Airheads: Hollywood's heavy-metal delite - motion picture

Interview, June, 1994 by Bluebell Baxter

Heavy-metal parody bands come and go. First there was Motorhead, then Kiss, Spinal Tap--the eminence noir of metal--then Judas Priest, the English Comic Strip's Bad News, Cinderella, and, yes, Motorhead. "Wot?" you protest. "Some of those dudes are for real, man." But then it's you who's living in a fantasy world, and besides, imitation, as Ozzy Osbourne probably said, is the sincerest form of flatulence.

The latest parodistes de metallurgie are the Lone Rangers--singer Chazz (Brendan Fraser), bassist Rex (Steve Buscemi), and drummer Pip (Adam Sandler)--who, in the August movie Airheads, take a radio station hostage in order to get their demo played. Michael Lehmann (Heathers) directed the film, and the cast includes Joe Mantegna, Amy Locane, Michael Richards, Chris Farley, Michael McKean, and Nina Siemaszko. Don't expect it to be trenchant: "A continual source of humor in the movie is that rock 'n' roll styles are so radical," says Lehmann in the production notes. "Fashion, hair, language--they're so extreme, but the people behind those extreme styles are quite often very sweet and very normal." Yeuch.