Kyle Gass | Interview with Lyndsey Parker (LPTV)

All right.

Hey everybody, this is Lindseay Parker here for LPTV and Licorice Pizza. We have Kyle Gas of the Kyle Gas Band.

Hello.

How'd you come up with that name? It's a good name.

I know. I know. How did I come up with it? Good question.

Well, you're obviously known for a couple other bands such as Train Wreck.

Yes.

And maybe some other bands, but you're here with the Kyle Gas Band today. Maybe we'll talk about your other band, but I want to focus on today's an exciting day. We're live in Studio City, but you are releasing a live album called Live in Palmdale. It's happening today.

It's today. I I didn't realize there was a scene in Palmdale.

Uh there isn't, but

there is in Transplants Brewery where we recorded it.

That's where you recorded it.

Yeah. Yeah. It's a big old brewery and lots of beer. Lots of good food trucks outside, too.

All right.

Yeah. People like to party.

So why they do a lot of meth out there? That's just

Are you Are you not working for the tourism board for Palmdale?

But that's Chamber of Commerce. What made you do like why Palmdale, I guess?

Yeah.

Why Palmdale?

Uh, we played out there before and we like the sound and uh it just seemed like

like the meth.

I like the meth. And I thought why not? Yeah. You got to wait till after you play though. Don't kids before.

See, I would think isn't meth a stimulant though as opposed to beer. Beer is a depressant.

The only time I wanted to do it was I was watching Breaking Bad. Did you watch that? And every time

I know meth is part of that show. This is like the blue ice, you know? That's what he made. It was like 92% pure. I was like, I've never done it, but I want to do it. I want to try it. No, I think you lose your teeth. I heard it's one of the hardest things to get off of, too.

Don't do meth, kids, is what we're trying to do.

Don't do it.

But if you were, I guess, going to do meth before show probably. It I would think it'd be Yeah. No, don't do that either.

No, don't do it.

Don't Don't do that.

This is a family show.

It isn't anymore. Um, but you know there's I I know you're very into big classic rock and and hard rock and there's a great tradition of live albums in that vein. There's Kiss Alive one and two. There's Cheap Trick at Budacon. There's Live at Leads. There's

Yeah, I think you just hit all

Comes Alive. Kyle Gas comes alive. Now, what made is this in that tradition of doing like a great

You can only hope to be part of that great tradition cuz you named probably the greatest live albums right there in rock. But I heard the Kiss album was the most like overdubbed

two or one fake.

Oh, probably one because uh you know

sometimes they didn't hit the right notes and they're uh yeah they had to go back and do it which we didn't do much just a little bit but we kept it pretty live.

I have heard at cheap trick of Buudacon they piped in a lot of the screaming and I actually heard even urban legends that it wasn't even actually recorded there. I don't know if that's true.

I think I heard that too. Now you forced me to go into a wormhole tonight.

But you were legit. You actually literally recorded this in a in a brewery.

We did. We did. Uh we actually um like after the set we uh we played a few that we thought maybe we could do that a little better.

Is that cheating? I don't think so. But we've always

still at the brewery.

Yes.

Okay. No. Yeah. Yeah.

You didn't go in a studio and do it.

You know, another fake one favorite movie is uh Last Waltz. I'm sure you've seen.

I have seen it. That was all pretty real. I'm pretty sure. Or is there some urban legend that it wasn't?

No. Uh uh Rick Denko's bass was horribly out of tune and they had to fix all his stuff. I think the only stuff that wasn't fixed was uh uh Rick Denko on the drums. Oh,

is it real anymore? Can we believe in anything anymore?

No, not in the AI. Not in the AI. We We

were thinking of just putting our album on tonight

and and lip sync.

I mean, I think you could get away with it because people, you know, it's interesting. People expect humor obviously because you're a comedian because the other band you're in Tenacious D is a comedy band, but like what you do with this band is kind of more like just the humor isn't really like the main thing of it, right?

No, it's uh yeah, they're uh the band is uh they're all kind of maestros. They're they're a super group and uh yeah, so I wanted to capture really that live thing usually get a lot of energy going and it's fun. Uh we got like a virtuoso on lead guitar, John Kaneski and then Mike Bray known for a while.

