The Questlove Show - QLS Classic: "Weird" Al Yankovic

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

Grammy winning singer-songwriter & satirist "Weird" Al Yankovic talks about the hilarious songs Prince wouldn't let him parody, why he turned down an opening slot on Michael Jackson's '88 Europe Tour and how he got the okay to poke fun at Kurt Cobain, Coolio, Iggy Izalea and more. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands. I vowed. I will be his last target. He is not going to get away with this. He's going to get what he deserves.

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As the season continues, Laura Owens finally faces consequences. Listen to Love Trapped podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Course Love Supreme is a production of IHeart Radio. This classic episode was produced by the team at Pandora. Hey, hey, what's up? This is KLS Classic April 4th, 2018, with the great Matthew Alfred Yankovic. That's right, y'all Yankovic joins us, and he talks about hilarious songs that Prince would never clear, why he turned down the opening slot on Michael Jackson's 1988, bad tour, and how he got away with poking fun at Kurt Coppane, Cuolio, and Eizalia, and many more. Not to mention, I got to say, this roll call intro is one for the record books.

Enjoy QLS with Weird Algae. Y'all ready? Yep. Damn, you yelling on ready. You lie at you? Let's go. Suprema, Subrema, sub, sub, subprima role call.

Suprema, sub, sub, subprima role call. Suprema, sub, sub, Supreme a role call. Suprema, sub, sub, Supremar role. Rewon, selecta.

Rew! Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We are in the greatness of greatness right now, ladies and gentlemen. Yes, we are in the greatness of greatness. We are in the, yo, we are remixing this roll call. Thank you very much.

Uh-oh. One, two, three. Suprema, sub-Sup, Suprema role call. Suprema, sub-Sup, Supremma, Role call. Supremma, Sub-Sup, Supremma, Role call. Had the remix, yeah, the brand new P. Ms. Fonte, yeah. This is my home.

Yeah. Even Ezekiel thinks. Yeah. My mind is gone. Supremea. Subma. Supreme is sugar. Yeah.

I got the sugars. Yeah. I got sciatica. Yeah. And now I'm living with a hernia. Concerts. Yeah. Boss Bill has been.

Yeah. Weird Al Yankovic. Yeah. In the top ten. Roll call. Suprema, Subma Role Virgin

Yeah Style I am the worst Yeah That was fucking brilliant Steve was like They're gonna beat your ass For doing

Is that y'all playing? Yeah Yeah Yeah Yeah Last minute Like zero o'clock Of the morning

That was fucking brilliant Shout out to the movie's crew That's the first time We've done that out Yeah We've never changed the music up before First polka mash up Yes

We had to We're in the greatness of greatness Ladies and gentlemen, what more can I say? We have one of the greatest... I mean, he shut down his own category. He is a one of one. The job is taken. It's the only one way now.

No, it's just like, you know, you are the greatest parody satire writer. Satirist? Yeah, satirist. Satanist. Yeah. you are the goat thank you man

you are the goat as well thank you I feel goateish ladies and gentlemen please welcome Alfred Matthew Yankovic wow I got to use a government name for us wow I have to use a government and my social security number is 5, 6,9

man one I'm grateful that you did this I'm thankful because you know we've all been fan of yours but I mean it's to the point that you're not even a proper noun

you're a verb you're I mean like a weird out of the song yeah you weird out that song exactly exactly how are you though thanks for asking I'm doing very well I just just got back from Hawaii last night we were there we lived there part time

and I'm just kind of getting used to not seeing the ocean and flowers and beautiful things all the time Thanks a lot. We love in the east side. The east side. Where he actually put his finger in life.

He was two five. Hey, we live out in the jungle. We're about another half a mile down the road, and there's like no internet, no nothing. We're in the jungle, baby. Really? Yeah. Why?

Because it's a whole different kind of Hawaii. I mean, you can go to the west side, and there's like, you know, you can have your drinks by the pool, and it's very resorty and very nice. But the east side is like old Hawaii. And it just feels like, you know, you can really kind of, it's a place where you go and do nothing. A lot of people like go to Hanna and they go, oh, there's nothing here.

That's kind of the point. It's like a great place to unplug. So you need it to sort of recharge and relax and. Yeah, it's a whole, it's kind of like the opposite of L.A. So a couple times a year my family goes out there and just kind of unplugs and, you know, talk to the cows, you know, hang out. No, you just scared me with no internet. Yeah. It's like, get you away from Instagram.

Why would you ever want to do that? But I understand it's necessary. Where are you from? From Linwood. Straight out of Linwood. Straight out of Linwood, yeah. In fact, Shig Knight went to my high school. What?

Oh, wow. Wait, wait, wait, wait. Sarcasm detector is broken right now. That's absolutely true. Wow, okay. Fred Gwyn from the Munsters, Mark Spitz, I believe, and Kevin Costner also went to the same time. Wow. I was going to have my finger on the trigger.

Wow. So, first of all, what were you like as a kid? And I asked that very slowly, because I don't think people are accurate in describing themselves. But, I mean... Well, this might come as a huge shock to you, but I was a little nerdy. Really? No. No, I was definitely, well, I was sort of a, you know, sort of...

a weird kid. I was, but I was always a good student. I was always a straight A student, the kind of guy that you tried to copy off of during math class and then beat up at recess. Because you try to, you gave him the wrong answers anymore just to mess with them. But no, I was always a good kid, but I was

a little strange. I kind of kept to myself and ate with other nerdy kids during lunchtime. That kind of thing. Okay. Basically, you can relate in my life. Yeah, all of us in this room had that backstory. So your gift of music, how did that start?

Well, I guess it started when my parents decided I should take accordion lessons. Why? They put a kick me sign on you. I think the joke answer is that they realized that accordion music was going to take over Western civilization. But really, I think they honestly thought that it would make me more popular. because when you play the accordion you're a one-man band. You're the life of any party.

You know something, though? They were right. And their own weird way. I mean, there's no one in this world that does not know who you are. So it's like... It was actually kind of a stroke of luck that they decided on such a dorky instrument

because Dr. Demento, the disjockey who really started my career, he says that when he got my first tape in the mail, He said, if it was some teenage kid playing the guitar and doing those same songs, he wouldn't have given it a second thought. But because there was this teenage kid playing the accordion and somehow thinking he was cool, he said, well, that's the novelty. That's worth some airtime. Wow. So can you break down for us how the accordion works as an instrument? Physically works?

Yeah, how it physically works and how you read the music. Is it like a piano? The right hand part is like a piano. Talking about piano accordions. They're different kind of accordions, but that's the one I use. So the right hand part is exactly. like a piano. And the left-time part is buttons. Their accordions have different numbers of buttons. 120 is like the standard one. Okay. The top two rows are basses and all the rest are chords. Like the next

row of chords is major chords, then minor chords, and the seventh chords, and then diminished chords. And there's a lot of repeat buttons because you don't want to have to like do one button on one side of the accordion and then immediately go, you know, to the other side. So it's just, you know, looking back on it, it's kind of a hard instrument to learn. Yeah, it sounds really. complicated. I figured out because I gave my daughter accordion lessons. Like a few years ago she out of the blues decided she wanted to play the accordion, which, you know, I have to say that, so they don't send her to child

protective services. She actually asked for an accordion. And we got her a little accordion, and I taught her some Christmas songs, and she lost interest after a couple months, but she actually, you know, can play a few songs. That's what. Is there a left-handed accordion for those that, whose

lead hand is their left? Oh, you mean to play like the keys on the left hand? Yeah. That's a really good question. I don't know. I mean, maybe you could play it upside down. I've never seen that done, though. I'd have no idea.

I don't know. Are you related to... Now, there was a clip. When you first came to the Tonight Show to sit in with us, and we did this extended polka jam, and it was based on a Yankevick who was... Frankie Yankovic, yeah. Are you related to him at all?

Not as far as I can figure. I mean, maybe several generations ago, I'm sure we're all... We're all native somehow, but no direct relation. But that might have been another reason why my parents decided I should take accordion lessons, because there was already America's Polka King, Frankie Yankovic, and they thought, oh, there should be at least one more accordion playing Yankovic in the world. So I actually, I met Frankie passed away some time ago,

but I actually got to bring him out to L.A. and feature him in a TV special called Weird Al's Guide to the Grammys, because Polka was a category for the first time that year, sometime in the late 80s, I guess. And we did a whole thing where we gave him a fake star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and we did a poolside interview. We did a whole Frankie goes to Hollywood.

So growing up, or at least being a teenager, in the 70s and on the dawning of disco, how are you able to have a, a high school existence sort of like, you know, with band practice and that sort of thing with the accordion. Like, were you starting bands and those things? I tried.

And for some reason, none of my friends that had bands felt the need for an accordion player. I don't know why. I just, I found out early on that if I really wanted to play the accordion, I could either, you know, play for bar mitzes and Italian weddings or it could go my own way.

and I was always drawn toward the bizarre and comedy. And when I was exposed to Dr. Demento, that really kind of opened the door from me because I thought, oh, well, these are my people. I see. So with, well, I want to know, like, right before Dr. Demento, like, were you, could you play any other instrument or? Not really.

I mean, you know, when you play the accordion, that means you can also play the piano, of course. But, so technically I could, but my right hand is very used to keys. and my left hand is not. So to this day, if I'm playing piano, my left hand is just, either I'm playing

some very rudimentary lines, or I'm waving to the crowd. That is weird. So explain the Dr. Demento connection in 76 with you giving him. When I actually gave him a tape, Dr. Domeno came to my high school, oddly enough, and was doing an assembly.

Sometimes he was on a show where he does an educational assembly of comedy and demented music. And he happened to be at Lindwood High School. And at the same time, he was doing a contest called a contest for Pico and Sopalvada, which is his theme song. And people were sending in their own versions of the Pico and Sipalvada. Pico and Sopalvada. Pico and Sopalvada.

And I did my own horrible version of it and gave him the cassette tape in person. And I think he promptly lost it. It was terrible and I never made it to air, but that was my first contact with him. And since then I would send him stuff in the mail. And eventually it got good enough that he started playing them on the radio. But when I first started like 13 years old, they were, I mean, even the stuff he played was horrible. But before that, they were extra horrible. Were these originals or did you even start the world of parody then, like making fun of Leo Sayre and Stevie Wonder and that sort of thing?

It was a little bit of both. I mean, Pekwins-O-Polvita would have been to cover. But yeah, the first songs I sent him, it was a combination of originals and parodies. But none of it had much of a rock feel to it because, you know, I was used to, my classical training on the accordion was polkas and some classical pieces. So I really kind of got into playing rock on the accordion by just playing along with my Elton John records and things like that, just trying to figure out like rock chord structures. Okay.

So the first time I've heard of you was, I think another one rides the bus. and I think it was like 81. Like someone... It was the actual date that we did that was September 14th, 1980. Okay. Which was a live performance because we never re-recorded that. I just played it live on the Dr. Romano show. Oh, that was that?

It was live on the show. And he just happened to turn the tape recorder on for an air check. And that air check of that live recording, that is the master tape to this tape. Oh, wow. You still have that tape? The original tape, I would assume Dr. Domeno has it. But, I mean, it sounds just like, you know, what's on the record. Is he still, Dr. Demento is still alive?

He is, yeah. He's not on terrestrial radio anymore, but he is still doing a weekly show at Dr. Demento.com. So he's still doing it. Same, same show. Wow. Okay, so your initial rhythm section kind of had this fart noisy thing that I used to always be obsessed with.

Yeah. Like that starts, you know, every kid has an obsession with farting. Uh-huh. But it was when I heard another one rise the bus, then I started like, like trying to do fart. Right. First of all, who's making that noise and then who's, how do you? That is musical Mike Kiefer.

Mike Kiefer has been part of the Dr. Meno show for many years. And he is, the technical term is manualist, a person that makes those flatulent noises with his hands. And I used him a lot for the first few albums, not so much in later albums, but it was quite a process because he would have to make a, it was a whole process to record that in the studio. First, he'd have to watch his hands.

hands very thoroughly because they couldn't be at all greasy. They had to be super squeaky, clean, dry. And then we used two microphones because when he puts his hands together, one noise would come out of the top of the hands and one noise would come out of the bottom of the hands. So we'd get real actual stereo separation. You guys are real scientists about this shit. No, don't do this. How do you figure out you have to do that now?

