‘Our characters like to be naughty’: makers of ‘Nirvana’ mockumentary about illegal skydiving, taboo-breaking and time travel | film

IIf there was a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for fictional bands, the likes of Spın̈al Tap and the Rutles would be guaranteed a place. Less certain is the fate of the duo created by Toronto college friends Matt Johnson and Jay McCarroll on Nirvana the Band the Show, a satirical web series that aired in 2007-08 that was later picked up for two seasons by Vice TV. Johnson and McCarroll play an incorrigible Nirvana band, completely unrelated to grunge pioneers Kurt Cobain, who pins everything on securing a gig at Toronto’s Rivoli club. Unafraid of a complete lack of songs, they perform one comedic act after another, many of them filmed between unwitting audience members, to promote their as-yet non-existent show.

From smashing a display case at the Royal Ontario Museum and being hounded by security guards to jumping Toronto subway tracks, they’re willing to do anything — except simply request a concert from the venue. Then again, common sense is not their strong suit. When they receive a cease and desist letter regarding their name, they are in disbelief: “There is actually a band called The Band?”

“We were very proud of that joke,” Johnson says now. On this blustery morning in Toronto, he was wearing a red bandana over his disheveled hair and shuffling his shirt to keep cool. He and McCarroll are at a friend’s apartment, talking to me via video call about the new big-screen spin-off, Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie. (They added the extra “n” at the recommendation of their attorney during the Vice TV years.) This genius work of cinema, directed by Johnson, combines the life-threatening stunts of Jackass, the hidden-camera comedy of Borat, and the plot of Back to the Future. After installing a flux capacitor in an RV, the duo travels from 2025 to 2008 in an attempt to secure the Rivoli hatch and change history.

Borrowing the plot of another movie is “a kind of writing hack,” says Johnson. “It raises the stakes, which are otherwise nonexistent: If these people don’t play at the Rivoli, who’s going to care? But because we internalize the stakes built into Back to the Future, for some reason, you’re like: ‘”naturally This is important!'”

The subdued boyhood effect is also achieved through skillful editing that brings together the duo as they are now in their early 40s in 18-year-old footage. They travel back in time, spying on themselves as young adults but accidentally create an alternate universe where McCarroll is now a solo star performing in front of thousands of adoring fans.

On and off screen, the couple, with their initials in mirror image (MJ and JM), seem temperamentally different but on the same wavelength. The assured and excitable Johnson, whose other directorial credits include BlackBerry And the upcoming Anthony Bourdain biopic Tony, starring Dominic Cessa and Leo Woodall, speaks in mile-a-minute monologues. McCarroll, once one half of the musical duo Brave Shores, whose song “Never Come Down” was hijacked by MAGA supporters and turned into a 10-hour video loop starring Donald Trump dancing, is the more reserved and poker-faced of the duo: Seinfeld to Kramer Johnson, his exclamation mark.

Both men knew that Nirvanna the Band the Show the Movie had to appeal beyond fans of the series. “Jay and I have a somewhat controversial belief,” Johnson says, “which is that people who have never seen anything from us before will enjoy the film more. The less context you have, the more ‘What the heck is this?’ experience you have.”

Many scenes are made to be watched in dread with splayed fingers, not least the first moment in the film when Johnson and McCarroll fight their way through security at the CN Tower in Toronto intending to skydive from the EdgeWalk platform at 356 meters (1,168 feet). The disparity between their goal (operating a neighborhood music hall with a capacity of only 240) and the extreme efforts they will go to to achieve it (time travel, illegal skydiving) creates a kind of out-of-proportion comedy.

Credit – or blame – for the CN Tower adventure goes to McCarroll. “I knew we needed binoculars, otherwise the movie would look like a long TV show. So I said, ‘We have to jump off the CN Tower or something.'”

I suppose they were laughing with joy as they approached the top of the tower, but McCarroll dissuaded me from that idea. “The whole thing had to be so meticulously planned that there was no celebration at all. We had so many targets to hit. What goes through your mind as you go through each target is: ‘Okay, 17 out of 50 have been hit… 18 out of 50 have been hit…’ And then we’re in an Uber afterwards, leaving the crime scene and saying: ‘Oh, that was bad.’

“Making the movie wasn’t really fun. It was 90% exhausting,” he says. The only time he and Johnson allowed themselves to sigh was when they watched a rough cut of a sequence filmed at a live crime scene. Upon hearing the evening news in May 2024 that a security guard had been shot outside singer Drake’s mansion in Toronto, the couple and their crew rushed there and collected footage that was then incorporated as the background for imaginary Crime in the movie. “I don’t think we’ve gotten any higher than that,” says Johnson, still amazed at what they got away with.

Speaking of impunity, long-time fans will notice that the humor in the film is of a lighter tone than the web series. There are no homophobic slurs, except for a clip from The Hangover used to illustrate how times have changed. Gone are the original series’ fixation on racist humor: its use of the N-word and the P-word, its questionable impressions. (In late 2017, the duo were found singing Cornershop’s Brimful of Asha in “comic” Hindi accents.)

McCarroll insists the change is due to “life goals that are moving. You could say that if the series came out on the web now, it would be tasteless.” At the same time, he says, “We weren’t going as far as Family Guy or South Park.” Johnson blames early 2000s popular culture: “That was the water we were swimming in.”

He describes the characters as “like 10-year-old boys at summer camp. They’re determined to discover the edge of the society they live in. We always wanted to know, How important are these rules? If we break them, do we die?”

McCarroll says their comedy relies on “a common trope about how much fun it is for naive or ignorant characters to have…” Johnson finished the thought: “Pulsive taboos. Our characters love to be naughty. I’m sure if I watched the web series now, I’d think: ‘I can’t believe we did that!’ But I would never condemn my past because I’m still filled with the same feeling: ‘Show me the edge.’ What can I do that will have my parents tell me I’m not allowed to do that?'”

Johnson clearly raises the idea of ​​parental lack of consent. Toronto magazine Now did just that in 2017, likening the show to “watching two very comfortable white teenagers hanging out in their parents’ basement.”

After all, when Johnson and McCarroll use racist language, it’s not their parents who are hurt. It’s viewers like Letterboxd fans who praised the early series but added that “the amount of racism that rains down on you… for me as a non-white person… makes me feel like I have to grin and bear it and it’s not a good feeling for a comedy to bring up.”

Johnson takes up the point: “I understand what you’re saying: ‘Oh, it’s not your parents, it’s the audience in general.’” But he insists that the “framework” of their comedy, which hinges on falling back on accepted norms, remains valid. “I still use it today. Jay and I have a phrase on set: ‘It’s hard for us to be class clowns unless there’s a teacher.'”

They diverge starkly only once today, when considering their youthful material. “We got it wrong, admittedly,” McCarroll admits. However, Johnson appears defiant: “Oh, I’m not willing to go that far.” Perhaps the point is debatable. For this film, they put their methods behind them and delivered a lively, risky comedy without being racist.