QLS Classic: "Weird" Al Yankovic

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Of Course.

Speaker 2 (00:00):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey, Hey, what's up.
This is QLs classic April fourth, twenty eighteen with the
Great Matthew Alfred.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Yankovin that's right, y'all.

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Weird Al Yankee Vic.

Speaker 4 (00:16):
Joins us and he talks about hilarious songs that Prince
would never clear, why he turned down the opening slot
on Michael Jackson's nineteen eighty eight bad Tour, and how
he got away with poking fun at Kurt Copaine, Cooglio
and Azalea and many more.

Speaker 1 (00:32):
Not to mention.

Speaker 3 (00:33):
I gotta say this roll call intro is.

Speaker 1 (00:38):
One for the record books. Hope you enjoyed QLs with
Weird Al Yandy Vick. All Right, yah ready, yeah, you
yelling already like you. Let's go.

Speaker 5 (00:57):
Sub cram well sun Subpremo. Oh called Suprema Son, So
supreme role called Supreme Son Son, Supremo role called Suprema Son,
Suprema Roll call, rewind select the three right, come back

(01:18):
again select Yeah, I want to do.

Speaker 1 (01:21):
We are in the greatness of of of of greatness
right now, gentlemen, Yes, we are in the greatest of greatness.
We are we are in the yo. We are remixing
this role call. Thank you very much.

Speaker 6 (01:38):
Supremo Supremo, Ro Supreme, Supreme roll call, Supreme Supreme, roll call,
Supreme Supreme.

Speaker 1 (01:55):
Yes to all of y'all. Yeah, I just had the remix.
Yeah the brand.

Speaker 6 (02:01):
Carrio Suprema roll call, Supremo Supremo roll so Premoth sock
Supremo call Suprema southing Suprema.

Speaker 1 (02:17):
My name is Fante. Yeah, this is my home.

Speaker 7 (02:21):
Even Ezekiel thinks my mind is gone.

Speaker 6 (02:25):
Supreme Supremo, roll call, Supremouth, Suprema Ro Suprema spriva ro
call Suprema.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
My name is Sugar.

Speaker 8 (02:42):
Yeah, I got the Sugars, I got Sciattica, and now
I'm living with a herd.

Speaker 9 (02:51):
Supremo Ro Supremo suthing something Suprema roll Supremoth sucks up
Primo roll Supreme up from southing Sason.

Speaker 7 (03:03):
Sure of all the concerts, Boss Bill has been yeah weird.

Speaker 10 (03:10):
Yeah, in the top two.

Speaker 6 (03:12):
Roll call, So pray my South suck Suprema roll call,
Supremo supping sup It's a Prema roll call, so pretty
much sucking suck.

Speaker 3 (03:22):
It's a prima roll.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
So pre u s pre roll call.

Speaker 11 (03:30):
Yeah, far from emerging.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Yeah, weird Al's here.

Speaker 10 (03:34):
Yeah, like a sober day so.

Speaker 6 (03:37):
Pretty much shopping shut up Prema roll Supreme up sucking
sup sup pre roll call so pretty much southing suck
so pra my roll call Supreme sun pre roll call.

Speaker 10 (03:52):
I know, free style, I am the worst. Yeah, it
wouldn't be better if this won't reheart.

Speaker 1 (04:06):
Pray, pray pray sho. That was He was like, they're
going to beat your ass. Is that you all playing? Yeah? Yeah, yeah,

(04:31):
yeah that was last minute, like zero o'clock in the morning.
That was shout out to the school.

Speaker 11 (04:37):
Yes, the first time we've done that out.

Speaker 1 (04:39):
We've never changed the music up before.

Speaker 10 (04:41):
First pokemonsh up, Yeah, we had to.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
We're in the greatness of greatness, ladies and gentlemen. What
more can I say? We have one of the greatest.
I mean, he shut down his own category. He is
a one of one. There.

Speaker 10 (05:00):
The job is taken.

Speaker 1 (05:03):
It's just like, you know, you are the greatest parody satire, right, satirist, Yes, satirist. Yeah,
you are the goat.

Speaker 10 (05:18):
Thank you man, you are the goat. You're the goat.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
As well, thank you. I feel goadus pleasy, gentleman. Please
welcome Alfred Matthew yank wow go, I have to use it.

Speaker 10 (05:32):
My social Security numbers five six, n.

Speaker 1 (05:36):
Man one. I'm grateful that you did this. I'm thankful
because you know, we've all been fan of yours. But
I mean, it's to the point that you're not even
a proper nown. You're a verb.

Speaker 10 (05:51):
You're i mean, like a weird out of the song. Yeah, oh,
you're weird about that song exactly exactly.

Speaker 1 (05:58):
How are you though, place for asking?

Speaker 10 (06:00):
Doing very well? I just just got back from uh,
Hawaii last night.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
We were there.

Speaker 10 (06:04):
We lived there part time, and I'm just kind of
getting used to uh uh not seeing the ocean and
flowers and beautiful things all the time.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
Thanks.

Speaker 10 (06:15):
We live in the east side. Hey, we live out
in the jungle. We're about another half a mile down
the road and we there's like no internet, no nothing.
We're in the jungle, baby really yeah, why because it's

(06:35):
a whole different kind of Hawaii. Mean, you can go
to the west side and there's like, you know, you
can have your drinks by the pool and it's very
res already and very nice. But but the East Side
is like old Hawaii and it just feels like, you know,
you can really kind of it's a place where you
go and do nothing. A lot of people like go
to to Hanna and they go, oh, there's nothing here.
That's kind of the point. It's like a great place
to unplug.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
So you needed to uh sort of recharge and and yeah.

Speaker 10 (07:00):
Yeah, it's a it's a whole. It's kind of like
the opposite of l A. So a couple of times
a year my family goes out there and just kind
of unplugs and you know, talk, talk to the cows,
you know, hang out.

Speaker 1 (07:11):
No, you just scared me with no Internet. Yeah, get
you away from Instagram? Why would you ever want to
do that? But I understand it's necessary.

Speaker 10 (07:20):
Where are you from from Linwood? Straight o Linwood? Yeah.
In fact, Shiat Knight went to my high school.

Speaker 7 (07:28):
What wow wait wait wait wait, sarcasm detectors right.

Speaker 10 (07:33):
Now, that's absolutely true.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Wow Okay.

Speaker 10 (07:36):
Fred Winn from The Monsters, Mark Spitz, I believe, and
Kevin Costner also went to the same time.

Speaker 1 (07:41):
Wow wow. Uh So, first of all, what were you
like as a kid? And I asked that very slowly
because I don't think people are yeah accurate in describing themselves.

Speaker 10 (08:01):
But I mean, well, this might come as a huge
shock to you, but I was a little nerdy really, No, No,
I was. I was definitely well, I was sort of
a you know, sort of a weird kid, I was.
But I was always a good student. I was always
a straight a student, the kind of guy that you
try to copy off of during math class and then
beat up at recess.

Speaker 1 (08:22):
But you know, because you try to, you gave the
wrong answers anywhere.

Speaker 10 (08:25):
Just mess with them. But no, I was always a
good kid, but I was always a little strange. I
kind of kept to myself and and ate with the
other nerdy kids during lunchtime, that kind of thing.

Speaker 1 (08:37):
Okay, basically yeah, yeah, this room read backstory. So your
your gift of music? How did that start?

Speaker 10 (08:48):
Like, well, I guess it started when my parents decided
I should take accordion lessons.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
Uh why, well they could.

Speaker 10 (09:00):
Well, I think you know, the joke answer is that
they realized that according music was going to take over
Western civilization. But really I think they honestly thought that
it would make me more popular, because you know, when
you play the accordion, you're a one man band, you're
the life of any party.

Speaker 1 (09:18):
Yeah, you know something though, they were right.

Speaker 10 (09:23):
In their own weird way.

Speaker 1 (09:24):
I mean, there's no one in this world that does
not know who you are.

Speaker 10 (09:28):
So it's like it was actually kind of a stroke
of luck that they decided on such a dorky instrument.
Because Doctor Demento the Distract really started my career. He
says that. You know, when he got my first tape
in the mail, he said, if it was some teenage
kid playing the guitar and doing those same songs, he
wouldn't have given it a second thought. But because there
was this teenage kid playing the accordion and somehow thinking

(09:50):
he was cool, he said, well, that's the novelty. That's
worth the maritime Wow.

Speaker 12 (09:55):
So can you write down for us how the accordion works,
like as an instrument, like how like physically? Weeks Yeah,
how physically works and how you read the music? Does
it is like a piano or the right hand.

Speaker 10 (10:05):
Part is like a piano. It's talking about piano acordions.
They're different kind of accordions, but that's the one I use.
So the right hand part is exactly like a piano
and the left hand part is buttons. Their accordions have
different numbers of buttons. One twenty is like the standard one.
The top two rows are basses and all the rest
are chords. Like the next row of chords is major chords,
then minor chords and seventh chords and then diminished chords.

(10:29):
And there's a lot of repeat buttons because you don't
want to have to like do one button on one
side of the accordion then immediately go.

Speaker 13 (10:34):
You know.

Speaker 10 (10:35):
So it's just, you know, looking back on it, it's
kind of a hard instrument to learn. And I figured
out because I gave my daughter accordion lessons a few
years ago. She out of the blues, decided she wanted
to play the accordion, which you know, I have to
say that so they don't send me to send it
to child Protective Services.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
She actually asked.

Speaker 10 (10:55):
And we got her a little accordion, and I taught
her some Christmas songs and she lost interests after couple
of months. But but she actually, you know, can play
a few songs.

Speaker 1 (11:02):
This is there a left handed according for those that
whose lead hand is their left.

Speaker 10 (11:09):
You mean to play like the keys on the left hand.
That's a really good question. I don't know. I mean,
and maybe you could play it upside down. I've never
seen that done though. That's I have no idea. I
don't know.

Speaker 1 (11:19):
Are you related to now? There was a clip when
you first came to the Tonight Show to sit in
with us, and we did this extended polka jam and
it was based on a Yankovic.

Speaker 10 (11:33):
Who was Franky Yankovic.

Speaker 1 (11:35):
Yeah, are you related to him? Not?

Speaker 10 (11:36):
Not as far as I can figure. I mean, maybe
several generations ago. I'm sure we're all We're ALLTD somehow,
but no direct relation. But that might have been another
reason why my parents decided I should take take according lessons,
because there was already America's polka King, Frankie Yankovic, and
they thought, oh, there should be at least one more
accordion playing Yankovic in the world. I actually I met

(12:00):
Frankie passed away some time ago, but I actually got
to bring him out to LA and feature him in
a TV special called A Weirdoul's Guide to the Grammys
because polka was a category for the first time that year.
Sometime in the late eighties, I guess, and we did
a whole thing where we you know, gave him a
fake star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame and we
did a poolside interview. We did a whole Frankie Goes
to Hollywood.

