RSSSasquatch! and Rainn go together
ON Magazine
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Overhead, a plane flew a banner promoting his upcoming movie, "The Rocker," and everywhere you looked someone was wearing a "Rocker" bandana.
"'The Rocker' is the greatest movie ever made," the 42-year-old Wilson said in his trademark deadpan during an interview Sunday at the festival. "It rivals 'Citizen Kane' as maybe a benchmark in American cinema."
In the comedy, Wilson — best known as the intense and strange know-it-all Dwight Schrute on the TV series "The Office" — plays Fish, a former heavy metal drummer who gets kicked out of his band right before they make it big. However, he gets another opportunity to be the rocker he's always wanted to be by joining his nephew's high school rock band.
"And they go on tour and mayhem ensues," Wilson said. "And there's a little romance, and a lot of music and a lot of life lessons learned and a good time is had by all."
To train for his role in the film, which comes out Aug. 1, Wilson, who describes himself as fairly musical, took some intense drum lessons with L.A. drummer Stuart Johnson.
"He taught the basics of drumming but also ... heavy metal drumming is a whole different thing. (There's) a lot of stuff to the crowd," said Wilson, throwing his arms rock star drummer-style in the air. "A lot of stick tricks."
Saturday, the opening day of the festival, Wilson made a few onstage cameos and got a taste of what it's like to be up in front of an adoring concert crowd.
"It's been pretty cool going up on stage in front of ten, twenty thousand people," he said.
Saturday evening, he introduced R.E.M. by saying: "I was just backstage waxing the lead singer's head." And earlier in the day, he introduced Seattle buzz band Fleet Foxes by reading the Wikipedia page on foxes.
"I also read the Wikipedia page on Loverboy because I thought I was introducing Loverboy," he said, once again in a dry deadpan. "They told me the wrong band. Jerks. But I was lovin' every minute of it."
* For a link to Wilson's short and sweet Sasquatch blog that he wrote for Rolling Stone, visit On's music blog at on.yakimablogs.com/music.
Rainn Wilson's family ties -- who knew?
Turns out, Rainn Wilson has family ties to the Yakima Valley. His cousin lives here, and for a long time his mom called Wapato home.
"So I used to come over as a teenager to scenic Wapato, Washington," said Wilson, who was born in Seattle. "Oh yeah, there's definitely a Rainn Wilson-Wapato connection."
Also, Wilson and his wife, fiction writer Holiday Reinhorn, went to the University of Washington with actor Garret Dillahunt, a Selah native.
No word yet, however, if Wilson, or his cousin, will attend the Yakima premiere of "The Rocker."
