Weird Al Yankovic
Appearances
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think something that I read about Tex Avery, the famous Warner Brothers cartoonist from the 40s who did Droopy Dog and a lot of Tom and Jerry and a lot of amazing, amazing animation. And apparently in his deathbed, he was just grumbling that he'd wasted his entire life doing stupid cartoons. And I just thought that was so insane.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I mean, I don't know if he ever, like, read fan mail or anything like that. But, I mean, humor brings so much to people's lives. I mean, even if what you're doing is kind of ridiculous and, you know, it affects people. And I've read so many letters from people. You know, I've read probably a couple dozen letters from people saying they were on the brink of suicide.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And they started listening to my albums, and it kind of snapped them out of it. And it got them excited. you know, feeling better. And, you know, that's no small thing to make people feel better. So, you know, even sometimes when I think that what I do in life is not that much important, I just think that it really does, you know, seem to affect people.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Dr. Demento, he's still doing a show, by the way. It's just not on terrestrial radio anymore. He's online behind a paywall, but he's still doing the show every single week. But when I was... 11, 12 years old, one of my friends in school turned me on to the Dr. Demento show. Hey, there's this guy on KMET Los Angeles every Sunday night that plays all these crazy records.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think it was about two weeks ago. No. I guess when I signed my record deal because I graduated from college with a degree in architecture, which I've never really used. And I thought, well, you know, I'm very young. I've got some options before me. At that time, I had some minor hits on the Dr. Demento show because I'd sent him tapes of My Bologna and Another One Rides the Bus.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And they'd gone viral and made big hits on his show. And I thought, well, let's see if I can get a record deal. So for a couple of years while I was working at a day job for minimum wage, I would go around knocking on doors and sending in tapes and trying to solicit a deal. And finally, a couple of years, I think 1982 is when I signed my record contract with Scotty Brothers Records.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it wasn't a great deal because, you know, record companies aren't going to offer some kid with an accordion a lot of money. It was basically this like draconian contract where they had me for 10 albums. I'm sure they didn't in their wildest imagination think they're going to do 10 albums with me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's one of those things you put into a contract on the extremely off chance that this kid makes it, we've got you for this amount of time. So at that point, I'll tell you the exact moment when it occurred to me because slightly after I signed my record deal and I put out my first single, I mean, they didn't give me any money up front. It was just sort of like, you know, here's your contract.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So I was still working for minimum wage, you know, at a mail room for a radio syndication company. And I remember I went to the mail post office box one day and picked up the mail, and the billboard magazine was sticking out of the mail bag. And I opened it up, and I'm there on the Hot 100 chart. And I thought, oh, I should probably give notice.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I should probably get serious about this weird old thing.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. I mean, I don't think a lot of it was literally going door-to-door. I might have done that when I was –
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
uh much younger and naive but it was a lot of you know sending cassette tapes in the mail to to you know various record companies and getting you know blank letters of rejection um and then um uh my manager Jay Levy he he was Dr. Demento's manager back in the in the early 80s and he saw me perform with Dr. Demento on stage and thought oh this kid might have some potential.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So he decided to work with me and he kind of got my name around town. And we got, again, turned down by virtually everybody. But Scotty Brothers at the time wanted to give it a shot because I think the president of the record company used to play the accordion when he was a kid. And so he had a soft spot for accordion players. So he said, I'll give the Yankee Kid a shot.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, it wound up being 14 albums, actually, because at some point in the middle of the contract, I was becoming so popular that we were able to renegotiate the contract for better terms. But part of the renegotiation was, well, okay, we'll give you better terms, but you've got to give us two more albums.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And then we renegotiated again a little later for even better terms, but then two more albums. So it wound up being a 14-album deal, which took me just 32 years to fulfill. But we fulfilled it. So Mandatory Fun, which came out 10 years ago, was, I guess, 12. 11 years ago. That was my last album and ostensibly will be my last album. But yeah, it's it's just and they wanted to resign me, obviously.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I listened, and I was immediately smitten. I thought, oh, you know, these are my people. This is my music. Like, you know, who is this guy? And I would listen religiously every single Sunday night. And some of the songs he played were... a little risque, had some double entendres, and my parents were very protective, and my mother particularly did not like me listening to that kind of music.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I mean, it wasn't at that point. Scotty Brothers had sold my contract to another
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
company but and they wanted to resign me but i just like the idea of not being beholden to anybody not owing anybody anything when i was under contract i always felt like three more albums to go you know i just you know my house is paid off i don't you know i don't pay everything that i have i own i just don't like the idea of of somebody waiting for me to do something
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's pretty peaceful. I mean, I'm at a point in my life where I don't have as much of a fire in my belly as I had in my 20s. I don't, you know, I'm okay not working and just waiting until I get inspired to do something. I certainly haven't, you know, people, I haven't retired. I still am making music. I'm being more involved in TV shows and movies.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I got to put out my We're the Allianz of Exturia a couple years ago. So, you know, I've still been very busy and
