There are a few perfect combinations in this world: peanut butter and jelly, baseball and hotdogs, popcorn and movies. Now, thanks to director Shaun Donnelly, the newest perfect coupling is porn stars and rock & roll.

As director of the Playboy TV original The Boy Nexxt Door, and now pice de rsistance Tight, Shaun is the go-to guy for porn-based reality series. His latest opus follows the titular band comprised of adult performers Monica Mayhem, Tuesday Cross, Alicia Andrews, and Layla Labelle as they form an all-girl, all porn star, rock band. Managed by hardcore honey, and former Charlie Sheen paramour, Bree Olson, the band members take time off from the XXX world to try to make it as musicians.

Shaun was on hand to document all the wild onstage (and backstage) action as the gorgeous gals adjusted to life on the road, endured crappy motel rooms, rowdy fans and rowdier band members, and explosive (naked) in-fighting.

Now he’s giving us the inside scoop on what it's like to work with porn stars, and more importantly what it's like to watch a vicious catfight one day, and then the tender onscreen makeup the next. Talk about hard rock!

How did the movie come about?

I was looking for a follow-up to The Boy Nexxt Door and I’d always wanted to do something with an all-girl band. An ex-girlfriend came up with the name she thought it would be funny if a band named Tight opened for Moist and Hole and the sexually suggestive name gave me the idea to create a porn star band.

Tight performingActually finding porn stars with musical talent was a difficult task and their agents were almost no help at all. Most have no clue if their girls have any talent aside from the sexual acts they’re willing to perform. So we started talking to everyone we could and eventually heard of a porn star in Montreal named Layla Labelle who played guitar and then heard that Monica Mayhem was a singer and approached her. As word of the project got out we started getting approached. Bobbi Starr and Tuesday Cross both contacted us about being the band’s bass player and Tuesday won the job with a kick-ass audition tape. We couldn’t find a drummer anywhere so we ended up taking a brand new girl new to porn and music and signed her up for 2 months of drum lessons. That’s how Alicia Andrews joined the band.

Your last TV series, The Boy Nexxt Door, also involved the porn industry. Is this a topic near and dear to your heart?

Before Boy Nexxt Door I did a series for Starz called “Make Me a Porn Star” and an adult-themed talk show called “Blue Revue”. And then a doc about the sex-lives of the disabled called “SexAbility” so I guess some people might think I have a one track mind. But it was more that the first series did well so that’s what everyone else wanted me to do and of course what guy is going to say no to Playboy TV when they ask for a series?! My latest project is a television network called Aggression TV. It’s an MMA network so no porn stars to be found. Except for our lingerie fighting league, but that’s all, I swear!

Tight was originally intended to be a TV series. Was it ever broadcast on TV, or did it just change direction and get edited into a movie?

It was originally supposed to be a reality series and we had lots of interest from big networks like MTV, NBC and VH1 but each time we’d hear the same thing; "we love it but our advertisers just won’t support a show about porn stars". I had one buyer tell me they’d lose their job if they bought it. We had a couple offers from smaller cable networks like HDNet and MavTV, and then had the idea to re-cut it as a feature length movie instead. I approached several distributors and every single one wanted it including Anchor Bay and the guys who did Human Centipede and we finally decided to release it with Wild Eye and MVD. And the rest, as they say, is history.

When you started working on the film, did you have a certain type of audience in mind?

We certainly envisioned a predominantly male audience so it surprised us a great deal when it scored really well with female audiences at test screenings. I think the drama appeals to women. And of course the scantily clad women appeals to men.

Bree OlsonThe movie is billed as a mockumentary, but the musical performances are real. What other parts were unscripted?

It walks a really fine line between mockumentary and documentary. As you noted, the musical performances are real. So is the drama between the band members. All the fights are completely real and there were a couple times when we nearly halted production because the girls were threatening to kill each other. Bree’s role, on the other hand, and some of the scenarios we put the girls in were outlined, never scripted, so we felt the mockumentary label fit. But even the outlined parts were real to the band. We never told them what was coming next, or even where their next tour stop was!

