Weird Al

Meet "Weird Al” Yankovic , an American treasure and best known for creating comedy songs that make light of pop culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musicians. Al and Craig are good friends in real life and the conversation shows! Al recently picked up his very first Emmy for being one of the producers of WEIRD: The Al Yankovic Story, which also won the award for Outstanding Television Movie at the Creative Arts ceremony. The movie also won an Emmy for its score, besides winning many other awards and nominations. It is a must watch! You can see it here: http://tinyurl.com/yms9tsdf. EnJOY! 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Craig Ferguson. The name of this podcast
is joy. I talk to interest in people about what
brings them happiness.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Weird Aal Yankovic.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
If you don't love weird Dally Yankovic, I have one
question for you.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
How long have you been in Al Qaeda? Here is
I said, I feel like I feel like you know,
I've done shows were like happen hour in like is
this the show? Are we doing the show? No, we
are doing the show. It's all right, So you know,
sit up straight, don't do anything. Don't radio voice, Yeah,

(00:40):
use your radio voice. Don't mention anything that will get
you or me canceled, or maybe you do. I think
that it's now come full circle and you have to
say something that gets you canceled so that you're participating.
You don't get canceled every decadar So people wonder what's
wrong with you. Well, yeah, you get canceled. I don't
know if you if actually is the thing that you

(01:01):
get canceled.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Does anybody really get canceled? I mean yeah, I think
a couple of people got canceled. I mean, but they
were like really really bad. Really yeah, yeah, they're like
they were like jail canceled. Yes, but when you're jail canceled, yeah,
jail canceled. That that's like the gold standard of canceled.
So listen to me and and say nothing until I finish. Okay, no,

(01:25):
listen to me. It's lovely to see you. I haven't
seen you since oh my god, since maybe Scotland.

Speaker 2 (01:31):
Was it that longer? Yeah, I guess it might have been.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
It may have been. Oh no, maybe I think you
know what I think I saw you. Maybe I saw
you in my host in Elia. I was getting a tattooed.
And you can't have a look because you've never seen
anyone get a tattooed, not up clothes, which I have
to say out as someone who has the broken roller
dances you have. You're really, you're very You're lacking a
lot in tattoos.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
I'm not a big fan of needles, you know. I
just I just, actually, like an hour ago, got my
COVID booster and flu shots. Oh so Bill Gates knows
you're here that well, I don't know. It's oh my god.
I either got the one where Bill Gates is going
to be controlling my mind, or I got the one
where my five g phone is going to turn me
into a zombie. So I'm not sure which one I got.
I only just heard about that.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
The theory about that that noise on your phone goes
off triggers your COVID.

Speaker 2 (02:14):
Yeah, it turns you in Fuh. I like that cool. Yeah,
they think of a lot, they think of all the
cold so creative. Yeah, it's lovely, but I will see this.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
I got my COVID jabs in Scotland, so I think
it won't work in me. I think it basically if
it mang goes off, I turned into fat back. Once
you across the border, it's all bets are off.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
Did you get COVID? I did? Yeah, I was so
very very careful. But we toured last year for six months,
and uh, I think I was the first one to
kick COVID. You got it and then you infected the
whole band. Yeah no, no, we all just took turns.
We all thankfully nobody got not more than one person
in the band got COVID at the same time, but
we all took turns. Well. I think that that's very

(02:58):
profession it was a very professional way to approach the band.

Speaker 1 (03:03):
I think we could all have learned from that. What
do you call your band? Just the weird Al band? Yeah,
I mean I call him.

Speaker 2 (03:10):
Jim Steve and John Ruban, I guess, but the collective
none for the band, just yeah Al's band. You know,
for a while, we're changing the name of the band
every tour, like back when Dirty Stupid was the album
there with a stupid band or you know, it's just
like a theme for the album, but we gave up
on that. Look, I have a name for a band,
and I think you can have it if you think
it for free? Yeah, okay, you're ready, Yes, call on Floss,

(03:35):
coll On Floss, coll on Floss. Yeah, what do you think?
Is it too too much? You know, I'm gonna I'm
gonna put that in my back pocket and near and
stick a pen in any well, see what you did say?
What you did? Now?

Speaker 1 (03:50):
Listen, you've been on tour. I was talking to Suzan,
your lovely lady wife about this. You've been on tour
a lot, like like for the past like thirty years continually. Yeah,
pretty much? Right, well a lot a lot?

Speaker 2 (04:03):
Yeah? Do you still love it? I do? You know,
it's my favorite part of what I do. I mean,
I don't like being away from my loved ones. Oh
you take them with you. They do it now now
that we're empty nesting. My wife and I actually my
wife joined me on the entire last flag of the
tour because we did Australia and euro up in Hawaiian
and she thought, oh, that might be fun, so we
got She got to actually tour with me. So that

(04:24):
was nice. That was nice. It was your daughter in college?
She is, Yeah, she's she's on the East Coast. I
can't believe that. I'm so old. She used to be
a baby and now she's in college. I've got one
of them that used to be a baby and is
finished college. Wow. And then the other one used to
be a baby and does it school and is a teenager. Ooh,

(04:45):
that's pretty rough. You know, the teenagers thing. What would
you like as a teenager? You rebellious? Well, in not
as such. I mean I was. You know, you've heard
my song white and Nerdy. That was me. I graduated
high school when I was sixteen as the valedictorian. So
I was one of those straighting nerds that people like
to beat up at recess. Wait, so you were bullied

(05:08):
a little? I mean, you know, I did I didn't
literally get beat up all the time, but I go
totally Barbara on right now, I'm going, I'm going to
do it. Alice, it was like, no Ah, you you
were bullied, right, It's true. It's a repressed memory. It's
all coming back now. So you were you were bullied
in that.

Speaker 1 (05:23):
Because we've talked about this, and it's about every single
time I talked to you in a recording format. We
talked about eat It because it was my first exposure
to weird. Awa Yankovic was in a I was in
a cab in New York. I was very, very affected
by the narcotics that I've had fairly recently. To the
cab right starting and I heard eat It. And it

(05:45):
was the cab driver I remember was Egyptian.

Speaker 2 (05:48):
And when when you sang have a banana, half a
whole bunch, it doesn't matter what you've had for lunch,
he had to pull over. We were both laughing so hard,
and I don't think he'd been taking some narcotics. I
had said, we have a lot more narcotics. But you know,
it was dangerous. Hell people could have got hurt, you know.

(06:09):
I I don't hold myself liable for any of that.
I had my record label sign a waiver that if
anybody is any traffic accidents.

Speaker 1 (06:16):
It's an interesting world you've comeved for yourself though, because
it's not like who's the new WEIRDL or who is
the weird al before weird Ow.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
It's just weird hell. I mean, you know they're there
for a while, I was getting pitched a bunch of teeth.
There's a period of time where I literally had six
different production companies say we want you to host a
show called find a New Weird Al. No, you know,
one of these reality shows. And I was like, why
would I want to do that? I'm already and still
and continue to be weird al. Why don't we want

(06:45):
a new weird al?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
But that's it seems so strange to me because they
that's that. I feel that's rude. But was that, like
Simon cow You can tell me it was it, Simon Cole?