So how did you? Well, I know that was my balloon on the B side? I'm not certain, but how did you get to the next level from just like making this stuff where Dr. Demento and then like there's labels out there. Yeah. My balloon was the year before. That was recorded literally in a bathroom. And then the northern rides a bus.

And then, and that was still a while I was in college. I was getting my degree in architecture at the time. Well, college. What school? The California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo. Ah. Okay. And after I graduated, basically I knew that I didn't want to be an architect.

I wasn't sure that I'd ever be able to make a career in the music industry. Just because you have a hit on the Dr. Domanos show, that doesn't really mean anything in the real world. But I decided, well, you know, I'm young, and I've got some time, and let me knock on a few doors. And luckily, within a couple years, I was able to land a record deal. So based on the early recordings and some new demos that I donated, I Love Rocky Road for I Love Rock and Roll. and based on that we were able to land Rick Derringer as a producer and a Scotty Brothers

as a record label and we did the first album did okay it didn't burn up the charts but it did fine it was a it did well enough to merit me doing a second album and the second album that's when everything changed yeah yeah that's when it happened with eat it yeah but even even then what was

the selling point that you know like is this were you trying to say look, as a comedian, were you trying to be billed as a comedian or you know, satirist or just... You know, I wasn't so much into labels,

but, you know, I was going for grins. It was obviously a comedy act. It was meant to be meant to be novelty. And that was a reason why it was hard for me to get signed to a record deal because we, you know, we approached basically every record store record company in town

and record stores too. But a record company in town and they all said oh this is really funny stuff this is brilliant work yeah we're not interested this is novelty you're going to be like you know if you're lucky you'll be a footnote and you'll be gone in six months so we want artists they're going to have a lasting career

so with in 3D did you think like okay this is going to be my one and only album and well I mean it was sort of you never you never know because when I was signed I was signed to a 10 album deal and that doesn't mean oh I'm going to do 10 albums that means on the extreme

extremely off chance that I'm successful enough to have 10 albums. They'll be on this label. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So they can drop you anytime. Right. So you never know. You never know. And my first album, like I said, did okay but not great. And you know, every album could have been my last. So you always have that in mind.

But after Eidt came out, after N3D came out and it did so well, I was pretty sure there was going to be another album after that. Can you explain to us just, I guess, the legal way that you're able to do the parody? What's the line between parody and, you know, copyright infringement.

Yeah. Like, how do you navigate that? I always try to go a little above and beyond because, according to Supreme Court rulings, fair use would imply that I could get away with a lot more than I do. You know, in terms of parody and satire, I don't necessarily have to ask permission, but I always do because part of my logic is that I want to have long-term relationships with all the artists that I'm parodying. And I really honestly want them to feel like they're in on the joke.

I don't want anybody to be upset or offended that I'm doing a parody of one of their songs. It's all meant in good fun, and I want them, you know, I don't want to step on anybody's toes. So then with the parody works that you make, how is the publishing split between, is it you or is it all the order? It's, I'll tell you, it's literally a different case every time. Every single one is negotiated. I would say, by and large, the standard deal is the original artist keeps all the publishing. Yikes. And well, and get the writer.

Well, we split the writers. Okay, gotcha. I mean, I'd love to get some of the publishing, but people are very loath to give that up. Gotcha. Well, damn, we already rushed to your noes versus your yeses, and I guess your most famous no was Prince. But first of all, I want to know what song did you try to parody of Prince?

And then what's the asking process? well there were about a half a dozen songs that I approached Prince for one of them was going to be in my movie UHF like which was let's let's go crazy but with the lyrics of the Beverly Hillbillies theme song uh then tin the man named jane oh wow

would have been fun uh there at 1999 I wanted to do that about like a mr. Ron Popeill kind of like ad for like you can buy this for 19 99. That would have been brilliant. And they were like a half a dozen like that that I wanted to try, but You know you can now. Well, you said... No, no, no. Oh, they welcome it now. No, no. Prince isn't going to change his mind now. That's the thing.

You know, and I respect the artist's wishes, you know. So you're made his wish that like, even if his family who's like... You would know that he would know that he would reject you. It's not their wishes. I'm concerned about it as Prince's wishes. And, you know... That's awfully nice of the same. Good man. Good man. But, dog. Did you at least demo it?

Yes, you demo it is. There's no need to do a demo for parody because you know how it goes. Right. Right? I mean. You didn't do a full-scale 1999 demo. I did not. You know, for a lot of songs, I don't even write any lyrics until I get permission because it's really a bummer to.

Heartbreak. Yeah, because I spend sometimes like weeks on a single song and to go through all that effort and then to go, yeah, I don't really like parodies. You know, that's a heartbreak. So how far, did you get to the point of asking, can I do a problem? parody or asking can I do a parody of and this is what I'm doing? No, we always, we always pitch a specific idea. So we always say we want to do parody of this song and here's the general idea.

I don't know where I heard from. I think someone had asked him a question about it and he, he said something like, actually I'd like him or whatever, but it wasn't an eye roll or like a, no, my song's going to never, but the only thing I've heard, I've heard audio of him talking about my fat video. Yeah, I was going to ask him. Maybe he said something else, but he was cracking up about that. And he liked that at the time. So, that's nice.

Oh, what do you say? It's a rehearsal tape. And he's basically asking the band if they saw the video for fat. And he's like talking about him in the fat suit. And he's just like cracking up the entire time he's telling the story. It's pretty great. That would have been encouraging. Yeah.

That would have been. Damn, man. Now, you would have killed 1990. Can you think of the other princerns that you tracked? Those were my favorites. I think, I think, there was something with when Doves Cry. I think of like a fast food guy, one spuds fry or something like that. Another food song.

