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More than 30 years of cutting satire have made ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic a comedy megastar in the US. Now he’s daring to be stupid in the UK for the first time.
Words by Daddy Bones
Illustration by Tom Bingham
From humble beginnings in 1976 as an amateur contributor to a novelty radio show in his native California, ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic has sung, rapped, acted, aped and generally mocked his way to the very top of his game: comedy music. No, don’t laugh. In fact, yes, do laugh. But at least know that it’s no big joke. Since he first rendered The Knack’s 1979 new wave anthem ‘My Sharona’ into a screwball polka entitled ‘My Bologna’, he has been a regular exclamation mark in the saga of pop media, satirising music, film and cultural phenomena at will and with exquisite pungineering, all the while clocking up over 12 million album sales and winning three Grammys.
The 1980s were his boom time. His 1983 debut album serendipitously caught the cresting wave of MTV as it broke into TV sets across the globe, reinventing music marketing. Thus many ‘Weird Al’ singles since have been promoted by an equally zany video and, throughout the eighties, it seemed like Al and the channel were made for each other. Parodies of Madonna (‘Like A Surgeon’), Michael Jackson (‘Eat It’ and ‘Fat’), James Brown (‘Living With A Hernia’) and Joan Jett (‘I Love Rocky Road’) were put on rotation by MTV and, within a year of his first appearance on the network, he was hosting his own Al TV show. By 1989 he had a feature film, UHF, released worldwide.
The following decades witnessed ever-sharper satire (acts like Nirvana and Red Hot Chili Peppers claim they never knew they’d really made it big until Al had flipped their hits), but once MTV had fully fractured into several less tangible lifestyle channels, Yankovic’s megastardom waned in the UK, and he’s now practically unknown to the latest generations here, despite continued iconic status in the US. At the time of this interview, an online fan campaign to have Al’s fame embodied in a star on the Hollywood Walk Of Fame was about to hit a donations level of $25,000.
He’s due a reintroduction to the UK, not least because he’s never yet been able to bring over his epic live show. However, thanks to Godspeed You! Black Emperor, headliners and curators of December’s All Tomorrow’s Parties festival, Alfred Matthew Yankovic and his long-serving backline — rightfully hailed as “the greatest cover band in the world” — will be giving some lucky Britons a spectacular pre-Christmas dose of weird at Butlin’s in Minehead, and then at a solo show in London. Corrective eye surgery and a modicum of good taste have done away with the once-famous spectacles and moustache, respectively, but the “poodle-perm wig” (actually his own natural, untreated hair) and ear for a wacky twist on the pop zeitgeist remain his stock-in-trade. As does his penchant for the accordion, god help us.
SP Can we start at the beginning? Few people in the UK will know of the Dr. Demento Show on US radio, on which you got your first exposure.
WA It’s how I got started doing what I do. I never anticipated I’d be ‘Weird Al’ Yankovic for a living. I went to college to do a degree in architecture. I thought I’d be an adult by now and have a grown-up job, but when I was in my mid-teens I was a fan of the show. The good Doctor played all sorts of strange, odd, demented novelty tunes by the likes of Spike Jones, Stan Freberg, Frank Zappa; a world of music I wasn’t familiar with. It struck a responsive chord with me and I thought, ‘Y’know, maybe I could do that.’ I started writing funny songs and recording them with my accordion in my bedroom, on a tiny cassette recorder.
SP Why the accordion?
WA Because that’s the only instrument that I had! When I was seven, my parents decided I should take accordion lessons. I can’t imagine I was begging for lessons. I think that was a parental decision — to make me really popular in high school.
SP Were you not into ‘normal’ pop music at all as a kid?
WA Not when I was a kid. Later, I listened to the Top 40 and FM stations, and I got an appreciation for the rock music of the time. I’d try to play along with my accordion and my friends would laugh at me, because there’s something inherently funny about rock’n’roll music played on the accordion. So I learned early on the connection between my chosen instrument and humour.
SP What was your big break, so to speak?
WA I was a 19-year-old college student and I ran into The Knack who were doing a show at my college, and they had heard my recording of ‘My Bologna’ on the Dr. Demento Show, which I’d recorded in the men’s bathroom across the hall from my college radio station. It didn’t have much production value, but for the listenership of the Dr. Demento Show it was a hit! Doug Fieger, the lead singer of The Knack, offhandedly mentioned to Rupert Perry, head of A&R at Capitol Records, who happened to be in the room: ‘Hey, you should put this out,’ and Rupert said: ‘Uh, okay!’ It was considered a kind of one-off joke, but it got me thinking: ‘Boy, this seems a lot more fun than being an architect! Maybe I should do this for real.’
SP What did your parents think at the time?
WA I don’t think they were ever really worried about me because I was always practical and adult-minded, and it’s not like I was running off to Hollywood to try to be a star. I was graduating with a degree. I think they trusted that I wouldn’t do something entirely crazy. The nicest thing my dad ever told me was that the only real measure of success is doing what you wanna do in life for a living. So as long as I was happy, I was successful.