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
it it's just that you know uh it's it's kind of on my own terms uh i i i don't feel like i i need to continue creating like it in the 80s like in the 80s i was like i can't believe we got a record deal and and i felt like i had to put an album every album every single year because otherwise it would all go away like you got to grab that brass ring every time it comes around
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it took me a while before I realized that, you know, I've had some hit albums, some albums that didn't do so well, but I was doing well enough that people still wanted to hear from me and I had an actual career. And once I realized I could calm down a little bit, I was just kind of putting out things whenever I felt like it and my fan base grew. you know, basically stayed with me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So that's a nice place to be.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, it's a small, it was a, you know, gradual process. I think it maybe started sometime in the mid-90s, which you probably can see because the span between albums got longer and longer.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Uh, and, and, and in a big way, you know, since my last album, I kind of feel like, you know, uh, I I'll continue to be creative, but, but, um, I'm just not going to have to like come up with 12 songs and put them all out at once. I can just do songs whenever they occur to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
architecture yeah that was that came about um when i was 12 years old um i i was uh had a meeting with my my high school guidance counselor um uh and and uh i told him he said what do you want to do for a living and i said well you know i i'd really like to uh be a contributor to mad magazine i'd like to write and illustrate for mad magazine and he kind of looked at me and said
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, no, that's not really a job for a grown-up. You want to have a real job, you know. Because I think, I don't know what it's like now, but certainly back in the 70s, I don't think anybody would encourage you to go into show business or go into the arts.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But I mean, you know, it just seemed like an unreasonable thing for a kid to want to be when he grew up. And he said, well, look, you like design. You're good in math. You love this drafting class you just had. You should be an architect. And I kind of said, well, if you think so, OK. So it seemed like it was like the adult choice.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It was something that it made sense for me to do to, you know, grow up and be an architect.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And when she heard one of those songs on the radio, she forbade me from listening to the Dr. Demento show. And it turned out I had to continue listening in bed with a little alarm clock radio next to my ear with the covers pulled up over my head.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, and it's not an easy major. I went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, and they have a great architecture school. But, I mean, they called it, the students called it architorture because, I mean, they worked us hard. You know, we'd be up in those labs literally all night long, you know, but before a big project was due, we probably, you know, we didn't sleep. You know, it was a lot of work.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I'm no stranger to hard work, but to be that involved in something that I didn't really have a passion for, it was tough on me. Because other people in my class, they lived and breathed it, and they loved the form following the function, and it was just something that meant a lot to them. And it didn't mean a lot to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I mean, I had more fun every Saturday night doing the Weird Al show on my campus radio show. I looked forward to that. That's what I lived for. And the rest of the week in the architecture lab, that was just like, just get me to Saturday night.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, I don't know. I was always good in school. I worked really hard at my studies. That meant a lot to me. I was the valedictorian in my high school, straight A's all the way through. And, you know, I think my parents appreciated that, but it was a personal point of pride. I just, you know, I knew I was good at it and I kind of wanted to be the best at it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So I did whatever I could to make that happen.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I certainly have to work for it. I don't know. I mean, I think it's a universal desire to want to please your parents and make them proud of you. And I'm sure that was a big part of it. And also, it was me trying to be the best version of me that I could and express that through being a good student.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. I mean, if they wrote the song, if they didn't write the song, we don't always approach the artist, but that's usually the case.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So that was my Sunday night.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
When I first started out, I mean, literally, I was just, you know, a kid sending songs to Dr. Demento as a teenager. You know, I didn't think, oh, I should call up Queen and see what they think of this parody. And in fact, that got us into a little bit of trouble because, you know, after Another One Rides the Bus became a big hit on the Dr. Demento show, we got a call from Queen's lawyer saying...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, you probably should have asked us about this or run this by us. And thankfully, they had a good enough sense of humor that they didn't sue me or anything like that. They just, you know, finished up the paperwork and said, OK, now it's legal. So it was a little shaky in the beginning because I just didn't know how to do it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And then by the time I was doing my second album, I wanted to do Eat It. But I thought, you know, Michael Jackson is the biggest artist in the universe and there's no way he's going to. you know, agreed to co-writing a song with this, you know, idiot kid. But word got to him and he approved it. And so now there's a contract with my signature next to his saying that we are the co-writers of Eat It.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, it was, yeah. I mean, especially because that was early on, and that really turned the key, because after Michael Jackson gave his permission, then it was a lot easier to get permission from everybody else. It was ammunition, you know? It was like, well, Michael Jackson was okay with it, so what's your problem?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