Another food song. How do ideas come to you? Like, do you have these dictophones on standby or, you know, like, just when moments, like. Well, in the very beginning, it was just like whatever stupid idea came to my head and go, oh, I'll go with that. But after I started getting some success and realizing people actually, you know, care about what I do. lot of people will obsess over it. I think, well, I should put some more effort into this. So now whenever I find a song that I think has potential for parody, I'll think of like a hundred

ideas for it. I'll think of every variation on the theme I possibly can. I'm very analytical about it. I'll go down a list and try to see which of those ideas have any comedic potential and would be able to sustain comedy for three or three and a half minutes. And sometimes none of them do. I mean, sometimes they're all bad ideas, but if I'm lucky, one will stand out. So are you obsessively reading Billboard and listening to music and... I certainly used to. I haven't been that obsessive in the last couple of years. I'm kind of slowing down a little bit.

I'm looking at other projects. But in the thick of it, when I'm actively trying to figure out what are the parodies, yeah, I'm listening to Top 40 Radio and definitely studying Billboard. Well, I was going to say, like, you know, there's always as a musician and as a as a music fan, there's a point in your life where you're actually engaged in contemporary music culture. And then there's a point where you're like, you feel like, I hate music now.

Or not I hate music, but it's. Well, I'll tell you, I like top 40 music. I like that, but it's not my first choice. I mean, if I could listen to any radio station, I wouldn't automatically listen to the top 20 hits, you know. So whenever I was, it wasn't that I was not enjoying it, kind of felt like I was on the clock. You know, I was working.

Yeah, I was going to say, does it make it harder for you now? Like, if you hear something as insanely popular as bad and boozy, or Bodak Yellow, and you're like, okay, I know this is, this can be an instant viral moment for me, but am I really emotionally invested to? That would be interesting, though, Bodek. That would be interesting, weird out parody. Yeah. Well, I'll consider all that.

They both would. Yeah. Wait, what did you say? I said they both would be. Oh, I thought you said they both are parodies. Oh, well, I mean, that's too. What's your actual favorite type of music, like, when you're just at home? Mostly, like, Viking songs and whaling music.

Great, you know. Thank you. Like 13th century stuff. Wow. So, like, Game of Thrones? Oh, no, that's too. Well, contemporary. That stuff's still better than pop music today, so.

That's when music was good. Yeah, like I don't particularly engage in the music that I make a living in, but, you know, I mean, if I'm driving in a car, I'd rather listen to jazz and something completely opposite, or at least to get inspired. I find I listen a lot to the music that I was listening to in high school and college. That's sort of like my comfort food of music. It's sort of like, oh, that's what I'm asking you. What kind of stuff is that? You know, it's a lot of British invasion stuff, a lot of singer-songwriter stuff from the 70s. like a lot of

the kind of the garage bands from the 90s kind of thing the grunge movement a lot of artists that are not necessarily comedy or novelty but have a sense of humor and you know alternative stuff and what about your record collection

you still have your record collection from when you were a teenager you know you know I should have held on to on my vinals my wife talked me and do uh damn we got the CD

like yeah but it's but I but I but I want to stay married so. Damn. Yeah, they take up space. No. I know.

I know. I was the wife. I knew that was coming. Sorry. So on the, I guess the opposite side of the fence. Well, wait, before I get to even get to Michael Jackson,

how important is it to you to sort of nurture relationships? Because I find that oftentimes if you go the traditional business route. Okay, I'm going to parody. I'm going to do something on Rod Stewart. And then your manager calls their manager.

The label calls it a label. Then usually it's like some red tape shit and it never happens. But, you know, if you happen to be friends with Rod Stewart and you're like, look, I have a really cool idea. Oh yeah, I'll be honest for you to bet. You know, that sort of thing. That happens a lot, you know, because sometimes it's just hard to get through to another artist.

So if I ever have a direct connection and I've used that. several times. I mean, that was, I did that with Kurt Cobain. Like, you know, um, you know, my manager couldn't get through to his, uh, you know, their manager. And finally, you know, I knew somebody at Saturday Night Live and they were performing that day. And I said, could you please get Kurt on the phone? And I got to talk to him directly. Uh, wait, that easy? Well, basically. And then I told my manager and I said, Kurt's fine with it. And then his manager could call back their manager and say, um, Kurt's fine with it. How did you pitch Kurt Cobain? Oh, well, this is a famous story. I talked to him on the phone. And, um, um,

this was their first time on Saturday Night Live. I'm not sure if he was in his right mind, but I was talking about the phone. And I said, hey, Curtis, so, I'm at L.

Yankovic, and I wanted to do, I wanted to do a parody of your song, a smells like teen spirit. And he goes, oh, that's cool. And then there's a kind of a pause

and he goes, is it going to be about food? He's a fan. Yeah, yeah. And I said, well, no, that's actually about how nobody can understand

your lyrics. And he goes, oh, sure, that's funny. That was it. Wow. He was a very cool guy. He actually wrote some very nice things about me in his journals.

Remember when they published the Kurt Cobain journals? Yeah. He wrote a, well, humble braggier, but he wrote Weird Al Yankovic was a modern rock genius in his journal. You are? I mean, no, dog, you are. 2%. That is the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter.

And on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. I'll be speaking with writers, researchers, and other health and fitness experts, and more, to look past the impractical and way too complex pseudoscience that dominates the wellness industry. We really believe that seed oils were inherently inflammatory. We got it wrong.

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Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you doing Edit at the height of Michael Mania, I would think that it was actually easier to get permission from Prince at that time. Then Michael Jackson. But then Michael's like one of your most accommodating.

That was a real shot in the dark because, you know, at that time I certainly wasn't any, you know, kind of household name. I was just this weird kid from L.A. that was making these stupid records. And we thought, oh, maybe Michael Jackson will sign off on this. Like, ha, ha, ha. But our mantra was, you know, it never hurts to ask. You know, what's going to do, say no. So we put it out there. And I forget how long it took.

Was it a face-to-face thing? No, no, no. I got to meet Michael after the pack a couple of times, but at the time it was just sort of like, okay, Michael signed off on it. And there is a contract. I've got a copy of it with my signature next to Michael Jackson's signature saying that we are the co-writers of Edith. Wow. That is cool. Yeah. Which, by the way, was one of the first records I ever owned. Oh, cool. Wow. Yeah. So, Scotty brothers, were they seeing dollar signs as in like, let's do the video full scale? Or, you know, how did you convince them to? Well, they had I of the Tiger Money by this point. Did they not? Survivor, yeah. So they had that.