They they play in or have played in Tenacious D.

Oh yeah. John has been our uh uh Tenacious Dle guitarist for since 2006.

Oh wow.

Yeah. Yeah. You're welcome, John.

Uh yeah, he was in train wreck and uh I thought, "Wow, we were just going to uh Columbus to like have a pickup band and he was actually going to be my roadie." And then he picked up my guitar and started playing go, "Oh man, you're way better than me, dude. Maybe you should play lead guitar." And then the rest is history.

That's like a movie like when Gripper Owens became

um Juice Priest singer or something like that. Like there should be a movie based on that.

Yeah. Did you see Rockstar with Mark Wahber?

I did. And I didn't think it was as bad as people thought. I don't know if people thought it was going to be a couple times. You like it, right? Yeah.

Yeah. It's not Citizen Cane, but you know, did you

when he's singing out in the audience without a mic and people notice him,

that's was the most real part.

Nothing's real anymore, though. That's what we said.

Well, you've had

Kyle Gas Band.

You've had a really interesting career beyond even the bands that you've been in. And I wanted to do a little lightning round cuz I I was just I was looking at your sinking into this.

Yeah. Get comfortable.

Yeah.

So your onscreen debut in 1988 was in a Seven Up, not regular Seven Up, everybody. Seven Up Gold. Seven Up Gold.

Seven Up Gold. And I went and found it on YouTube and it was pretty rock and commercially. Wild Thing is the Wild Thing, not the Tone Lo.

Dirty shirt in. And I come in to the fancy restaurant. You see, they ordered pizza because the kids didn't want the fancy food. And then yeah, I brought the pizza in and and kind of looked around and that was it. It was my first Yeah, that was my first job.

It was very fast times at Richmond High like Demone Pizza like you know the the the

Yeah, totally.

It was very cool. So that was your that was your first that your first thing was had you been trying like hustling for a while to like was acting like

Yeah, I was doing Yeah, it was kind of acting was the uh the main objective. I went to UCLA.

So did I?

Oh, did you? much probably later than I do. But yeah, so I uh yeah, I got in I actually got in the music department and then as soon as I was there I was going wait a minute there's a lot of like serious musicians playing piano and violin over there. I was like and I I always enjoyed acting so I kind of switched over but that was kind of the main thrust coming to Los Angeles. I thought I'd be somebody's neighbor or something.

Where are you from?

Uh Bay Area.

Okay.

Yeah. Walnut Creek, East Bay, Rock on.

So, you came to LA and then your film debut

Yes.

was in This is pretty awesome. You were in Brain Dead. Peter Jackson's Brain Dead. Long before Peter Jackson did uh Get Back by the Beatles or King Kong starring Black for that matter.

Don't even mention The Hobbit or Lord of the Rings.

Before that, there was Brain Dead start not star. Well, what was your part in Brain Dead? What did you do?

Uh I played a uh I think I played a doctor.

You think? Yeah, I think it was a while ago.

I didn't look that one up on YouTube, but I remember right down. They had three of us here and we were kind of doing surgery or something like that.

Was this before or after um Meet the Feebs? What? Like

what's that?

Do you know if Meet the Feebs, Peter Jackson's X-rated puppet movie?

It's an X-rated puppet movie.

Wow.

Where puppets do heroin and probably meth and it's directed by

Take note of this. I

It's directed by Peter Jackson. I'm shocked that you wouldn't

No, I know that. I I'm embarrassed that I don't

You shouldn't be embarrassed. I was just trying to figure out the chronology and the filmology,

but is it really is it really pornography? Is it dirt? Is it

I mean, they have puppets like having sex and doing heroin and

like team America.

It's kind of like about like that. It's a little runchier than that.

Another underrated movie, I think.

Amazing. America. [ __ ] yeah. [ __ ] yeah. So, back to So, you were What was working with Peter Jackson like? He seems like a pretty interesting dude.

Sorry, I got to get rid of my gum.