What they don't know? Um... You know, people just think, you know, a lot of people have the misconception that just because it's funny music, that it's effortless, that like, oh, my six-year-old kid changes the words to songs. I'm like, well, I don't disbelieve you, but I can't imagine it's very good, you know. And it requires, to do it well, it requires a lot of effort.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think the one that really got her offended, there was a song called Baby Let Me Bang Your Box. But it was about playing the piano. And she thought, fuck, it was horrible. And her young, innocent child should never listen to this kind of music.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
That's probably what, you know, a lot of people don't realize. Like, if you go through my notebooks, Well, like another one, Rides the Bus, I probably wrote that in like less than half an hour because I just thought, oh, here's this silly song I'm going to put on the Dr. Domeno show.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But after I started realizing that people actually cared about what I did, about my art, and that I would have to maybe play some of these songs on stage for decades to come, I started spending a lot more time on it. If you look at some of my notebooks, for every line in a song, I've got a dozen variations.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Like either it's a different joke or it's a slightly different way to phrase a line or the accents on a different syllable, something like that. But it's something that I really take pains to perfect. Even though it seems like it's just this ridiculous song, there's a lot of effort that goes into it. Even the most ridiculous song is... you know, probably spend a week or two just fine-tuning it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
More having done it, yeah. I mean, I wouldn't say that there's no pleasure in writing. Certainly there's especially moments where I come up with an idea or a rhyme that works really well and I...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
have a small moment of pride but uh the writing process is is in general not that fun uh my wife will describe when i'm in a writing process and i just wander through the house like a zombie with a thousand yard stare you know just because i'm so in my own head trying to think of things But I feel a tremendous amount of accomplishment having written something. So that's definitely the best part.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
The idea of like, oh, I have a body of work now and I did that. A former version of me is responsible for that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think so. I'm a pretty good editor of my own ideas. There are some songwriters that will write 10 songs before they have breakfast in the morning. They'll write 100 songs and record 40 of them and 12 will wind up on the album. I've never done that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I maybe come up with 100 ideas, but I'm pretty good at looking at those ideas and saying, well, I think this would merit a three and a half minute pop song. I see what the hook is. I see where the jokes would be. I think there's enough here that I can make that into a good song. So I'll come up with 12 ideas. I will write those 12 songs and I'll record those 12 songs and I'm done.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
There's no like hidden Weird Al songs in the vault that we just had left over. Like everything I've ever done is out there.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, everything I did in the very beginning, certainly Another One Rides the Bus and probably My Bologna as well. I mean, that was just, you know, a dumb song about lunch meat basically that I came up with because My Sharona happened to be the song of the summer. So I recorded that in the bathroom across the hall from my campus radio station. And I can't imagine I spent a lot of time.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
My childhood, it was a lovely childhood. My parents were very supportive and loving. My dad used to call me their miracle child because they were trying to have a child for a very long time. And I just kind of got in under the wire. So I'm an only child. And probably because of that, they were very protective.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
time on that and it probably shows i i like those songs because they're historical they're a part of my story but i wouldn't hold them up and say these are great pieces of art or something that i really struggled with they were just like some some goofy songs that i wrote when i was very young
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
My Bologna was the first – Forgive me. It was the first one that – yeah, it was a big hit on the Demento show. It wasn't the first thing of mine he played. But like in the early days, I would send him tapes in the mail and he'd play them on the radio. And I would call up the request line and try to disguise my voice and request my own songs. Yeah. and have people from my high school do the same.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But My Bologna was the first time when it was a big hit without any input from me. All of a sudden, people from all over the world were requesting My Bologna, and I thought, wow, this is unusual. Other people like my stuff.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I started when I was about seven, yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, I didn't take it to parties or anything like that. Maybe I would play it in the school talent show. But it wasn't something I mean, I joke about that being the life of the party, but I didn't really force it on people. Sometimes if people came over and they wanted to hear me play, I would play for them. But it wasn't something that I forced on people too often.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I took my comfort in comedy and music. I mean, you know, I was inspired by Monty Python and SCTV and musically all the songs I was hearing on the Dr. Demento show and on rock radio. And those two things were always my passions. And I just always feel so blessed because somehow I was able to turn those two passions and make a living out of it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So, you know, my dad used to say that the only real sign of success is being able to make a living doing the thing you love. So if, you know, if I didn't, you know, have a 40 year career, I still feel like a success because I've just been, you know, able to make a living doing specifically the things I love. So that's I always am so thankful for that.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