Wait, didn't you do, I think you did, uh, Rytha Kaiser? Yeah, very, yeah. I did that in the second album as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're happy about that. Yeah, I think that was probably the same studio the original is recorded in. So that was nice. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And they also had James Brown. Yeah, they had the, it was the, um, real album. Wasn't that all that was? Well, they had, Gravity. Gravity. Gravity. Yeah, a little with hernia. Yeah. Yeah. Got to support those Scotty Brothers artists, you know.

Dan Hartman was happy. I know that much. Yeah. Yeah. So who's, what was the brainchild kind of genesis of the Edit video to go full scale on it? Well, that was, you know, that was, that was in the days when people were obsessed with MTV where, you know, if a video is on heavy irritation like Michael Jackson and, obviously was. You knew every minute detail of the video. And it was very easy to parody because all you had to do was recreate it and just tweak things just a little bit and it would be funny. And at the time it was my most, you know, expensive video because my first video cost like $3,000. My record label was like, oh great, we'll do all your videos for $3,000.

Like, no, no, no, hold on. I think Eat it at the time, my manager hates when I talk money, but I'll tell you, it cost $40,000. $1,000. That was real video money. That was, at the time, that was, yeah, but I mean, that was the best $40,000 I ever spent my life. But how did you find the jacket and how did you get Cheryl's song to be in the video? You could buy the jacket in any store at the time.

It was 1984, man. It was like the Michael Jackson keyed jacket. Even the piano tea you had on and all that. That was, yeah. The piano tea, we had to have an art director cook up for us. But, yeah, the jacket was just off the rack. Like, if you want to, you know, pay whatever it was $600 to get a leather Michael Jackson jacket, that could be had.

Who directed the, do you know who directed the video? I do. That was my manager, Jay Levy. Jay is everywhere. Yeah, he was making a directorial debut. I mean, I storyboarded it out and figured out the shots. And then I said, here, Jay, you deal with this. I was impressed that you had Cheryl's song in the video, the long-haired Asian woman from Soul Train.

Oh, yeah. Who. My idol. Her hair head comes off. Whatever. Wait, was that wasn't a, it was, Michael Peters in his actual head, no. No.

No, I was trying to figure if you got Michael Peters. We did, yeah. Is that his name? No, Michael Peters was the choreography. Well, one of the choreographers was in was, gosh, I'm going to blank how his name. It sounds like Peterson. Well, he was the original white jacket. Yeah, he was the original guy.

Yeah. Was that Michael. Michael Peters. Michael Peters was the white jacket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's him. That was him. Wow.

We asked him. He said okay. Damn. How? How much is the original? to know beat it video cost y'all think I think well I know Billy Jean was 65

it was still under 100,000 Was it really? Wow. Yeah it was under yeah I'm a thriller was a million but I know Billy Jean was 65 and and beat it was like 85 I don't think you did about half the price under yeah like slightly under 100 yeah we

we had to recreate the bar room scene and a few other things we looked for the original locations but it was all they all had been burned down the pool hall yeah that was just a set on stage oh wow man congrats on the details man oh thanks um actually my favorite um thing about your repertoire is your polka metlies and i'll say that the first time that i saw you not on solid gold or um or MTV the Tonight Show

I don't know if you did you did Hokka don't yeah yeah like an 85 dog that was the most jaw dropping that's when I started buying your albums like back then you were just the weird out guy and like oh the Edy guy

whatever you know but when I saw that that was fun I remember we had to have the actual Tonight show band playing the horn section behind if they had all on all the charts. Yeah, so that's the thing. Like, you're not just a parody guy.

Like, you're these arrangements and, and just the clever nuances of, like, how you do the Honor of a Lonely Heart with the clarinet arrangements and stuff. Are you notating this stuff on scoring it? Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, now I use notation software, but back then in the day, I just would print out, you know, or I wouldn't even print out.

I'd use the, you know, know the staffs and just write it with a with pencil right on there okay you can help me and Steve out on this because I'm so okay uh when you do uh the bang your head bang your head right okay the what is the the horn honk that's what is that called we we were looking for it for at least a half hour it's a that's called a bulb horn So it has the rubber thing. Yeah, the rubber thing he's squeezing. I was going through every, like every type of.

That's a bicycle horn. Come on, man. I couldn't Google like I was, I was, oh God. I was looking for her for the longest. But that sounds pretty good. Yeah, that really sounds like a bulb horn. No, it really did. That actually sounded.

And there's small, there's different size ones too. Yeah. You want the big one, though, really. The big one's the funniest one. Yeah. No, because I was going to go full scale with the theme and do the sound effects, but I wasted almost a half hour. It was four in the morning. It was like going through every horn.

You got to call me, man. Yeah. Hindsight, you know. I have a question. Before you move on, you're moving on from Eidt. No, go ahead. So on Eid, even though it was a parody song, it seemed like you were taking the acting and the choreography and everything real seriously. and I was wondering how long it took you to, you know, put on all that weight to do the part.

You're thinking of fat now. That was a different video. Oh, shit. You eat it, right. That was a fat suit. I'll get back to when we're talking about fat. Yes. All right.

Let's go to Derby's. I was trying to make a joke that you actually gained the weight, but shit. I had a few salads and I, you know. Hit the bullhorn. No, I'm not hitting the bullhorn, but I have. I mean, parts of wisdom I just got some from sugar

Steve. No, that's supposed to be when I say something actually Someone tells me. Was there to be stupid your first national tour? I think we did a national tour in 84

which is kind of funny because my first tour is 83. It was very small tour. And I think in 84, I went out with Dr. Demento as is open. act. Oh, wow.

And it started with like Dr. de Meadow featuring Weird Al Yankovic. And the tour started before Edit came out. And we're on the road and Eddick comes out and it zooms in the top 20. And in the middle of the tour, it became, the tour became Weird Al Yankovic with Dr. Wait, was this show syndicated? It was. It was nationally syndicated, yeah.