SP Your first album came out in 1983…
WA Yeah, 1983, eponymously titled. The timing couldn’t have been better. I’ve just finished reading the book Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell and it reminded me of my career, because my first album came out virtually with the start of MTV and they were just really in need of programming. Their people were like, ‘Okay, let’s have a 24-hour music video channel, but, oh, we need people to make music videos!’ My first couple of videos were extremely low budget and, quite frankly, they weren’t that good. But MTV desperately needed something to put on the air. I was in the right place at the right time and I got a lot of early exposure, just because they came about at the same time I did.
SP With your parody songs is it a case of ‘hear a new song, pun the title and work backwards’?
WA That’s one of the ways. I can either do that, or if I have a very topical subject matter, I’ll reverse-engineer and find a song that goes along with it.
SP Do you genuinely need to love a song to parody it? Or are some songs just too ripe not to parody, whether good or bad?
WA It helps. It’s not essential that I love a song I want to parody, but in all honesty I’ll pick a song that I actually like because in the back of my mind I know that I’ll have to live with it for the rest of my life, singing it on stage every night. I don’t really wanna be playing one that’ll drive me crazy.
SP You always ask permission of the artists and their labels before you parody a song, is that correct?
WA I always think it’s a grey area, legally. I could probably get away with not asking permission, but I’ve always wanted it to be above-board so that the artists are in on the joke, and don’t feel like they’re getting their toes stepped on. More often than not, I don’t talk to them personally, but my peeps talk to their peeps and work out a deal.
SP Do you preapprove the idea or theme of the parody with the artists, too?
WA I at least take their temperature because I got burned once or twice very early on. I see if they will approve a concept based on one of their songs, and when they’ve done that they’ve never had a problem with my finished work. One odd exception was Eminem. I did a parody a couple of years ago of ‘Lose Yourself’ called ‘Couch Potato’. He was fine with me recording the song but while we were in preproduction for shooting the video we heard back from him: ‘Oh, you can’t do a video for it.’ We were like, ‘What? No?’
SP But that’s what you’re known for!
WA Yeah! I don’t know what his reasoning was. Like, he was okay with the song but he was afraid that a ‘Weird Al’ video would detract from his street cred? I didn’t quite understand his logic.
SP …not when there are plenty of rap stars you’ve poked fun at. And here’s a thing: you’ve gone from honking on an accordion and shouting in a bathroom to far more sophisticated send-ups like the Chamillionaire parody, ‘White And Nerdy’. It’s clearly not just mockery. Over the years, you’ve had to learn to sing certain styles and accents, learn to rap... It’s homage; you have to do this properly.
WA I don’t consider myself to be an impressionist, but I give it my best shot. My band is comprised of extremely talented musicians and they are excellent at doing everything from polka to gangsta rap. We take pride in paying attention to detail and getting every specific right.
SP Because if you don’t, it doesn’t really work.
WA Sometimes people denigrate comedy music and what I do because they think, ‘Oh, they can’t be serious musicians,’ or, ‘What kind of talent does that take?’ But in actuality my band has some of the best players in the world, I think. Not only are they extremely versatile, every single genre that they take on, they nail perfectly.
SP Are you finding it easier or harder to do what you do as time goes by?
WA I’ve been doing it for a long time, so I’ve got more experience and confidence in what I do, but there are several things that make it more difficult. First, I’ve been doing this for so long, it’s difficult for me to be funny in different and fresh ways, and not just repeat myself over and over again. Second, it’s difficult for me to be unique or the first person to ever parody something because of portals like YouTube. I mean, everybody in the world, it seems, is doing their own song parodies now and because the internet is so immediate, people can get their parodies out before I’m able to get a record in the stores. A third one is, and it may be hard for me to articulate this… I don’t think there are as many superstars or even mainstream hits as there used to be. Our pop culture is now so segmented and compartmentalised, I don’t think there’s as much of a communal experience in terms of who is a superstar or what is a hit song. Everything is kind of broken down into their genres and sub-genres and it’s harder to pinpoint what a hit even is any more.
SP It can’t help also that there’s a lot of material out there misattributed to you.
WA That is a pet peeve of mine. The internet has been very good to me in a number of ways, but my biggest problem is that a lot of songs misattributed to me that are somewhat vulgar, or just not that good. I’ve had a number of parents say, ‘I’m never letting my kid listen to ‘Weird Al’ again after this filthy song I found on the internet!’
SP Your stuff is known to be family-friendly. There’s nothing vulgar in anything you’ve done, really.
WA Well, it’s not squeaky clean; it’s got a bit of a bite, but it’s certainly not X-rated.
SP You’re a clean-living guy. You’re teetotal, you don’t smoke...
WA Yep, pretty clean-cut!
SP ...and vegetarian, too. Makes me wonder why Paul McCartney didn’t let you parody ‘Live And Let Die’, as planned.
WA Oh, now I hate to see Paul’s name dragged into this because he’s been a terrific sport. In fact, I got to direct Paul in a short 3-D movie I did last year. He’s a wonderful guy and a great friend. The only reason he had a problem with ‘Chicken Pot Pie’ is that he didn’t want the song to condone the eating of animal flesh. I thought that was a valid reason and I had no problem with it. He said: ‘If you can think of a different subject matter or take on the song, I’d be happy for you to do it.’ But I couldn’t.
