Way back in September 2003, Weird Al Yankovic embarked on his first tour outside the US. The tour included Australia as he has quite a large fanbase here. I was lucky enough to be able to interview Al at the Novotel hotel in St Kilda (Melbourne).
I was one of a procession of interviewers trudging through the hotel hallways that day – some with cameras and professional sound recording equipment – and there was me with the portable minidisc recorder and external microphone borrowed from the community radio station I was at back then.
This was my first interview with a megastar and I was more than a little nervous. Fortunately Weird Al was the nicest, most down to earth star I’d ever met, and the interview soon got underway. Below is the transcript of the interview from that day.
TRASH DISCO: Al, welcome to Southern FM and Trash Disco…
WEIRD AL YANKOVIC: Thank you so much
TD: Thanks for coming in. I might start, Al, this is your first time touring in Australia?
WAY: Actually first time touring outside of North America, so we’re very excited about this.
TD: So what made you tour outside North America?
WAY: Well, the band and I have always wanted to come to Australia to do a show. I’m not sure why it’s taken us this long actually, because I know we’ve had a fan base here for quite some time.
Our last album (Running With Scissors) went gold here, we just always wanted to play here. I don’t why it’s taken so long, like I said, but finally the planets have aligned and it seemed like the right time.
TD: Just a little bit of history; most people think you came to attention with Eat It, but you were around long before that…
WAY: Yeah, I was around a bit before that, I had a couple of minor singles like My Bologna, Another Rides The Bus, Ricky and I Love Rocky Road but Eat It was definitely the song that made me known pretty much around the world.
That was just a huge hit because Michael Jackson was the biggest thing in the world and I was this gawky kid from L.A. trying to do Michael Jackson dance moves. So that kind of made a big splash at the time.
TD: You’re from L.A.? I was under the impression you were Canadian…
WAY: I’m Canadian in my soul, but I’m officially a US citizen.
TD: At age 14 you sent a demo tape to Dr Demento, I don’t think there’s a lot known about that; can you shed any light on that?
WAY: Dr Demento is a disc jockey in the states that plays all sorts of comedy and novelty records, a very bizarre show, and he’s been on the air for over thirty years right now. At the time he was just kind of starting out and I was a big fan of his show growing up and I thought I can do this kind of music.
I was being exposed to people like Stan Freeberg, Tom Lehrer, Alan Sherman and Spike Jones and I started recording songs that I’d written myself in my bedroom just me singing along with my accordion.
It was awful, just horrible songs, horribly recorded, but Dr Demento thought that they were quirky or unusual enough to play on his show, which he did, and I developed a bit of a cult following over the years.
TD: Some of the early stuff, I looked at the Dr Demento web site, and it lists songs that are listed as recorded but never released…like Won’t Eat Prunes Again…
WAY: (laughing) Yeah, that’s an awful song..
TD: It sounds fantastic..
WAY: No, it’s awful, awful, a parody of Won’t Get Fooled Again by The Who…but it’s just really baaad, bad bad…
TD: The titles alone are worth listing somewhere… You Don’t Take Your Showers…
WAY: (a parody of) You Don’t Send Me Flowers…
TD: And Hit Me With A Rock… I like that; that’s a good one
WAY: (laughing even harder now) These are songs I’ve been trying to forget my whole life.. wow…
TD: The parodies themselves; do you hear a song on the radio and go (click) I’ve got an idea for that, and then you approach the artist? How does that work?
WAY: Sometimes it’s that spontaneous, I’ll hear a song on the radio. Usually I’ll need to hear it a few times before I realise the song’s a big hit, and sometimes I’ll spontaneously have an idea in the car when I’m driving around.
More often than not I have to sit down and think about it or I’ll have to go through the Billboard charts and figure out what would be a good candidate to do a parody of, what are the various variations on a theme I can do, sometimes really analytical about it. But it seems like the best ideas are the ones that, you know, come to you spur of the moment.
TD: Do you have problems getting permission or has anyone ever said no?
WAY: I do get turned down, but it’s pretty rare. Most artists realise that when I do a parody it’s all done in good fun. you know, it’s not meant to be derogatory at all; its an homage to them. But every once in a while.. for example, Prince has never allowed me to do a parody, but, of course, that was back in the eighties when he was having hits.
