Tenacious D’s Jack Black and Kyle Gass have revealed that there were two tracks that had a large influence on their song ‘Tribute’. The prized tracks? Metallica’s ‘One’ and Led Zeppelin’s ‘Stairway To Heaven’.
‘Tribute’, which was released a massive 19 years ago (2001), tells the tale of Black and Gass finding themselves in front of a demon. The demon has a simple request: play the greatest song in the world.
Tenacious D, famously say “okay” and play the first song that comes to their heads, however the song telling the tale is simply a ‘Tribute’.
The pair initially didn’t quite agree on which song actually inspired ‘Tribute’. Gass said it was ‘One’ by Metallica.
But Black said, “When we were talking about what’s the greatest song in the world, at the time it was Metallica – ‘One’, some would say. But really, you can’t say that that was a greater inspiration than ‘Stairway To Heaven’.”
While Gass argued Metallica were, “…going places that people didn’t normally go, but also with really staccato riffs.”
“They were very exciting. It just seemed very important.”
Black agreed, saying, “You can tell that it’s [Metallica’s] best song, because whenever you see them live, they always save that for the end. They know that people are waiting for ‘One’.”
They then revealed that the actual ~influence~ for the song was ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’.
As it detailed the classic Rock ‘n’ Roll trope: a singer making some kind of deal with Satan.
“There’s a great tradition of doing battle with Satan,” Black said.
“And of them all, I think ‘The Devil Went Down To Georgia’ is probably the most powerful, iconic version of that story.”
