The soundtrack to your childhood… and probably everyone else’s, too… it’s “Weird Al” Yankovic. Al joins Dan for a chat about his legendary 40 year career (he’s one of the best-charting musicians of all time), from how he became “Weird” to his 5 Grammy Award wins to embarking on his latest tour around the country. Al, a consummate performer, also opens up about performing immediately after the loss of his parents, what it was like growing up incredibly sheltered, and how he maintains his sterling reputation and sparkling attitude through it all. Weird Al’s “Bigger & Weirder” Tour is on sale now - visiting 65 cities across North America from June through September. For tour dates and tickets, visit weirdal.com/tour Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: Who is Weird Al Yankovic and what makes his career legendary?
Kings Network. I'm sure this man hears this a lot. Welcome to South Beach Sessions. I'm Dan Levitard, and this is Weird Al Yankovic, somebody I feel like has been in my life since childhood. You get a lot of that, I imagine, right? From you, yes, all the time, yeah.
Don't shut up about it.
The biggest selling comedy recording artist in history. That still has to be crazy for you to hear.
I'm impressed by that.
No.
You're more famous for it than anybody else.
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.
But no, I grew up on Alan Sherman and all these people that, you know, that song parody was their bread and butter.
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Chapter 2: How did Weird Al get started with Dr. Demento and radio influence?
Well, the thing, though, that sort of grabbed you by the claws was radio, right? Sure. Was the idea of radio, and it was... What can you tell us about the original Dr. Demento show and where and how it grabbed you?
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.
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.
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.
Oh, wow.
So that was my Sunday night.
Well, you were otherwise a good kid, right? Oh, yeah, sure. But what was she walking in on that was so scandalous that it had to be banned?
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.
How would you explain your childhood to a stranger?
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Chapter 3: What was Weird Al’s childhood like and how did it shape him?
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.
If they wanted to see me, they had to come to me.
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
Yeah, I would say in a way.
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.
I don't know, but it just felt a little repressive, yeah.
And what sort of things did you realize in adulthood? Oh, wait, that's a part of making me how I am here because that the only child of this or the watching with binoculars or all that stuff was a little too much. And now I wasn't paying quite attention. And here it is in adulthood.
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.
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.
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Chapter 4: How did Weird Al embrace the nickname 'Weird Al' and make it his own?
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.
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.
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.
But where does yours come from? Were you trying to entertain anybody?
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.
That's pretty cool. It's sort of a character. It's not, but you're not innately a performer. This is something that you want your clever on display and then you must perform it.
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.
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.
For how long was Weird Al an insult? The phrase, when you were getting hit with Weird Al.
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Chapter 5: What are some of the greatest compliments that validate Weird Al’s work?
I'm going to take it on as an empowering name. Like, all right, I'm Weird Al.
How cool is that? Was there a second option on what your DJ name was going to be or you just took an insult and turned it into, you know, giant comedy success? You showed them, by the way. Anybody calling you Weird Al, you really took power over your own family. It's pretty cool though. Like to, to take the power from them. Sure. Sure.
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.
So it means a lot to me to get, to hear from them and to get letters to that effect.
What are the greatest compliments you get that make it all seem slightly less silly? I work in sports for a living. There are times I can question the worth of what it is that I'm doing because it can be silly, but then you meet people that you've actually moved or been medicine for, and then you can feel a little better about.
Maybe it's an elaborate rationalization, but you could feel a little bit better about whatever it is that you're doing that brings you such happiness. Sure.
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.
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.
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.
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Chapter 6: When did Weird Al realize he could turn music into a career?
I should probably get serious about this weird old thing.
Can you take me through the details of going door-to-door? Like, what did the failures look like? What did the disappointments look like? There couldn't have been too many of them, right? Because you arrived pretty early.
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 –
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.
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.
Did they keep you locked in for the 10 albums?
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.
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.
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Chapter 7: How did Weird Al’s record deal and album production evolve over time?
I mean, it wasn't at that point. Scotty Brothers had sold my contract to another
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
Yeah, that's a responsibility. It's sort of the opposite of freedom. But what have the 10 years between albums been like as someone who's always been a creator, right? How much uncertainty has there been in there? How much searching or is it peaceful because you've arrived at the things that you wanted?
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.
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
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
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.
So that's a nice place to be.
But when did you realize that you can calm down a little bit? Because that's not something I usually find with successful people. They tend to feel like they're being chased.
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Chapter 8: What is Weird Al’s approach to creativity and touring today?
But when you're applying math and stuff, it's not exactly the creativity that you ended up gravitating towards.
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.
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.
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.
Where'd the hard work come from? Where'd the work ethic come from?
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Chapter 9: How did Weird Al’s education in architecture influence his career?
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.
So I did whatever I could to make that happen.
lot of discipline in the house or i mean i was never spanked i was never there's no corporal punishment uh wow i didn't i didn't mean to go there i'm just saying like i'm saying this this is a form of personal pride but you're achieving faster than most you're obviously uh you're sheltered uh your your mother's keeping a close eye on you so they want to make sure everything's okay that
Something is forming there that's making you want straight A's aren't coming easily, right? You have to work for it.
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.
You personally go to the artists who you're parodying and you ask all of their permission, correct?
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.
Do you have any good stories there either of you being like, how is this even happening or somebody running you out of room because they don't appreciate what it is that you do?
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...
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Chapter 10: How does Weird Al get permission to parody popular songs?
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.
Another one rides the bus. Is that the one that's come to you quickest? Like what is the easiest success story of something that just flowed from you? It was done. It arrived. And you're like, oh, what a blessing. I don't have to work that hard at this one.
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.
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
But did you say that – you said that My Sharona was the one that broke for you, right? That's the one that Dr. Demento played first?
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.
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.
you were going everywhere with an accordion when you were young? Or was this something that you were just doing at seven years old? Seven?
Yeah, I started when I was about seven, yeah.
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