TD: He’s doing a tour soon, maybe you could approach him again…
WAY: I’ll ask, I’ll ask, you know…maybe he’ll be my opening act on this tour.
TD: I did hear something about Coolio and Amish Paradise… Bad Hair Day that’s on isn’t it?
WAY: Yeah
TD: Is there a story behind that one?
WAY: The Coolio incident was just unfortunate because it was a case of misunderstanding and to this day, I really don’t have any idea what happened there. I was under the impression that he had given his permission for me to do Amish Paradise.
My record label claims that they talked to him personally and he said he was fine with it. Coolio has since gone on record saying that he never approved it and was actually quite offended by Amish Paradise.
It’s disappointing to me because other than him I’ve got a perfect record of artists being happy with the parodies, and then Coolio, for whatever reason, decided that he wasn’t happy with it.
TD: So once you start these relationships with artists, do you keep in contact, are you ‘buddies’ afterwards?
WAY: Well, I haven’t gone bowling with Michael Jackson lately! I wouldn’t say we’re close friends or anything like that, but if I run into someone at an awards show or at a party I would give them the wave and say ‘HELLO-O!!’
TD: Do you have a favourite artist you like to parody; you’ve done Michael Jackson twice…
WAY: Right, I think Michael is the only artist I’ve done two full parodies of. It’s hard to say who my favourite would be. I try to vary the artists from album to album and try not to be too repetitive. There’s a lot of songs I enjoy playing live in concert… obviously the hits; the Michael Jackson things, Smells Like Nirvana and Yoda’s a favourite to do.. it’s really hard to pick favourites though.
TD: With the other songs on the albums, you’ve got your own originals as well, there’s a few that are done in the style of other people…
WAY: That’s right, yeah…
TD: Is that an intentional thing to do, or is it because they were parodies that didn’t quite get permission?
WAY: I like to call those ‘style parodies’ and they’re obviously very intentional. They’ve always started out as being a ‘song in the style of’ as opposed to a direct parody. Not all my originals are like that, but some of them… they’re kind of exercises, musical exercises to put myself in the shoes of other artists and write songs in their style but maybe just a little more demented.
TD: I think my favourite one is Germs (the Nine Inch Nails style one)
WAY: Thank you.
TD: You mentioned a few influences before, you’ve covered a lot of styles; you’ve done country (and western), and jazz and blues and all that sort of thing… is there any style that you haven’t attacked that you’d like to attack?
WAY: Well, we haven’t done Gregorian chants yet, or Viking music, but other than that I think we’ve covered just about everything. That’s kind of the challenge at this point because I’ve done so many albums and so many different styles, I’m always trying to do something that I’ve never done before.
TD: I read that you graduated in architecture, is that true?
WAY: I got my degree in architecture, that’s right…
TD: Have you ever used it?
WAY: I’ve used it pick my teeth when I didn’t have dental floss… it comes in handy… I’ve never gotten a job where I’ve had to use my degree. I’ve forgotten everything I’ve learned in college, except I can print very neatly. That part of the architecture training stayed with me.
TD: You had trademark glasses and moustache for a long while, and that was a favourite of mine because in your videos you did a lot to look like the artist – but kept your glasses and moustache! The Nirvana video (Smells Like Nirvana) and the Michael Jackson one (Eat It) – and then suddenly – no glasses, no moustache.
WAY: Well, I had the laser surgery about six years ago to improve my vision, just because the technology was here and I figured, you know, it’d be nice to not have to rely on my glasses. So I had the operation and my vision’s been corrected and I no longer need to wear glasses.
For a while I tried wearing fake glasses because that was my image and it was kind of iconic and I felt that people wouldn’t recognise me without the glasses. After a while I felt kind of phony and I realised that I’m all about keeping it real, boy! So I lost the glasses and figured while I’m doing that I may as well shave the facial hair too and go for the total change.
TD: A sign of things to come was inside the sleeve of Alapalooza, there’s all these pictures of you with the glasses and moustache, and inside there’s a picture of you with no glasses, really stylish and I thought to myself: “Who’s this guy?”. Where did the idea for that picture come from?