Speaker 1 (12:24):
So, growing up or at least being a teenager in
the seventies and on the dawning of disco, how are
you able to have a high school existence sort of
like you know, with band practice and that sort of
thing with the accordion? Like were you starting bands and

(12:47):
those things?

Speaker 10 (12:47):
I tried, and for some reason, none of my friends
that had bands felt the need for an accordion player.
I don't know why. I just I found out early
on that if I really wanted to to play the accordion,
I could either you know, play for bar Mitza's and
Italian weddings, or it could go my own way. And
I was always drawn toward the bizarre and comedy, and

(13:10):
and when I was exposed to Doctor Demento, that really
kind of opened the door for me because I thought, oh, well,
these are my people.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
I see so with well, I want to know, like
right before Doctor Demento, like were you could you play
any other instrument or not?

Speaker 12 (13:26):
Not?

Speaker 10 (13:26):
Really? I mean, you know, when when you played the accordion,
that means you can also play the piano, of course,
but so so technically I could, but my right hand
is very used to keys and my left hand is
not so to this day, if I'm playing piano, I'm
you know, my left hand is just either I'm playing
some very rudimentary lines or I'm waving to the crowd.

Speaker 1 (13:48):
That is weird. Okay, So explain me the Doctor Demento
connection in seventy six with you given him.

Speaker 10 (13:57):
When I when I actually gave him a tape. Doctor
Demento came my high school oddly enough and was doing
an assembly sometimes he was on a show where he does,
you know, does an educational assembly of comedy and demented music,
and he happened to be at Lynwood High School and
I at the same time, he was doing a contest

(14:17):
called a contest for Peko and Supulvita, which is his
theme song, and people were sending in their own versions
of the Peako and Supulvia Pico and Supulvita Pico and Sapulvita.
And I did my own horrible version of it and
gave him the cassette tape in person, and I think
he promptly lost it. It was terrible, and I never

(14:37):
made it to air, but that was my first contact
with him, and since then I would send him stuff
on the mail, and eventually it got good enough that
he started playing them on the radio. But when I
first started, I was like thirteen years old. They were
I mean, even the stuff he played was horrible, but
before that they were extra horrible.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Were these originals or did you even start the world
of parody then, like I sort of thing.

Speaker 10 (15:02):
It was a little bit of both. I mean, Peoples
a pub but it would have my cover. But yeah,
the first songs I sent him, it was a combination
of originals and and and parodies, but none none of
it had much of a rock feel to it, because
you know, I was used to my classical training on
the accordion was was Polka's and some classical pieces, so
didn't I really kind of got into playing rock on

(15:23):
the accordion by just playing along with my Elton John
records and things like that, just trying to figure out
like rock chord structures.

Speaker 1 (15:29):
Okay, So the first time I've heard of you was
I think another One Rides the Bus and I think
it was like eighty one, like someone Wall.

Speaker 10 (15:38):
It was the actual date that we did that was
September fourteenth, nineteen eighty, which was it was live performance
because we never re recorded that. I just played it
live on the Doctor Demento Show and he had that
was it. It was live on the show and he
just happened to turn the tape recorder on for it
for an air check. And that air check of that
live recording that is the master tape to this day,

(16:02):
the original tape. I would assume Doctor Demento has it,
but I mean it it sounds just like you know
what's on the record.

Speaker 1 (16:07):
Is he still Doctor Minio is still alive?

Speaker 10 (16:09):
He is, Yeah, he he's not on terrestrial radio anymore,
but he is still doing a weekly show at Doctor
Demento dot com. So he's still doing it, same, same
same show.

Speaker 1 (16:17):
Wow. Okay, see your initial rhythm section kind of had
this fart noisy thing that I used to always be
obsessed with. Like that started. You know, every kid has
an obsession with farting, uh huh. But it was when
I heard another one rise the bus. Then I started
like like trying to do fart right. First of all,
who's making that noise? And then who's how do.

Speaker 10 (16:39):
You that that is? Musical Mike Keefer. Mike Keefer has
been part of the Doctor Meno show for many years
and he is the technical term is manualist, a person
that makes those flatulent noises with his hands. And I
used him a lot. I used him a lot for
the first few albums, not so much in later albums.
But it was quite a process because he would have

(17:00):
to make a it was a whole process to record
that in the studio. First, he'd have to wash his
hands very thoroughly because they couldn't be at all greasy.
They had to be super squeaky clean dry. And then
we use two microphones because when he puts his hands together,
one noise would come out of the top of the
hands and one noise would come out of the bottom
of the hands, so we get real actual stereo separation.

Speaker 1 (17:23):
Yeah yeah, no, don't yeah right now. Uh so how
did you well, I know that, uh was my BALLOONA
on the B side? I'm not certain, but how did
you how did you get to the next level from
just like making this stuff for Dotor Demento and then

(17:45):
like there's labels out there, I want to.

Speaker 10 (17:47):
My balloon was the year before that was recorded literally
in a bathroom. Uh, and it wasn't the northern wris
of the bus. And then and that was still while
I was in college. I was getting my degree in
architecture at the time, uh the California Polytechnic State University
at San Luis Obispo. And uh so and after I graduated, Uh,
basically I knew that I didn't want to be an architect.

(18:08):
I wasn't sure that I'd ever be able to make
a career in the music industry, because just because you
have a hit on the Doctor Atmano Show, that doesn't
really mean anything in the real world. But I decided, well,
you know, I'm young, and uh, I've got some time,
and let me knock on a few doors. And uh Luckily,
within a couple of years, I was able to rent
land a record deal. So based on the early recordings
and some new demos that I'd donated I Love Rocky

(18:30):
Road for I love rock and roll, and and based
on that, we were able to land Rick Deringer as
a producer and a Scottie Brothers as a record label,
and that we did. The first album did okay, it
didn't brint up the chart, but it did fine, and
it was it did well enough to merit me doing
a second album, and the second album, yeah, that's when

(18:50):
it happened with yeah.

Speaker 1 (18:51):
Yeah, but even even then, what was the selling point
that you know, like this is were you trying to say,
look as a comedian, Were you trying to be billed
as a comedian or you know, well shatteririst.

Speaker 10 (19:07):
Or just I you know, I wasn't so much into labels,
but uh uh, you know I I I was going
for grins. It was obviously a comedy act. It was
meant to be meant to be novelty, and that that
was the reason why it was hard for me to
get signed to a record deal, because we you know,
we know, we approached basically every record store in a
record company in town and uh record stores too, but

(19:30):
record company in town, and they all said, oh, this
is really funny stuff, this is brilliant work. Yeah, we're
not interested. This is novelty. You're going to be like
you know, if you're lucky, you'll be a footnote and
you'll be gone in six months. So we want, we
want artists are gonna have a lot of lasting career.

Speaker 1 (19:43):
Yeah, So with in three D, did you think like, Okay,
this is gonna be my one and only album, And.

Speaker 10 (19:50):
Well, I mean it was sort of a you know,
you never know because when I was signed, it was
I was signed to a ten album deal. And that
does that doesn't mean, oh, I'm going to do ten albums.
That means on the extremely off chance that I'm successful
enough to have ten albums, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, anytime, right,
So you never know, you never know. And my first album,

(20:10):
like I said, it did okay but not great. And
you know, every album could about my last, so you
always have that in mind. But after Edith came out,
after N three D came out and it did so well,
I was pretty sure there's gonna be another album after that.

Speaker 12 (20:24):
Can you explain to us just, uh, I guess the
legal way that you're able to do the parody? What's
the line between parody and you know, right in friends?

Speaker 1 (20:33):
Yeah, Like, how do you how do you navigate that?

Speaker 10 (20:35):
I always try to go a little above and beyond because,
according to the Supreme Court rulings, UH, fair use would
imply that I could get away with a lot more
than I do. Uh, you know, in terms of parody
and satire, I don't necessarily have to ask permission but
I always do because part of my logic is that
I want to have long term relationships with all the

(20:56):
artists that I'm parodying, and I want, I really honestly
want them to feel like there and I'm the joke.
I don't want anybody to be upset or offended that
I'm doing a parody of one of their songs. It's
all making good fun and I want them, you know,
I don't want to step on anybody's toes.

Speaker 12 (21:08):
So then with the parody works that you make, how
is the publishing split between is it you or is
it all the old artists?

Speaker 10 (21:15):
It's I'll tell you it's It's literally a different case
every time, every single one is negotiated. I would say,
by and large, the standard deal is the original artist
keeps all the publishing, and well you get the writer.
Well we split the writer. I mean, I'd love to
get some of the publishing, but people are very loath

(21:36):
through give that up.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Well damn, we already rushed to your nose versus your yeses.
And I guess your most famous no was Prince. But yeah,
first of all, I want to know what song did
you try to parody of? Prints? And then what's the
what's the asking process? Uh?

Speaker 10 (21:59):
Well, but a half a dozen songs that I approached
Prince for. One of them was going to be in
my movie U a Chef like, which was let's Let's
go Crazy, but with the lyrics of the Beverly Hill
Believes theme song. Oh wow, it would have been fun.

(22:21):
Uh they're at nineteen ninety nine. I wanted to do
that about like a mister ron Pope peel kind of
like add for like you can buy this for nineteen
you know, and they were like a half it doesn't
like that that I wanted to try.

Speaker 1 (22:32):
But uh, no you can now you said no, no,
oh they welcome it now you no, No.

Speaker 10 (22:37):
The Prince isn't going to change his mind. Now that's
the thing, you know. But you know, I respect the
artist wishes, you know, even if it doesn't matter what
the state says. No, I mean, you know you would
know that he were not their wishes. I'm concerned about
his Prince's wishes.

Speaker 1 (22:53):
And you know, good man, good man, but please demo it.

Speaker 10 (23:02):
Do There's no need to do a demo for parody
because you know how it goes, right.

Speaker 1 (23:08):
I mean, you didn't do a full scale nineteen ninety nine,
I did.

Speaker 10 (23:12):
Not, you know, for a lot of songs. I don't
even write any lyrics until I get permission because it's
really a bummerdoo hard like yeah, because I spend some times,
like weeks on a single song and to go through
all that effort and then to go, yeah, I don't
really like parodies, and that's a heartbreak.

Speaker 11 (23:25):
So how far did you get to the point of
asking can I do a parody? Or asking can I
do a parody of?

Speaker 1 (23:30):
This? Is what?