How would it have been different if you'd been Al the architect? Extremely different. And that came close to happening. You know, there was a couple years there after college where I kind of didn't know how my life was going to go. And I guess in retrospect, it was a pretty scary time because, you know, my whole future was ahead of me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But yeah, there's definitely an alternate route where I would have been just like Al the architect and probably have been somewhat miserable my whole life. I mean, the guy that is my stage manager on tour and has been for many years, he's an architect. And he still works every now and then. He'll go on the road with me for several months, then go back to his firm.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it just reminds me, like, you know, okay, here's a guy that is doing quite well, and even he needs to get out on the road.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I told a story that got used on Behind the Music and has been repeated a few times about how my high school was directly across the street from our house. And during PE class, my mother used to watch me through binoculars out the window to make sure the other kids weren't playing too rough with me. You know, that kind of thing. And I was not allowed to really go to friends' houses to hang out.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, I'm generally a very happy person. I really can't complain. I can't complain. We live in a world that's full of a lot of not so nice things. But I try not to be overwhelmed by that. I try not to focus or be hypersensitive about the things that I personally can't fix. I try to make the world a better place in my own small way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I keep my sanity by just trying to focus on the small pieces of joy that I can find in life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, every time I do a tour, it kind of exposes my act to a new generation. When you look out into the audience, it's really multi-generational because it's the people that have been there since the 80s and now they're bringing their kids and sometimes their grandkids. So it's just the fact that, you know, I've shown tenacity.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I'm still doing it and I'm bringing something different every time I go out. which I guess that's appealing to people, that it's nice to be able to just put myself in front of people. I hear all the time about parents that have kids that came up to them and said, you know, I just heard about this Weird Al guy. You ever hear of him? And they're like, yeah, we've heard of him.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, I was just young and naive, and I probably didn't even know at that time that I should be scared. Only with the decades of time to have retrospection do I look back and say, wow, I should have been scared. That was a pretty scary moment in my life. But at the time, you're just too young to know any better?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Kind of, yeah, because I didn't know really what my future held for me, and I was just looking at my options. I mean, I remember I graduated from college with a degree, but I didn't want to be an architect. I wanted to get as far away from that as I could, and I applied for anywhere that would take me. I think I applied to a phone company.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think I applied for janitorial work, and they wouldn't take me because, like, you get a college degree. What do you want to do this for? And I had to explain that I needed to eat food on occasion. And I got very lucky because the job that I got out of college was working for a radio syndication, a company called Westwood One. And they syndicated the Dr. Demento show.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So not only did I get to hang out with Dr. Demento when he did his weekly broadcast, but all these... rock stars were coming into the studio to be interviewed. So I got to meet Frank Zappa. I got him to autograph my copy of Freak Out. I got to meet all these cool people. And even though I was working in the mailroom, literally for like $5 an hour at the time, which I guess was minimum wage,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It was a pretty cool job. So, again, I can't really complain.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I wouldn't say it was a wasted college education, but yeah, it made me learn that that wasn't my passion. I had to remember that my passion was music and my passion was comedy. And I didn't know that I could make a living doing that, but I thought, hey, I'm young. I got to try.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
If they wanted to see me, they had to come to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
maybe the entirety wasn't a way style but if you're applying for a janitor's job with an architect's degree you you have you have tossed aside the want to be an architect well i think i was my third year into college when i really had the epiphany like okay i'm definitely not going to do this the rest of my life but i didn't want to drop out because to me that that was failure i just wanted to i'm going to stick it out i'm going to spend another
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
uh or come to my house because uh i don't i don't know my mother had some sort of like fantasy that i'd be kidnapped or something horrible would happen to me if i was ever out of her sight uh so and again very loving but i i wish the leash had been just a little longer well i was going to say when you say very protective too protective probably right and uh uh sheltered
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Um, yeah, hearing from, from people that, that, uh, you know, that are my heroes, that, that means a lot to me. Um, you know, I, uh, Mighty Python was such a, uh, a seminal influence to me growing up and, and, uh, you know, Eric Idle came to one of my shows and, and he loved it. And we actually become fairly close friends at this point, which is kind of blows my mind because he's,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