Speaker 2 (06:56):
Is that? I mean? I might have bad I don't know.
He sends to me like a try and fight America's
new weird Right? How does how did you get the
name weird? It was something that was kind of foisted
on me in college. I think my freshman year in
the dorms in college is ironic because you're not weird.
Well no, I think you know, they thought I was
weird because I were a little weird. That's gonna say.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
It's come full circle. It's like drinking yourself sober. It's like,
he's not weird, We'll call him weird, but yeah, actually
are weird.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
Yeah. I would be roaming around the halls of my
dorm and people would say, Oh, who's that just weird?
Hell weird? Uh yeah, and then I just took it
on as a radio name professionally.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
Now I'm going to ask you something about this because
you strike me as someone who should have gone through
a goth period.

Speaker 2 (07:39):
But I don't think dead. Did you a goth period? Yeah,
you should have been a goth man, there's still time. Yeah,
well that's kind of where I was going with this.

Speaker 1 (07:48):
I feel like it's I didn't become a goth either,
and we could do goth things together, likeng out and
be in a bad mood pot phase and I had punk.

Speaker 2 (07:58):
Yeah, but it's not the same. Yeah, you know you
don't know anything about it. Shut up, Dad, I hate you.

Speaker 1 (08:04):
But what I'm saying is we could wear black lipstick
and hang out and mat and go to the I
just where we record.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
This place is right next to the Museum of Death. Oh,
I didn't even know about that. Yeah, it's a museum
right nearby and it's called the Museum of the Graveyard. No,
I don't think so, I'm too scared to go in.
I think they should rebrand graveyards as museums of death. Right.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
There's a road sign in the town that I drive
into in Scotland sometimes and it says retail park and
it points to the left, and cemetery and it points
to the right. And every time we drive by, Megan
who you know, my wife always says, buying it, bought it.
So listen, you leave school at sixteen having been horribly bullied.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
Hell, let's go with that. Yeah you weren't really were
you it? This is in La though, right, Yeah, yeah,
Lynnwood Linwood Knights represent no lynn Wood. I don't even
I live alley for twenty over twenty years. I haven't
even heard a line. Would I went to the same
high school as Sugar Night and who else? Mark House?
How's he doing? He never calls, he never writes. I'm

(09:12):
worried sick about him, did does see you in the
school hall of fame schools? I didn't know either if
I was talking to Vetna Cole Brown about it. Here's
this will annoy you as much as annoyed me. Vetnicole
Brown went to the same school as our Senior Hall
and their school has a Hall of Fame and they

(09:33):
have a hall which you know, like the gym like
the gymnasium as a hall, and they named the hall.
Now remember our Senior Hall went to this this. I'm
with you, Nicole Brown Hall. I'm like you, oh my god,
and it should have beout our Senio Hall Hall.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
Senior Hall Hall is what I said, and that is
hall Hall, right, And then you can have a Vetnicole Brown,
you know else staff toilet.

Speaker 2 (10:01):
Or something, but no territorial clock.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
I mean she she can, you know, she's a very
magnificent human being, but nothing else but a whole Come
on the hall if you have or cito. I mean,
I love it, but but come on exactly anyway, That's
that was when I found out schools have halls of fame.

Speaker 2 (10:18):
But you just doesn't right. Maybe it's a secret one,
maybe after being a guild or.

Speaker 1 (10:22):
Maybe you know, and it's Shug's in it and you're
not in it, saying that's probably what happened. So did
you graduate school at sixteen?

Speaker 2 (10:30):
Yeah? Yeah, so I started high school when I was twelve. Wow. Yeah?
Were you like some like Doogie Housers? You know? I
mean I think my parents had me start kindergarten a
year before they should have, and then in second grade
they thought I was too advanced that they just brought
me right in the third grade. So my whole youth,
I was like two years younger than most of my classmates.

(10:50):
That's kind of interesting because that's going to make you
feel like a little bit of an outsider. Did you
feel like an outside? Well, yes, I did, But I
don't think it was totally because of my age, because,
like I said, I was I was pretty nerdy, and
I was I was pretty you know, awkwardly and not
very social. So I think even if I was the
same age, I still would have kind of stood out
and not really fit in. Yeah. I think that's possibly true.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
And the thing is about it as well, I think
maybe a lot of people don't know this about you.
You're very techy, aren't you. I mean you're very You're
very knowledgeable about particularly musical stuff. Is what I'm going
to say, Like, do you keep up on like all
the like synth technology and the like super like what
does it call that thing again?

Speaker 2 (11:32):
Auto beep or something erotic?

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Auto erotic massage? I think that's it's that musical thing.

Speaker 2 (11:39):
It seems to be. Actually it's done with a few musicians,
for sure.

Speaker 1 (11:43):
It would it be terrible though, if I was gonna
do that, and I'm not saying I haven't, but I
haven't done it today.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Yes, but if I was going to do that, I'd
be scared. You know, well you should be. Oh yeah,
I don't like to feel scared when I'm on my own.
You should not feel that way. All right, let's get
that us.

Speaker 1 (12:02):
So, so if you graduate high school at sixty WHATBS
did you go to college?

Speaker 2 (12:06):
I did? I went to the California Polytechnic State University
at San Luis Obispo. That's a catchy one, you know.
T shirts are three feet wide. Get the whole name
on there. Wow, Sant Louis Episto Abispo Abisspe. Is that
where they have the hotel? That's yes, they have a
hotel there, but it's good. Madonna's Madonna and Yeah, have
you been there? I have you?

Speaker 1 (12:27):
Oh, that's that's the you know, tourist attraction in San Labe. Yeah,
I went to the I think I stayed in the
flint Stones room. Oh, the Caveman room.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
Right, Caveman. There's like a three three year waiting list
for that room. He must be like important or something. No, No,
this was way back in the day.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
This is before the internet had snuck up with the
Madonna and there's the other one.

Speaker 2 (12:47):
Have you stayed there? I I think I think one
time when we the band played sant Luisibiso, I think
they arranged to actually have a stay at Madonna and
which is pretty cool. Yeah. Do you remember what room
you were in? Not the cave Man room. I wasn't
quite that. That's maybe then I have seen it.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
It was for a whole event I was doing on
my own about auto erotic cave dwelling.

Speaker 2 (13:10):
Yes, So what did you study at college? Architecture? No? See,
what the hell? What was I doing? I don't know.
Are you still into architecture? You know, not so much.
I mean I appreciate a good building, but you know
it kind do you like do you like a brutalist
you know, kind of German bowhouse type of brown ones,
brown buildings, and you would have been a terrible architect.

(13:31):
I was the worst. Yeah, because you have what kind
of building you gotta put up out brown one? I
think this needs a brown one? Can we see a drawing?

Speaker 1 (13:43):
But you the reason I say about the techie stuff
is because you do the best birthday cars in the world.
Anybody who's a friend of yours that you do the greatest,
greatest birthday car and.

Speaker 2 (13:53):
No thank you.

Speaker 1 (13:53):
And I showed the last one you did for me,
which was sensational, and I showed it to my youngest
son and he's like, Liam, who you of course, and
he was.