Speaker 10 (23:30):
No, we always we always picture a specific ideas, so
we always say we want to do parody of this song,
and here's the general idea.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
I don't know where I heard from. I think someone
that asked him a question about it, and he he
said something like it actually I like him or whatever.
But it wasn't. It wasn't an eye roll or like
a no, my song is.

Speaker 10 (23:49):
But the only thing I've I've heard I've heard audio
of him talking about my fat video. I was going
to maybe he said something else. Best I've heard any
like that at the time, So what.

Speaker 1 (24:01):
Do you say?

Speaker 7 (24:02):
He it was it's a rehearsal tape and he's basically
asking the band if they saw the video for fat
and he's like talking about him in the fat suit,
and he's just like cracking up the entire time he
saw him.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
The story, it's pretty great. That would have been encouraging. Yeah,
that would have been damn man, Now you would have
killed nineteen. Do you think of the other print songs
that you us?

Speaker 10 (24:23):
Those are my favorites. I think I think there was
something with when Dove's Cry, Like I think like a
fast fruit, a fast food guy, when Spud's fry or
something like that. Another food song, another food song.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
How do how do ideas come to you? Like? Do
you have these dictaphones on standby or you know, like
just when moments.

Speaker 10 (24:45):
Like well, in the in the very beginning, it was
just like whatever stupid idea came to I had to go, oh,
I'll go with that. But after I started getting some
success and realizing people actually, you know, care about what
I do and a lot of people will obsess over
but I think, well, I should put some more effort
into the So now, whenever I find a song that
I think has potential for parody, I'll think of like

(25:06):
a hundred ideas for it. I'll think of every variation
on the thing I possibly can. I'm very analytical about it.
I'll go down and listen and try to see which
of those ideas have any comedic potential and would be
able to sustain comedy for three or three and a
half minutes. And sometimes none of them do. I mean,
sometimes they're all bad ideas, but if I'm lucky, one
will stand out.

Speaker 1 (25:25):
So are you obsessively reading Billboard and listening to music?

Speaker 10 (25:32):
And I certainly used to. I haven't been that obsessive
in the last couple of years. I'm kind of kind
of slowing down a little bit. I'm looking at other projects,
but in the thick of it, when I'm actively trying
to figure out what are the parodies, Yeah, I'm listening
to a top forty radio and definitely studying Billboard.

Speaker 1 (25:50):
Well, I was going to say, like, you know, there's
there's always as a musician and as a music fan,
there's a point in life where you're actually gave aged
in contemporary music culture, and then there's a point where
you're like, you feel like, uh, I hate music now
or not I hate music.

Speaker 10 (26:08):
But it's well, I'll tell you you know, I like
Top forty music. I like that, but uh, you know
it's not my first choice. I mean, if I could
listen to any radio station, I wouldn't automatically listen to
the top twenty hits.

Speaker 1 (26:20):
You know.

Speaker 10 (26:22):
So whenever I was it wasn't that I was not
enjoying it, but I kind of felt like I was
on the clock, you know, I was working.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
Yeah. I was going to say, does it make it
harder for you? Now? Like if you hear something as
insanely popular as bad and Boogie or Bowdak Yellow and
you're like, Okay, I know this is this can be
an instant viral moment for me, But am I really
emotionally invested to it?

Speaker 11 (26:45):
Would be interesting, though, Bodak that would be interesting weird
out parody.

Speaker 10 (26:48):
Yeah, well I'll consider all that.

Speaker 1 (26:50):
They both wait, they both would be I think you
said they both are parodies.

Speaker 8 (26:58):
Well, I mean, what's what's your actual favorite type of music,
like when you're just at home, Mostly like Viking songs
and whaling music, you know, thank you, like thirteenth century stuff.

Speaker 10 (27:13):
Wow, it's like Game of thro Oh no, that's contemporary.

Speaker 3 (27:21):
That stuff's still better than pop music.

Speaker 10 (27:23):
So that's while music was good?

Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, Like I don't particularly engage in the music that
I make a living in. But you know, I mean,
if I'm driving a car, I'm rather listening to jazz
and something completely opposite, or at least to get inspired.

Speaker 10 (27:39):
So I find I listened a lot to the music
that I was listening to in high school and college.
That's sort of like my comfort food of music. It's like, oh, remember,
that's what I'm asking you. What what kind of stuff
is that?

Speaker 9 (27:49):
You know?

Speaker 10 (27:49):
It's a lot of British invasion stuff, a lot of
singer songwriter stuff from the seventies, like a lot of
you know, the kind of the garage bands from the
nineties kind of thing, the grunge movement, a lot of
artists that are not necessarily comedy your novelty, but have
a sense of humor and you know, alternative stuff.

Speaker 8 (28:09):
What about your record collection? You still have your record
collection from when you're a teenager?

Speaker 1 (28:14):
You know that.

Speaker 10 (28:14):
You know, I should have held onto all my vinyls.
My my wife talked me into a you we got
the c D like but I but I, but I
want to stay married, so.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Damn yeah, they take up space.

Speaker 6 (28:32):
It is.

Speaker 1 (28:32):
The wife was coming. Sorry, So on the I guess
the opposite side of the fence. Oh wait, before I
get to even get to Michael Jackson, how important is
it to you to sort of nurture relationships because I

(28:52):
find that oftentimes if you go the traditional business route, Okay,
I'm gonna parody, I'm gonna do something on Rod Stewart. Yeah,
and then your manager calls their manager, the label calls
it a label. Then usually it's like some red tape
shit and it never happens. But you know, if you
happen to be friends with Rod Stewart and you're like, look,

(29:13):
I have a really cool idea. Oh yeah, I'll be
honored for you to bet you.

Speaker 10 (29:16):
Know, that sort of thing that happens a lot, you know,
because sometimes it's just hard to get through to another artist.
So if I ever have a direct connection, and I've
used that several times, I mean that was I did
that with Kurt Cobain, like, you know, you know, my
manager couldn't get through to his, you know, their manager.
And finally, you know, I knew somebody at Saurday Night
Live and they were performing that day, and I said,
could you please get Kurt on the phone, And I
got to talk to them directly.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
Wait that easy?

Speaker 10 (29:39):
Well basically, and then I told my manager and I said,
Kurt's fine with it. And then then his manager could
call back their managers say, Kurt fine with that.

Speaker 1 (29:47):
How did you pitch Kurt Cobain?

Speaker 10 (29:50):
Well, this is a famous story. I talked him on
the phone and this is their first time on Saturday
Night Live. I'm not sure if he was in his
right mind, but I was talking about the phone and
I said, hey, curtis a word all Yankovic and I
wanted to do. I want to do a parody of
your song that smells like teen Spirit. And he goes, oh,
that's cool. And then there's a kind of a pause
and he goes, is it going to be about food?

Speaker 1 (30:13):
He's a fan, yeah, yea.

Speaker 10 (30:14):
And I said, well, no, that's actually about how nobody
can understand your lyrics. And he goes, oh, yeah, sure,
that's funny.

Speaker 1 (30:21):
Wow.

Speaker 10 (30:21):
He was a very cool guy. He actually wrote some
very nice things about me and his journals. Remember when
they published the journals, he wrote, ah, well, a humble bragger,
but he wrote weird Al Yankovic is a modern rock genius.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
You are I mean no, no, you are so you
doing eat it in the at the height of Michael mania.
I would think that it was actually easier to uh
get permission from Prince at that time dude, than Michael Jackson.

(30:58):
That was then Michael's like one of your most accommodating.

Speaker 10 (31:02):
That was a real shot in the dark because you know,
at the at that time, I certainly wasn't any you know,
kind of household name. I was just this weird kid
from LA that was making these stupid records and we thought, oh,
maybe Michael Jackson will sign off on those, like ha
ha ha. But mantra was you know, it never hurts
to ask, you know, what's going to do?

Speaker 1 (31:18):
Say no.

Speaker 10 (31:19):
Uh So we put it out there and uh, I
forgot forget how long it took.

Speaker 1 (31:23):
But was it a thing or no? No, no.

Speaker 10 (31:25):
I got to meet Michael after the pack a couple
of times, but at the time it was sort of
it was just sort of like, uh, okay, Michael signed
off on it, and there is a contract I've I've
got a copy of it with my signature next to
Michael Jackson's signature saying that we are the co writers
of Eat It.

Speaker 7 (31:40):
Wow, that is cool, which, by the way, was one
of the first records I ever owned.

Speaker 1 (31:45):
Oh yeah, so uh, Scottie Brothers, were they seeing Dallas
signs as in like let's do the video full scale
or you know, how did you convince them to?

Speaker 10 (31:59):
Well they had either Tiger money by this point, did
they not survivor Yeah, so they had that, didn't you do?

Speaker 1 (32:04):
I think you did?

Speaker 10 (32:05):
Uh yeah, very yeah you did that on the second
album as well. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, they're happy about that.

Speaker 1 (32:12):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (32:12):
I think that was probably the same studio the Originals
recorded in.

Speaker 3 (32:14):
So that was nice. Oh wow.

Speaker 1 (32:17):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (32:17):
And they also had James Brown.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
Yeah, they had the it was the Unreal album. They
had Gravity Yeah.

Speaker 10 (32:29):
Yeah, gotta support those Scotti Brothers artists.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
You know, Dan Harmon was happy.

Speaker 10 (32:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (32:34):
So uh.

Speaker 1 (32:37):
Who's what was the brain child?

Speaker 11 (32:39):
Uh?

Speaker 1 (32:41):
Kind of genesis of the edit video to go full
scale on it?

Speaker 10 (32:46):
Well? That was you know, that was that was in
the days when people were obsessed with m t V.
Were you know, if if a video is on heavy rotation,
like Michael Jackson obviously was, you knew every minute detail
of the video and it was very get a parody
because all you had to do was recreate it and
just tweak things just a little bit and it would
be funny. And at the time it was my most

(33:06):
you know, expensive video because my first video costs like
three thousand dollars. My record lab was like, oh great,
we'll do all your videos for three thousand dollars. Like no, no, no, no,
hold on, I think eat it. At the time, my
manager hates want to talk money, but I'll tell you
it cost forty thousand dollars and that was a real video.
Mone that was at the time. That was yeah, but
I mean that was the best forty thousand dollars I

(33:27):
ever spent my life.

Speaker 1 (33:28):
But how did you find the jacket? And how did
you get Cheryl's in the video to buy a jacket?

Speaker 10 (33:33):
And then you store At the time it was nineteen
eighty four. Man, I was like, there were the Michael.

Speaker 1 (33:37):
Jackson jiano tea you had on and all that.