you know, a hero and a friend. And it's just amazing to me, you know, the people that inspired me now that, you know, they like what I do. And that just means a whole lot to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I've definitely done some venues where it was pretty daunting at the time. I remember, you know, sometimes, I don't know if they're anxiety attacks, but my wife remembers when she came to see me backstage at one of my shows and I was curled up in a fetal position on the floor going, Because I was so nervous. But I've played the Hollywood Bowl a few times.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I played Carnegie Hall fairly recently. You know, Red Rocks is always a huge thrill to play. And on this upcoming tour, we're playing Madison Square Garden, which blows my mind. And we're also playing the Los Angeles Forum, which means a lot to me because it's my local gig. And it's the first place I ever saw a rock show. And I remember in the mid-70s, I went to see Elton John there.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it was a big ordeal for me to go to a rock show because, again, my parents were very protective. And they just were so worried about me going to a rock show. So I almost had to run away from home to be able to go to that show. But I just remember watching Elton John from the nosebleed seats with my binoculars and just having the best time.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it's such a nice bookend to like 40, 50 years later, be actually on stage playing the form.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. No, I mean, I wasn't completely falling apart, but I was definitely, definitely nervous. And it's just for certain shows and certain occasions. I get nervous at the beginning of tours because...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I would say in a way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
you know we don't have it locked in yet the muscle memory hasn't kicked in yet and you know you're going to make mistakes and you're just like not enjoying the thought of you forgetting words or hitting the wrong cue so i i get much less nervous after a week or two into the tour and everybody's you know going in all cylinders and there are a few big shows where the pressure's on uh i get very nervous any kind of live television i get very nervous
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I mean, again, the thing, like my mother, we subscribed to TV Guide magazine back in the time, and I remember whenever the magazine would come in, my mother would go through it with a felt marker, and if there were any ads with women in bikinis, she would cross out the naughty bits and just sort of censor them so my innocent eyes wouldn't see more flesh than I was supposed to see, I guess.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I try not to, but it's just such a part of my personality to feel that way. And I really admire performers that don't have that. I like to tell the story about Donny Osmond. I went to see him in Las Vegas a couple years ago at his residency, and I was hanging with him backstage. And we're just chatting, chatting, chatting. And I realized you go on stage in like five minutes.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Don't you have to prepare? Don't you have to get ready? Don't you have to warm up? And he looked at me and said, Al, I've been warming up for 60 years. Oh, man, you are the man. And I wish I could be that. I wish I could be so confident in myself that I just was never nervous about anything. But that's not the way I'm built.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's more performance based because otherwise I'm pretty mellow and I don't live my life in a state of anxiety. I'm sure we all have a certain amount of it, but I think my level is pretty low.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, and it's just such a different life to be on the road as opposed to at home, because sometimes I'll take a quick break from being on the road and be at home, and it's back to life as normal. And I'll be taking out the trash and thinking like, oh, tomorrow night I'm going to be on stage in front of 20,000 people. It feels like such a different world, and that's kind of what it is.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's home world and tour world.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, in a literal sense, I put on about a dozen costumes because it's a very good... But, you know, I am myself on stage. It's not like Weird Al is a character per se, but certainly the version of me on stage is a lot louder and more entertaining. than me, you know, walking down the street.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I probably fed into that expectation more in the 80s because I thought I've got to live up to the name, you know, and I probably put on a bit more of a show or was a little bit more smart alecky than than, you know, that I normally am. But I've kind of calmed down. And now I think people realize that I'm not bouncing off the walls all the time. I'm just kind of like a regular guy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I mean, as a teenager, once I realized that I was a social outcast, it was sort of like I had nothing to lose. Like, I didn't care, like, oh, I'm going to look silly doing this. Like, oh, people think I'm an idiot anyway. Like, what's it going to hurt? So it sort of gave me freedom. It gave me a license to let my freak flag fly a bit.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So I didn't have any qualms about being weird or caring really what people thought of me because, you know, it didn't matter at that point. And college was a bit of a restart because people in college didn't know who I was. And I thought, oh, I can maybe redefine myself. In fact, I think that's when I started going by Al because all through high school I was Alfred Yankovic, my full name.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I don't know, but it just felt a little repressive, yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I thought, oh, Alfred sounds like, you know, like Alfred E. Newman. It sounds like the butler on Batman. It sounds like, you know, Poindexter. It sounded geeky. I thought, Al. Al sounds cool. That's a good, masculine, firm name. I'll be Al.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, and then within a year, I was Weird Al.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, when my manager first told me that over the phone, I thought he was joking. Because in the early 80s, we had tour T-shirts with fake, bogus dates on the back. And like, oh, I'll be doing a residency at Madison Square Garden. It was one of those things we joked about. And now it's actually happening for real. So it's a bit mind-blowing. It's...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Hopefully I won't be in the fetal position on the floor, but I did have a small bit of anxiety the second he told me, like, oh, that's a big show. I've got to go do this now.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And last time I was in New York, I went to Madison Square Garden, and I walked around the perimeter of it, and there's all these posters of Elton John and Eddie Vedder and all these quotes from people, Bruce Springsteen saying, you're nothing until you play at Madison Square Garden. I'm like, oh, don't make me more nervous, okay?
