The continuing weirdness of Weird Al Yankovic
WEIRD AL is the nickname of a popular entertainer who delights in the absurd. With Lee Cowan this morning we'll find out how he does it:
There's nothing quite as weirdly entertaining as a Weird Al Yankovic concert. Fans sport tin foil hats and Weird Al wigs. Some even cradle Weird Al balloon characters.
After 30 years of performing, Weird Al Yankovic is as current at ever -- still holding a funhouse mirror up to America's Top 40 hits.
He's been at this long enough that, while he started out making fun of pop culture, he's now firmly a part of it.
Cowan caught up with him backstage at Nashville's Grand Ole Opry House, near the beginning of his summer-long, 80-city tour.
Yankovic said he still gets a little nervous before he goes out on stage: "I think that's a normal thing. I think if you lose that, you lose a little bit of your edge. But once I step out on stage and I kind of feel that wave coming from the fans, then it all goes away and it's just fun."
He's a tireless performer, and an imaginative one, changing costumes in a heartbeat. He showed Cowan his Curt Cobain and Lady Gaga wigs.
For his famous Michael Jackson parody, "Fat," he has to put on a few pounds as well.
Michael Jackson was actually one of his earliest fans. Yankovic's version of "Beat It," called "Eat It," was almost as popular as the original. And who could forget his take on Madonna's "Like a Virgin," called "Like a Surgeon"?
"I think people will be surprised by how much effort and thought goes into these ridiculous songs," Yankovic said. "I mean, even though they feel like they're throwaway songs, or just novelty songs, I do obsess over it."
"It's pretty easy for some of these songs to be sort of mean-spirited and really lampooning somebody, but generally they don't," said Cowan.
"I don't want to have fun at the artist's expense," said Yankovic. "I want them to feel like they're in on the joke. It's gentle humor, I guess. But I don't think that means it's any less funny or less valid."
Legally, he can parody any song he wants. But out of respect, he usually asks for an artist's permission first.
Most consider it the sincerest form of flattery -- but sometimes the answer is no, like when he asked Paul McCartney about one song in particular.
"I wanted to do a parody of 'Live and Let Die,' called 'Chicken Pot Pie.' And because Paul's a strict vegetarian, he said, 'Well, I'd prefer that your parody not be about eating chicken because, like, that goes against my beliefs.' And I thought, 'Well, the whole chorus of the song is chickens squawking. And I couldn't really make it tofu pot pie or something else. It wouldn't work the same!"
His most recent album (his 14th) debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 -- that's unheard of for a comedy album.
At 56, Weird Al is remarkably ageless, and remarkably normal given his weird persona. He lives with wife of 16 years, Suzanne, and his daughter, Nina, high in the Hollywood Hills, where the walls of his studio are a testament not only to his success, but his longevity.
"My career started right after the death of the eight-track," he quipped. "I almost had an eight-track! But not quite!"
His path to weirdness started in Lynwood, California, a suburb of Los Angeles, where Al grew up. Music wasn't his first love; it was actually school.
"I started kindergarten a year early, so I wound up starting high school when I was 12," he said. "I graduated when I was 16 as the valedictorian. So when I write a song like 'White and Nerdy,' that comes from personal experience. There's a lot of personal experience that goes into that!"
Adding to his nerd mystique was his passion for that accordion. It came into his life via a door-to-door salesman. His parents bought him lessons on the spot.
"I mean, they thought, 'Oh yes, who wouldn't want to learn how to play the accordion?" Yankovic said. "I mean, every party that you go to, you'll be A one-man band! You'll be so popular! Imagine how popular in high school with the ladies! Chick magnet! Are you kidding me?"
In college, at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, he planned on being an architect. But he also worked at the college radio station -- and that's where Alfred Matthew became Weird Al.
"I'm not sure exactly who called me Weird Al first," he said. "I think people were sort of calling me Weird Al my freshman year in the dorm. Like, 'Oh yeah, don't mind him. That's just Weird Al.'"
"It wasn't exactly a compliment," Cowan suggested.
"It was not a compliment at the time. It was sort of derogatory! And I thought, 'Okay, I'm gonna take this on. This is gonna be an empowering thing. I'm gonna own my weirdness and fly my freak flag, you know?'"
He started writing parody lyrics just for fun, and sent a few to a radio program called "The Dr. Demento Show," that actually started playing Al's demented songs on the air.
The first that was a bona fide hit on the show was "My Bologna," Al's parody of the Knack's "My Sharona."
The timing was perfect. MTV had just gone on the air, and they needed content -- even Weird Al content.
"And all of a sudden, I was being pointed at on the street and being stared at, which is something that I never really had experienced in my life up to that time!" he said.
He cobbled a band together that could replicate mega-hits to a T -- no easy task.
Jim "Kimo" West has been with him since 1981. ("He seems to keep hiring us every year!" he laughed.) And John "Bermuda" Schwartz has been with him since the days of "Another One Rides the Bus."
Cowan asked, "Do you guys feel you get the respect you deserve?"
"Much more so now," said West. "We didn't always get a whole lot of respect. We were literally considered like a comedy band."
It hasn't always been easy. Back in 1982 while opening for Missing Persons they were almost laughed out of the Santa Monica Auditorium.
"The curtain went up and as soon as they saw me with an accordion, they were like, 'Get off the stage!!!'" said West.
Schwartz added, "I don't know if he knew what it meant to get booed off the stage. So he didn't -- he just stayed."
Afterward, Yankovic packed up his accordion and headed to the parking lot where a teenager came up to Yankovic and said, "Oh, are you Weird Al?"
"And I said, 'Yeah!' And he goes, 'You suck!!' Like, oh, the perfect button to the evening, thank you so much!"
Opinions have certainly changed over the years. Now he's made the accordion almost cool ... almost.
Weird Al is proof that being weird is timeless ... and he wouldn't have it any other way. After all, as talented as he is, if people took him seriously ... where's the fun in that?
For more info:
- weirdal.com | Tour information
- Follow @alyankovic on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube