Weird Al Yankovic has reigned for three decades as the best-selling comedy artist in history, with over 12 million albums sold. He has won 3 Grammy Awards with 12 career nominations. Weird Al Yankovic recently released his 13th studio album. Titled Alpocalypse it is his first full studio release since the 2006 Grammy nominated album Straight Outta Lynwood that spawned the hit single "White & Nerdy". Alpocalypse features the much talked about Lady Gaga parody, "Perform This Way" that generated two million YouTube hits within two days and at its fever pitch was the #5 trending Twitter topic in the world. Recently Joe Matera spoke to Weird Al Yankovic to discuss the new album, the importance of guitars in his music parodies and touring the Weird Al Yankovic way.
UG: Alpocalypse is your 13th studio album to date. How has the songwriting process evolved for you over the course of 13 albums?
Weird Al: I spend a lot more time crafting my albums now. When I did my first album, it was done very quickly because I didn’t have a record deal at the time and because studio time was very expensive, we just rushed through to make the record. It is painful for me to listen to my first album now, just because it feels very primitive. And because I’ve become more of a perfectionist over the years, it is now hard for me to hear it.
Did you ever think when you first started out on this career path over thirty years ago, that you’ll still be putting out records and touring in 2011?
Well it is very nice that people still care enough to want to hear my material so I’m more than happy to give it to them.
Is there any formula you adhere to when it comes to selecting what you will choose to parody and record?
I will pick songs that are very popular and songs that have a bit of personality to them, like a musical or lyrical hook or something that really jumps at you when you hear it on the radio. There are a lot of things I could point out, but basically it is just a popular song that I can come up with a clever enough idea for.
The album features Perform This Way a parody of Lady Gaga’s Born This Way. Originally Lady Gaga’s camp refused you permission to include it on the album, but then Lady Gaga herself later granted you permission?
Yes I described the entire process in exhaustive detail on my blog called The Gaga Saga. Basically the story is, I was dealing with her manager the entire time and even though he had said that he would be running it by Lady Gaga, the truth is he wasn’t. He made me record a finished version of the song and then after all that, told me that I couldn’t put it on my album. Which was extremely disappointing obviously for me, since I already had the track recorded, I didn’t want to feel I had wasted all my time and money, so I put it up on You Tube as a treat to the fans to let them know, that this was not going to be on the new album, and that I just wanted show them what I had been working on. And at that point, Lady Gaga found out about it, and it turned out that she was a fan and loved the song and she personally let me put it out. I just want to add that I wrote my Lady Gaga parody while I was on the road in Australia earlier this year.
"Lady Gaga found out about it, and it turned out that she was a fan and loved the song and she personally let me put it out."
I usually track with the band on the songs that have live instruments. But unfortunately that is becoming fewer and fewer these days in terms of the parodies. For example the Lady Gaga song, my drummer and guitar player just basically walked into the studio with some of the digital files with them, with their parts already recorded and gave them to me and so I just tracked vocals to those files for a few days.
Guitars play a major part in your music parody, even going way back to Eat It, your parody of Michael Jackson’s Beat It. Rick Derringer played that guitar solo on that track?
Yes he did. Rick also produced my first six studio albums and even though I do have a full time guitar player, who plays on the records as well as live, on the first couple of albums, Rick did a lot of the guitar playing. He really wanted to do the solo on Eat It. And the thing I remember about that particular solo was how focused and attentive Rick was when he was playing it. I watched him play it in the studio and he played it once, but he went from bone dry to dripping with sweat afterwards. I’d never seen anybody sweat so much so quickly!
Having said, obviously the guitar is important for you?
Yes and my band know the drill. They know that I always try to emulate the sound of the original artists’ work as closely as possible. So they will pull the track apart and use whatever they have to work out every nuance and detail of the guitar tracks. They will use all the headphone tricks they can think of in order to listen to the separate tracks so that they to figure out the parts. And we’ve had a lot of great comments from the original artists about all of this.
You haven’t really done any parodies of metal songs?
I don’t think we have, but I did an original song called Young, Dumb & Ugly which is a sort of an AC/DC pastiche. But I’ve done a few metal bands in my polka medleys like I’ve done Metallica.
Ever thought of one day putting together a complete an album with parodies of guitarists and guitar driven tracks?
I would love to do that some day. I love for the whole era of contemporary pop music to go more in that guitar driven direction. I really enjoyed where music was at in the 1990s in the terms of grunge music, the garage bands and the DIY bands, where people were playing live instruments. It’s a bit of a throwback to go to an earlier era but I liked that era. I like it a whole lot more than synthesized music and sequencers and music comprised entirely on keyboards. I may sound old saying that but that is the kind of music I prefer.
Do you play guitar yourself?
No I don’t. I grew up playing the accordion which obviously made me be able to play the keyboard instruments, but I never really learned how to play the guitar. Whenever you see me onstage or in a video with a guitar in hand, it is purely as a prop.
Do you think humor has become more important than ever, and vital in some ways especially in this type of fast ever changing world we live in?
I do but I am not sure if I agree with it being more important now than before. We have always lived in times where people needed a release from their pain or whatever it was that was getting them down. So humor has always been a release and an important part of life. I’ve never felt I have wasted my life doing silly songs. I feel like, in a way I am fulfilling an important need as people need to laugh and I am helping people take things a little less seriously.
What do you think of others such as Jack Black, who also mix comedy with music?
I think it is great as I kind of felt a little alone during the 1980s and 1990s. But I feel there are more people doing funny music and doing it very, very well these days. I am a big fan of the The Lonely Island and I love Tenacious D too who are fantastic, so I feel there are a small handful of people that are doing comedy music now that I think is just phenomenal. And I think that is great.
Do you think with pop culture the way it is, you’ll always have an endless supply of material?
Yes that is the thing about my job I will never run out of source material. I’ve been doing this for a long time now and pop music is always changing and always morphing into something else. But it is always ridiculous and there is always be something to make fun of so I will never run out of targets.
"I’ve never felt I have wasted my life doing silly songs."
In broad terms, my favorite bands are bands that are a little eccentric and a little off center, and a lot of alternative bands. I do enjoy just regular contemporary music as well but it is not my absolute favorite.
When you are on the road, does touring ever get as debauched as some rock and roll band tours?
I have had the kind of rock experiences on the road that a lot of other people have had too but there is not a lot of debauchery really. I mean, I am not Gene Simmons on the road. First of all, for the longest time, I have travelled on a tour bus or a band bus and our crew these days is pretty down to earth. But there was a long period of time where the crew bus had been the party bus but everybody in the band bus would be sitting there with their lap tops checking out their emails rather than partying.
Are there any plans to release further product this year such as a DVD?
There is a DVD that comes packaged with the new album that contains 10 music videos. But there is a few other DVD sorts of projects that are in the pipeline but of which, I am not really allowed to talk about as yet. But there are some things that most likely will be happening down the road for sure.
Interview by Joe Matera
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