Tuesday CrossWhat was it like working with the girls in the band?

Honestly, it was hell. Layla and Alicia, especially, were trouble from the beginning. When they weren’t fighting with each other they were fighting with the crew. Monica never fit in with the other girls because of the age difference and nearly quit the first week. And Tuesday was probably the worst of the bunch but we all liked her because she was the only one who ever apologized, then she would do something even worse the next night! Tuesday was the only one with real band experience so she never complained, no matter how shitty the conditions, because she knows what bands really go through. The others thought they should be put up at the Ritz Carleton every night so living as a struggling rock band came as quite a shock to them. Layla very nearly had a nervous break down near the end and tried to slice her wrist with a broken coffee pot. It got pretty crazy.

Did the band have any groupies?

The band had lots of groupies! A surprising number of female groupies hung out at their shows, especially in Vegas. Lots of guys too. The girls had no shortage of guys buying them drinks after their shows which became a problem as two of the girls are under 21. There were often guys circling the house we’d rented for the band in Vegas and on several occasions we caught guys on camera trying to sneak out of one bedroom or another. Layla was especially in the habit of bringing groupies home, which didn’t sit well with her fiance back home when he found out.

Tuesday Layla CatfightAny particularly memorable moments during filming?

The fights stand out the most for me. Monica nearly killing Layla one night in a Vegas bar owned by Alice Cooper’s guitarist Keri Kelly. Alicia slapping Layla across the face so hard during one fight the entire crew winced. Later we had to disarm Alicia when she went after Layla backstage with her drumsticks. And finally the naked fight between Tuesday and Layla. It lasted more than 30 minutes the girls had more stamina than restraint. My only regret, though, is we let it get a little too out of hand between Layla and Alicia. By the time we got to L.A. Alicia was bullying Layla pretty badly. She’d just had enough shit from her and was taking a perverse pleasure in making Layla’s life hell.

Since the movie was filmed, Kelley Jean has replaced the lead singer Monica Mayhem. What was behind the change?

Monica retired from porn the day we wrapped Tight, moved back to Australia, got married and had a baby. Even if she hadn’t done all that, there was no way she would ever have worked with Layla and Tuesday again after she saw the movie and some of the things they’d said about her in their interviews. Kelley Jean is a sensational singer from Detroit and has fit in perfectly with Layla and Tuesday, she and Layla won Howard Stern’s $10,000 Triple X Factor Contest. We also had to replace Alicia Andrews who’s family found out she was doing porn and nearly disowned her. We replaced her with a recorded drum track. It’s much easier to get along with and hasn’t tried to kill Layla yet.

What’s the first movie and/or TV nude scene you remember seeing?

I grew up in Canada and one of the channels we got was the French CBC. Every now and then there’d be a nipple flash. You had to sit through hours of story you couldn’t understand but it was totally worth it!

Layla and Alicia What’s your all-time favorite nude scene?

A couple days after Alicia attacked Layla they had to do a sex scene together. Knowing how much they hated each other at that moment and then watching them have sex was kind of hot.

Are there any actresses that you would especially love to work with?

After spending 39 days on the road with 4 porn stars, I can work with anyone.

What’s next for you?

By some fluke that even I can’t fully understand, I now own my own television network, the MMA cable network Aggression TV. We have half a dozen original programs in production right now as well as hundreds of live and taped fights.

Anything else you want to add?

The band has two albums coming out. One is the official soundtrack of the movie and features live and studio tracks with Monica’s vocals. The other is a studio album called Life of the Party with Kelley Jean fronting the band. Look for both on iTunes around Christmas time. And the band was invited to appear on the past season of America’s Got Talent, but the invitation was revoked when someone at NBC came to their senses.

You can watch the trailer for Tight here, and purchase the DVD which is loaded with extras, including deleted scenes, bonus videos, unseen concert footage, and galleries, here or here.

Tune in tomorrow for an interview with Tight members Bree Olson, Kelley Jean, and Tuesday Cross right here at MrSkin.com!