All good. stay. Oh, I did it. Uh oh, he's a great He's like a big kid. And uh actually went to his uh visit a summer home in New Zealand while Jack was shooting uh King Kong. And uh we had a grand old time. He actually moved Bag End uh Bilbo

Baggin's home, moved it to his house and

you had to go through a secret this all real secret passageway under and then you ended up in Bilbo Baggin's uh thing house and it was and and we slept over one night and it was crazy.

I mean that seems like cuz I know with some of the stuff that Tenacious D has done where like you kind of get into that medieval rock thing that that would appeal to you quite a bit. Yeah. I can't say it didn't. I don't know who it wouldn't appeal to.

Fair enough. Fair enough.

So, I don't actually remember this, but I was looking down your filmography. You were in a shortlived television show that The Vandals did. It was called Fear of a Punk Planet.

I've never heard of the show. Now, I'm the one that's embarrassed

because that sounds like something I would watch the hell out of.

I think it was uh I think it was kind of the early days of the net, you know, and and people were sort of like, you could do our own TV show. We can uh and they were very um kind of uh crafty and they yeah they put that together.

What was your role or what was what was

I think I played uh I think like a security guard. I think

this is the kind of career to aspire to where you've done so much you can't remember what you did in

Well, that was a lot of doobies ago.

Sometimes my shortterm and long-term go.

Fair. Fair enough. Well, I'll talk about something that's a little more recent. Well, it's past and recent.

So, you had a web show, speaking of web show, called Guitarings, and that was a long time ago, but you just brought it back, right?

Brought it back.

So, you're like teaching guitar. Is it like a tutorial show?

Uh, we do some tutorials, but there's so many online that we kind of just um are playing more originals and um yeah, like instrumentals we're kind of into right now. It's just kind of about our uh guitar journey, John and I. What made you decide to bring I don't know how long the show was gone, but I'm under the impression it was gone for a pretty long time. What made you bring it back?

Well, uh the D was kind of uh on hiatus,

and I was like, you know, I just we've always kind of enjoyed it. Uh so it just seemed like a natural. We already had the, you know, we already had the website or the uh YouTube channel, Guitarings. Check it out. And uh so it seemed kind of a natural. I wanted to get more busy on guitar. So, since you're speaking about the D and we're talking about guitar teaching again, I've read this. Hopefully, Wikipedia hasn't steered me wrong. Sometimes it steers me very right, but other times I read and the person I'm interviewing will be like, "No, that's not a thing." But according to Wikipedia, you taught um Jack to play guitar in exchange for food. Apparently, Jack in the Box food. I really hope it was the Jack in the Box on Sunset across from the original amoeba.

Well, I think it was the one on Fairfax, actually. I'll accept that. It could be any. It could be any

you taught him how to play guitar and like he paid you in in food or something like that.

Yeah. Well, we were we were buds and uh I'm actually a lot older. I'm like nine years older than Jack. Um but uh so he did a play with us in the actors gang was kind of a youngster like 18 19. And then uh he was just a great singer. He was doing like these four track tapes on the on the teak and um and uh I thought, "Oh my god, this this kid's amazing." I was like, "Well, do you play an instrument?" He didn't play an instrument. And I thought, "Well, dude, you got to just like have rudimentary guitar if you're going to do that." And so, yeah, he started playing. He was very um he was a very good student, Jack. And he I remember for like three months he played the same three chords on the guitar, D, A, and E over and over again.

Those are the only chords I ever learned.

Yeah. D, A, E.

Well, they're the best chords.

Cowboy chords.

Yeah, cowboy chords. That's what they call them.

Sure. And that's what happened.

Did you ever teach him how to play the flute or any the recorder?

No, no, it was just uh Yeah, he he actually accused me of uh of uh not showing him all the all the hard stuff.

I was like, "What are you talking about?"

Like you wanted to hog it for yourself or something.

Yeah. Like I wanted Yeah. corner the market on that.

So, you know, you did mention that Tenacious D are on hiatus. So, of course, you know, I do want to know. I know you you didn't break up or anything. You're just on hiatus.

Oh, yes. We're a break.

You're on a break.

We're on a break.

