World of Weird Al Yankovic

Let me just say, as a musician, I hate sight reading! I can't read music let alone guess what it's suppose to sound like the first time around. I learn everything by ear. A former choir teacher really soured me on the whole sight reading thing. She knew I couldn't do it and made me go first in front of the whole class. She was a horrible teacher. She was so bad that everybody dropped choir for the following year. How bad a teacher do you have to be to make someone stop doing something they love? It turned out for the best though. I took private lessons for 3 years even after they hired a new choir teacher. I was in the choir and taking lessons. My private teacher tried to teach me how to read music but it was a lost cause. She was so cool about it though. I'm still making music and singing but it was she could have ruined it for me completely. I tell ya, I'm so glad Al never had to deal with a teacher like I had in high school! We might not have all that fabulous music, that man to rave about 24-7 or all these wonderful friends in WOWAY!



Stupidhippie

A BIG THANKS to ChessPieceFace over at AMW-A for keying all this in



The Hot Seat: Small talk with big people



Price of dorkness From Time Out New York magazine, July 17-24,

2003:



---------------------------------



Comic crooner "Weird Al" Yankovic proves he's still the supreme ruler

of stooped music

By Joe Grossman



Tiny Tim wasn't particularly tiny. Ol' Dirty Bastard is only 34, and

on a good day, he's reasonably hygienic. And we can now safely induct

another honoree into the pantheon of misnomered celebrities, for

"Weird Al" Yankovic is actually quite normal. Sure, he has a cascading

Afghan-hound style hairdo and an ill-advised penchant for Hawaiian

shirts, but when he's not onstage blasing out accordion solos or

prancing around in a fat suit, the 43-year-old pop parodist lives a

tranquil, even prosaic life in Los Angeles with his wife and

five-month-old daughter.



While casual observers might assume Yankovic to be past his prime,

"Billboard" suggests otherwise. His latest album, "Poodle Hat,"

entered the charts at No. 17-the highest-ranking debut of his 20-year

career. "Poodle Hat" cuts across generational divides with its mix of

twisted originals and goofy spoofs (targets range from Eminem and

Avril Lavigne to Bob Dylan), and this week, Yankovic will perform live

for thousands of local nerds. TONY caught up with him backstage at the

taping of Nickelodeon magazine's tenth-anniversary special, and we

discovered nothing weirder about him than a humble affability and an

absolute contentment with his peculiar niche in popular culture.



Time Out New York: Looking over your discography, I see parodies of

Fine Young Cannibals, Gerardo, Crash Test Dummies… You've had much

greater longevity than many of the "legitimate" artists you've mocked.



"Weird Al" Yankovic: Which is the ironic thing about my career. I did

"My Bologna," and it was like, "We'll never hear from him again." Then

I did "Ricky," then "Eat It." And it was always, "Oh, we'll never hear

from him again." Ten years later, people were finally going, "I guess

he's sticking around? I don't know what's going on here. This isn't

supposed to happen."



TONY: How do you feel about the term "novelty act?"



WAY: That's not a label that I cling to or even like, but it is a

fairly accurate description of what I do. Anything that's comedic in

rock & roll is termed "novelty" because it's unusual or different.

It's a shame that artists have to hide their sense of humor. People

tend to denigrate rock bands that don't take themselves seriously or

are a bit more lighthearted about their image. I think rock & roll and

pop music should be fun, and you shouldn't have to be dour and glum

and look like a Gap ad.



TONY: How about the word "nerd?"



WAY: Well, that's also a fairly accurate description. I was not only a

nerd in high school, I was king of the nerds. I was nerd above all

nerds. You can look at it as a derogatory term, or as a basic

description of an intelligent, bookish person. Bill Gates is a nerd. A

lot of nerds are billionaires and rule the world. It's nothing to be

ashamed of.



TONY: Is it true that you were a child prodigy?



WAY: I don't know about "prodigy." I started kindergarten early, and

skipped second grade. So I started high school when I was 12 and

graduated as valedictorian when I was 16. So yeah: "nerd," okay?

(Laughs)



TONY: Do you ever feel like you could be applying your intellect to

something more noble?



WAY: [Sarcastically emphatic] I think what I do is plenty darn noble!

I don't know. It's certainly more fun than being an architect, which

is what I was trained for in college. What I do seems to bring

happiness to some people, and I've met enough terminally ill kids and

made their time a little happier. I've even met some people who

claimed that I knocked them out of severe depressions and stopped them

from killing themselves.



TONY: That seems like a pretty flimsy depression-being on the brink of

suicide and then reconsidering: "But wait… what about Al?"