Really? He did a live show at K&MET in Los Angeles and then he did a separate show syndicated out of Westwood one, which went to, I forget how many markets, but but all. over the country. Okay. So was there, I mean, after, just talk about the pressure of life after Edit, where you became known as the Edit guy. Right. How did, one, how did life change? I think I saw a raw footage of you even at the Purple Rain premiere. Right. Was that, was that a star moment for you? It's like Eddie Murphy came in, then Morris Day, then Weird Al Yankovic. And you have this whole like, I'm just happy to be here.

I think I said, yeah, everybody knew Prince could act, but who knew he could sing? So how different was life after? Because you captured lightning in the bottle. Like even, you know your video made Soul Train?

Oh, yeah. That was my favorite introduction. Donker news is like, and now this is the closest that we will ever get to Michael Jackson. This is weird. I was like, wow, Weird Al Yankovic and Edith.

Oh, man. I was like, wow, weird out is on Soul Train. That's amazing. Well, I mean, the biggest change was that it was really in the true sense of the word overnight fame. I mean, you hear about overnight things like that. And it really was overnight. I mean, the day that Edit went into heavy rotation on MTV, which is several times a day, you know, people were recognized me on the streets. I'd be in the line at a fast food restaurant and people would be staring at me.

I'm like, this is odd. This has not happened before. And yeah, all of a sudden I was the Edid guy And it just changed in an instant Would you look like weird Al Yankovic Even off duty? Like were you always in Hawaiian shirts? I've always liked Hawaiian shirts

But certainly after I gained some notoriety I kind of dressed down a bit more in public I try not to be too loud or garish Started wearing hats and sunglasses I never you know went into the big disguises Because then people like Oh what's weird I'll doing wearing like a dark hat And dark glasses

Wow. So how hard hard was it adjusting to a follow record? Like is there such a thing as writer's block for you know, for doing parody records or? Oh yeah. I mean, every album I start out with writer's block because like, oh, what I'm going to do now? Like, because like, you know, you don't want to keep repeating yourself

And, you know, you want to still be funny, but you don't want to, like, kind of rely on the same tropes and memes and devices that you use before. You want to try to find different ways to be funny. But how is it that you don't want to be pigeonholed as the comedian parody guy when you're the comedian parody guy? Well, I'm not saying I didn't want to be the comedian parody guy. I mean, I knew that parodies were my bread and butter, and I enjoyed doing them. And I wasn't trying to get away from that. I just didn't want to, like, you know, it kind of horrified me when my record label put out a compilation called the food album. Here's all else's songs about food.

Maybe I shouldn't write so many songs about food. I was going to say, were they coming to you like, okay, like, you know, do more, you know, food songs. Well, no, they were basically, you know, the thing about Scotty Brothers, they were wonderful to me. But every fourth quarter they'd go, you know, we could really use some money for our bottom line. We're going to put out a compilation album. Like, really? Another one. You know, like, here's all of Al's songs.

They begin with the letter R. You're like, no, don't do that. Don't do that. already so soon there's like two records in you already have great hits. I'll tell you after two records I don't think they weren't talking about

a greatest hits after two records but they were saying like how about a Christmas album? Like really? I don't think so. No. You know they're looking for any way to quickly cash in

because they didn't know that I'd still be around you know, 30 years later they were thinking like okay you know here's our cash cow let's milk it. Right. So on the opposite side

of the fence were there artist now giving you elevator pitches on how to turn their songs into weird out songs by this point I won't mention any names it hasn't have no no no no I don't mean salacious but well I've had people more often more than giving me pitch they would say like when you're going to get around to doing one of my songs wow this is almost like a sign like you made it when no yeah yeah if he covers your stuff like yeah you officially arrived yeah I think when I'm met Paul McCartney for the first time. He offhandedly

said that. I think he was kind of joking, but still, it kind of blew my mind. Did he tell you the Scramble League story? No, but I didn't know that one. Oh, okay. I was the first original weirdo. For yesterday, yeah, that was his original lyrics, right? Yeah, scrambled eggs. Oh, my baby, how I love your head legs, whatever.

Yeah. So, I know that the Dare to Be Stupid Tour, for anyone that I know that's into you, that was I really truly wish I'd seen this tour. That's the one Jimmy Fallon's always talking about, right? That was Jimmy's first concert, yeah. Yeah, but no, I know like 10 other people that are like, you know, the Dare to Be Stupid tour. Like, what exactly happened during this tour that just changed these people's lives?

I'm not sure. I mean, every tour got bigger and better. Up until then, I kind of felt kind of green and I think it kind of all clicked into place on Dare to Be Stupid because I've seen some YouTube videos of me in concert in 1984 versus is 1985. And there's definitely something that happened to my confidence between those two years because 84, I just seem a little manic and desperate. And in 85, I kind of feel like, okay, I know what I'm doing.

Here I go. So there's probably something to that. The performances just felt a little bit more, you know, on point. Okay. I want to go to poker party and break down your. your harmony game on here's johnny oh wow okay no it's it's it's some serious shit like you i know you think that like oh these small miniscule things are like over people's heads or whatever no but it's it's really art to it like i'm all about the miniscule things how but you're

you're self-produced correct uh yeah i am now with the first six albums were rick derringer so he was officially producing at that time. Okay. Do you, I mean, what was the the give and go relationship on that? Was he just like, do what you do, Al? And I'll just... Well, he wasn't that lawsuit. Am I the guy in the studio? It's like, when you in the

movies, like, you know, that sort of thing. Yeah, I mean, he was in charge of the sound. I was walking with all the arrangements and things like that. And, you know, Rick wasn't saying, we should have clarinets here. It was sort of like, you know, that was my gig. And he would just make sure that he was sort of like the director. He made sure that everything that I did sounded as good as possible.

studio and matching like for matching the the patches and stuff like is that you are you same synthesizers yeah are you actively going after these like same keyboards and the same drums and those sort of things and within reason yeah I mean you know oftentimes if we have access to the original band or the original band members will contact them and say what were the pickups on that guitar what did you you know use for this particular thing uh sometimes a special especially if it's an odd sample. We'll try to figure out where that came from and see if we can license that as well.