Speaker 10 (33:39):
That was the piano t We had to have an
art director cookout for us. But then yeah, the jack
was just off the rack, Like if you want to,
you know, pay whatever. It was six hundred dollars to
get a leather Michael Jackson jacket that could be had.

Speaker 1 (33:51):
Who directed? Who do you know who directed the video?

Speaker 10 (33:54):
I do that was my manager, Jay Levy, Hey is everywhere. Yeah,
he was making his directorial debut. I mean I story
boarded it out and figured out the shots and then
I said, here, Jay, you deal with this.

Speaker 1 (34:05):
I was impressed that you had Cheryl's song in the video,
the the long haired Asian woman from Soul Train. Oh yeah,
who heard her hair head comes off? Whatever? Wait? Was
that wasn't? Uh? It was Michael wasn't actual head?

Speaker 9 (34:21):
No?

Speaker 1 (34:22):
No, no, I'm trying to figure if you got Michael Peters.

Speaker 10 (34:28):
Yeah, is that his name?

Speaker 1 (34:30):
No? No, Michael Peters was the choreographer, well, the one of.

Speaker 10 (34:33):
The choreographersons and what was gosh, I'm going a blankht
his name was? It sounds like Peterson?

Speaker 11 (34:37):
Must he was the original white jacket.

Speaker 10 (34:39):
Yeah, he was the original guy.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Yeah that Michael, Michael Peter, Michael Peters. It was the
white jacket.

Speaker 10 (34:43):
Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's him.

Speaker 1 (34:45):
That was him.

Speaker 10 (34:46):
How we asked him, he said, Okay, damn, how much is.

Speaker 11 (34:50):
The original beat it video? Callt y'all think?

Speaker 1 (34:53):
I think? Well, I know Billy Jean was sixty five.
It was still under one hundred thousan was it really?

Speaker 6 (35:00):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (35:01):
Yeah? It was under Yeah, I mean Thriller it was
a million, but I know Billy Jean was sixty five
and and beat it was like eighty five half the
price under yeah, like slightly under hundred. Yeah.

Speaker 10 (35:14):
We had to recreate the barroom scene and if you
have the thing, we looked for the original locations, but
it was all uh they all had the pool. Yeah,
that was just a set on stage.

Speaker 1 (35:25):
Wow, man, great, congrats on the details.

Speaker 9 (35:28):
Man.

Speaker 1 (35:30):
Actually, my favorite thing about your repertoire is your polka methleys.
And I'll say that the first time that I saw you,
not on Solid Gold or or MTV the Tonight Show,

(35:51):
I don't know if you did you did poke yeah, yeah,
ye dog. That was the most jaw dropping. That's when
I started buying your albums, like you were just the
weird out guy and like, oh, the eaty guy whatever,
you know. But when I saw that, it that was fun.

Speaker 10 (36:12):
I remember that we had to have the actual Tonight
Show band playing the horn section behind if they had
all the charts.

Speaker 1 (36:18):
Yeah. So that's the thing, like you're not just the
parody guy, like you're these arrangements and and just the
clever nuances of like how you do on a lonely
heart with the clarinet arra stuff. Are you notating this
stuff on on scoring it or oh?

Speaker 10 (36:37):
Yeah, absolutely? I mean now I use notation software, but
at the back, back then in the day, I just
would print out, uh you know, I wouldn't even print
out to go. I'd use the uh you know, the
staffs and just write it with with pencils right on there.

Speaker 1 (36:51):
Okay, you can help me and Steve out on this
because I'm so okay, uh when you do uh the
bang your head man, Yeah, okay. The what is the
the hornhunk? That's what is that called. We we were
looking for it for least a half hour. It's a.

Speaker 10 (37:12):
That's called the bulb horn. So it has a rubber
the rubber thing squeezed.

Speaker 1 (37:20):
I was going through every like every time I couldn't google,
like I was. I was, oh god, I was looking
for her right for the longest.

Speaker 10 (37:33):
And but that sounds pretty good.

Speaker 3 (37:34):
I mean that was really sounds like a horn that
actually sounded. And there's small there's different sized ones too. Yeah,
obviously big one, really big one.

Speaker 1 (37:45):
One. Yeah, Because I was going to go full scale
with the theme and do the sound effects. But I
wasted almost a half hour. It was four in the morning.
It's like going through every horn. Man.

Speaker 3 (38:00):
Yeah, you know, I have a question before you move on.
You're moving on from eat It, so on eat It.

Speaker 8 (38:10):
Even though it's a parody song, it seemed like you
were taking the acting and the choreography and everything real seriously.
And I was wonderfing. I was wondering how long it
took you to to, you know, put on all that weight,
to do that, to do the part that was a
different video. I'll get back to when we're talking about fat.

Speaker 1 (38:34):
Yes, all right, let's go to Derby. I was trying
to make a joke.

Speaker 3 (38:36):
That you actually gained the weight but ship.

Speaker 10 (38:40):
Salads and I, you know, hit the ball.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
No, I'm not hitting the bullhorn, but I am some wizo.

Speaker 3 (38:54):
That's supposed to be when I say something.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Actually, was there to be stupid? Your first national tour?

Speaker 10 (39:05):
I think I think that there. We did a national
tour in eighty four, which is kind of funny because
my first tour is eighty three. It was a very
small tour, and I think in eighty four I went
out with Doctor Demento as his opening act, and it
started with like Doctor Medow featuring Weird All Yankovic, and
the tour started before Edith came out, and we're on
the road and ed It comes out and it zooms

(39:26):
in the top twenty, and in the middle of the
tour it became the tour became Weird Out yank with doctor.

Speaker 1 (39:33):
Wait was this so syndicated? It was?

Speaker 10 (39:36):
He was nationally syndicated.

Speaker 1 (39:37):
Yeah. Really.

Speaker 10 (39:38):
He did a live show at Kamie Tea in Los Angeles,
and then he did a separate show syndicated out of
Westward One, which went to I forget how many markets,
but but all over the country.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
Okay, so was there? I mean after just talk about
the pressure of life after eat it? Well, you became
known as the eat It guy? Right, how did one?
How did life change? I think I saw a raw
footage of you even at the Purple Rain premiere?

Speaker 5 (40:05):
Right?

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Was that? Was that a star moment for you? It's
like Eddie Murphy came in, then Mars Day, then Weird
Al Yankovic and you have this whole like, I'm just
happy to be here.

Speaker 10 (40:17):
I think you said, Yeah, everybody knew Prince could act,
but who knew he could sing?

Speaker 9 (40:25):
So?

Speaker 1 (40:26):
How how different was life after? Because you you captured
lightning in the bottle, like even you know your video
made Soul Train. Oh yeah, that was my favorite introduction
darker news is And now this is the closest that
we will ever get to Michael Jackson. This is weird
Al yank and eat it. Oh man, I was like, Wow,

(40:48):
weird Al is on Soul Train. That's amazing.

Speaker 10 (40:51):
Well, I mean, the biggest change was that it was really,
in the true sense of the word overnight fame. I mean,
you hear about overnight things like that, and uh, it
really was overnight. I mean that the day that uh ed,
it went into heavy rotation on MTV, which is several
times a day. You know, people were recognizing me on
the streets. I'd be in the line at a fast
food or restaurant and people be staring at me like

(41:12):
this is odd. This has not happened before. And yeah,
all of a sudden, I was the eating guy and
that it just changed in an instant.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Would you look like weird Al Yankovic even off duty?
Like were you always in Hawaiian shirts?

Speaker 10 (41:26):
I've always liked Hawaiian shirts, but certainly, certainly after I've
gained some notoriety, I kind of dressed down a bit
more in public. I tryed it to be too loud or.

Speaker 1 (41:34):
Garish, started wearing hats, and I never, I never.

Speaker 10 (41:37):
You know, went into the big disguises because then people
are like, oh, what's weird I'll do when we're like
a dark hat and dark glasses.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
Wow? Uh So, how how our heart was it adjusting
to a follow up record?

Speaker 9 (41:55):
Like?

Speaker 1 (41:55):
Was it? Is there such a thing as writer's black
for you know, for doing parody records?

Speaker 10 (42:03):
Or oh? Yeah, I mean every every album I started
out with writer's block because like, oh, what I'm gonna
do now? Like, because like, you know, you don't want
to keep repeating yourself, and you know you want to
still be funny, and but you don't want to like
kind of rely on the same tropes and memes and
devices that you use before. You want to try to
find different ways to be funny.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
But how is it that you don't want to be
pigeonholed as the comedian parody guy when you're the comedian
parody guy.

Speaker 10 (42:28):
Well, I'm not saying I didn't want to be the
comedian parody guy. I mean I knew that parodies were
bread and butter, and I enjoyed doing them, and it
was I was wasn't trying to get away from that.
I just didn't want to, like, you know, it kind
of horrified me when my record label put out a
compilation called the Food Album. Here's all else about food?
Maybe I should write so many songs about food?

Speaker 1 (42:44):
You know, I was going to say, were they coming
to you like, okay, like you know, do more you
know food songs?

Speaker 10 (42:51):
Well? No, they were basically you know the thing about
Scotti brothers. They were wonderful to me, but every fourth
quarter they'd go, you know, we could really use some
money for a bottom line. We're gonna put out a
compilation album like really another one, like here's all of
Al's songs. They begin with the letter are.

Speaker 1 (43:09):
That already so soon? There's like two records in you
already held?

Speaker 10 (43:13):
But I'll tell you after two records, I don't think
they weren't talking about the greatest pits after two records,
but they were saying, like, how about a Christmas album?

Speaker 1 (43:20):
Like really, I don't think so.

Speaker 10 (43:22):
No, you know, they're looking for any way to quickly
cash in because they didn't know that I'd still be around,
you know, you know, thirty years later they were thinking like, okay,
you know, here's our cash car. Let's milk it.

Speaker 1 (43:32):
Right. So on the opposite side of the fence were
there artists now giving you elevator pitches on how to
turn their songs into weirdolse songs.

Speaker 10 (43:47):
By this point, I won't mention any names. It happened. No, no, no, no,
I don't mean, but well, I've had people more often
more than giving me pitch, they would say like, when
you're gonna get rounded doing one of my songs?

Speaker 7 (44:00):
Wow, this is almost like a sign like you made
it when yeah, yeah, if he covers his stuff like yeah,
you've officially arrived.

Speaker 1 (44:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 10 (44:08):
I think when I met Paul McCarney for the first
I mean he off handedly said that. I think he
was kind of joking, but still, you know, it kind
of blew my mind.

Speaker 1 (44:15):
Did he tell you the scrambled eggs story? No, but
I didn't know that one. Okay, I was.

Speaker 10 (44:21):
I was the first original for Yesterday. Yeah, that was
his original lyrics.