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Probably the Forum, the same tour in LA.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I think we're the only three acts to have our own top 40 singles in the last four decades.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It is pretty crazy, I have to admit. I mean, part of me feels like this whole thing is like everybody's playing a joke. I mean, like
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
like yeah like it's sort of like you know who is the um uh the make-a-wish kid that the bat kid like well we'll just pretend that he's superman you know and we'll just let out think he's a rock star you know i mean five so you've won five grammys right yes and and 17 nominations that sounds right um not that we're counting uh that
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It was crazy. I mean, I was up against, gosh, I think I was up against Richard Pryor and Rodney Dangerfield and all these icons, and somehow I won. And every single Grammy is as wonderful of an experience. It never gets old. I never get jaded from those kind of honors because it's, you know, It's my peers showing their appreciation for what I do. So that's still mind blowing to me.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, you know, I don't know. I've never gone through therapy or psychoanalysis and I don't know how much of my career or my current personality I can attribute to that. And I didn't rebel in any kind of major way. You know, I didn't lash out. I think at the most I got a little sullen.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, because I was encouraged to stay at home pretty much all the time, my dad would try to think of ways that I could be amused. So at one point, it was a small house in Linwood, California, and they had a basement, which I don't know was like a... holdover from the Cold War. I don't know why we had a basement, but we did.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And at one point my dad knocked down the walls in the basement and he let me make tunnels under the house. So they called it the mole hole. And we'd just bring buckets and buckets of dirt out and I would make my own like little, you know, like ant farm kind of trails underneath the house. He said, as long as you don't dig underneath the foundation, have fun. Right. Right.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And it was such an odd thing, but my friends would come over and we'd like spend like the day under the house digging tunnels.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I never collapsed the house, but they knew where I was at least.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I remember my mom telling me once that when I was a young kid on the playground, she saw a woman approaching me, and she said that she had a vision that this woman was growing devil horns and that she was going to— do some harm to me. So she ran and picked me up and took me home immediately. So that had to be a manifestation of some kind of paranoia or fear.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I mean, she was very concerned with people, you know, harming me in some way. So she basically, my entire childhood was her doing her best to protect me. And it was all well-meaning and again, came from a place of pure love. But as a child and especially as a teenager, it felt very restrictive. And it was, you know, I kind of had a lot of bitterness about it. In fact,
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
During my teenage years, because, you know, I was basically confined to my bedroom and I was there with my mad magazines and and and listening to music on my, you know, eight track player. But, yeah, I'm sure it warped me in some ways and I'm sure it contributed to. whatever kind of weirdness is happening in my brain to this day.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I remember when I was going into my senior year in high school, and I was like 15 years old, and she wouldn't let me go visit a friend's house or whatever. I asked her to do something that seemed quite harmless, and she said no. And here was my big clap back. I said, oh, it's okay. Next year I'll be in college, and I can do anything I want. And you can see the wheels turning on her head.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's like, oh, okay. Oh, no. I better transition him a little bit into this.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Was there a lot of... It was a religious upbringing, yeah. Like, we were a church-going family, and yeah, that was part of it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
you know break free you said you weren't rebellious but you break free into is it going to college so that i'm going to be something closer to my own man yeah yeah so that my my senior year they they loosen the reins a little bit just because i realized you know we better like not let him like rebel in college we'll just kind of like gradually give him his freedom but i remember um
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
when I had the old family car and they had an old Lincoln Continental, something like that, and they were gonna follow me to college. It's like a four-hour drive. And I thought, well, they don't need to follow me to college, but all right. And I just remember as soon as we hit the 101 freeway, I gunned it. I lost them on the freeway. So that was sort of like my final act of rebellion.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It was the same night, yeah. That, yeah, it was, it wouldn't have been my decision. It was like, I, I, it was a lot of denial, you know, it was, uh, uh, unfathomable and, and obviously the, the hardest, uh, moment in my life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Uh, and, and it, it, it took, you know, I, I just didn't want to let people down cause you know, uh, and I didn't want people to even know about it cause I didn't want people walking on eggshells around me or cause it's a comedy show. I didn't want to like, uh, you know, make people feel bad. And and I had an army of people working for me and people had made plans to come there.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So even though I was, you know, falling apart emotionally, I thought I got to pull it together and do this show. And Obviously, it wasn't easy. I'm a real the show must go on kind of guy, and I spent the whole night just trying to pretend like I hadn't just suffered the worst horror of my life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