Speaker 2 (14:04):
Like, oh my god, that must have taken him weeks
to do that. And I was like, yeah, I think
it really did. But it didn't. I'll did it well,
it did, but I have to confess you're not the
only person who sent that card too. I changed the
names for the other people though. But so it's a
kind of like super high tech jib jab thing. It is.

(14:24):
You know, it's a I guess we'll give him a plug.
It's American Greetings and it's a it's a birthday card.
People think oh, it's a I they had you like
doing like all these different names. You like, they made
your mouth move and made the word no. It's old school.
I literally had to go through like over a thousand
names to do that, and every single age and every
you know, so I had to you know, there are

(14:45):
like two different times when I mentioned somebody's names, so
I had to go twice through the entire scene with
a thousand names. It's a lot of work. Why did
you do this? I mean, because the card is fine, Well,
you know, I just wanted to freak you out. It
freaked me out. Or when I go to I was like, oh,
oh my god, it's crazy. I really genuine I mean,
I'm not illiterate in the world of tech, but I'm like,
I have no idea how he did this.

Speaker 1 (15:07):
I have genuinely no idea. And I remember years ago.
You might not remember that, but when I was on
the Drew Carey Show. I played Drew's English boss, of course,
mister Wick, and you came on the show and you
did a like a rap video type thing with Drew.
Do you remember that a rap video?

Speaker 2 (15:25):
I think I can't know it was. I was joining
Drew's band at the very end or something like that.
They made another recordion player.

Speaker 1 (15:32):
Yeah, it was something, didn't you do some kind of
like it looked like a kind of nineties rap thing.
I can't remember, but you're probably confused me. The only thing,
the main thing I remember about doing the Drew Carry
show was it was right after I had my laser surgery,
so I wasn't doing the glasses and the mustache anymore,
and the producers insisted that I have the glasses of
the mustache otherwise how are.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
They gonna help? You know?

Speaker 1 (15:53):
They did the same with Drew Drew on that show,
he got lasix and he lost like forty pounds and
these to make.

Speaker 2 (16:00):
Wear a fats really seasons. I was like, he's coming in,
Like I got, I got a fatso on and put
the glasses on, so they knew it was Drew Carry.

Speaker 1 (16:10):
But he had lost the way. I don't feel so
bad now. I also didn't have to wear a fatster.
I wasn't English either. I had to plan to be English.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
Was it was a mess. It's a mess, you gotta
do it. Yeah, did you ever do a sitcom for
atlant at time? Not in a length at time? No,
I did some animated stuff. I was. I was Mile
Murphy and Mile Murphy's Law, but I was never in

(16:38):
any kind of live action. Right.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Okay, so let me ask you this. You're in doing architecture.
Did you graduate as an architect?

Speaker 2 (16:45):
I did, got my degree. I could design your house tomorrow,
very very very badly. So if really, yeah, yeah, I
never knew this, But I don't know why I don't
know this. I've done you for quite a long time.
I didn't know you were an architect. Well I'm not.
I have a degreking an architect. And there's a few
other steps you have to go through before you didn't
actually practice? No, you never did, did you do? What

(17:06):
about you any of your houses that you live in?
Have you ever designed them? No? What about shoving? Did
you even divine as shoving? Universal? You know, I will
say I designed a couple of my bathroom remodels. Okay,
fair enough.

Speaker 1 (17:16):
That doesn't make your own, you know, it just makes
you a guy who goes to the bathroom service.

Speaker 2 (17:21):
Yeah. I think the.

Speaker 1 (17:22):
Series closets would be nice, Yes, they would be lovely.

Speaker 2 (17:27):
So what happened? You graduate as an architect? But radio
is what you love? Right? Yeah? I just you know,
I didn't know what I was going to do when
I graduated. I didn't think I'd have a career in
showbiz or anything like that. But I figured, like I graduated,
I was like, what nineteen twenty and I figured, actually
my senior year in college, Capital Records put out my
Bologna because I recorded that in the bathroom across the

(17:48):
radio station. But yeah, it was. And I still didn't think, like, oh,
this is when I when I'm going to be doing
for the next forty years. But I thought, well, you
know what, I've got a sinkle on Capitol Records. I
might as well knock on some doors and see if
I can make anything out of this kooky career thing.
There wasn't like a plan then. It just kind of
you followed the hood of the car and it took
you where it was going. Pretty much. I think that's great.

(18:11):
You know, I was a found of the Doctor Demanto show,
and he was giving me a lot of as talked
to me, adulta dementto because I'm illiterate in the world
Adulta Demanto, okay, other than what I've seen portrayed fictionally.

Speaker 1 (18:22):
So you have to take me through what eyes because
it's a real cult thing in LA. Right, you have
to join a cult to listen to the show. Yes, right,
Well there's a few cults in LA and I get that,
but this particular one and it was a real cult favorite, right.

Speaker 2 (18:35):
Oh yeah. So yeah, Doctor Demantou whose real name is
Barry Hanson. He was on kmie T in Los Angeles
for decades. It is like a local radios. Yes, it's local.
But his show became so popular that became syndicated nationwide
and I think maybe around the world a little bit,
but mostly in North America. But he got famous for
playing all sorts of comedy and novelty and just weird

(18:58):
stuff from his personal record club. And he had a huge,
huge record collection at home. Is if you wherever it
was house like, you go to his kitchen, open the cupboards.
They're full of records. They're just records everywhere. Final, Yeah,
and he collects everything now. But he has a huge,
huge vinyl collection. Is that where you first heard it?
May have been how I first heard? Is it? Bubby
Pickett and the Crip Kickers.

Speaker 1 (19:19):
Muster Mash, Yeah, which is still one of my favorite songs. Yeah,
that's a great song.

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Yeah, Yeah, that was a big like our top forty radiohos.
I'm not sure if I heard that on Demento or
just on khe J or whatever one of the big guns,
but yeah, I mean that's where I got exposed to
like Spike Jones and Alan Sherman and Tom Lahra and
Stan Freeberger and all these these people, and I thought, wow, well, maybe.

Speaker 1 (19:39):
It's a it's a real world though that it was
kind of a I'm not going to say his niche
because it's too big for that, but it was. It
was a world which existed outside of the mainstream, right,
I mean yeah, and yet when you were the guy
who kind of brought up mainstream really and yeah, I
mean you were the you kind of broke out of
the of the kind of the subterranean, weird record listening

(20:02):
world to.

Speaker 2 (20:03):
My Bologna was probably the one that did it, right. Yeah,
that was the first one for sure. I mean doctor
Menel played again all sorts of his personal records, but
I was one of the few people that was just
like sending him unsolicited material in the mail and he'd
play that and and I was it was definitely a
breakout because it lit up the request lines. As I say,
and all of a sudden, that's so cute, the request

(20:25):
lines and all. Isn't that like simpler times? Yes? Yes, times?

Speaker 1 (20:30):
So in the in this world that you read, it
seems like it was simpler times. How do you approach it?