Speaker 1 (44:25):
Right, yeah, scrambled eggs.

Speaker 10 (44:28):
Baby, hell, I love your legs whatever.

Speaker 1 (44:30):
Yeah. So I know that the Dare to be Stupid
tour for anyone that I know that, and to you
that was I really truly wish I'd seen this tour.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
That's the one Jimmy always talked for.

Speaker 1 (44:43):
Yeah yeah, but no, I know, like ten other people
they're like, you know, the there to be stupid to
like what exactly happened on this tour that just changed
these people's lives. Not sure.

Speaker 10 (44:52):
I mean every every tour got bigger and better up
until event I kind of felt kind of green, and
I think it kind of all clicked into place on
there to be stupid, because I've some YouTube videos of
me and concert in nineteen eighty four versus nineteen eighty five,
and there's definitely something that happened to like happened to
my confidence between those two years, because eighty four I
just seem a little manic and desperate, and in eighty

(45:12):
five I kind of, you know, feel like, Okay, I
know what I'm doing.

Speaker 1 (45:15):
Here I go.

Speaker 10 (45:17):
So there's probably something to that that the performances just
felt a little bit more, you know on point.

Speaker 1 (45:27):
Okay, I want to go to Poka party and break
down your harmony game on Here's Johnny. Oh wow, yeah, no,
it's it's it's some serious shit, like you, I know,
you think that like these small minuscule things are like

(45:50):
over people's heads or whatever. No, but it's really art to.

Speaker 10 (45:54):
It, like all about the minuscule things.

Speaker 1 (45:56):
How But you're you're self produced, correct? Yeah?

Speaker 10 (46:00):
I am now with the first six albums or Rick Derricter,
so he was officially producing.

Speaker 1 (46:04):
At that time. Okay, do you I mean what was
the give and go relationship on that? Was he just
like do what you do out and I'll just well
he wasn't that. It's like when you and the movies,
like you know that sort of thing.

Speaker 10 (46:18):
Yeah, I mean, I mean he was in charge of
the sound. I was walking in with all the arrangements
and things like that, and you know, Rick wasn't saying
we should have clarinet's here. It is sort of like
you know, that was that was my gig and he
would just make sure that that he he was sort
of like the director. He made sure that everything that
I did sounded as good as possible in the studio.

Speaker 1 (46:34):
And matching, like for matching the patches and stuff like
is that you are you sizers? Yeah? Are you actively
going after these like same keyboards and the same drums
and those sort of things.

Speaker 10 (46:50):
And within reason?

Speaker 1 (46:51):
Yeah? I mean you know.

Speaker 10 (46:53):
Oftentimes, if we have access to the original band or
the original band members will contact them and say, what
were the pickups on that guitar or what did you
you know, use for this particular thing.

Speaker 6 (47:02):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (47:02):
Sometimes, especially if it's an odd sample, we'll try to
figure out where that came from and see if we
can license that as well. So that's not all the time.
Sometimes we just wing it, but whenever we can, we
like to be as uh, you know, as official as possible.

Speaker 1 (47:17):
Have you have you ever not blacked out but had
a great idea that you just couldn't make funny? You
you know, like you had a great title for line
of Richies all night long, but you couldn't.

Speaker 10 (47:34):
I'm a pretty good judge of knowing if an idea
has potential, So if it might be some ideas might
be funny for like a throwaway gag, but they won't
be you know, funny for three minutes. So that and
sometimes in concert I would do a medley of those
kind of songs where like there's basically just one gag
to it, like oh here she comes, she's a spam eater,

(47:55):
Thank you good night, you know, and and that's sort
of like there's really not a whole lot more to
say after that. So all the ones that I wind
up making the parodies, I think, Okay, well I can
I can build on this, I can put layers to this,
and there's there's a direction to go. It's not just
like a one joke thing.

Speaker 1 (48:12):
How many were these the Grammys that you won? Were
they for comedy recordings or for polka or.

Speaker 10 (48:18):
They were comedy? They were different ones though, the first
one was for Comedy Recording, and that was an odd
category because it was singles competing against albums, which it
seemed like apple and orgous to me. But that's how
they did it back they how really yeah, because they
eat it one. They eat it single and one against
like Rodney Dangerfield album and Eddie Murphy's album like how

(48:39):
do how do you really?

Speaker 1 (48:41):
I think I might have Sorry, it depends. How could
it be? How could it be? The singing album? Yeah?
That was a comedy record?

Speaker 6 (48:52):
Was uh?

Speaker 10 (48:56):
Then eighty The next one was eighty eight, and that
was for Better Concept Music Video, which was a category
that I think only lasted a few years. But I
won that for fat for Best Concept Music Video, which
I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I got
to win the Grammy. Then I won for Best Comedy
Album for Poodle Hat in two thousand and three and
for Mandatory Fun.

Speaker 1 (49:16):
A couple of years ago. We year did UHF come
out eighty nine? Okay, so that's after even worse. Yeah. Yeah,
I was about to say by this point, where other
avenues calling you to do certain things as far as
like television.

Speaker 10 (49:34):
Well, since you brought that up, you know, I had
to make a very hard call talking about a UHF.
The summer of nineteen eighty eight is when we were
scheduled to shoot my movie UHF. And that was also
when Michael Jackson wanted me to open Foreman as the
European tour.

Speaker 1 (49:52):
Wait what what? Yeah? We got? I got He was
really a fan of yours. Yeah, yeah, he liked it.

Speaker 10 (50:00):
He liked the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (50:01):
I mean past like I'm really flat about my music.
I mean like, did he buy your records? And did
he laugh at he?

Speaker 10 (50:07):
He tells me he used to show UHF at the
Neverland Ranch to his guests. He told me, well, when
we did the fat video, that was actually Michael Jackson's set.
He actually let us use his set to shoot that video.

Speaker 1 (50:20):
Off that you went to Hoyt and skimmer Horn Inland.

Speaker 10 (50:25):
Now, that's because it was great because that that set
was built in Culver City and it was for the kids.
Remember he did like the baby bad when he did
the Moon video. So the set was like at nine
tenth scale to make the kids look a little bigger.
But also great for the fat video because I made
the fat Yeah, sooth that set? Yep, yeah, wait a minute,
because we knew the set was still there and they're

(50:46):
about to tear it down and we're like, no, no, no,
don't tear it down. We want to use it. And
they're like, okay, cool wait.

Speaker 1 (50:52):
Old boy from House Party made me some dig great.
Ludy Washington, Yeah, yeah, ding dong Man.

Speaker 10 (51:00):
Yeah, Ludy was great. He was also in the in
UHF in the movie he played the cameraman of that
really yeah, oh man, so funny.

Speaker 1 (51:11):
Loudy Washington.

Speaker 7 (51:12):
Yeah, you don't remember from like the Robert Towns in Speciality.

Speaker 1 (51:17):
Yeah, but I didn't. You guys. You two are the
we read credits and we read the line of notes
that sort of thing. Were you hesitant to revisit Michael
Jackson a second time around? Or was it just too
irresistible a little bit.

Speaker 10 (51:34):
I mean it was sort of low hanging fruit. But
at the same time, it's sort of like Michael Jackson was,
so you know, I'm the president in the eighties, it
was sort of like, you know, how could you not
do Michael? If I didn't do you know, a parody
on Bad, people were like, how can we're not doing
that bad?

Speaker 1 (51:46):
Or I'm bad.

Speaker 10 (51:47):
It's sort of like and and that was one of
those cases where, uh, you know, like I said, usually
I think like a hundred different variations on a theme
and I like analyze it to death. But I remember
the first time I saw the the Bad video, saw
the World premiere, and before the video is even over,
I said, I'm doing fat It's gotta be fatting. Yeah,
Like you're gonna have these huge people trying to get

(52:08):
through a turnstyle only quite get through.

Speaker 1 (52:10):
It's gonna be great. Nothing.

Speaker 3 (52:16):
I must have been watching You must have been watching
world premiere videos back then.

Speaker 10 (52:21):
Oh yeah, Like you had to stay on top of
the zeitgeist.

Speaker 1 (52:26):
So as far as Turnaround is concerned, like it's the
same that the Internet wasn't around back in the eighties
for you to turn things over in record times, So
for you, was there sort of an expiration date on
ideas like I have to have this out within the
next four months.

Speaker 10 (52:47):
Or yeah, I mean, I mean cause it's like a
two month turnaround between like having the master done and
having a record in stores. And they sometimes they can,
if they really want to, they can bump it a
couple of weeks, but it's still like, certainly more than
a month.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
Uh.

Speaker 10 (53:02):
And that's if you have an album done, Like if
I have a if I want to do a parody,
and the album's like not even close to being finished,
it's like, well, this isn't gonna come out for several months,
which is why I generally, you know, the way I
usually do it is I record an entire album except
for one track, and I wait for what I perceived
to be like, yeah, the big one, like here's a
big single, here's a big video, but and the rest

(53:22):
of the album just sort of like in the can
waiting to go.

Speaker 1 (53:25):
Oh, so all the other non parody ideas get.

Speaker 10 (53:29):
Right right, uh, and and hopefully those those are all
songs that you know, uh, people will still remember and
they'll still be funny. But but back then the things
have changed nowadays, but back then it really was all
about here's a single driving the album because you know, uh,
regardless of whether radio got behind it, MTV would would
play it. And you know, if you had a big

(53:49):
hit on MTV, you had a big hit album, what.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
In your concert? What is your unlikely? Uh, I'm gonna
see this. You're you're a free bird, Like, what's the
what's the the non single? There was one song that
we actually did on the show that I was shocked
at Jimmy because I wanted to do uh hooked on Poker.

(54:16):
But then thankfully I realized that song was way too
complex for a Stephen to even conquer it. But I
forgot the It's a slow song that's on either someone
drowns Now, got to look it up.

Speaker 10 (54:33):
But is a ballad?

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Yeah, it's a ballad?

Speaker 10 (54:36):
Is it you Don't Love Me Anymore? No?

Speaker 1 (54:39):
No, it hang it's hang on. It's definitely on Drey
to be stupid song, but as a sort of twisted
not is it a parody?

Speaker 9 (54:57):
No?

Speaker 1 (54:58):
No, no, no, no it isn't. It's Oh god, I
hate this moment. I'm having a brain for it because
we rehearsed it in the we did it as an
Internet extra song.

Speaker 10 (55:10):
Oh you mean good old Days? Yes, oh that was
off of even worse.

Speaker 1 (55:13):
Okay, yeah, good old Like what is what is your
your free bird? When people are yelling like what's a
fan favorite?