Much like like Ross and Rachel. You're on a break. We're on a break.

But, you know, fans of course want to know. I mean, they're excited for everything else you're doing, but yeah, they just want to know like, have you are you guys talking? Are you sure?

We're buds. We're buds. He's working on on his movies and he's got a couple movies coming out. So, um but we have a a saying. We will serve no D wine before it's d time. But you will eventually at some point.

Oh yeah. Yeah. Over the deed. You see you you listen to Rise of the Phoenix.

I have.

That's about us burning up and coming back from the ashes.

So the Phoenix will rise again.

The Phoenix will rise again. Hopefully.

Um I don't You probably don't want to h talk much about what happened in Sydney.

No, but read the Rolling Stone. It's all about it.

No. Read the Licorice Pizza article. That will be up later.

But well, I didn't read it. So, I'm act I'm asking you things with having no knowledge of it. Um,

yeah. No, that's my last interview on that one.

Okay. Well, just the what I was going to ask. I don't want to ask what happened. The outrage cycle though. People get like very outraged about something for like a week

and then they forget and you know it's like a like or whatever. They get outraged about something else and something they were tweeting about last week is old news. So, do you feel like kind of like that's that's past you now? Like you know I don't think people really thinking about that.

For you apparently since you want to dig it up pretty good. You mad at me? I mean,

I'm just being a hard-nosed journalist.

I fully respect I don't want to talk about what happened that night. I don't want to I don't want to talk about like

it's best left in the past.

All right. Well, I am happy to hear that Tenacious D will rise again. I'm clap happy to hear that the Phoenix is rising again.

As long as we're as long as we're alive.

For the record, I do think that was kind of taken out of proportion, but that's just me.

You can't let it go, can you?

No, I am going to let it go because I'm going back to your Wikipedia.

Okay.

Okay. So, this is the same place where I got the Jack in the Box Fun Factory. So, I'm from LA and I know actually um uh

Jack is working on the KBLT Silverlake movie. So, Oh, yeah. or it's a movie about like a Silver Lake, but anyway, this is a Silver Lake story. Is it true

that Tenacious D's first official gig as musicians was at the now sadly defunct Al's Bar opening for my friend's ex-boyfriend's band, The Abe Lincoln Story. Yes. I was like, "Huh,

that's true. That is true. True. What was it? If you lived in LA then, if you know Alsar, it would make the toilet at CBGB.

It was kind of Yeah, it was kind of our CBGB's.

Yeah, it was like the down I mean, it was downtown before downtown had any gentrification. It was It was a great place, but I mean, you felt like you might catch something if you walked in.

Yeah. No. Yeah, that was we only had one song and we had tribute and uh we played it and people loved it and actually David Cross came up after the show and invited us to to play like a cabaret show and the the rest is history.

Absolutely. It's history. So

it seems like you're going to go through my entire life. I'm really hungry.

I have I have three more questions.

Okay, good.

Okay.

Yes.

Well, actually I have four.

Don't forget elf. My rule in elf. Have you seen

you elf? Yeah. I did not know that. I breezed over that.

One of the writers, Andy Richtor, and I play writers for James Khan, writing the children's books.

And we're in that famous scene where um Peter Dinklage takes down Will on the table. He runs across the table.

I'm going to have to

You got to watch

that one. You remembered. You didn't remember what you did.

No, because I'm in every year. I always wanted to be part of a a Christmas thing, the perennial gift that keeps giving.

And the other good one is Wild Hogs. You see Wild Hogs?

Not motorcycle. Wild Hogs. Nobody. You saw it. Do you remember the karaoke singer?

It's been a while. Yeah. At the fair.

I'm just a bachelor. And he's there and he's wearing some great Anyway, it's a great It's a great

So, this is actually a really cool thing on your

I was on Friends, too.

Friends.

I played uh old friend of Phoebe. We were muggers together.

Check that one out. Oh, I was on Seinfeld.

Okay. Would you

I only do legendary shows

apparently. and this LPTV. It's all led to this.

What did LPTV?

What's our reach on this show?

