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Nobody is more surprised than Johnny Knoxville that, 26 years later, Jackass is still going. “While filming the pilot it got shut down, so we didn’t think it’d ever be on air,” he reflects now. As their success grew over the years, so did their surprise. “We didn’t think anyone was going to watch, we didn’t think anyone was going to come to the movie. We’re constantly surprised at every turn.” The franchise, now consisting of a TV series and four (soon to be five) movies, has evolved in some ways over the decades. The production value improves, the pranks get ever more elaborate, the last movie saw the addition of some young blood to the crew. But the core premise–of friends getting together to hurt themselves and have a good time–has not changed. That’s what keeps fans coming back for more.

Despite the continuing appetite for Jackass, Knoxville insists that the latest instalment, Jackass: Best and Last, will be their very last outing. “This is it. This is the goodbye. That’s what we said after the first movie because we thought it was, but after that, we never said it was the end again. We don’t know. But this time, 1000%. This is it. It’s just time. It just felt like it.” Part of that finality is down to a growing need for safety. Maybe, with most of the original gang now in their 50s, they’re finally growing up. “After that last concussion sent me offline for several months, I can’t do any stunts that might give me another one,” admits Knoxville. “That has altered what I do, and sort of altered what we do. It was tough coming to grips with that when getting ready to film this.”

While things might be a little different if Knoxville can’t grapple with a bull, one thing that won’t change is how integral music has always been to the franchise. The opening twangs of Minutemen’s ‘Corona’, the TV show’s theme song, are seared into the brain of every fan. Punk is in the DNA of Jackass, from the Ramones to Misfits to The Vandals. Over the years, they roped in friends and family members to feature on the soundtracks: CKY, Karen O, Roger Alan Wade. The fun, anything goes spirit of Jackass lent itself perfectly to the music of the 00’s, too: Sir Mix-a-Lot, Andrew W.K., Peaches. But the music wasn’t always soundtracking someone crashing a golf cart or getting hit in the head. In Jackass 3D, the closing credits are accompanied by old footage and childhood photos of the cast and crew soundtracked by Weezer singing ‘Memories’. Whatever the soundtrack of Jackass: Best and Last turns out to include, it seems likely to have a healthy dose of nostalgia as the boys finally sign off.

Here, Johnny Knoxville dives into the music of Jackass and what it means to him.

THE PROCESS

Choosing songs for the Jackass soundtrack is mostly a democratic process. While Jeff Tremaine and Knoxville pick most of the music, the best idea wins. “If someone, anyone, crew, cast, has a better suggestion, we’ll take it,” says Knoxville. Spike Jonze also picks songs from time to time, particularly for the epic opening pieces, which Knoxville sees as Jonze’s “mini films”: “I want to see what he’s wanting for those.” Unsurprisingly, the process is a little disorganised. “Jeff and I always wait until the last minute to do these things, and because of that we don’t have time to put together an album or merchandising. People that have plans get to do all that,” laughs Knoxville. At this point, though, they’re unlikely to change. “We don’t look at it as a business. It’s something we love doing. Maybe it would have helped if we’d have looked at it like a business, but it probably wouldn’t have worked. It is what it is.”

THE THEME SONG

Not all Jackass fans have heard of Minutemen, but they have heard the distinctive opening twangs of their track ‘Corona’. The ‘80s punk band weren’t together for long, but they managed to catch the attention of the Jackass crew. “Minutemen are some of our heroes,” says Knoxville. He was the one who suggested ‘Corona’ to Jonze and Tremaine to use as their theme song: “That we got to use ‘Corona’ meant a lot to me personally, and to everyone else. I put that song forward, but it was an easy thing to do because they love Minutemen. The song is so catchy. It really worked.” While the song is now embedded in Jackass history, things could have been different. “I think I also put forward ‘Bastards of Young’ by The Replacements at the same time, which is also a great song, and there was a third track I put forward, but I can’t quite remember,” says Knoxville. “Going back to myself in that moment, I would guess I also put forward ‘Teenage Kicks’, but Minutemen was decided.”

THE TV SHOW

When filming the Jackass TV series, they had very little budget for anything at all, let alone something as fancy as a “sound guy”. “We didn’t even know productions had a sound guy,” laughs Knoxville. They didn’t end up getting one until the first movie, which meant that music was immediately essential to the production: “We had to have music, because we didn’t have any sound. Luckily most of our bits work like a silent movie, you don’t need to know what we’re saying.” They also had very little budget for the tracks they used, which is why they turned to old punk songs, like ‘Corona’. Recently, Knoxville learned that Jackass had been re-edited on Paramount+, with new music subbed in. They have since worked together to restore the show to its original state, but it was a reminder just how important music is: “It changes everything.”