to get through this show. I mean, every now and then, I'd sing a lyric referencing, like, my mother or whatever, and all of a sudden, it would, like, snap back in, like, oh, no! And then reality would hit for a second, and I had to, like, regain my composure and keep on with the show. But it was...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, I guess I'm pretty good at compartmentalizing because I was able to, you know, do my show, pretend like I was OK, smile on stage, do comedy and then go back to the bus and fall apart.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Pretty responsible. I mean, I like to think I'm a responsible guy and I, you know, I do things on time and I do what I'm supposed to do.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I guess mostly I just don't want to disappoint people. I don't want to cause hardships for others. Um, I mean, that, that's like a big thing for me. It was like, you know, what, whatever you do, don't make things worse. And I figured if I, if I canceled a bunch of shows, uh, I mean, a lot of people would be upset and a lot of people, you know, make, make their plans in life.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I didn't want to ruin like thousands of people's plans. I didn't want to take people's livelihood away from them, the people that work for me. So I just figured the best way to do it would be to just kind of trudge through and do the shows. What I did do is I canceled all my interviews. I canceled all the meet and greets because I kind of didn't want to be around people.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
All I wanted to do was do what I was supposed to do and then grieve privately.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's very much that. I mean, thankfully, this was like well into the tour. So we weren't just kind of getting our sea legs. It was muscle memory because the show was established. We were used to doing it. And my body was on stage performing, whereas my mind was somewhere else. It was, you know, I felt like I was like levitating above the sky on stage doing this comedy routine. Yeah.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah, I mean, it became very much an inner world kind of thing where I relied on my imagination a lot. And that probably was helpful in terms of songwriting and creativity. And yeah, I would think that a lot of my work back then and probably to this day as a result of just kind of being confined to my...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. I don't know how much I want to blame the age difference on it because no matter what my age was. I think as a verifiable nerd, I would not have really fit in with my classmates. But the fact that I was two years younger certainly didn't help. I started high school when I was 12 years old, graduated when I was 16. I was too young to drive.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
My folks wouldn't let me hang out with other kids for the most part. Yeah, socially it was not a pleasant experience.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Don't shut up about it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
You know, it just keeps piling on, doesn't it? Yeah, the accordion started much earlier than that. I think my first music lesson, my first accordion lesson was the day before my seventh birthday. So I started very young. I took three years of accordion lessons. And after that, I stopped, I guess. And just kind of played on my own. I could play by ear pretty well.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I could read music for the most part. But I thought it was fun to just listen to the radio and just try to emulate what I was hearing. And my dad liked to sing around the house. He would sing these old World War II Army songs. And I would play along with him. We'd tear it up that way. But... I obviously never fit in.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
When I got to be 12, 13 years old, I would try to get together with friends and say, hey, you want me to play in your rock band? And they would say, no. So I learned pretty early on that if I wanted to stay with that instrument, I would kind of have to go my own way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, my last album was 2014, Mandatory Fun.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
It's a, I think it's like, I'm not sure about how many, I think it's 75, either 75 cities or 75 dates, but it's a pretty, you know, it's mid June to the end of September and it's, it's a jam packed tour and there's no breaks.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. Well, every tour that we do, we try to make a little different or have some kind of hook to it. And it's not like I haven't been recording any music since my last album. I decided I wasn't going to be putting out traditional albums anymore, but I've written songs for movies. I've had my own movie, which I contributed to.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I did a Polka Mania, which was a polka medley, which you put out last summer. So there's a lot of different things that I've done in the meantime. So we want to incorporate. We're going to play some songs that we've never played before. And we're also going to be playing all the greatest hits. So it's sort of the best of both worlds because for the casual fan, we're playing...
