5 Bands That Inspired the Iconic Rock Mockumentary ‘This Is Spinal Tap’

This Is Spinal Tap became an instant classic when it premiered in 1984.

Over 40 years after the mockumentary hit theaters, director and star Rob Reiner, got the gang back together for the sequel, Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which hit theaters on Sept. 12. In the original film, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean and Harry Shearer played members of the British heavy metal band, Spinal Tap, and they all reprised their roles for the sequel.

“41 years after the release of the groundbreaking mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap, the now estranged bandmates David St. Hubbins, Nigel Tufnel, and Derek Smalls are forced to reunite for one final concert,” a synopsis for the sequel reads.

Prior to the 2025 premiere, Reiner spoke with PEOPLE about the legacy of This Is Spinal Tap and revealed that real-life musicians have expressed their love of the movie with him.

“Over the years, so many rockers have come up to us and said ‘It’s a staple on the bus. We watch it all the time on tour,’ ” Reiner told PEOPLE in July 2025. “And when I first met Sting, he told me that he’d seen it so many times, and every time he watched it, he didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.”

While the mockumentary was fictional, there were several famous rockers and musical groups who inspired Reiner and the rest of the cast. Here’s everything to know about the bands that inspired This Is Spinal Tap.

The Troggs

The band behind “Wild Thing” was once taped having a serious argument in the studio, and the widely-circulated recording has been cited as the inspiration for a scene in the film where the Tap nearly goes to pieces over the recording of a guitar solo, per Far Out Magazine.

Reg Presley, Ronnie Bond, Pete Staples and Chris Britton co-founded the English beat band, but Britton remains the only member still performing in the band.

Uriah Heep

In the Criterion Edition DVD commentary for This Is Spinal Tap, Shearer mentioned that the film’s keyboard player, John Sinclair, had recently returned from touring with Uriah Heep just as principal photography was set to begin.

Sinclair told the crew about Uriah Heep being booked to play on an Air Force base, and the anecdote subsequently inspired a scene in the film.

Uriah Heep was originally formed in 1969 by Mick Box, David Byron, Ken Hensley, Paul Newton and Alex Napier. Although many of the members of the English rock band have changed over the years, Box is still the lead guitarist.

Tom Petty

The scene in which the band gets lost backstage — spending an interminable amount of time wandering through labyrinthine maintenance tunnels while shouting “Rock and roll!” and “Hello, Cleveland!” — has actually happened to multiple bands (including Yes and Bob Dylan).

According to Guest, though, it was directly inspired by Tom Petty. In the Criterion edition, he said, “We saw a tape of Tom Petty playing somewhere in Germany, where he’s walking backstage and a door’s opened and he ends up on an indoor tennis court and there’s just this moment of stunned, you know, ‘Where am I?’ ”

Petty, who was the frontman of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, in addition to being a successful solo singer, died on Oct. 2, 2017.

Van Halen (and actor Yul Brynner)

Nigel’s petty backstage freakout over the deli tray the venue provided (“I don’t want it to affect your performance,” their manager pleads) was apparently inspired by Van Halen’s request that no brown M&Ms be present backstage, per The Guardian.

And, strangely enough, actor Yul Brynner also inspired the moment. McKean claimed that he had a contract for backstage foodstuffs that specified, “Under no circumstances must white eggs be substituted for brown.”

Van Halen was an American rock band founded by brothers Eddie Van Halen and Alex Van Halen and David Lee Roth and Michael Anthony in the early 1970s.

Saxon

English heavy metal band Saxon may be one of the only bands to have a member proudly claim to have influenced the movie: Bassist Steve Dawson wrote a book called Saxon, Drugs & Rock ‘n’ Roll: The Real Spinal Tap, and Shearer did actually go on tour with the band prior to filming Tap.

Saxon was founded by Biff Byford, Graham Oliver, Paul Quinn, Steve Dawson and Pete Gill in 1977. Byford continues to be the lead vocalist, while Quinn is still the lead guitarist.