SP It’s not just artists you have to deal with over permission, though, is it? I mean, if you’re going to do a song about eBay or Star Wars, as you have, you need to approach these huge companies…
WA That’s true. Well, sometimes we get permission and sometimes we don’t. Because it’s so difficult to deal with international corporations, we just do it and hope they have a sense of humour. Like in the case of eBay [‘I Bought It On eBay’ done to Backstreet Boys’ ‘I Want It That Way’], I don’t think we actually got their permission. But they were so happy when the song came out that they flew me to a big convention to perform it for their shareholders! However, I did have to get permission from Steven Spielberg for ‘Jurassic Park’, and permission for [Forrest] ‘Gump’. Thankfully a lot of people in the industry realise it’s all good fun, and good promotion for them, really.
SP Taking a comedy route actually afforded you a life of unusual opportunities, maybe even more so than a ‘normal’ rock star…
WA Every morning I wake up amazed that I still get to do what I do. Because of all the genres I’ve spanned and all the time I’ve been able to ‘hang around’ in the business, I’ve managed to meet an amazing group of people and been invited to all sorts of things which never, in my wildest dreams, did I think I’d be a part of. It has been quite a ride.
SP You’ve played over 1000 live shows, and yet never performed in Europe before…
WA That’s true. It’s always been something I wanted to and, until this year, we just haven’t been able to work it out where I could go and not lose a tonne of money. When I do a show, it’s not just me on stage; it’s me, my band, there are costume changes — it’s a whole multimedia show. It’s expensive to transport overseas, so we’d have to have a number of guaranteed gigs just to break even. This time we’re doing five shows in Europe and it looks like we might even make a little bit of money. So there we go!
SP One of which is All Tomorrow’s Parties. It’s a very hip festival.
WA Well, now that I’m on there, of course it is! I’m extremely gratified to have been invited by Godspeed You! Black Emperor. They’re the ones entirely responsible for me coming to Europe. If they hadn’t extended the invitation, I wouldn’t have been able to line up the other dates and I wouldn’t be coming to the UK at all.
SP Have you yourself ever been… let me think of a verb for this… Yankofied? You Yankofy other artists, but has anyone done a mockery of Al Yankovic?
WA Oh yeah, I’ve seen a few over the course of my career, mostly fans doing their versions of my songs.
SP Ah, yes — your songs. We should point out that only half of what you do is parody of existing material.
WA Oh yeah. So there’s those and did you ever see Mr. Show over there? It was on HBO in the States about 10 years ago. They did a brief bit where they had a character call Daffy Mal Yinkle Yankle, a bit of a vicious parody of me. Every now and then somebody will take a shot. But it’s cool.
SP I guess you’ve got to get as good as you give, take the rough with the smooth and all that.
WA But of course.
SP It’s quite a badge of honour to be Yankofied. Several artists have said that they had no idea how big they were until Al Yankovic did their song.
WA I suppose it’s like being on The Simpsons; it’s a rite of passage, it’s a sign that you’ve reached a certain plateau in your career. Better than at the beginning of my career when it was, ‘‘Weird Al’? Who?’
SP Where does Yankovic come from?
WA My grandparents were Yugoslavian. I’d say my nationality is half-Yugoslavian, a quarter English and a quarter Italian.
SP For years I thought you were Jewish. Oops.
WA Ha! I’m an honorary Jew.
SP And an only child.
WA As is my kid. And my wife! We’re all familiar with the paradigm of the only child. My daughter, Nina, is seven years old and has no aunts and uncles! But she’s got lots of friends and is very social. We’re just enjoying every day with her.
SP You’re not going to push the accordion on her, are you?
WA Oh no. We gave her some piano lessons but she never really took to them. She’s an excellent artist, though. Great with animals, great with art. So I don’t know what the future holds for her.
SP Painting animals? Sorry. Hey, you haven’t been remotely weird during this interview. Whoever called you that in the first place?
WA Ah, gosh. I don’t know. People are just cruel, y’know?
SP Aren’t they, though? Well, you don’t seem weird to me. Weird implies a smear of unpalatable darkness. You’ve been very affable.
WA I try and save up my weird for special occasions.
SP So you’re just a fairly normal, slightly zany chap at home?
WA Fairly normal, but slightly zany is just how I’d put it. I’m certainly not bouncing off the walls 24 hours a day.
SP I guess you take certain things in life seriously, of course, but you’re not seen as, say, a politicised character at all.
WA Well, I have political feelings and leanings, but I’m not vocal about them. I have a fan base and I don’t want to alienate half of them with something I’ve said.
SP It’s not a good idea to mix pop, comedy and politics, I guess.
WA Especially because nobody cares what I think!
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apologies for printing the whole thing but The Stool Pigeon (from whence it came) doesn't seem to want to let me link to it.
anyway great piece i thought especially the bit about Macca. he seems like an amazing chap!
― piscesx, Sunday, 9 January 2011 14:30 (thirteen years ago) link
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