{"id":20697,"date":"2025-09-13T21:06:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20697\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T21:06:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:06:15","slug":"new-book-goes-behind-the-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/20697\/","title":{"rendered":"New Book Goes Behind the Scenes"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIf you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may receive an affiliate commission.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe greatest (fictional) rock band has reunited. As Spinal Tap II: The End Continues<\/a> hits theaters, fans can look back at the iconic band\u2019s origin with a new book, A Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe book was written by Rob Reiner, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, and tells the true story of the fake band. Fans can pick up the Barnes & Noble edition, signed by director Rob Reiner, and it\u2019s also available as an ebook, hardcover, or audiobook.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"'The<\/p>\n

\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsigned edition\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tA Fine Line Between Stupid and Clever: The Story of Spinal Tap\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe book\u2019s publisher, Gallery Books<\/a>, explains, \u201cRob Reiner and his cowriters and costars, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Harry Shearer, tell the complete story of the movie and its fictitious band\u2014how they met, how Spinal Tap came to be, and how their low-budget indie film took on a life of its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn true Spinal Tap fashion, the back of the book features a bonus memoir from Marty DiBergi, Reiner\u2019s fictitious director alter ego. DiBergi interviews Spinal Tap\u2019s Nigel Tufnel, David St. Hubbins, and Derek Smalls about the band\u2019s history, including the infamous drummer\u2019s curse<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn an interview with Rolling Stone<\/a>, Harry Shearer discussed Spinal Tap\u2018s slow road to success, noting that it wasn\u2019t popular right away. \u201cThe movie didn\u2019t really click. It did OK business in theaters, but it didn\u2019t really click until I think we became the first non-porn home video to make money. That encouraged us. We got together by accident at the Universal Amphitheater. We were all at the same gig, not by a plan, and started talking about, maybe we should do a tour. That\u2019s really what was the first impetus for getting this to be a continuing project.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you purchase an independently reviewed product or service through a link on our website, Rolling Stone may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20698,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[489,156,111,139,69,19221,13927,17260],"class_list":{"0":"post-20697","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-books","8":"tag-books","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-newzealand","12":"tag-nz","13":"tag-rs-recommends","14":"tag-spinal-tap","15":"tag-this-is-spinal-tap"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20697","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20697"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20697\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20698"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20697"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20697"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20697"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}