So that's not all the time. Sometimes we just wing it, but whenever we can, we like to be as, you know, as official as possible. Have you ever, not blacked out,

but had a great idea that you just couldn't make funny? You know, you had a great title for Lionel Richie's all night long, but you couldn't. I'm a pretty good judge of knowing if an idea has potential. So some ideas might be funny for like a throwaway gag, but they won't be, you know, funny for three minutes. A full song.

And sometimes in concert, I would do a medley of those kind of songs where like there's basically just one gag to it. Like, oh, here she comes. She's a spam eater. Thank you. Good night. You know. And that's sort of like there's really not a whole lot more to say after that. So all the ones that I wind up making the parodies, I think, okay, well, I can build on this.

I can put layers to this. And there's a direction to go. It's not just like a one-joke thing. How many, were these, the Grammys that you won? Were they for comedy recordings or for poker or? They were comedy. They were different ones, though. The first one was for comedy recording.

And that was an odd category because it was singles competing against albums, which it seemed like apple and oranges to me, but that's how they did. it back then. Wait, how? Really? Yeah, because they eat it won. They eat it single, and it won against, like, Rodney Dangerfield's album and Eddie Murphy's album. Like, how do you really get me out? You beat Eddie Murphy? I think I might have.

Shame or. Sorry, I'm sorry. Well, no, it depends. Was it how could it be the singing album? Yeah. That was a comedy record, wasn't it? Then 80, the next one was 88, and that was for Best Concept Music,

which was a category that I think only lasted a few years, but I won that for fat, for best concept music video, which I'm not sure exactly what that means, but I got to win the Grammy. Then I won for Best Comedy Album for Poodle Hat in 2003 and for mandatory fun a couple years ago. What year did UHF come out?

89? Okay, so that's after even worse. Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say by this point where other avenues calling you to do certain things as far as like television. Well, since you brought that up, I had to make a very hard call

talking about UHF. The summer of 1988 is when we were scheduled to shoot my movie, UHF. And that was also when Michael Jackson wanted me to open four minutes European tour. Wait, what? Wow. Wow. What? Yeah. We got the offer. So he was really a fan

of yours. Yeah. Yeah, he liked it. He liked the whole thing. I mean, past, like, I'm really flat about my music. I mean, like, did he buy your records and did he lap it? He tells me he used to show UHF at the Neverland Ranch to his guests. What? He told me, well, when we did the fat video, that was actually Michael Jackson's set. He actually let us use his set to shoot that video.

I thought you went to Horton Skimmerhorn in Brooklyn. No, that's because it was great because that set was built in Culver City, and it was for the kids. Remember, he did like the baby bad when he did the moonwalk video. So the set was like at 9-10 scale to make the kids look a little bigger. But it also great for the fat video because I made the fat video. Yeah. So both of y'all shared that set?

Yep. Yeah. Wait a minute. Because we knew the set was still there and they were about to tear it down and we're like, no, no, no, no, tear it down. We want to use it. And they're like, okay, cool. Wait, Fonte.

Old boy from House Party. Make me some Dick Griggs. Ludi Washington. How do you know that? How do you know that? Yeah. Yeah, I knew that too. Ding dong, man.

Ding dong. Yeah. Ding dong. Lutie was great. He was also in the, in UHF in the movie. He played the cameraman of that. Really? Yeah.

Oh, man. So funny. Lutie Washington? Yeah. You don't remember him from like the Robert Townsend? He was the in a lot of them. Yeah, but I didn't. You guys, you two are the, we read credits and we read the liner notes.

That sort of thing. Were you hesitant? to revisit Michael Jackson a second time around or was it just too irresistible? A little bit. I mean, it was sort of low hanging fruit, but at the same time, it's sort of like Michael Jackson was so, you know, omnipresent in the 80s. It was sort of like, you know, how could you not do Michael? If I didn't do, you know, a parody on bad, people were like, how can we're not doing it on bad? It's sort of like, and that was one of those cases where, you know, like I said, usually I think of like a hundred different variations on a theme and I,

like, analyze it to death. But I remember the first time, I saw the bad video saw the world premiere and before the video was even over I said I'm doing fat it's got to be fat you're gonna have these like

were you already writing yeah I was like I was like you're gonna have these huge people trying to get through a turnstile when they can't quite get through it's gonna be great you ain't nothing you ain't nothing

you must have been watching you must have been watching world premiere videos back then oh yeah absolutely like you had to stay on top of the zeitgeist yeah so

As far as turnaround is concerned, like it's a shame that the internet wasn't around back in the 80s for you to turn things over in record time. So for you, was there sort of an expiration date on ideas? Like, I have to have this out within the next four months or? Yeah,

I mean, because it's like a two-month turnaround between like having the master done and having a record in stores. And they, sometimes they can if they really want to they can bump it a couple weeks but it's still like certainly more than a month uh and that's if you have an album done like if i have a if i wanted to do a parody and the album's like not even close to being finished it's like well this isn't coming going to come out for several months which is why i generally you know the way i usually do it is

i i record an entire album except for one track and i wait for what i perceive to be like yeah the big one like here's the big single here's the big video but and the rest of the album is just sort of like in the can waiting to go Oh, so all the other non-parity ideas get... Right, right. And hopefully those are all songs that, you know, people will still remember and they'll still be funny, but back then, the things have changed nowadays,

but back then it really was all about, here's a single drawing in the album, because, you know, regardless of whether radio got behind it, MTV would play it, and, you know, if you had a big hit on MTV, you had a big hit album. What, in your concert, what is your unlikely,

how can I see this you're a free bird what's the the non-single there was one song that we actually did on the show that I was shocked that Jimmy because I wanted to do hooked on poker

and then thankfully I realized that song was way too complex for Stephen to even conquer it but I forgot the It's a slow song that's on either someone drowns. Now I've got to look it up. It's a ballad? Yeah, it's a ballad.

You don't love me anymore? No. No. Hang on, hang on, hang on. E-clu. Weird all trivia. It's, hang on. It's definitely on Dare to Be Stupid.

