Derek Smalls

Derek Smalls serves as bassist in Spinal Tap, the parody metal ensemble assembled in 1979 by Harry Shearer, Christopher Guest, Michael McKean, and Rob Reiner. The four later turned the premise into the 1984 feature This Is Spinal Tap; its devoted cult audience prompted the “reunion” that produced the 1992 album Break Like the Wind and its accompanying tour.

Following that release, Shearer—who plays Derek Smalls—along with Guest and McKean set the project aside. They resurfaced together in 2003 as the Folksmen, their Kingston Trio parody, for Guest’s film A Mighty Wind, yet remained inactive until 2007, when Spinal Tap performed at the climate-change benefit Live Earth. In 2009 the three marked the twenty-fifth anniversary of This Is Spinal Tap by mounting the Unwigged & Unplugged tour, which was documented on a home video and a tour in 1992.

Shearer next revived Derek Smalls as a solo artist with the 2018 album Smalls Change (Meditations Upon Ageing). Released that April, the record enlisted an array of contributors that included Steve Lukather, Donald Fagen, Waddy Wachtel, Richard Thompson, Paul Shaffer, Steve Vai, and Joe Satriani.