Speaker 2 (20:37):
No? Do you have like the tickety talk and the
Instagram and the I got some of that. I'm still
ostensibly on Twitter, although I haven't really, you know, I
think Twitter doesn't really exist anymore, does it. I think
some other is like definitely being declauded for sure. It's
something's happened to that. So I'm you know, I don't.
I don't know if I'm slow quitting or I just

(20:57):
haven't posted in a while. But I'm theoretically still on Twitter,
but mostly Instagram. I'm on Blue Sky and I'm on
a don't know that one. I don't know what about Bengo?
Do you know that one? Bingo? No, Bengo, It's it's
a new one. I just like made it up. I
like it though, Bengo'll sign up? Can you Bingo? Me? Sure? Right?

(21:18):
And if you get a good one, you let you go.
It's a Bengo you get and then you do memes
of Christopher Christopher and Christopher walks. He says it an
inglorious pasta. It's a Bengal's a Nazi, Nazi bingo everybody.

Speaker 1 (21:36):
So when you're in this world, like you move out
of this rather kind of sweet, nerdy world of architecture, comedy, songs,
but then you become kind of a you get drawn
into the world of rock music, which is slightly less innocent.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
Do you hear the siren call of black tar heroine?
Not so much. I mean, I mean, I don't know
if it's my reputation preceding me, but it's like, I
don't think I ever really got like offered drugs on
the road or a party even offered you drugs. No
so rude yet that is I feel bad. If I'd

(22:11):
have been around then I would certainly have offered some.
I appreciate that. That's shocking. I'm my fellow for me drugs,
so I can be offended and say no.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
Margaret Dumont Brothers movies, So you were walking around dressed
as Margaret Dumont with a big dress on, and it
never called to you that that wellness or were you
scared of it or were you doing drugs?

Speaker 2 (22:44):
Well?

Speaker 1 (22:45):
Just the kind of because it was a particularly wild
and kind of debauched era of rock, wasn't it.

Speaker 2 (22:52):
Well, I guess, I mean, it depends what what circus
you're traveling. I mean, I guess you know. I did
promise my parents that I wouldn't do drugs, so I didn't.
We all did that, Yeah, But I mean, and I
mostly I think I was just afraid that drugs would
turn me normal and I couldn't have it would be
back for my career. Have it like a reverse yeah thing,

(23:12):
reverse wed all. So that's the thing you can have
that I've found out on the internet. I've had a
reverse weirdo. You would not like it. Oh, I on
the other hand, loved it. Oh that makes it the
reverse weird. So let me ask you this.

Speaker 1 (23:27):
You started playing the accordion when you were a kid, right,
because you just like the accordions. I got to tell you,
by the way, when you were at my house in Scotland,
remember we found that old accordion.

Speaker 2 (23:35):
You your basement, basement base. What we call it the crypt, right,
We don't just call it the crypt, it's a crypt, yes, right.

Speaker 1 (23:43):
So we found that old accordion down there, which I
thought was amazing. It was like two days before you
arrived and then you were looking at this order, which
I still have that I think.

Speaker 2 (23:51):
It's it's kind of dad, this accordion. But have you
ever practicing? No, no, I gotta be honest, I don't.
I dram but the ghosts play the accordion. Ah. But
the thing is about it. I don't know if I
ever told you this.

Speaker 1 (24:06):
The night we had a little kley, a little Scottish
dance in the house and the accordion and fiddle player
were there. When you came in and played the accordion
with those guys, it was like Elvis had arrived.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
They were so they were like, wait, what if that's
fucking weird? Now, what the fuck is happening?

Speaker 3 (24:25):
Because in this it's going and they play Accordions album,
so they know who you are, and they're they're like,
oh my god, It's like it was so fucking weird.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
And they were just I just got to say, you
made their entire year. They were very great and it
was pretty good. You were in your your fingers were walking.
I can I can figure pretty well, yeah you can.
And that's part of the reverse weird there you believe
there you go. So when you're in this world of
you kind of comedy songs, this is kind of a

(25:00):
niche world. I could be honest with you. Comedy songs
never really did it for me until I listened to you.
I don't really, I don't really who are you listening before?

Speaker 1 (25:08):
When I think about it, I think, I don't know
if I've ever heard any comedy songs it said for you?
I mean, like really, so I guess somebody doesn't mean
they just haven't. I haven't remembered Anny well so well
you so like in Scotland, who would have been the
comedy songs? Well, anyone in the UK? Oh you know
what Neil Ennis? Okay, yeah, Neil Ennis was. It was
a goddamn genius. Oh yes, love love Neil He did

(25:28):
you know?

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Not? Well? I went to see him a McCabe's guitar, shappy.
I went with the emflso went to see him performance.
I got to hang out with them for a little bit.
So I didn't really know him knowing, but we've always
been a huge fan before spinal tap.

Speaker 1 (25:39):
He and Eric Idol did the Ruttles, which was a
Beatles PASTI perfect, which.

Speaker 2 (25:45):
Was amazing, amazing.

Speaker 1 (25:46):
Yeah, really I still listened to it. I must tell
Eric this, I still listened to the Ruttles. It's just
like listening to it. Yeah, it's just like Beatles songs
to me. Yeah, they are like Beatles songs. It's like
finding new Beatles songs from different Is this amazing? That
cheese and say cheese and onion. Every every time I
have something with cheese and onions, I start singing ruddles of.

Speaker 2 (26:06):
Mine guys buys and that's a nice cheason c O N.
I don't spell out e easy A d Oh my god.
It's great stuff. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
Yeah, I always thought my rule forever doing comedy. If
I was ever gonna parody something, I always thought, you
have to be at least as good as what you're parodying,
or you're gonna be You're gonna look like an idiot.

Speaker 2 (26:30):
Right? Is that something that we try? We try, you know,
we try to copy it. You know, I've had the
same band for over forty years and they're all amazing musicians.
It's kind of I probably shouldn't say this, but sometimes
when we're like doing like a uh, you know, a
parody and we're trying to copy the original track, sometimes
my drummer will say, do you want me to play
it exactly like they played it? Or or or correctly? Yeah? Better?

Speaker 1 (26:52):
Yeah, I think that's interesting. So you do that, you know,
when you do these songs, but on tour, you do
do a whole set.

Speaker 2 (27:01):
Which is no party songs. Right, well, we did. We
did that for two tours. We did the ridiculously ill
advised Vanity Tour and then the unfortunate return of the
Ridiculous Vanity Tour, and that was that was most mostly
for the hardcore fans, because we didn't do really any
parodies and it didn't have any props or costumes. It
was just very, you know, low key and kind of intimate.

(27:24):
But I love doing that because we had to just
be musicians and not put on this big, you know
show and do all the you know, all the B
sides and all the deep cuts. And that was I
love doing that, and the band loved doing that. And
for the people that showed up again, we're doing smaller theaters,
but they were so excited to hear some like random
Obscure track from the fourth album that they never thought

(27:45):
they ever hear live.

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Well, but with that it was recently like in the
last like four or five years, you got like a
big Grammy win. Remember, I'm sure you do it.

Speaker 2 (27:55):
Yeah? Was that for parody songs or was that for
the last Grammy? I actually was as an art director,
oddly enough, because I had a box set. It was
like my entire catalog, but it was boxed in a
replica of my accordion. It was this is architecture right here,
this is this is we've come. This is the reach

(28:16):
of the show, reach around the reverse weird al, That's
what I'm saying. This is like that, So the architecture
actually comes into play. Yeah, I mean there's some design
that I guess I kind of leaned from our from college.
You know, the whole four years were in a complete waste.
No no, no, I can till print very neatly. And
also you you want to grab me for designing a

(28:36):
building made of records, let's just call it that. Okay,
let's call it that. Now. You mentioned the name of
a comedian, and I want to talk to you about him,
because he's a very very interesting comedian, a gentleman by
the name of Emo film.