WAY: I think the photographer suggested that. He’d been doing some real stylised ’30s glamour photos, and he wanted to try that with me and I thought that would be kind of a fun idea. So we gave it a shot and (laughing) it just cracked me up to see that picture because so many people would go “Who IS that?”
TD: You got the desired result!
TD: I looked through the FAQs on your website, but its too big to look through all of it, do you answer all of them yourself?
WAY: Oh yeah!
TD: When do you get the time?
WAY: It’s over a long period of time, so whenever I get the time I do it.
TD: My favourite one on the is “What is the first thing you notice about a person?”. Can you remember what you said to that?
WAY: Ummm.. whether or not they’re on fire! (laughs)
TD: I just wanted to briefly cover TV appearances. You’ve got an ALtv show?
WAY: That’s right, it’s gonna be airing on the Comedy channel on October 5th at 3pm.
TD: Any chance of it being on free-to-air for those of us without cable?
WAY: Not up to me!
TD: It’s been on for years hasn’t it?
WAY: It’s not a series, it’s a kind of series of specials. Every time we put an album out I concoct this ALtv program. Basically its a thinly veiled commercial for my current album. There’s a lot of phony interviews, a lot of shtick, weird stuff. It’s a lot of fun, I think you’ll like it!
TD: Now to film appearances, you were in the first two Naked Gun movies?
WAY: Actually all three. I was in the whole Naked Gun trilogy, yeah.
TD: In the first one Frank Dreben is giving a speech at the airport and he thinks the crowd is cheering him, but its really you because you were waving from the plane. how did you get involved that?
WAY: I pretty much approached them. I knew the producer of the series, Robert K Weiss, he’d actually co-directed some of my earlier videos. I loved Police Squad, which was the TV show that Naked Gun was based on, it was my all time favourite TV show.
When I heard they were making a movie based on the TV show I said “Oh, Bob, you gotta put me in this movie somewhere! I don’t care if I’m in a crowd scene, I’ll get coffee for the crew, I don’t care I’ll do anything.”. He told the director, and they wrote that whole scene for me, coming off the airplane which i was absolutely thrilled with.
TD: In the second one you’re in a scene with OJ Simpson, is that right?
WAY: We’re in the office and I’m holding somebody at gunpoint. Frank Dreben comes in and knocks me against the wall without even noticing I’m there. “Good work, Frank, good work”.
TD: And where do they spot you in the third one?
WAY: In the third one I’m Weird Al again, and I’m arriving at the Academy Awards with Vanna White in a limo.
TD: Is that where the inspiration for “Stuck In A Closet With Vanna White” came from?
WAY: I think I’d written that song long before that appearance…
TD: Did she know about the song?
WAY: Oh, yeah, she was quite aware of that.
TD: Poodle Hat is four years after Running With Scissors. That’s quite a long gap, so what inspires you to make an album and what inspired you in particular to make this album?
WAY: It was time to do another album. I wanted to get another album out, I wanted to go out on the road, keep doing the Weird Al thing, it just felt like the right time. Normally I don’t spend four years between albums, but the tour for Running With Scissors was about a year and a half long, so that kind of ate into my time.
Also I got married and had a kid, so that also ate into my time. There was a bit of time spent with lawyers because I had to renegotiate my record contract so that was three years in the middle of all that. There was just a lot going on between those two albums. Hopefully the next album won’t
take quite so long.
TD: So you’re already working on new material?
WAY: Not quite yet, but when I get off the Australian tour I’m definitely gonna put more thought into that.
TD: Are we going to see ‘concert-only’ parodies on this tour?
WAY: There’s at least one, off the top of my head. There’s not quite so much, but there’s always a lot of surprises in the live show.
TD: Do you want to tell us about the DVD?
WAY: The DVD is out October 6th in Australia, in fact it’s out in Australia before anywhere else in the world.
TD: That’s a nice change!
WAY: A nice distinction, yeah. It’s called the Ultimate Video Collection, and it’s a collection of all 24 of my music videos for the first time ever.
TD: Thank you for joining us on Trash Disco tonight.
WAY:My pleasure!
Trash Disco 