Jack Black and Kyle Gass - the two unfettered halves of one of the world's most irreverent rock groups - are musing about the groupie who not only crashed Black's hotel room but almost joined him in the shower.
"Yeah, that happened," Black says, beaming. "She almost did.
I didn't let her in." He pauses, then adds ruefully: "I kick myself for that one."
Gass puts a different spin on such incidents.
"The problem isn't the ones who are that tenacious, that sort who do get into your world. They're probably the ones you don't want." But he does remember another time when they were propositioned by a mother and daughter.
"Yeah, ha ha," Black chips in. "That was weird."
Or, as Gass explains it: "Mom found out the hotel .
.. and she was ready to party.
"
This isn't an ordinary media conference. But neither is Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny an ordinary film - as Black is happy to point out: "This movie has 37 hard laughs, 27 chortles, two giggles, a snort, three mind-blowers, one orgasm and two disgustipations."
Actually, it has a lot more than that, some of which cannot be described in a family paper.
The screenplay that Black, Gass and director Liam Lynch concocted centres on the origins of Tenacious D, modestly considered by its creators to be the greatest rock band on Earth. But the film, which is scheduled for release next Wednesday, seems more like an act of comic anarchy that takes whacks at every target in sight - from the world of rock to the conventions of filmmaking to present-day puritanism.
It opens like a demented opera, with 10-year-old Lil' J.
B. (portrayed by pint-sized Black look-alike Troy Gentile) scandalizing his deeply religious parents with a foul-mouthed, guitar-pounding rendition of Kickapoo, a song especially written by the guys for this movie.
Lil' J.
B.'s devout dad (portrayed by Meat Loaf) retaliates with his own angry operatic aria, while he beats his kid with a belt and tears the "devil's work" - Lil' J.B.
's beloved rock posters - off the bedroom wall. The kid prays to one of his rock gods for guidance and is told to leave home and go to Hollywood to "find the secrets of his art."
Years later, the adult Jack ends up in Los Angeles at Venice Beach, where his fateful meeting with Kyle leads to the creation of Tenacious D.
Their quest for fame leads them into a search for a fabled guitar pick that will permit them to create a masterpiece - and also to a confrontation with the devil.
Off-screen, the guys are in a devilish mood as they confront the media. But Black - whose music seems far more necessary to him than acting in movies like King Kong and Nacho Libre - wants to make one thing clear: He and Gass have never called themselves the greatest rock band in the world.
"Other people have said it, and it's always flattering, but the reason we are great - or whatever you want to call us - is because of our chemistry. Kyle and I - sometimes you get lucky - stumbled upon each other and immediately it was like peanut butter and chocolate, lightning and thunder. Together, we're 10 times the rock beast that we are alone.
We're not just twice as powerful when we're together, but 10 times as powerful - like a rock Transformer.
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