INFINITE JEST

Like it or not, U.K. rock legends Spinal Tap are back with a new movie, a new outlook and custom Marshall amps that go to Infinity. In a stupendously rare interview, legendary Spinal Tap guitarist Nigel Tufnel ruminates about birds, gear, cheese, Blind Bubba Cheeks and so much more

- JOE BOSSO

IN A 1992 Guitar World feature that celebrated the release of Spinal Tap's reunion album, Break Like the Wind, it was reported that lead guitarist Nigel Tufnel had been, at some point during the band's hiatus, "mysteriously conscripted into the Swiss Army."

It's a claim that Tufnel, speaking via Zoom from his home in the U.K., now shoots down as totally bogus. "It's just not true," he says.

"Someone said that, and it's not a very good joke as well, but that's a separate matter."

Tufnel is happy - well, that might be stretching things a bit - to set the record straight regarding other persistent tall tales and canards surrounding him and the pioneering heavy metal band he co-founded in 1966 with singer-guitarist David St. Hubbins and bassist Derek Smalls. There's the matter of guitar strings; for years it's been thought that Tufnel started out playing strings made of catgut.

"No," he says dryly. "I think you've been put off a bit, either by yourself or someone who works for you. You've got some wrong information there. Now, catgut was used on early classical instruments, and then they went to nylon strings. I always played steel-string guitars from the very beginning. I played a Sovereign Harmony. Then I got my first Gibson, and then I got Fenders and whatever. The answer to your question would be no."

What is true is that Tufnel, for the past 15 years, has been living a quiet life in Northern England with his longtime partner, Moira. "We're just on the border of Scotland," he says. "I've got a cheese shop there, and we work together." He continues to play music, mostly with locals in a nearby pub, and he does some recording at home. "But it's not for the public to hear, really," he says. "Well, it could happen, but as just so happens, it's not. It's just for me."