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
you know, Eat It and Amish Paradise and Yoda and White and Nerdy and, you know, everything that, you know, a casual fan would like to hear. And for all the hardcore fans that want to hear the deep cuts, we've got that too. And we've got some stuff that we're never able to play live before.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But because of this tour, we're doubling the size of the band, which is one of the reasons it's bigger and weirder. It's a bigger show, a bigger production. And it's probably, you know, I'd like to think it's the best tour we've done yet.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Right. But Polkamania was a single I released last year. Mandatory fun.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
amazed. That was that was something if I had to pick maybe one moment in my life where my mind was the most blown, it would probably be that because I grew up with Billboard magazine. I did college radio and we had the charts pinned on the walls. And it was sort of like, you know, our radio bibles, like we looked at that
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And I dreamed that one day maybe, maybe I would make it onto the Billboard chart. But I never dreamed I'd be number one because that was historically nearly impossible. Before me, the last person that had a number one comedy album was Alan Sherman, which would have been over 50 years prior. And nobody in history had ever debuted at number one on the album chart with a comedy album.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So the fact that I did... It just threw me for a loop. It was very emotional for me. It's just one of those things that I didn't even dream or try to manifest because I just thought it was out of the realm of possibility.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
That's nice of you to say, but obviously I didn't invent the concept of song parody. That's been around since, I mean, our national anthem is basically a song parody. It's, you know, it's an old English drinking song with different words. So the concept of song parody has a rich history. But I guess I helped bring that back in a way when I started out in the early 80s and popularized it.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, that's definitely another pinch me moment because I was weaned on Mad Magazine. You know, that along with Dr. Demento, those two things are responsible for the lion's share of my sense of humor, I think. I mean, I collected old mad magazines and, you know, this is pre-internet. So there wasn't really a way to see or to read back issues other than to literally read
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
go around town to used book and magazine stores and try to go through the stacks and find old copies of Mad Magazine. And thankfully I had very loving and supportive parents who made that happen. My mom would drive me all around greater Los Angeles and we'd try to find these old magazines.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
And that was just a window into a world that I didn't know existed at the time because I got to see parodies of movies that I was too young to see. and TV shows that I couldn't stay up late enough to watch. And the whole sensibility of mad, the anti-authority, like be skeptical of everything you read, like the advertisers are lying to you.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
This was a lot of information that was important for a young humorist slash satirist to be aware of. So that was definitely a huge part of my early education. Were your parents funny? I mean, not in a real traditional sense. I think my dad maybe was funnier than my mom.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
My mom was very quiet and withdrawn, and my dad was certainly more gregarious and loud and more likely to talk to strangers on the street. I suppose he was funny in his own way, but I wouldn't say that he was like a class clown, life of the party kind of guy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I was pretty quiet and withdrawn myself. I didn't have like a big personality, but the fact that I could create these silly songs and put myself out there in performance, I mean, I got to extend a part of my personality that didn't come through in everyday life. So I found that kind of appealing to be able to present a different version of me that way.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. I mean, I'm not one of those people that loves being the center of attention. I actually don't, which seems kind of odd for a person who makes a career out of performing on stage. But I'm not one of these people. I mean, I knew people in high school that were dying to be famous and that was very important to them. And like, It's not important to me. I mean, I like it. It's nice.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But I just enjoy doing what I do. And the fact that other people enjoy that too, that's great. But I was never like somebody that had to make it or had to, you know, had to be the guy.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
But no, I grew up on Alan Sherman and all these people that, you know, that song parody was their bread and butter.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Well, they probably said it to me in high school as well, but I mean, I remember distinctly in college, my freshman year, I became known around my dorm as Weird Al, just because I suppose they thought I was weird.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. So, you know, and they probably had reason to think that too. I mean, I probably was very odd and stood out from everybody else. But I thought, you know, I'm just going to take that on as my college radio name because my sophomore year I got into college radio and everybody had some kind of stupid nickname. And I thought, oh, they're already calling me Weird Al.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
I'm going to take it on as an empowering name. Like, all right, I'm Weird Al.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
Yeah. And what's really nice is that now I hear from all these kids over the last couple generations, kids that were, you know, uh, ostracized in school that were considered freaks or weirdos or whatever that didn't fit in. And they looked at me as somebody that, that owned my weirdness and was okay with it. And, and they find that very empowering.
The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
South Beach Sessions - Weird Al Yankovic
So it means a lot to me to get, to hear from them and to get letters to that effect.