Speaker 1 (28:49):
Yes, and you and friends right now, I don't know.
I don't think i've ever met Emo. You haven't, no,
but I remember seeing him my first ever te u
to the United States. Well, actually it wasn't even to
the United States. My first trip to Just for Last
Festivals at festival in Montreal in nineteen eighty seven, and

(29:10):
I got to see Emo and Judy Tanuda the rest there,
and they were crazy different. They were very different to
anything else that was going on. Yeah, how did you
guys up? I assume you mean, how do we meet?

Speaker 2 (29:26):
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, that's right. Well we heard I'll stop it. Yeah.
We we kind of bumping into each other since, you know,
the early eighties, because we were both eighties weirdos, and
of course, you know, our paths are going to intersect.
I don't know, we just we were mutual fans and
we just, uh, you know, wound up hanging out together

(29:48):
with you and stuff like that. Well, for the two
band Aid tours he did, so he's done over over
two hundred shows with me. Is he a musician? No,
he does does the Yeah, I think does he still
do that? Yeah? Probably, It's very interesting. No, he's he's
like the funniest guy in the world. He's just you
should have him on the show sometimes because I was funny.

Speaker 1 (30:09):
So I here's what I think that and then correct
me if I'm wrong. But sometimes when someone has a
very recognizable character that they do on stage, because unless
does ema, Philip spoke around talking to that all the time.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
No, I mean, you know, it's it's like you can
hear that in his voice a little bit, but it's
an exactly And I think he's very concerned about his
public persona because he's one of those people that kind
of hopes the people think he liked that all the time,
you know, because he's very much into like presenting an image.
In fact, he was kind of giving me advice, like
back in ninety eight ninety nine, back when I you know,
I had my look change where he shaved out the

(30:44):
mustache but he got super handsome. But he was like
very concerned. He was like he was like, you wanted
me to do the do the Drew carry things like,
you know, people want to see the iconic image, they
want to see the mustache and glasses. And I think
he was trying to talk to me and to just
like always wearing fake glasses and I kind of wanted
to keep it real. And it's it's an interesting and
it's a fair point.

Speaker 1 (31:02):
I mean, if you look at you know, the Homer
Simpson silhouet or something like that, if you create something
like that.

Speaker 2 (31:08):
He kept bringing up grouch like Groutcher always had the mustache,
you know, until he did the Game Show? Didn't he
still you think he still for that? Didn't he did?
He did he paint on the mustache for the Game
show either, I don't know he was painting it on
for the longest time, but he did definitely had a
mustache for the Game Show. Were you Find in the Musk? Sure?
Oh my god? I loved that. Yeah? What's that movie?
I think it might be Horse Feathers? I don't know.

(31:29):
Is the one where they have the horse? Might be
they have the horse in the Dental wond where they
had the duck soup? Which one was that? I think
that's duck soup? And when they went to that opera
at night? What was that one called the Races?

Speaker 1 (31:44):
But I was, as you the anarchy of that, the
kind of terrifying out of controllness. It's interesting because when
I was a kid, I'm going I really didn't like.

Speaker 2 (31:56):
The cat in the Hat. I didn't like it.

Speaker 1 (31:59):
Did because the cat and the hat used to come
to the house and he would do all these naughty things,
and the parents were out, and I'm like, it's just horrifying.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
Is that the home invasion? Yes, this weird fucking cat's
gone in the house with a hat on and he's
getting the kids to do bad things. This guy's evil.

Speaker 1 (32:13):
Yeah, But at the same time, I love the March
Brothers and that sense of anarchy.

Speaker 2 (32:19):
I think their charm was much more acceptable to me
as a five year old. Now they're they're making fun
of Margaret Dumont. They're not making fun of two little
innocent kids alone in their house. That's it. Uh huh,
that's it.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
They're making fun of the adult figure, not the cat figure.
You're right, Oh, thanks, he sure.

Speaker 2 (32:37):
I don't know, but I'm looking at I look at
this as therapy. Yeah, well, I think that you're very
good at it. I think here's what I think.

Speaker 1 (32:44):
Screwba Emo says, Okay, get a pipe tweet jacket. I'm
thinking of a vague whiff of an Austrian accent, and
become a therapist when you're not on the road.

Speaker 2 (32:53):
Oh can I get one of those jackets with packers
on the elbows?

Speaker 1 (32:56):
I would almost insist on it, okay, and then lie down,
or you can go and drag and be like.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Lorraine Bracco and the sopranos. Oh that's also very nice. Yeah,
I've have you ever had therapy? No?

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Oh, man, it's awesome. I had a therapist too. Used
to wear she was fantastic. Used to wear all the
same clothes the same color. Like she would wear green shoes,
green tights, a green skirt of green bluuse, and she
would wear green eyes shadow and like if it was
green that day or and I think it.

Speaker 2 (33:26):
Was of like a big green screen or something. It
might it was chroma ky. I was pretty bad chroma
key nice. I was in a bad shape then, So
maybe that was maybe it never happened at all. Did
she look I just disembodied eyes looking at you. Yeah,
that was I think about I'm having a flashback. So
you're going along and you're being weird. Al And then

(33:48):
what wammed in the nineties that caused the change? Was
there any kind of personal thing change for what well,
they're taking the glasses off. Well, it was just it
was just you know, at that point, the technology and
sign and medicine had gotten to the point where it
felt like I wasn't taking my life into my hands
by letting somebody like shoot lasers in the eyeball. And
I thought, you know, if I can like see you know,

(34:10):
I had lasers as well in the nineties. By the way,
it did you run about that time? Yeah? Did you
get it again? No? That they I think they kind
of said you could get it again, but it's you know,
maybe a little bit more dangerous the second time around.
Oh I don't want to hear that. Yeah, I'll never
getting done. So I still I still wear glasses sometimes
when I want to, uh see distances because my eyes
continued to change since like, yeah, mine too.

Speaker 1 (34:31):
Yeah, so I also as a disguise, do you wear
glasses with maybe I nose in a mustacheized I'm.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
Wearing one right now.

Speaker 1 (34:37):
Oh my god, it's Emo Phillips. So the idea then,
was it so I wanted to find that was there
a creative decision?

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Was that? Was that when you met Suzanne? Is that
it was something that happened then what I didn't do
it specifically to meet Suzanne, but uh it worked out
that way, right, you got rid of the glass. This
is a very quickly like all of a sudden, women
are like, who's this? I see like He's like, why hell,

(35:08):
you're beautiful? Before I thought you were a Clark Kemp,
but you're really superman. Yeah, I got How did you
guys meet? I know? She told me, I'm gonna is
this true? It was a plain day. It was correct, right, Okay,
so you know, shut you up. Do you know Billy Moomey? Uh?
He played he he was like the biggest child actor
when I was a child. He played a little Will
Robinson on Lost in Space. Of course I know who

(35:30):
it is, and I would give you this whole IMDb,
but look him up. But you know, he was and
I've been fans of his for a long time. And
he was half of Barnes and Barns, who did fish Heads.
Do you know that song shed Lovely Lovely fish Heads
shed Sheds? Eat him up? Yeah, that's it. So I
met him on the Doctor Demento show because he was

(35:50):
a you know, Demento yang. But he never introduced himself
as Bill Moomy. He was always Art Barns like Art
and already Barnes, And I'm gullible. I believed I didn't
recognize him from like being a kid.

