Turns Out Tenacious D May Not Be Done After All

It’s been a wild few weeks for Tenacious D fans.

While touring in Australia, Kyle Gass cracked a joke about the assassination attempt on former U.S. president Donald Trump. Asked to make a birthday wish on stage, Gass joked, “Don’t miss next time,” bringing out widespread condemnation of varying degrees of sincerity. Suddenly, “free speech absolutists” on X were not so sure of their convictions, and politicians in both the United States and Australia expressed outrage.

The Tenacious D tour was canceled and Jack Black appeared to quickly cut Gass off, which raised eyebrows from some quarters. After all, Black and Gass had been friends for quite some time. But Black declared on Instagram that he “would never condone hate speech or encourage political violence in any form,” and put all plans for the band on hold. Gass then posted his own statement on Instagram, saying, “The line I improvised onstage Sunday night in Sydney was highly inappropriate, dangerous and a terrible mistake. I don’t condone violence of any kind, in any form, against anyone.” But interestingly, that post was soon quietly deleted.

Some people thought that was it for the band—the divided nation had simply ended them. But as it turns out, Black hasn’t actually ended his relationship with Gass. At the Borderlands premiere on August 6, Black spoke to Variety reporters about the future of the band.

“We need to take a break. Everybody needs a break sometime,” Black said. “And we’ll be back.” Asked if he was still friends with Gass, he confirmed that he was, saying, “Yeah, we’re friends. That hasn’t changed. These things take time sometimes … And we’ll be back when it feels right.”

So, the attempted Trump assassination hasn’t put an end to Tenacious D after all. It’ll be interesting to see where they go from here. But, as they stated in their 2001 song “Friendship,” “As long as there’s a record deal, we’ll always be friends.”