hairymovieinterview

The Verve Pipe's Brian Vander Ark got a mullet and almost had to kill Joel Coen's dog for his part in this month's Rock Star.

    Playing a musician in this month's Rock Star wasn't too much of a stretch for Brian Vander Ark, considering he's the lead singer and guitarist of platinum guitar-rock outfit The Verve Pipe. "This movie's not really a fair representation of any musician's ability to act," jokes Vander Ark, who plays the bassist in Mark Wahlberg's tribute band to hair-metal act Steel Dragon. "Frankly, they put you in there and go, 'Act like a musician.' "
     And, appropriately, the cast is brimming with them - from the artist formerly known as Marky Mark himself to Third Eye Blind's Stephan Jenkins to real-life former heavy-metal demigods. Vander Ark says he wanted the role just so he could hang out with the rockers, get a haircut, and relive the '80s. "I had Jeff Pilson of Dokken teaching me bass and Zakk Wylde, Ozzy Osbourne's guitarist, telling me all about Ozzy," he says. And then just looking out into the audience when we filmed the live scene - the women with the spritzed hair and ripped outfits, the silly stage show with pyrotechnics and mulitple amplifiers. It made you realize that in the '80s, if you could back all that up with great songs, you'd have a viable band that was worthy of the tailgate parties and the groupies and all that."
     Vander Ark made the transition to acting a few years back, in a couple of indie films (This Space Between Us and Road Kill) and in theater, but he'd never before brushed shoulders with Hollywood heavyweights like Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. "I've never worked with someone with that caliber of star power before," he says of Aniston. "And she actually took the time to learn everybody's name!"
     But Vander Ark - who has written songs for such films as Great Expectations and The Avengers - was most thrilled that the song he wrote for the film and actually brought to the audition, titled "Colorful," was used in a pivotal scene, in which Wahlberg lip-synchs the song to Aniston. "It's just mind-blowing to me. It's hard to separate yourself from that. Watching it and seeing it coming out of his mouth....my voice."
     So how exactly did he land the role? "There's a great story where William H. Macy, when he wanted the role in Fargo, called up Joel Coen and said if he didn't get the part, he'd kill Joel Coen's dog," he says with a laugh. "So when director [Stephen Herek] called me to tell me he liked the song I wrote, I told him that if he didn't give me the part, I too would kill Joel Coen's dog. And it worked out."