WAY: [Laughs] Thankfully, I guess it was. I have a strange effect on

people.



TONY: Did you ever get groupies?



WAY: Not like the heavy metal bands would. Whenever a really

attractive woman would come backstage, generally it was to say, "My

12-year-old brother really likes you. Can I get an autograph for him?"



TONY: Ever autograph a breast?



WAY: Um…. hmm…



TONY: You have to think about it?



WAY: I have to think about it. I don't believe so.



TONY: But maybe.



WAY: [Laughs, followed by awkward silence]



TONY: Did the "Weird Al" persona ever help you in meeting women?



WAY: Well, just being famous did. I would always be too shy to

approach a woman and say, "Hi, my name's Al! What's your name?" But if

they came up to me and said, "Hey, you're Weird Al, aren't you?" then

it's like, "Why, yes! Yes, I am! And you are…?"



TONY: Is that how you met your wife?



WAY: It was kind of a blind date, actually. A mutual friend set us up,

and we talked on the phone for a couple of weeks before we ever went

out. We got to know each other pretty well before I even saw her, and

I was really fond of her and attracted to her before I even knew what

she looked like.



TONY: No offense, but it's got to be kind of strange from her

perspective-to get a call from her friend saying, "I've got the

PERFECT guy for you. Ever hear of 'Weird Al' Yankovic?"



WAY: [Laughs] Yeah. My friend obviously knows me as more of a human

being, and my wife could look past the image. She had worked as a

senior vice president at Fox, so she has a pretty good idea of what

it's like to be a celebrity and to work in comedy and the fact that

I'm not "on" all the time. Most comedians aren't, and the few that are

are kind of obnoxious.



TONY: I once heard that when you went vegetarian, you stopped

incorporating meat into your songs. Is that true?



WAY: I don't think so. Not intentionally, anyway. I still sing "My

Bologna" onstage. I don't MEAN it. [Laughs] There's this hollowness

behind my eyes whenever I'm singing it. But no, my songs aren't

autobiographical. I write songs about stabbing people in the face, and

I RARELY do that.



TONY: There are quite a few other myths about you. Many people still

insist that polka king Frankie Yankovic was your father.



WAY: Oh, right. And back in the '80s, a lot of people bought into me

being Greg or Peter from "The Brady Bunch." And then "King of the

Hill" did a joke about me: "You don't want to be like Al Yankovic! He

blew his brains out in the mid-'80s when people stopped buying his

records!" All over the Internet, people were like "When did Al

Yankovic die?" And it's a bummer, because they weren't nearly as upset

as I hoped they'd be.

Nice article. I love it when interviewers go off the press kit.

Very nice article. I love learning something new from articles that actually have questions and answers that I haven't read before.



-CindyBob

I really liked that article too, because it had nothing to do with reading music :sarcasm:

No mention of the Eminem controversy.





This is clearly the beginning of an enlightened age.........

Also, no Coolio. Or Prince. This interviewer clearly has it goin' on.

What a great interview! I especially like this part:





TONY: Is that how you met your wife?



WAY: It was kind of a blind date, actually. A mutual friend set us up,

and we talked on the phone for a couple of weeks before we ever went

out. We got to know each other pretty well before I even saw her, and

I was really fond of her and attracted to her before I even knew what

she looked like.





That is the sweetest thing



Julie

Wow, I missed the whole sight-reading/writing music discussion. I'm going to add my 27 cents. I am a musician, and so is my husband. I have been playing the flute for 31 years. I can both read music and sight-read it. I haven't written too many songs. One I worked out a part on the fife for that my husband wrote a part on guitar for. It is not written down in the sense of writing down notes. Just written in our heads, I guess. WE have a few other songs we've written together on flute and guitar as well. While I have experience reading music, my husband does not. He can't read music. But yet he's been playing guitar for 40 years now. He can write some beautiful songs, too. Writing a song does not have to involve physically writing the notes down on paper. You can play a song, and get others to join in with you, *or just play it solo* figuring out their own parts, and it can sound really great! My husband has a band, and that's what generally happens. So a person doesn't have to know how to read music in order to write a song.



Patti

QUOTE TONY: Ever autograph a breast?



WAY: Um…. hmm…



TONY: You have to think about it?



WAY: I have to think about it. I don't believe so.



TONY: But maybe.  


WAY: [Laughs, followed by awkward silence]







I know Al has...there was a girl at the concert I went to who had al sign her...err....and she tattooed it....(just kinda on top, but Al must have been in an awkward position :lookround: )