Speaker 10 (55:23):
There's not just like one song. I mean there's not
like one song everybody's into. There's like a half a
dozen parodies that that are sort of like the big
hits that that people basically come to expect. In terms
of original songs. I think probably the biggest fan favorite
is there to be Stupid, and that's maybe partly because
he was used in the original Transformers movie and people
have affection for that.

Speaker 1 (55:44):
Yeah, yeah, so for you, I guess as well. I
want to get to the Coolio's scenario. I was gonna say,
besides Coolil, was there anyone that had indifference to the

(56:05):
to a cover that they previously approved but then they
didn't like or not really?

Speaker 10 (56:12):
I mean, I've never after somebody who's approved the parody.
I've never heard back afterwards that they were disappointed.

Speaker 6 (56:20):
I think.

Speaker 10 (56:23):
Well that I heard on behind the music. I think
Flea was like not that thrilled with a red hot
Chili Peppers. Praider is like, yeah, it was okay.

Speaker 1 (56:31):
Yeah, wait which song it was about? The Flintstones. Yeah,
I love that.

Speaker 10 (56:37):
He he didn't dislike it was sort of like a math.

Speaker 1 (56:40):
Yeah, but you know, I mean, once you're covered, then
you're you know, you're immortalized. You're super immortalized. So for you,
what is what's the the daily preparation of your band
and your tour and that sort of.

Speaker 10 (56:58):
Thing, like, well, there's no like, you know, typical day,
you know, my my life at home and my life
on the road or completely different realities. And uh uh
when I'm on tour, I basically try not to use
my voice up I can help it, because I've gotten learyingitis.
I totally lost my voice on tour before, and that's
not pleasant because if you lose your voice, I mean really,

(57:20):
the only cure is not talking for a week, and
you can't do that if you have to do a
two hour show every night. So I'm very careful, uh
you know, stay out of air conditioning, stay at a
smoky rooms. I just try to use my voice as
infrequently as possible. So basically after the show, go back
to the bus, uh you know, probably surf the internet

(57:41):
for a few hours. And then when I wake up,
we're already traveling to the next city, and I just,
you know, try not to talk until the sound check.

Speaker 1 (57:48):
So do you turn off the air conditioning on stage? No? No, no, no, no,
that's that's a Marintha frame.

Speaker 10 (57:55):
People. Now, I don't want to make the whole world uncomfortable.
I just you know, just the back of the bus.

Speaker 1 (58:01):
Oh okay, I see, as far as your h the
ritual of I'm having a brain fart moment right.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Now, can you make that fart sound with you?

Speaker 10 (58:22):
No?

Speaker 1 (58:22):
The uh damn. The as far as your your your
your sets are concerned, and because I know now it's
you do these elaborate changes and all those things like
how full scale is are your concert performances?

Speaker 10 (58:39):
Well, they have been very full scale. I mean I
could love to get you out to a show sometime,
but it was you know, it becomes sort of like
almost like a like a Broadway show in that there's
costumes and props and uh, everything was timed out to
the second. Like you know, I do a big song
with full costumes, and then we play a video on
a big screen on stage, which is just long enough
for us to write backstage and do a costume change

(59:01):
and come back up for the next song. So it's
it's as much spectacle in theater as we could put
into a live show. Having said that, the next tour,
which is starting the end of February, we're not doing
any of that for the first time, and you know, ever,
we're going out and just just playing songs, no costumes,
no props, and we're playing the deep cuts. We're playing,

(59:21):
not playing the hits. We're playing like say what, yeah, totally,
it's called the ridiculously I'm gonna mess it up, the
ridiculously self indulgent, ill advised Vanity Tour. And yeah, we're
not playing the hits. We're playing all the obscure, you know,
deep cuts and B sides and stuff that you'd never
expect us to play live. And we're doing a different

(59:43):
show every single night, which is fun for us because
when we do the normal show, it has to by definition,
it has to be the same exact show because it's
all calculated. But the next tour is going to be
wildly different from night to night.

Speaker 1 (59:55):
So when you're saying no hits, so you won't be
doing teen Spirit or eat It or do you, we
still do eat it in concert.

Speaker 10 (01:00:01):
Yeah, yeah, not the whole song, but part of a medley.

Speaker 1 (01:00:03):
Yeah, okay, so it's just strictly the non parody things or.

Speaker 10 (01:00:08):
Yeah, we might throw in a couple of surprises, but
you you should definitely not come to the tour expecting
to hear the hits because it's really all about the
stuff that nobody wants to hear. I want to do
an audience displeasing show.

Speaker 1 (01:00:22):
Okay, well, I mean, well, I'm not saying Costello did that,
but he did the.

Speaker 10 (01:00:28):
Wheel. Yeah, yeah, that was very cool.

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
Yeah, my friend just told me to do a cover
of a radio radio.

Speaker 10 (01:00:35):
You know, we do that whenever something screws up, which
didn't happen hardly at all in the last tour, but
there were some tours where we were having problems with
the computer server. And the computer server you know, does
the video and it does whatever click tracks we're using,
and it's an integral part of the show, and if
there's a hiccup or if something goes wrong, you know,
it's a train wreck. And sometimes when that happens, instead

(01:00:58):
of just you know, standing on state stupidly, we go
into radio radio like ladies and gentlemen there's no reason
to play this.

Speaker 3 (01:01:05):
I get it. You don't change the words to computer,
just a straight version.

Speaker 1 (01:01:13):
How extensive will the tour be?

Speaker 10 (01:01:15):
Uh, We're we're doing like seventy five seventy six dates.
The show Emo Phillips is opening for us, which is Woo.
So he's doing half an hour. My band was doing
like ninety minutes, and Uh, it's gonna be. I'm really
looking forward to it and I'll get to it. We
want to really intimate vibe. It's gonna be. I want

(01:01:36):
it to be kind of like a hanging out in
your living room vibe, you know, like like everybody in
the in the audience just sort of in your living room.
And we're just kind of being very you know, casual
and uh, you know, spontaneous, because because my shows are
not normally spontaneous, they don't normally like chat with the audience.
And so I don't just want this one to And
I'm a little lot of sut of my comfort zone
because I like annoying in advance what I'm going to say.

(01:01:57):
But I'm trying to break out of that and just
you know, just trying to try to hang.

Speaker 1 (01:02:01):
You're trying to challenge yourself a little bit. Is that
arable your tours? Is it just national for the United
States or.

Speaker 10 (01:02:10):
It's a world tour? Playing Canada too, I've.

Speaker 1 (01:02:16):
Ever done other Like how do you fare in other countries?

Speaker 10 (01:02:21):
Canada very well?

Speaker 1 (01:02:24):
All right, Saskatchewan? Yeah, yeah, Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:02:26):
Australia is a good market for US. We played there
three or four times. Uh, And and pockets of Europe.
We did a couple of small European tours and I
definitely have some fans over there, But North America is
really the main market.

Speaker 11 (01:02:38):
When was the moment that you knew since you you
dive into so many genres, like at this point, you're
a treasure to all kinds of communities, all kinds of music.
Was there a moment when you knew it and you
felt it like, oh, I'm not like the other kids.

Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
I can do this, I can do that.

Speaker 10 (01:02:52):
I can go here like before my career, like during
your career.

Speaker 11 (01:02:57):
Yeah, because you I mean from hip hop to country
to good to pop to rock to grunge. Yeah, and
nobody says no, you don't belong here. Everybody is like
he's ours.

Speaker 10 (01:03:07):
It's hard to say. I mean I first kind of
felt the fame during the you know, the N three
D and edit days. But I don't think I really
kind of felt like the mass acceptance until about ten
years ago, because people kept waiting for me to go away, like, oh,
weird All was still hanging around. What's he doing here?
I checked up because everybody thought, you know, that I
was just some kind of phase that you know, people
are gonna get tired of, and some people did. But

(01:03:29):
I mean, in general, I was able to maintain some
semblance of a career since the early eighties, and it
wasn't until about ten years ago. People are like, oh,
I grew up with weird Out, Like really, okay.

Speaker 12 (01:03:39):
Nah, seriously, no, this is like a direct You're a
direct link to my childhood, like straight up, like just everything.
When you did the Amish Paradise, First off, where did
that idea come from?

Speaker 3 (01:03:58):
Dude?

Speaker 10 (01:03:58):
Well, it's funny. I I was trying to think of
an idea for for for Gangster's Paradise and uh and uh.
When I as soon as the thought Amish Paradise came
into my mind, I thought the idea was so good
it made me depressed. I thought that was perfect because
like the Amish lifestyle is the is diametrically opposed the
gangs the lifestyle. So to see homage people acting like gangsters,

(01:04:21):
I thought was just hilarious and I thought I can
definitely do this, And it made me depressed because as
soon as I thought of that, I thought, Okay, the
machine is gonna, you know, snap into action. Now now
I have to write it, and now now I have
to like book video time, we have to like figure
out the release date. And I just saw my whole
like next six months ahead and be like, okay, we're
doing this.

Speaker 1 (01:04:38):
Come on, whose idea was it? I don't know who
directed it.

Speaker 7 (01:04:43):
The scene where all the sweat is pouring off your.

Speaker 10 (01:04:45):
Head I directed the video?

Speaker 1 (01:04:47):
Oh god, yeah, because that was.

Speaker 12 (01:04:49):
Something that I always noticed in the original Singer l
V where he was sweating.

Speaker 1 (01:04:53):
Yeah, and then to see I was like, yo, he
caught it too.

Speaker 11 (01:05:02):
Her conditioning and Florence Henderson, yes, yes, was she like
your first? Just what was the approach to her and.

Speaker 10 (01:05:11):
How did you get her to In all truth, we
did ask Michelle fire for first, because she was okay,
and then I obviously Florence Henderson gets all the work
that Michelle Fifer turns down. So we went to her second,
and she was amazing. She was like, you know, she
really was into it. She was like sucking in her cheeks,
like Michelle, just really really going for it.

Speaker 1 (01:05:31):
What was the what was the issue and what was
Coolio's problem with the song?

Speaker 12 (01:05:35):
And how did that even get to be a thing,
because did you have to approve it from him first
or did you have to approach him first to put
the song?

Speaker 9 (01:05:43):
Yeah?

Speaker 10 (01:05:44):
I mean, like I said, I always get permission. And
unfortunately I'll never to this day know really what happened
because it's it's very he said she said kind of thing.
My record label at the time told me that they
talked to Coolio and that he okayd uh. And then
after the fact, uh, you know, Coolia made a public
statements saying that he never approved it and that he
was essentially offended by it. And it was it was

(01:06:05):
horrible because you know, I, you know, I like my
track record of not upsetting anybody and having good relationships.
So that was uh, And clearly it was fine now,
by the way, but there are a number of years
that there was you know, I don't say bad blood,
but you know I kind of kept my distance so coolly.