IF YOU’RE GONNA BE DUMB

While ‘Corona’ might be the official Jackass theme song, there’s another track that fans have come to associate with the series: Roger Alan Wade’s ‘If You’re Gonna Be Dumb, You Gotta Be Tough’. The lyrics alone capture the charm of Jackass and its dumb, tough crew. Roger Alan Wade is Knoxville’s cousin, and he’s always been supportive of his career. “Roger has been my hero since I was a little boy. To be able to have him record music for us and do duets with Karen O and get to do a radio show with him every week for over 15 years now makes me very happy.” Knoxville remembers exactly how they came to adopt ‘Dumb’: “Roger came to town to visit me right around the time a year or so before we started doing Jackass and he had four songs on a tape. That was one of them. I played it for Jeff and he loved all the songs, but he loved that one special. You could say that one rivals ‘Corona’ for our theme song.”

THE MOVIES

Throughout the movies, different versions of Roger Alan Wade’s ‘If You’re Gonna Be Dumb’ feature. “‘Dumb’ has maybe supplanted ‘Corona’ as our theme song,” says Knoxville now. For Jackass 3D, Karen O did a more heartfelt rendition. Now, Knoxville calls any song that Karen O has written or sung for them his favourites. For the second movie, she wrote a track called ‘Backass’ that she requested Knoxville sing on. However, after hearing his rendition, both she and her producer agreed to his request to turn down his volume in the mix. Andrew W.K.’s ‘We Want Fun’ felt like a fitting track to feature on the first movie. The gang also made a music video with him, which Knoxville says led to Andrew W.K. and Spike Jonze having a wrestling match: “Spike really threw him around. Spike is little, but he’s strong,” he laughs. Knoxville also recalls including Cock Sparrer’s ‘I Got Your Number’ in Jackass 3D for his jet engine sequence. “I actually had a guy come to me the other day and personally thank me for introducing him to Cock Sparrer. Made my day.” While there will be funny music moments in the latest instalment, there are also likely to be some tearjerkers, says Knoxville: “For the song credits in this one, we are definitely leaning into the 25 years of the family being together of it all.”

KNOXVILLE’S FAVOURITES

Sometimes the budget was something of a constraint when choosing tracks for the Jackass soundtrack, but that doesn’t mean everything wasn’t chosen with love. When reflecting, both over the phone and in later emails, Knoxville handpicked his favourite tracks from throughout the series. One is ‘Treatment Bound’ by The Replacements, which was in the credits for Jackass Number Two. “Paul Westerberg hardly ever licenses music for films, at least he hadn’t then. But I was drinking a lot with Tommy Stinson in those days and he personally took this request to Paul,” says Knoxville. “I was fucking ecstatic when Paul gave the greenlight. No song exactly captured where we were all at while filming Jackass Number Two more than ‘Treatment Bound.’” Roger Alan Wade, a frequent collaborator with the Jackass family, also comes up a lot. “’Cohares Cohares’ is the best song ever written for Jackass that we didn’t use. Roger wrote this song to be used in the toro totter or when I got hit by the yak while I was blindfolded,” he laughs, adding that he felt the track represented him perfectly. Finally, he calls ‘Somebody’s Going to Get Their Head Kicked in Tonight’ by Rezillos, which was used for the golf cart crash in the first movie, a “great song to get a concussion to”.

JACKASS: BEST AND LAST

For the final ever instalment of the Jackass franchise, the team wanted to make sure that the fans were left with a strong impression. That meant that everything, from the stunts to the music, had to be perfect. Tapping into their cast of longtime collaborators, Jonze suggested asking Karen O and Roger Alan Wade to cover a song together: Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’. “We recorded it last week and it was really sweet and beautiful and I was so happy I got to be there to witness it. It’s a beautiful cover by people with talent as big as their hearts,” says Knoxville. They also asked bluegrass musician Billy Strings to do a cover of ‘If You’re Gonna Be Dumb’. “Billy has shared with me what Jackass meant to him growing up and I was touched by it,” says Knoxville. “That he took the time to record this song for us means a lot to me as well.”