David Kaff, musician best known as Viv Savage, keyboard player in Spinal Tap

David Kaff, who has died aged 79, was a musician who was best known as Viv Savage, hard-partying keyboard player with Spinal Tap, the beloved fictional band in Rob Reiner’s celebrated 1984 mockumentary; when the cast members carried on as a real-life band, he stuck around long enough to tour and appear on Saturday Night Live.

Viv had several good lines in the film, but the best was saved till last; in the end credits he is asked about his philosophy of life. “Have a good time – all the time,” he famously answers.

“I played him very close to my heart, just a little bit dimmer,” Kaff recalled. “If people like that character, chances are they’ll like me.”

David Kaffinetti was born in Folkestone, Kent, on April 17 1946 and studied classical music in his childhood before catching the rock’n’roll bug in his teens. In 1969 he co-founded Rare Bird, a rock band with progressive leanings and an unusual line-up of drums, bass and two keyboard players – with Kaff on piano – and no lead guitarist.

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They became one of the first bands signed to the Charisma label – home to Genesis, Hawkwind and Monty Python – and their moody, atmospheric debut single Sympathy, released early in 1970, reached No 27 in the UK, as well as No 1 in Italy and France, and went on to sell a million copies. Kaff found time to support a rock’n’roll great, playing on the live side of The London Chuck Berry Sessions album (1972).

While subsequent singles failed to trouble the charts, Rare Bird did release five well-regarded albums between 1969 and 1974 before going their separate ways.

Spinal Tap: the film was shot in five weeks on handheld 16mm cameras and was largely improvised - United Archives GmbH/Alamy

Kaff joined the shortlived “supergroup” Natural Gas, (which included the former Badfinger guitarist Joey Molland), but his services were dispensed with shortly after they had taped the demo that landed them a record deal.

Then in 1984, in a nod to the fictional band’s British roots, Kaff, along with the former Atomic Rooster drummer Ric Parnell, was one of two “real” musicians recruited for This Is Spinal Tap.

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The film, which follows the band as they tour to promote their Smell the Glove album, had been devised by the improvisational comedians Michael McKean (who went on to play David St Hubbins, lead singer and rhythm guitarist) Christopher Guest (Nigel Tufnel, lead guitarist) and Harry Shearer (Derek Smalls, bassist), along with the writer and director Rob Reiner.

Rather than pitching a script, they had made a 20-minute demo film that convinced the producer Norman Lear to give them $2 million. The film was shot entirely in Los Angeles in five weeks on handheld 16mm cameras and was largely improvised – a technique that Kaff took to.

In one scene the band is billed beneath a puppet act at an amusement park, and St Hubbins Viv if he can play Nigel’s bass line from the group’s triple-bass hit Big Bottom. “Yeah,” replies Viv, “I got two hands, yeah, I can do it.”

Although many rock bands were left smarting – Iron Maiden reportedly walked out of the premiere, believing the film was based on them – This Is Spinal Tap became a huge cult classic with a 96 per cent rating on Rotten Tomatoes. The critic Roger Ebert put it in his list of all-time favourite films, calling it “one of the funniest movies ever made”.

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In 1990 he filmed a humorous public service announcement as Viv for the organisation HEAR (Hearing Education Awareness for Rockers). “Viv Savage of the band Spinal Tap speaks out on hearing loss,” a voice-over says, as Viv gormlessly asks, “What?”

Kaff went on to live in the Bay Area in California and played in such bands as Model Citizens and Mutual of Alameda’s Wild Kingdom. He was not involved in Reiner’s sequel Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, which is due out in September.

He married Marjolein Anna Cardon in 1982; they divorced in 1986.

David Kaff, born April 17 1946, died July 11 2025

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