Speaker 1 (01:06:20):
I fell some type of way. But t I he
was cool.

Speaker 10 (01:06:23):
Yeah, no, he was great.

Speaker 11 (01:06:24):
Yeah, tell me about the the t F hitch. And
I'm sure he was over the roof because he probably
is like us. He's a child, he was a child
and fan of viewers.

Speaker 10 (01:06:31):
But I'm not sure about that. I mean, I don't
have a really personal story about that. That was one
of those kind of things where like I told my
manager why wanted to do, and he contacted t I
S people and it came back that he was cool
with it.

Speaker 11 (01:06:40):
Damn, I wonder what your percentage rate is of that.

Speaker 10 (01:06:44):
I will say that was part of my pitch to
uh familiona no no, no A fancy.

Speaker 7 (01:06:51):
H yourself fancy Uh, I can't remember.

Speaker 10 (01:06:57):
I'm blanking yes no no, no no, no, Ziggy, I'm
so big sorry, I'm so sorry.

Speaker 1 (01:07:08):
So we forgot it.

Speaker 10 (01:07:11):
But but that was that was one where I couldn't
I couldn't get permission through their management. Uh, we weren't
getting through and and the I was like one song
away from finishing mandatory fun and I wanted to do
uh my period of fantasy because fantasy was sort of
like the song of the Summer, like I just you
know we have a release date. I want to record this,
but we don't have permission, and nobody was getting through.

(01:07:32):
And finally I basically had a stalker. I had to
I said, Oh, she's doing a concert in Denver, Colorado.
Was like, I'm flying there, and I flew to Denver
and I hung out backstage and literally as she was
walking off stage, and said, hey, it's weird, al I
really love to.

Speaker 1 (01:07:46):
Do a pretty good Does she know who you were?

Speaker 10 (01:07:48):
I think so. I think it's hard to say, but
I think so.

Speaker 1 (01:07:51):
And she said, well, just so loose to me that
I wouldn't imagine that I wouldn't.

Speaker 10 (01:07:57):
She said, you know, i'd have to see the lyrics first,
and I said, well, actually happened to happen. And I
put them in front of her, and while she was
reading it, I said, you know, t I was cool
with it. That was because you know.

Speaker 1 (01:08:11):
That the most extreme that you had to travel to
get it might be.

Speaker 10 (01:08:16):
I mean, yeah, I don't think I've ever gotten on
a plane to get permission them from somebody before.

Speaker 11 (01:08:21):
But wait, but wait, because as I'm looking at this
video for Tacky, I'm like, so and the other people
that you had My man from Modern Family and Eric.

Speaker 10 (01:08:31):
Stones Street and Jack Black and Kristin Shaw and Margaret Show.

Speaker 11 (01:08:34):
When you asked them, I'm sure they were like, hell
fucking yeah, I'm sorry, but right like, tell me what
was there?

Speaker 10 (01:08:43):
Yeah, I mean I was kind of went through my
address book and I picked some of my friends and
and everybody that was available on that day. We're happy
to do it. That was the most fun I've ever
had doing a video. It was just such a blouch.
I mean, that was what we got done so quickly.
I was almost sad. It was like, I wish you
could do this all night long. This was so fun.

Speaker 1 (01:09:01):
That's dope.

Speaker 12 (01:09:03):
How did you approach doing the r Kelly Trapped in
the Man? Because that was I mean, that was one
of the moments I'll say, like you've been Because I'm
a person, I work. I do a lot of work
like in TV, and I do like musical parodies and
stuff for shoor whatever. And the thing that I think
listen to your music has taught me is that in
order for something to be funny, it has to be good.

(01:09:24):
Like so if you're gonna parody something, you've gotta really
be singing it, and like you really gotta go. You's
gotta it's gotta be believable. And the thing with all
your stuff is that it always it's funny. But if
you just listen to that song, it's like, Yo, this
motherfucker's really singing, Like even like the harmonies from the
uh the Joint to the Other Night. Yeah, Johnny, it

(01:09:45):
was like, Yo, he really singing and ship. So when
I heard the Trapped in the Closet was.

Speaker 1 (01:09:52):
Trapp drive through. That's what.

Speaker 12 (01:09:54):
Trapped in the Closet is a song that is probably
a parody in itself.

Speaker 1 (01:09:58):
So for you to do it, like what what is it?

Speaker 10 (01:10:01):
Well, yeah, that was a tough one to do because
that was one of those things. Trapped in the Closet
was just such a monumental composition. It was sort of like,
you know, it was such a thing that again it
was sort of like, you know, if Riddell doesn't do
anything with this, like what what's he thinking? But at
the same time, it's it was so weird anyway, like
where do you go with it? You can't really make
it more bizarre or more ridiculous, So well, you know,

(01:10:24):
the humor of opposite, I'll just make it as boring
and banal and motinous and mundane as I possibly can,
and just make it about eleven minutes about like a
couple discussing what they want to do for dinner, you know,
and but still keeping all the drama, keeping all the
high drama of the original, but making about something ridiculously stupid.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Man, Nah, you you definitely you know that that shit
was hilarious.

Speaker 7 (01:10:47):
I haven't quite figured out how this idea but would work.
But have you ever considered doing a duet's album? I
was gonna ask, have you ever did any collaborations?

Speaker 10 (01:10:58):
Not as such, I mean that my first single was
sort of a duet with because I did a song
called Ricky, which was me being Ricky Ricardo. I thought, no, no, no,
that was Tress McNeil, who now is like one of
the most famous voiceover artists in the world. I mean
she's on Animaniac, she's on Simpsons, I mean she's like
one of the top people. But at the time she

(01:11:19):
was new in la I mean brand new, and we
put out an ad in some music papers saying we're
looking for somebody to impersonate Lucille Ball, to somebody who
singing like Lucille Ball, And we got literally two responses
and one of the most.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
Trusts getting backstage paper and yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:11:39):
It was one of those kind of things. And she
came in. She was great, and she played Lucy in
the video as well. That's the same person that does
it on the record, And unfortunately she couldn't tour with us,
so whenever, you know, it was kind of weird because
during that first tour, our big single, we couldn't do live,
so we basically just played the video. I think back
then it was like on a sixteen millimeter projector like
and here's our video. Really we couldn't. We couldn't, you know,

(01:12:02):
costume have my drummer, like, you know, we couldn't have
them trying to do trust part.

Speaker 1 (01:12:08):
That's the costume change time. Yeah, said Terry Bozio did
it with friend Zappa.

Speaker 11 (01:12:11):
Anything that happen you ever think of doing other not
that I would assume to have known that you haven't,
but other genres. There any other genres that you would
like to dip into?

Speaker 10 (01:12:21):
Like, is there a reggae weird there is? I mean
I've covered most of the there's I'm sure there's something
I haven't yet, but yeah, I did a reggae song
called buy Me a Condo. It's sort of like a
Bob Marley ish kind of like a like a like
a Jamaican yuppie song.

Speaker 1 (01:12:34):
And some of the new genres I was about to say,
you wrapped you have you wrapped your head around trap
music yet? And mumble culture?

Speaker 10 (01:12:45):
So some some genres are a little bit harder to
uh to parody because there there's not enough uh words.
Raw materiy, Yeah, like eight m would be fun to do,
but you know, you can't be too repetitive, or.

Speaker 13 (01:12:57):
Maybe you could just do poka covers of them that's
true to what I do, Like you know depasito you know, yes, yes, yes, yeah,
I would like to on according.

Speaker 1 (01:13:15):
And like no payoff when you get to the top,
no dry Yeah, I would love that. Have you ever
have there been any pitches for you to do uh
like kids shows or children's show? Yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:13:35):
I did a children's show in the late nineties called
The Weird Al Show on CBS. It was like ninety
ninety seven, ninety eight something like that. But yeah, it
was on for one season, thirteen shows.

Speaker 1 (01:13:44):
I was also twenty six years old.

Speaker 10 (01:13:45):
Yeah, show you weren't the chord?

Speaker 7 (01:13:48):
Yeah, I'll tell you what TV show I would like
to see back, come back, and that's ALTV.

Speaker 1 (01:13:53):
Oh thank you.

Speaker 7 (01:13:53):
Yeah, I used to love those specials. It used to
be like almost one Like whenever you put put out a.

Speaker 10 (01:13:59):
New album, it was a people some people, I used
to watch your old series like it wasn't a series
or like a special that I would be like every year,
every whatever, I had an album to promote. Really, uh,
but MTV would play play them a lot.

Speaker 7 (01:14:09):
Yeah, those are brilliant. To interviews, the fake interviews, Yeah,
I used to those.

Speaker 10 (01:14:13):
Take levels of interviews out of context and play as
sorts of random, weird videos. I mean that was back
in the day, you know, when MTV would, uh, first
of all, they play videos like this, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:14:23):
I'm proud he interviewed Prince where you know Prince did someone?
Oh yeah, yeah, hey could you do your like this? Prince?

Speaker 10 (01:14:31):
What do you think about this beach ball? It's multi
colored and it's very fun. It's just just stuff like that.
But yeah, I mean that was in the days when
MTV kind of you know, was free formed. They're very
gorilla and to some extent they didn't care. They're like, oh, well,
you've got this four hours just do whatever you want.
I would I did whatever I wanted for four hours.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
And I would watch all four hours.

Speaker 10 (01:14:54):
They gave me no money, but they said do whatever
you want and and and UH kind of went nuts.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
It was like, I said, I love those questions. How
come you didn't pursue more movies after Uh?

Speaker 10 (01:15:07):
I would have liked to have done more movies, but
the crushing failure of my first movie kind of dampened every.

Speaker 1 (01:15:14):
But it's almost why do you think it failed? I
mean it was funny, I mean, why do you think
it didn't?

Speaker 10 (01:15:21):
Yeah, it's hard to say. I mean, critics, you know,
generally hated it. Ciskel and Ebra thought I was the
anti christ I think, and it came out. You know,
this is sort of an excuse, but it's it's also true.
It came out in the middle of one of the
biggest blockbuster summers ever. So it came out while you know,
Batman and Lethal Weapon and honeyt Shrunk the Kids and
Do the Right Thing, and you know, a bunch of
stuff was out at the same time. So it would

(01:15:41):
have done a lot better if it had come out
during a slower time of the year. But you know,
there's there's no telling. I mean, I'm just very happily
happy that you know, it's found its audience and now
it's at least got cult status.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
No, it definitely has that.

Speaker 3 (01:15:56):
When was Ala Palooza, uh.

Speaker 10 (01:16:00):
Nineteen ninety three?