Speaker 1 (36:02):
Wait a minute, Wait a minute, I gotta stub you
Emo Phillips. Emo Phillips's real name.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
I don't I feel like i'd be talking out of
school to answer that question.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
All right, all right, fair enough, okay, all right, So
you you know this Will Robinson danger Will Robinson Art Barnes.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
So, so he invites me to his house. I met
his house on the Hollywood Hills. I forget we're recording
something or hanging out or whatever, and I notice all
this like Lost in Space memorabile around the house, and
I'm like, again, I'm so stupid. I'm like, this guy
is super into Lost the Gosh, a big fan. He's
got all these Brilly movie movie posters on the wall. Man,

(36:40):
this guy's a freak one, like a super fan, like obsessed.
And then finally, after a long time, I figured out, oh,
this is Bill Mooney.

Speaker 1 (36:48):
So he introduces you. He says, you have a blain
date and he and he.

Speaker 2 (36:53):
Actually had been setting me up on blind dates before
and setting Susanna up on blind dates, and they were
they didn't really work out, obviously, but he he called
me up one day and said, I'm gonna set you
up on this date with this woman who works at
twenty century Fox. You have to marry her. She's super clever, Yeah,
I mean it's like she's intimidatingly cool clever. Yeah, she's
got that kind of Annie Lebowitz vibe, you know, that

(37:15):
kind of here you know what I mean, like kind
of scary photography, clever, like sees the world slightly more
than you do. That's boyd. So I was saying like, yeah,
they're a little different. Yeah, but the but she she is,
she's like she's super smart, super clever woman. Yeah, and
she's she's the whole package. Yeah, she is. I waited

(37:36):
a long time to find her, did you. Well, here
here's he here's the thing. You know, it was actually
really romantic because this is this is in the days
before social media as we know today. I didn't have
a picture of her. I didn't have an idea what
she looked like. And we didn't have time to go
out on a date for a few weeks because I
was just about to put out a new album. She
was working over time at her at her you know,

(37:58):
at twenty century Fox, right, and we just couldn't find
it time to get together. But we had time late
at night. She would have these phone calls in the
middle of the night. That isn't this a movie with
Tom Hanks and Megan It sounds like it should be material.

Speaker 1 (38:10):
You know, Look it's not too late. Yeah, they're Tom
and Megan are both are both working.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
Tom makes you get back together for the weird I'll start.
I'm gonna call it Susanna now. Oh I like that better, Yeah,
Susanna now or do you guys have a have a
mix up name, like, you know, the hyphen at the portmanteau.

Speaker 1 (38:29):
Yeah, so sal I guess Sue Suzel or Alcus or alsas.

Speaker 2 (38:40):
The Yanko Vics. Oh yeah, that'll work. Yeah, yeah, it's
a little bit patriarchal, but I'll take it. What is
that is that Polish? Yankovick is? What is it Yugoslavian
back when that was a country.

Speaker 1 (38:51):
All right, So you have to break it down though, man,
because the Yugoslavic, because yugoslavin that.

Speaker 2 (38:56):
Was just like a construct after that. Yeah, I think,
you know, I'm not a percent sure, but I think
I'm Slovenian like me and Millennia.

Speaker 1 (39:02):
Oh yeah, I get that. You look a bit like
thank you, thank you. Yeah, did you do the Whiteose
correspondence thing or no political things.

Speaker 2 (39:19):
I would not have to do that. I think they
can use some accordion there. I think I feel like.

Speaker 1 (39:23):
That would be a good bet, because you're pretty good
at like straddling the line of you know, not getting
to political.

Speaker 2 (39:30):
Or I could just like be playing like mood music
behind the president's speech, you know, just a little a
little bit of accordion. Yeah, look, don't take this wrong way, buddy.
But they might think it's a little French. Oh you know,
are we still doing the French thing? Freedom fries deal?
Freedom fries? Do you know? Once I was I swear
this is true. I was in a diner and I
think it was Arkansas. I was on the road. You
know sometimes you just.

Speaker 1 (39:51):
When you're on the road, you're like, I can't take
another you know, fucking Starbucks or you know, we got
to go to somewhere else and we went to this diner.
It was during all the freedom Fries thing. And I
go to the bathroom and there were contraceptives and sex toys.

Speaker 2 (40:09):
No, no, no, they were they were in my pocket.
There was you know, one of those vending machines that
sells contraceptives and little sex toys, and they'd scored, they scored.
I have to say, as bad as my life go,
I never bought a sex toy in a public bathroom
from a vending machine yet. Yeah, say just for show,

(40:32):
not for go.

Speaker 1 (40:33):
But but they had French ticklers. Yes, but they had
taken out friend. They'd called them freedom ticklers.

Speaker 2 (40:41):
That's the best, freedom tickler, that's the best. We want
a little freedom tickler. Look, I don't want to do this,
but it's for a miracle. That's great. It was fantastic.
So use Zan. You can't get it together, well, you
can get it together obviously because you have child, but
you can't meet each other because you're so busy in

(41:02):
your hectic show business life. So we basically fell in
love over the phone. Is that true? Yeah? Pretty? I mean,
because I remember thinking like, I kind of hope she's
I mean, I would marry her if she's homely, but
I kind of hope she's cute because I'm going to
marry this person. So I never saw her face until
I opened the door to her first day.

Speaker 1 (41:20):
That's fantastic and kind of beautiful, and I feel like
it's probably a show and isn't that like love at
first say?

Speaker 2 (41:28):
Or you know, Naked Attraction one of those we were
the first reality show. If you ever seen that show,
Naked Attraction, No, I got no, you should know. It's
a show in Channel four in the UK, right, which
is kind of like it's very bad. But in this
show is Naked Attraction. What they do is they have
these screens.

Speaker 1 (41:47):
It's Breton, so yeah, they don't care a buty and
they have these screens and they started the bumps the
person who's choosing a partner.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
These curtains come up and you see their.

Speaker 1 (41:56):
Feet and then their knees and then their legs, and
you think it's going to be negative, and then the
curtain keeps going and you see they're junk, male or female.
You see and like harsh lighting, real people, junk, not
Hollywood airbrush junk, like like shockingly unpleasant.

Speaker 2 (42:13):
This is a real thing.

Speaker 1 (42:14):
It's a real thing, and it keeps going and it's
not testillating at all.

Speaker 2 (42:18):
It's awful.

Speaker 1 (42:19):
No, And but I caught my youngest son watching it
with his buddy and like ten year old boys and
they and I was like, what hell were you doing?

