. He made the film and unfortunately, even though it got good reviews, the band hated it. They thought it was a hatchet job. They said, you showed us in a bad light. You only showed us the bad things. You didn't show any of the good things. They said, there were many times we did find the stage successfully. You only showed the time when they couldn't find the stage. So they didn't like it. But Marty was able to parlay that into a studio film. He made a sequel to a great Academy Award winning film, Kramer versus Kramer, which was starred Meryl Streep and Dustin Hoffman.

15:49And it was called Kramer versus Kramer versus Godzilla. And it didn't do very well. It didn't do well. And that kind of dashed Marty's hopes. He was really devastated. He didn't, he floundered around, didn't know what to do. And eventually he entered a retreat to try to find himself. He went to a, a, a, a retreat that was run by this guru Baba Ram Dass boat. And, and he was trying to find himself and get enlightened. And one day he was sipping on a spirulina smoothie and he happened to pick up a copy of Deadline Hollywood. when he read that Spinal Tap was back together. We're going to do a final concert.

16:31So he decided, okay, I'll put my enlightenment on hold and I'll see if I can get that job. And luckily he gets that job. Well, apparently he never had a meeting at Castle Rock. My guess is Rob Ryder isn't film as director. It's Spinal Tap 2, The End Continues. I want to ask you, what do you remember about your first day of shooting This Is Spinal Tap? Oh, well, you know, everybody said, what are you doing? Why are you making a film that has no script? I mean, we had an outline, but all the dialogue is improvised. That's what I was saying. In the beginning, I said, you pioneered a genre. Yeah, it's all improvised to make it look like a documentary.

17:08And everybody said, what are you, crazy? And I felt totally comfortable because to me, that's why I was raised. I was raised as an improvisational actor. I had my own improvisation group. I was with the committee, which was an offshoot of Second City. And all the guys I was working with, they were all great improvisers. Which is all the guys from Spinal Tap came from there, too. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So, you know, think about a great jazz combo, you know. If you can play jazz, you fall right in. It's not like, you know, some great jazz pianist or sax player or whatever. How do you do this? They know how to do it.

17:43Somebody, you know, piano or somebody lays down a rhythm track and then people fall in and that's what we did. So it was very comfortable. I remember the first day being, hey, this is exciting. Do you remember the first thing you shot? Do you remember what that was? God, I think the first thing we shot was we did two things in a studio. One was a look back at an appearance they did on a 60s British show called Pop, Look, and Listen. And they did Give Me Some Money. Yeah, and if you look closely, you'll see Danny Korchmar, great, great guitarist. And he's actually playing the bass. This is before Derek Smalls joined.

18:22And on drums is Ed Begley Jr. You know, he's there. And so that was the first thing. And we also did listen to the Flower People, which was a 60s kind of psychedelic type. You know, they were trying to, you know, basically get into the zeitgeist or whatever. And if you look at the drummer there, the drummer is Russ Kunkel. Russ Kunkel, who played for Linda Ronsted. Part of the section. Exactly. played for Jackson Brown and was one of the great session drummers and still a great drummer of all time. It's interesting because one of the things I always thought about that music, even though there's something slightly cynical about songs like Give Me Some Money and Flower People, is that they kind of also suggested this attempt towards maturation.

19:07And when we meet Spinal Tap, they've stopped going as people. Yeah. And I thought that was a really interesting sort of dramatic, because if you're paying attention to the nuance of music, you can see at least from song to song there's growth yes by the time we meet one of the reasons that they can't stand each other anymore is they've kind of sort of they've gotten locked into their adolescence well what happens is they start out you know as like a skiffle a skiffle group and they have a song called all the way home and then they you know become this uh you know kind of mod pop group then they become this kind of psychedelic group and then they lock into heavy metal.

19:40Once they lock into heavy metal, that in and of itself will be arrested development. You're in a state of arrested development at that point. It's interesting, too, about the idea, and I thought about this because Ozzy Osbourne just passed away recently, and even he developed a sense of humor in his later years. He did. But these guys, there's something playful about the early Spinal Tap songs. When they become a metal band, it's all this sort of pose of, and that's when, for me, the music is the most cynical. They're better musicians than that. Well, they are good musicians. And it's interesting because they play.

20:13Every note in both films is played by them. It's all done live. I mean, they'll put their own tracks down. And it's interesting because Elton John is in the second one, along with Paul McCartney. But Elton John at one point says, and I asked him about why he, you know, what do you think of Spinal Light? He says, these guys are, he said, they're real musicians. He said, and they do things that most heavy metal bands can't do. And that is Chris Guest, who plays Nigel, plays the mandolin. You don't see a mandolin come out in a heavy metal concert. But Chris has some classical leanings. And so he throws mandolin in there.

