NEWS
The first trailer preview from the long-awaited Spinal Tap 2 film has been shared, with cameo appearances from Paul McCartney and Elton John.
The movie is a follow-up to the beloved 1984 mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap – based on fictional rock band Spinal Tap, which has become a cult classic in recent years. It stars Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer portraying the hapless heavy metal trio, all of whom are set to return to the second film.
Now, a new trailer has been shared for its follow-up, Spinal Tap 2: The End Continues. Per the synopsis, the upcoming film “blends the same musical mayhem and satire that made the original a cult classic and features some fantastic rock cameos in the process. Will this concert be their triumphant return, or just another Stonehenge-sized catastrophe?”
This time around, the band are set to play one reunion show, which comes years after the height of their success, with the band members having now assimilated back into everyday life, with one working as a cheesemonger and playing music only at a tiny local pub.
Now, without a drummer, after the last one “sneezed himself into oblivion”, the band returns to the spotlight, with Marty DiBergi (a Martin Scorsese-esque documentary filmmaker played by real director Rob Reiner) once again on board, this time recording the band’s reunion concert.
There’s also a series of cameos from megastars including John, Questlove and McCartney. Check it out below.
It comes after a first clip was shared earlier this month, in which The Thick Of It star Chris Addison plays a music executive and advises the band that “at least one, but ideally two of you, would die” in an upcoming farewell concert. In a separate promo teaser, Reiner’s character also attempts a group Zoom call with the band, which ends in disaster.
Last year in an interview with Empire, Reiner shared what singer David St. Hubbins, guitarist Nigel Tufnel and bassist Derek Smalls have been up to following the disbandment of Spinal Tap.
The sequel was first revealed in 2022, with Reiner at the time telling NME: We never thought we would do a sequel. It was only because we started to talk to each other and we came up with an idea we think might work – we don’t know it will. We’re going to try. The bar is incredibly high. We debated whether or not we should do it… I said, ‘Look at us, we’re all in our 70s. How much time are we going to have [left] to have some fun?’”
The director also accepted that there were a lot of Spinal Tap fans out there who were worried it might be terrible. “You don’t want us to cock it up!” he added. “That’s the thing: we wouldn’t try unless we thought we had something that could work.”
It is expected to come out on September 12 this year in the US, with a UK premiere yet to be announced.
Reneé Rapp is seen as a “huge inspiration” by SZA.
The 25-year-old artist performed SZA’s Good Days in the BBC Radio 1 Live Lounge, accompanied by two acoustic guitarists and a harp player. SZA, 35, was deeply moved by the rendition.
She posted a short video of the moment on Instagram Stories and wrote: “Renee is a HUGE inspiration, energy, voice spirit.”
During her chat with the BBC, Renee shared her thoughts about the track. She said: “I mean, I love SZA. I mean, she was one of my favorite artists in high school. And she's remained one of my favorite artists to this day. I think she's amazing. She's also, I mean, she's an incredible songwriter, but I think because she has so much swag. People don't realize how good of a singer she is. She's a fantastic vocalist and is really, really, really articulate. And I don't cover a lot of songs anymore. So I wanted to cover something that was, like, slightly challenging and also really vocally impressive, and frankly, hard for me to do.”
Renee is currently in the middle of promoting her second album, Bite Me, and opened up about how much more enjoyable it was to create compared to her first project.
She explained: “I mean, I feel like everything was incredibly different. I stopped listening to people that don't make music, because if you don't make music, then why the hell am I listening to you. And I also think the biggest difference, I think I just got a lot better. I think I have just become a better songwriter. I think I understand how to make pop music now in a way that I didn't really before. And I was very sure about what this album was and thematically, what it needed.
“So I felt like I was quite like, headstrong in like, what was gonna work and what wasn't. Because, nobody knows something better than yourself. I think a lot of things were different. I also just, like, had a lot of fun making it, like, I made it with like, three people, mostly, like, it was always like, four of us in the studio all the time, and we got so close, and some of us were already so close. So it was also just like a mess. It was such a mess, like we were just tweaking every day. It was so fun. And I don't think I enjoyed making the first one as much.”