Speaker 2 (42:29):
And they were trauverized, like, oh my god, this is horrible.
I was like, watch it all you Like I remember
back in the day, like when I was a teenager,
you couldn't find like naked people on TV. It was
like a big deal to There was like some show
on PBS, I think steam Bath or something like that
nice and it was like, oh, there's a shot of
a woman, this shower's naked. And every single teenage boy

(42:50):
in my whole high school like watching PBS just tecasting
to see a naked lady. I remember, we used to
for some reason, they're used to.

Speaker 1 (42:59):
Why In Scotland and I was a kid, you would
sometimes find torn up pieces of pornographic magazines in the street.

Speaker 2 (43:06):
Oh rude, the whole thing. Pay forward occasionally s he's
a ripped picture of some Yeah, oh that's more traumatic.
Like then, you can only get excited when you see
ripped up women. You don't want to you don't want that.
That's very dark, bad, that's very dark.

Speaker 1 (43:23):
So you meet Susanne at the first that you opened
the door she comes to your house, is up.

Speaker 2 (43:28):
I went to her place, all right.

Speaker 1 (43:30):
So she opens the door and you're like, oh sweet,
she's gorgeous. I'm ready in love with her, so long
until you get married?

Speaker 2 (43:36):
Ah, one of that. That was ninety nine or so.
I think it was. We met sometime in I think
July ninety nine. We got married February two thousand and one,
so you know, year and a half. Yeah. Yeah, Now
let me ask you this then.

Speaker 1 (43:50):
Was this before you had done the Hatfield Metallica immage
change or AFT?

Speaker 2 (43:55):
It was right after? She I mean what I say? Yeah,
there was a plan apparently, folksy al yan Kevig appears
on the door. I get it. Yeah. And she didn't,
you know originally when when Bill Moomy pitched her on
the idea of going out with me, she was like,
I don't you weird? Al, I don't know. And but
she gave me the benefit of the dout because she said, well,
maybe he's not like that all the time, but you're awesome.

(44:20):
I think that's now we have a mutual friend. And
who introduced us, I guess socially is Tom Less. Tom
has been a huge He's Tom again, one of those
in Britain they would call him eccentrics. It's like you Emo,
Tom Tom.

Speaker 1 (44:36):
Extremely gifted performers who march to the beat of their
own drum. Yes, And I wonder if that kind of
thing is encouraged by social media, if there's more of that,
or if there's less of it because people are frightened
of stepping outside the orthodoxy because you can get a
lot of trouble.

Speaker 2 (44:55):
Now, Yeah, I don't, you know, I think weirdness is
kind of encouraged on social media. People try to stand out,
and as long as you don't do anything deemed cancelable,
I think, you know, I think.

Speaker 1 (45:04):
It changes every I mean, look, I try to be
cognizant of that, try to be respectful that manners change,
but it seems like they changed very quickly, and there's
not really a consensus on what's canceled and was not.

Speaker 2 (45:16):
Yeah, well, apart from the obvious, but the you know,
I don't do you ever think about it? Do you
ever worry about it? Yeah? Well, yeah, I mean, you know,
I've been releasing records, you know, since the late seventies,
so some of the you know, I obviously tried not
to be offensive or do anything that I thought that
would come back to haunt me later. But there's there's
some languages, some words that I used in the eighties

(45:37):
and nineties, which you know are now considered slurs or offensive.
So you know, in fact, there's one song that I
did on this last tour which had had an offensive
word in it, and I sang the word, and then
the whole band stops, and I have to explain, like
I wrote this on the nineties, I didn't mean any
offense by it. Language is a fluid thing. But you know,

(45:57):
can you can you give me I don't I'm not
gonna ask to say the word, but can you let
me give me a clues to what the word is
or what it pertains. I'll say it because I say
it is hermaphrodite. Is that a slur? Well it is apparently,
you know I thought it was a medical Well, that's exactly,
and that's exactly how I explained it, you know, in
my apology that you know, when I wrote it in
the nineties, I thought, okay, this is a technical medical term,

(46:18):
and this is you know, the person in my hypothetical
story happens to be one, right, And apparently that word
is considered a slur nowadays, which.

Speaker 1 (46:27):
Obviously, I'll be honest, it's not a word I use often. No, No,
I know, yeah, and you know, I can see the
why you would use it because it's clearly it writes
with stuff.

Speaker 2 (46:37):
And and you know, because language changes. I mean, even
the word lame, uh, you know, which is in common usage.
And you know, I haven't stopped saying that, but I
mean the point has been made like, oh, that's an
ablest term, Like okay, I can see that, but still
it's it's such a common and and there's there's another
word that I used and I won't say this word,
but it's a word that both Beyonce and Lizzo got

(47:00):
trouble for. It rhymes with plastic, do you know what
I mean and begins with an sp oh gosh, yeah, right, okay. So,
and you know, in North America that's just considered like
a goofy, you know, yes, kind of person. But in
other parts of the world it's considered a horrible slur.

Speaker 1 (47:18):
Well, you know what's interesting is that the words you're
the word you're talking about. When I was a kid
growing up, it was used two in medical terms to
describe or like you. If someone was going to a
school for people that suffered from disabilities or had disabilities,
they would be called that.

Speaker 2 (47:38):
Yeah, and they would they would be on the sign
in the school. Yeah. And it's not that I have
any objection to language change, and it does change, but
I think, for I feel like.

Speaker 1 (47:50):
There is a great deal of legitimacy in the changing
of the language. But I also feel there's a lot
of people out there on the balls of their feet
just waiting to be offended when there's no genuine harm
meant by it. And I think that that's counterproductive to
making a society more inclusive and less oppressive to people
who aren't having it as easy as as the rest

(48:13):
of us.

Speaker 2 (48:13):
Yeah. I mean so I try my best. I you know, again,
I'm trying very hard not to offend. But there's boundaries,
and there's there's a lot I don't think. I don't
think it's possible to do comedy and not offense, because
you really think that, I really do. I thought, I
don't mean that you have to be offensive. Yeah, I
mean that, Well, somebody's always going to find something exactly
That's what I mean. I don't think you have to. Look,

(48:34):
I've become more and more I used to like.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
Be really you know, the F word and the act
and all that kind of stuff, And I was quite
raw and harsh stuff.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
And that was the way that I came out.

Speaker 1 (48:44):
I mean, look, I was a comedian going on between
punk rock acts in the late nineteen seventies early nineteen eighties.

Speaker 2 (48:51):
It was appropriate for the time. But now if I
go out and pretend to be angry about things like
I'm not angry, I'm a little chubby, you've got an
his car, you know that, I agree. Well, that's the thing.
I mean maybe I don't know if you had the
same kind of experience, but I found that I'm sometimes
reluctant to do anything ironic on social media because no

(49:11):
matter how obvious it is that you're making a joke
and you're known, you know, as a you know, somebody
who makes jokes for a living, there's gonna be a
certain percentage of the people reading that going, oh, he
really does that, he really is serious about that. Yeah,
it's an interesting thing.