Speaker 3 (01:16:03):
I have an autographed copy of that CD? Somehow cool?

Speaker 1 (01:16:06):
Somehow? So do you often meet I mean the way
that like cats come up to me like, yo, man,
God's been if you bars well? You know, like people
are always trying to I'm certain that every night there's
someone that when you're doing in stores and autographs and
of the like, that someone saying like, hey, the new
you or that sort of thing.

Speaker 10 (01:16:26):
Like they they always try to give me ideas like
you know, what you should do? And it's always some
awful parody idea that they thought of in the third grade.
But they were just waiting for their chance to meet me.
You know, tell them this a great idea, how do
you parody from the eighties that it'll see great?

Speaker 1 (01:16:43):
How do you laugh?

Speaker 10 (01:16:44):
And moretfully, Oh yeah, that's not answers. I'll get right
to work on that.

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
They want to do that. No, No, no, I member
people that meet you and say that you know, I
too want to be in the same because the thing
is is like there's one weird out and you've literally
shut you shut it down for anyone trying to come.
I mean there's some like morning shows that do you

(01:17:10):
know things on radio.

Speaker 10 (01:17:11):
But the thing is, nowadays there's YouTube, there's avenues for
people to get their stuff out there. When when I started,
it was sort of a mystery, like how do you
penetrate this black box of you know of on TV?
And then it was, you know a little bit harder
to navigate.

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
You have like high humor and your level of humor
and your pinning game is past just you know, twisting
a verb, a nown and a verb. Yeah. So it's
it's like, are you have you thought about like, is
there anyone out there like that you like to produce

(01:17:51):
that's the next weird hour?

Speaker 10 (01:17:53):
Gosh, why the next word?

Speaker 1 (01:17:54):
You know?

Speaker 10 (01:17:54):
Coming up? I mean there's a lot of people that
do funny music. I love Lonely Island, Tenacious, Deep of
the Concord, and there's a lot of people doing great,
great comedy stuff. As far as coming up, you know,
I don't know, there's a lot of funny people, uh
on YouTube. Brandy Rainbow is really funny. You know, I
I don't know about producing other other acts. I mean
i'd be I'd entertained that idea, I guess, but I

(01:18:19):
don't know. Well we'll see on that one.

Speaker 3 (01:18:21):
America. Can you tell the story or why don't you
tell the story about the Dyla sample with the.

Speaker 1 (01:18:27):
Oh no, no, no, no, with no it's yeah, you're
thinking of accordion, Yeah exactly.

Speaker 3 (01:18:32):
I don't even know what I'm.

Speaker 1 (01:18:33):
Asking, but yeah, yeah, no, one of my favorite momes.
Do you ever wash you? It actually made pitchwork, which
is weird. It's like the nicest thing Pitchwork said about
me twenty thirteen. No you you you playing uh uh
accords accordion, which you know that that was brilliant.

Speaker 3 (01:18:58):
No, but you're not telling the like for the listeners
like me who don't really know.

Speaker 1 (01:19:04):
But wasn't no, no, no, it wasn't a weird ol song.
It's just that when Weird Out came on the Tonight Show,
he has an Accordian. I was like, yo, we have
to do Uh what was the project Mall Villain? The
Mad Villain cover of Accordion, which is basically a song
that's looped over in according Actually what I found that loop. Yeah,

(01:19:27):
it's it is wow.

Speaker 11 (01:19:31):
Do you know what they're talking about?

Speaker 10 (01:19:33):
I do, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:19:34):
He was there with me.

Speaker 10 (01:19:36):
I kind of jammed on that for all. I gotta
tell you, man that some of my favorite times of
my life are just hanging backstage with the roots and
playing you guys, didn't.

Speaker 11 (01:19:43):
I see you one year like a roots jam? Like
when it the Grammy thing? I swear I saw him
one year in l A at a roots jam.

Speaker 1 (01:19:49):
You came inside of a roots.

Speaker 11 (01:19:50):
Jam every year month.

Speaker 1 (01:19:55):
You Oh wow, Yeah, a couple of years.

Speaker 8 (01:20:10):
So I have a question, So did you end up
doing ten records for Scotti Brothers or or what actually
happened to Scotty?

Speaker 1 (01:20:18):
But I feel like they're tied up in the river.

Speaker 10 (01:20:20):
Scotty Brothers also owned I think All American and Broadcasting,
which owned Baywatch, so they they're sitting on a pile
of money somewhere. I don't think they're a record label anymore.
But I was sold as an asset, you know, because
they still owned however many albums on my contract, and
I got sold to somebody else, and then I got
sold to somebody else, and I renegotiated the contact twice
and each time I renegotiated, they tacked on a couple

(01:20:42):
more albums, So basically it became a fourteen album contract
and my last album mandatory fund was album number fourteen, just.

Speaker 1 (01:20:54):
Or No No.

Speaker 10 (01:20:55):
But in just thirty two short years I was able
to fulfill my contracts.

Speaker 1 (01:21:01):
You're still quote on the label no No.

Speaker 10 (01:21:04):
I fulfilled it when I when I delivered the last
album and that was it. They wanted to uh to
reassign me, which is very nice, and they made a
very generous offer. But after being under contract for so long,
I just really kind of wanted to be a free agent,
not beholden to anybody. I hate the idea of just
owing people stuff. You know, I just I don't you know,
I just just want don't want to have that kind
of pressure hanging over me.

Speaker 1 (01:21:24):
Do you know who Richard Cheese is?

Speaker 10 (01:21:26):
Sure? Yes, Mark Davis, have you?

Speaker 1 (01:21:30):
That's I mean, I'm starting to figure out, like who's
the then who's the closest person that could that has
a following?

Speaker 10 (01:21:39):
Yeah, mar Mark does sort of like with lounge music
what I do with polgar music. He does like, you know,
the hits of the day, like in his kind of
like small too Biggest Lounge.

Speaker 1 (01:21:48):
What is the Latter day tupac to your Latter Day Biggie.

Speaker 10 (01:21:56):
He's an old friend.

Speaker 1 (01:21:56):
I went to school with Sugar Dite. Yeah. Wow.

Speaker 3 (01:22:02):
What what other labels did you end up being on
a BMG or something?

Speaker 10 (01:22:08):
Yeah, BMG and some version of CBS and EPIC and
RCA and Volcano Records, and you know, and you know
they're even even one of.

Speaker 1 (01:22:17):
Those sounding labels.

Speaker 10 (01:22:19):
Yeah, even when it was on the same label, sometimes
they change their name or they'd add some subsidiary, and
you know, I've probably been on a dozen different label
imprints over my career.

Speaker 1 (01:22:28):
How how how did it feel because your last album
actually went to number one? Correct? How surreal was that
that you're you had the number one pop album?

Speaker 10 (01:22:41):
It blew my mind, it really did, because you know,
it was basically unprecedented that the UH never before had
a comedy album debut a number one military fund right, yeah,
Midlistry fund and and and the last time a comedy
album even reached number one was in nineteen sixty three.
That was Alan Sherman. But back in the early sixty
I mean, you know, comedy albums go to number one

(01:23:01):
all the time. Alan Truman had three number one albums
and Bob Newhart won like the Album of the Year
the Grammys. I believe it was like, you know, back then,
like comedy was, you know, viewed as more important. But yeah,
there hadn't been a number one album since then, and
I just kind of thought that that was you know,
there was a glass ceiling or whatever. It just was
like not within the realm of possibility. I thought, Oh,
I really hope that's my last album cracks the top ten,

(01:23:23):
because that would be cool for me to kind of
go out in a big way. And then when I
found out that, you know, I had a good chance
of hitting number one, it was very surrealistic for me
because you know, I'm obsessed with the Billboard charts. I've
been studying them for decades, and to think that I
would have a number one album was just beyond my comprehension.

Speaker 1 (01:23:42):
That's weird.

Speaker 8 (01:23:43):
So you have to do a parody of one of
your songs, that's possible the world the section, that's crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:23:53):
Oh h thank you for doing this for us.

Speaker 10 (01:23:56):
It's such a pleasure, man.

Speaker 1 (01:23:57):
They're such fans of yours. Congratulation, thank you on a tour, Yes.

Speaker 7 (01:24:05):
All those things, Yes, I also have to come back
into my roll call. I wasn't lying when I said
that was one of the top ten shows I've ever
seen in my entire life. How were you when you
see I was in my twenties, it was I was
in college at the time, and it was like maybe
ninety nine, two thousands or something like.

Speaker 10 (01:24:18):
That, and running with a Scissors store made Yeah, I
think it was.

Speaker 7 (01:24:21):
Yeah, yeah, And like I considered myself a fan, but
I didn't really realize how many of your songs I
knew until I saw you before them all back to
back to back to even sitting.

Speaker 1 (01:24:31):
Here just talking. I was like, damn, he did do
that one. Yeah. It was like, yeah, it's like, oh man,
I forgot about that one.

Speaker 7 (01:24:36):
I forgot And then I started realizing, yeah, I remember
the lyrics too, and so I'm just like, I'm a
bigger weird, weird out fan than I thought I was,
you know. And so like after that, I started really
going back deeper and deeper into the catalog and it
was just yeah.

Speaker 10 (01:24:48):
Well, you know, I'm still going through my raid all phase.

Speaker 1 (01:24:51):
Damn.

Speaker 7 (01:24:52):
Now you know my first show is going to be
the you should go Like I saw this man was
hopping around on one leg with the other leg behind
his head.

Speaker 1 (01:25:00):
It was amazing. It was amazing. Yes, can I still
do that? You still got it?

Speaker 9 (01:25:05):
Wow?

Speaker 1 (01:25:08):
Be careful, that is ship done.

Speaker 10 (01:25:13):
Wow an old man.

Speaker 1 (01:25:17):
Wow.

Speaker 10 (01:25:19):
The one of the most bones removed, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:25:24):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (01:25:25):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (01:25:25):
One of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen the
entire life. Wow, that's amazing. Anyway, how do you describe
that what we just seen?

Speaker 1 (01:25:38):
Got? We got photo? We'll post it up on contortionist
Alan Convic Yeah, so on behalf of Sugar Steve and
Boss Bill and fan Tickelo and it's like, yeah, we
thank you very much for coming on the show.

Speaker 10 (01:25:52):
Pleasure.

Speaker 1 (01:25:53):
I can't wait to finally see you in concert the
deep cuts. Maybe we'll just do one of the hits
for the encore, just for me. This course, Love of
the Quest, Love Supreme, and we will see you over
the next go around. Thank you. Course.

Speaker 2 (01:26:12):
Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. This classic episode
was produced by the team at Pandora. For more podcasts
from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.

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