20:53It was thrilling to me the moment when they started to play Stonehenge, you realized it's three guys all playing bass. Oh, no, in Big Bottom. Big Bottom, I mean. Yeah, Big Bottom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All playing bass. Yeah, everybody plays bass. You kind of go, wow, that's really about musicianship. Yeah. because everybody's playing a different time. That's right. And everybody's all strung differently. That's right. So they don't sound the same. You kind of go, oh, my God. Right. And not only that, but the keyboard player is playing only bass notes on his keyboard. And we had an interesting experience.

21:21And by the way, she's also playing the bass drum. Yes, only the kick drum and, you know, just bass. Everything's bass. It's all about the bass, isn't it? Anyway, we did a gig once at Wembley Stadium. It was for a thing called Live Earth. It was a big concert. Yeah, we see a flash in a film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they invited all of these bass players with these different bands. It was, you know, from Red Hot Chili Peppers. You know, we had every band that was there. And there were like 15 or 18 bass players all on the stage at the same time doing Big Bottom. Spino Tap, it's finally about us responding to these guys as talented.

22:04these are real performances as actors. I mean, because there is, at some point, a kind of a fundamental sadness. In both movies, at some point they realize how much of their lives they've wasted being children. Yeah, but they also love playing. And that's the one thing that keeps them together. And I asked Paul McCartney about that in the film, and he talked about that. I said, what is it? You know, what happened? What is it with you guys? I mean, there's you running around, says is nick jagger still running around in the 80s and what is that is it is it the music is it the music that bonds you he says he says yeah that and the drugs i want to ask you if you remember the first musician who came to you said oh my god this is my life from the first finals from this is spinal tap okay so it has become a staple on tour buses every band that's on tour watches Spinal Tap, and they all have their Spinal Tap stories.

22:59But the first time was when I was making Princess Bride. I met with Sting. He was a young guy at the time, and he was becoming successful with the police and all that. He's the thing of the biggest band in the world at that point. Yeah, they were huge. And he said, you know, I've watched this film. I've seen it over and over and over again. And every time I watch it, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. That was the first time I heard somebody respond. Looking back at your films and getting ready for this, there's so much of the films about what music does to people. The way you use music for needle drops, the way you use scoring, but also the way people listen to music and talk about music in the movies.

23:40Have you always been aware of this? I mean, because it's clearly from the first film, it's about that, but it's been so integral to every movie that you've made. Yeah, but you see Spinal Tap and The End Continues, the new one, that's about a band and it's about the, you know, a large part is about the music. What I try to do with films that aren't specifically about music is to do what I do with the camera work, with the acting, the writing. You should not notice it. It's there. You're feeling it, but you're not saying you're not being taken out of the film and noticing something. I'm not saying it's taking you out of the film, but I was saying that you clearly have an ear train for the way that music affects people.

24:21And I wonder if you remember going to see a concert as a kid or seeing something and going, wow, I want to find some way to incorporate this into my life. You start off directing films for TV and doing TV shows. But it was before concerts. Like I said, I had a stack of 45s. I had all the Everly Brothers, all Chuck Berry. I had, you know, every... So there's doo-wop and that really rock and roll for you. Little Richard, the five satins, you know, shoot up and shoot me, you know, In the still of the night, I listened to all of this stuff. It all was in my bones. And I remember dancing the Lindy Hop with my sister when I was just 10 years old.

25:02That was our life. And my parents were cool about it. My mother liked the music. What about your dad? She liked Elvis Presley.

25:14She liked all those different. But most of the parents go, what is this? This is terrible. it's sex it's the children are gonna ruin their lives and stuff but i loved it she probably responded to the singing because i mean listen you listen to the everly brothers those harmonies they're as tight as it ever can be you know and you know i loved i saw a little richard play i saw janice joplin play up in philmore you saw janice joplin play yeah yeah i mean she used to come on stage when i was with the committee of this improv group she would come on stage sometimes and, you know, improvise with us.

25:48So, you know, I was in Haight-Ashbury in 1967, the summer of love. So I have the credit of having made love on acid, and I can talk about that. But, I mean, no, it's the world that I lived in, you know? So it's interesting because when they said, how do you guys know so much about that? I said, because we live with those people. When I was working on the Smothers Brothers show as a writer, these bands came through all the time you know and we hung out with the mamas and the papas we hung out with Steve Miller we hung out with you know Neil Young was up in the Laurel Canyon and you know we just hung out with everybody it was part of our world I think that's why for me and we can feel your affection for there's a slight sort of nostalgic feel I mean those early Spinal Tap songs actually really work as pop pieces I mean certainly the craftsmanship that those guys as actors can bring to it that Chris Guest and Michael McKeon and Harry Sherbrick to that.