Speaker 1 (49:27):
I the example I used I wrote a book a
couple of years ago, and in it I was writing
about my sexual awakening and the phrase I used to
describe the first inklings of sexual awakening was all women
in Scotland were called margaret before nineteen seventy four. Now

(49:48):
what I meant by that, the literally reconstruct there is
everything was just my anti Margaret. And then when you
start going into puberty, suddenly no, all women are your
anti Margaret and there you know, and things are different.
I didn't mean all women in we're called Margaret. Very
few women in Scotland are called migrants at any given time. Like, actually, well,

(50:14):
I left the light in the book, but somebody did
say to me during the editing process, no, that's not true,
and I'm like, yeah, it's it's it's slanguage, it's weird,
it's a I don't know if I struggle with the
idea of taking everybody else's opinion into what I'm doing.

Speaker 2 (50:37):
I don't want to offend people. I know you don't.

Speaker 1 (50:40):
But at the same time, I kind of like Ricky
Serves is a very nice line about it. It's just like, look,
just because you're offended, it doesn't mean you're right. It
just means you're offended, you know. And I think that's
the bottom line of it, that I don't want to
offend you. But if you are offending, I think might
actually like.

Speaker 2 (50:57):
To offend people. Oh no, he loves he yeah, ye,
but but that's do you know, no, not personally.

Speaker 1 (51:05):
He's it's funny. He's the sweetest guy. Yeah, it's the
strangest thing because he has that. Did you ever meet
Don Rickles? No, no, almost saying Rickles. I became friendly
with Wreckles and he was very very sweet, like an
old grandpa and very nice. Oh yeah, famously right, And
and of course his act was extremely abrasive and they

(51:27):
would set on fire for it.

Speaker 2 (51:29):
Now, I mean, it's it's just terrible. It would not fair,
you know what, and rightly, so you have to move
on for that. But but he is a man would
be horrified if he thought he was hurting someone's feelings. Yeah,
and it's you don't set out to hurt someone's feelings.
And if you can avoid it and do comedy, I
think that's great. But I honestly think I don't think

(51:49):
you can, Like he don't go to a roast and
then going they yeah, they were mean to have you
ever been roasted? Uh No, I don't think so. But
then he's young, it's.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
Got to be common, it's going to be coming. I
never really understood that to be the whole concept of roast. Yeah,
I'm like, I don't like this. I mean honestly, I don't.

Speaker 2 (52:09):
It's like I asked to do a couple like they
asked me to do Bob Socket's roast. Huh. And I
loved Bob. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:15):
I was like no, and Bob was like, now you
come and you say these mean things about you know, Bob,
I'm not going to do it. Yeah, I love you, Bob,
I'm not going to do it. It's like it's joking.
I went, no, Bob, it's it's mean.

Speaker 2 (52:27):
I'm not doing it. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (52:28):
I mean, look, sometimes I think you're a dick, but
no one else needs to say that. Did you know
Bob a couple of times? Yeah, he's a sweet man.

Speaker 2 (52:36):
Yeah. It was again someone who was very different to
his act. Yeah. I was reading recently that Chevy Chase
was really upset after his roast because he really thought
they weren't joking. Well, you know, with his reputation, I
think maybe they weren't joking. I don't. I don't know
if they were or they weren't. But it's a strange thing.

(52:58):
So what's going on with you? Now? What's happening? Things
are slow and I'm not touring probably for at least
another year year and a half. Just kind of letting
the ground lay fallow for a bit. So years of
plenty seven years of famine. Yeah, so so next year
actually was a huge question mark. I'm not sure it's
gonna come to Scotland. Hang out for Maybelle. I know

(53:19):
you got a new castle, got to check it out.
But it's not a newcastle. It's new to me, new
to you. Yeah, that's the main thing. Yeah. And also
there is this myth I live in a castle. It's
it's not a castle. It's a house that looks a
bit like huge and made out of stone. It's got
a motor around. Well yeah, but look these are these
are taken a castle. Yes, you're an architect famously, So

(53:43):
I didn't you know, I didn't realize that. Not a condo.
Come on, it's not a condo. You don't live in
a condo either. No. See, it's your big union guy.
I believe in it. I believe in it. Yeah, I
just think. Yeah, I mean I support the unions. I'm
in several of them, and yeah, absolutely how many of you?

Speaker 1 (53:59):
I mean w G A and DGA, isn't you. Yeah,
and Musicians Union as well. Yeah, yeah, they're a great union.
The Yeah they like saved you guys, do.

Speaker 2 (54:10):
You remember maybe it was different for you. I remember
auditioning to get you had the audition to get in
the Musicians Union. No, that was the for me. It
was equity, British Actors equity.

Speaker 1 (54:21):
You had to It was so hard to get in
that you had to the only reason I started doing
stand up because you had to have some.

Speaker 2 (54:29):
Gigs that where you were a performer. But you couldn't
get gigs unless you remember a British Actors ecage, okay,
So the only thing that was open was you could
maybe get a couple of gigs as a stand up
in a nightclub or something like that.

Speaker 1 (54:41):
Then you had to take a long of the union office.
If you got three, they would let you in the Union.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
I got I got two and they overpay a TV show,
so I had to join the Union in Scotland. But
it was it was different back then, though. I guess
did you what did you? Did? You play? The according? Yeah?
And I have it just the biggest memory of this.
But I mean in the early eighties when I first
joined the Musicians Unit. I have a memory of coming
into the Union offices and all these people with instruments

(55:08):
and they had to like play like thirty seconds the
proof well oh you are a guitar player, Oh you
are or whatever. And I just remember the one guy
that was a drummer and he just came in, didn't
have anything with him, and they said just slop on
your knees and he did like a little okay, you're
a drummer. Great, okay, sign the papers. You know what,
if he was a real drummer, he'd have been doing
that on the way in. They never stop, never stop.

(55:31):
I still have a drum kit. Now. I still like
no play, I mean do I do? I still play,
and I still kind of I still want to listen
to music, particularly bands. There are you know, rock and
roll bands and stuff. I tend to. You know, your
ear tends to go to where you're interested in, and
that's that's what I look for. And even to the

(55:51):
point of I will listen to music that I don't
like because I know the drums good. Do you ever
have like jam sessions to your house or does Liam play? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (55:58):
Liam does play. Limp plays guitar. He's good too, and
he became fascinated with it. And yeah, we we kind
of mess around the house. Katie tunstill was a friend
of mine. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, So Katie was
at the house in Scotland and Liam's first jam says
it was me playing drums and Katie playing the bass.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
He was playing the guitar. That's so cool. Is that
old ting ting song I think or some velvet underground
song or something. And it was fun. It was fun,
and I just it was my life and then I
just fell into a different thing. Yeah. You know, my daughter,
we both really like Katie, but she was very much
into uh. I forget what the album was, but but

(56:37):
it was during the period of time when my daughter
played the bass for like three days, like we've had
literally every instrument in the house at some point or another,
thinking that she was gonna pay. You know, she gave
recording lessons. She's like everything and now she's in college.
She was playing the harp, which was literally the only
instrument we did not have that awesome instrument, but pay

(56:59):
Katie still songs on the bass for a week. Katie's
great and she is. She's got a crazy story.

Speaker 1 (57:06):
I mean, she's she's a really interesting person and she
could she's a real kind of she's like you, she's
like a real musician.

Speaker 2 (57:13):
She's a real proper it's not there's nothing else going on.
She's a musician and she's a super talented person. Anyway,
that's enough. Well, it's always a pleasure. I love you,
love you long taking my love to love you. Man,
all right, talk to you, said