It's gonna skyrocket after this comes out. I'll check the stats later. So, but this was a really, you know, when I'm going down all your accolades and career achievements. I mean, okay, we're coming up on the Grammys, so I've got the Grammys on my mind at the time.

Okay, so the Grammys are the Grammys of 2026 are are coming up in a few days. So,

yeah. Uh, I'm not exactly sure what year this was, but there was one year that Tenacious D, the D were um up for best metal performance Grammy. You were up against Slipnot, Motorhead, Mastedon, and Anthrax.

Yeah.

And you won.

And who do you think won? And they were so unhappy about it.

I was about to ask, were they happy about it?

They were not happy at all. Who are these punk comedy dudes coming in stealing our hard rock? But it was a great track. It was uh, what was it? It was a Ronnie James Dio song.

Yeah, it was the last in line and it was it was a Dio song. It was a tribute to Dio. So I can't imagine that your co-nominees

would be complaining because it was like an award for Doo as well. The D and D.

Yeah. You didn't see it that way.

We Yeah, it was. And actually I played a recorder solo on that. I think Yeah, I think uh Yeah,

that's pretty listen or watched any of our things, have you?

What are you talking about?

You haven't heard that song? I have, but not like I didn't like go, "Oh, what a cool recorder solo."

Wow, that was really sweet recorder, man.

It won the Grammy.

I probably thought it was a flute

because you're known for the flute much like Death Rell and Lizo. I didn't know it was I didn't know it was recorder, but as we talked actually before the camera started rolling, recorder is like the gateway instruments like the one they teach you in um you know, in middle school.

I always think like gateway drug

or that. It's like it's much like meth. Start with recorder, it's all downhill or uphill. I think marijuana is supposed to be

but it's supposed to be a good instrument as a child to like kind of sort of get the idea of how to play music and then some people graduate to the big leagues and other people only know recorder cowboy chords like myself.

So it all it all started with a recorder. But when you won that Grammy I mean were you surprised? What was in your speech? Well, very we actually were nominated uh a year maybe the year before and uh uh I think Jimmy Kimmel or

no uh uh who's the other guy uh channel 4 um

James Cordon at the time.

No, Seth Seth Meyers.

No, uh Jimmy Fallon.

Okay,

he won for you know very musical guy and uh and he won. I thought well we were actually better. I think it

that was obviously comedy kind

Rise of the FE. Yeah, comedy music. And then um and then uh so we didn't win which I thought we should have won and then of course when we shouldn't have won really because of all those great bands. Uh we did but we were on tour in Europe. I heard about it

over the phone. We weren't there

but we wouldn't be on the main show anymore.

Get Kyle Gas Band a nomination so that you can go there properly and get your glory. side project.

Is there is there an award for that?

There isn't. And there also isn't an award for best live album, although I actually think that would be a good award. But, you know, if there was live in Palmdale would be obviously a shoe in for it, right?

I mean, even the Grammys are pretty bogus. Except when you win and then it's like the greatest thing ever. But come on, the Grammys, they're so clueless over there.

They don't have a lot of rock on the show. Like even when they have Metallica perform on the show, they'll have Lady Gaga with them.

It's all Pop-Tarts, by the way. Do you still think One is the best by Metallica is the best song ever?

Who?

One by Metallica. Isn't that what Tribute was based on?

Well, it's up there. It's pretty good. It's a pretty epic song.

If you were going to do a tribute two or three, like another like here is a tribute to the best song ever. That that can

another one. Yeah.

Oh, I don't know. Maybe Don't Worry Baby by the Beach Boys. Wouldn't that be good? Yeah. See, those guys like it.

You come back from hiatus. We We will expect that to happen. But in the meantime, you got the Kyle Gas band.

Yes. Live in Palmdale is out today. You're gonna be playing live and seriously tonight.

Be good, you guys. Uh oh, he's not focused. He wasn't ready for this. Be sure to pick up Kyle Gasban live in Palmdale.

What he said,

I'll let you go eat before the show, but it was lovely to chat with you, Kyle.

It was.

You're a good sport.

I don't mean to give you the bums rush, but man, when food calls,

totally understand.

Drop the bite.