Okay. Slow song. But it has this sort of twisted, not. Is it a parody? No, no, no, no. It isn't. It's, oh, God, I hate this moment.

I'm having a brain for it, because we rehearsed it in the, we did it as an internet extra song. Oh, you mean good old days? Yes. Oh, that was off of even worse. Okay. Yeah, good old.

Like, what is your free bird when people are yelling, like, what's a fan favorite? There's not just like one song. I mean, there's not like one song everybody's into, there's like a half a dozen parodies that are sort of like the big hits

that people basically come to expect. In terms of original songs, I think probably the biggest fan favorite is Dare to be Stupid. And that's maybe partly because it was used in the original Transformers movie and people have affection for that. Yeah.

Yeah, I remember. So for you, I guess as a, well, I want to get to the Kulio's scenario. I was going to say besides Kulio, was there anyone that had indifference to the

to a cover that they previously approved but then they didn't like or Not really. I mean, I've never after somebody who's approved the parody, I've never heard back afterwards that they were disappointed. I think

well I heard on behind the music, I think Flea was like not that thrilled the red hot chili pepper was like yeah it was okay I forgot about that yeah wait which song

and it was about the Flintstones yeah I love that yeah he didn't dislike it it was sort of like a me yeah but you know once you're covered

then you're you're immortalized you're super immortalized so for you what is what's the the daily preparation of your band and your tour

and that sort of thing like gosh well there's no like you know typical day you know my my life at home and my life on the road are completely different realities and uh when i'm on tour uh i basically try not to use my voice up i can help it because i've gotten laryngitis and totally lost my voice on tour before and that's not pleasant because if you lose your voice i mean really the only cure is not talking for a week and you can't do that if you have to do a two hour show every night um so i i'm very careful you know, stay out of air conditioning, stay at a smoky rooms.

I just try to use my voices as infrequently as possible. So basically after the show, I'll go back to the bus, you know, probably surf the internet for a few hours. And then when I wake up, we're probably traveling to the next city. And I just,

you know, try not to talk until the sound check. So do you turn off the air conditioning on stage? No, no, no, no. That's a Maritha Franklin. Some people do. Well, I don't want to make the whole world

uncomfortable. I just, you know, just the back of the bus. Oh, okay. I see. As far as your, uh, the ritual of,

I'm having a brain fart moment right now. Can you make that fart sound with your... No, the, uh, damn, the, as far as your,

your, your, your sets are concerned. And, because I know now it's, you do these elaborate changes and all those things. Like how full scale are your concert performances? Well, they have been very full scale.

I mean, I'd love to get you out to a show sometime, but it becomes sort of almost like a Broadway show in that there's costumes and props, and everything was timed out to the second. Like I do a big song with full costumes, and then we play a video on a big screen on stage, which is just long enough for us to run backstage and do a costume change and come back out for the next song.

So it's as much spectacle in theater as we could put into a live show. Having said that, the next tour, which is starting end of February, we're not doing any of that for the first time ever. We're going out and just playing songs. No costumes, no props. And we're playing the deep cuts. We're playing not playing the hits. We're playing like.

Say what? Yeah, totally. It's called the ridiculously, I'm going to mess it up. the ridiculously self-indulgent, ill-advised vanity tour. And we're not playing the hits. We're playing all the obscure, you know,

deep cuts and B-sides and stuff that you'd never expect us to play live. And we're doing a different show every single night, which is fun for us because when we do the normal show, it has, by definition, it has to be the same exact show because it's all calculated.

But the next tour is going to be wildly different from night to night. So when you're saying no hits, so you won't be doing teen spirit or eat it or do you still do eat it in concert yeah yeah yeah not the whole song but part of a medley yeah okay so it's just strictly the non-parity things or yeah we might throw in a couple surprises but you should definitely not come to the tour expecting to hear the hits because it's really all about the stuff that nobody wants to hear I want to do an audience

displeasing show oh okay well I mean well I'm not saying Costello did that but he did the you ever see his wheel tour? Yeah, that was very cool. My friend just told me you do a cover of a radio radio? You know, we do that whenever something screws up which didn't happen

hardly at all in the last tour but there were some tours where we were having problems with a computer server and the computer server does the video and it does whatever click tracks we're using and it's an integral part of the show and if there's a hiccup or if something goes wrong you know it's a train wreck and

And sometimes when that happens, instead of just standing on stage stupidly, we go into radio radio. Like, ladies and gentlemen, there's no reason to play with this song. Radio radio! I get it. You don't change the words to computer computer or something. Just a straight version. Okay. How extensive will the tour be?

We'll during like 75, 76 dates. The show, Emo Phillips is opening for us, which will be... Oh, wow. I love Emo. Really? So he's doing half an hour. my band is doing like 90 minutes and it's going to be I'm really looking forward to it and I'll get to it'll we want a really intimate vibe it's going to be I want it to be kind of like a hanging out in your

living room vibe you know like like everybody in the in the audience just sort of in your living room and we're just kind of being very you know casual and you know spontaneous because because my shows are not normally spontaneous they don't normally like chat with the audience and so I just want this one to I'm a little outside of my comfort zone because I like in knowing in advance what I'm going to say, but I'm trying to break out of that and just, you know, just trying to try to hang. You're trying to challenge yourself. A little bit.

Is that admirable? Your tours, is it just national for the United States or? It's a world tour playing Canada to. Have you ever done other, like how do you fare in other countries? Canada very well. All right, Saskatchewan. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Australia is a good market for us.

We played there three or four times. And pockets of Europe. We did a couple small European tours, and I definitely have some fans over there, but North America is really the main market. When was the moment that you knew, since you dive into so many genres, like at this point,

you're a treasure to all kinds of communities, all kinds of music. Was there a moment when you knew it and you felt it like, oh, I'm not like the other kids. I can do this, I can do that. I can go here. Like before my career?

During your career, yeah, because you, I mean, from hip hop to country to poker to pop to rock to grunge. And nobody says, no, you don't belong here. Everybody is like he's ours. It's hard to say. I mean, I first kind of felt the fame during the, you know, the N3D and Eid days. But I don't think I really kind of felt like the mass acceptance until about 10 years ago. Because people kept waiting for me to go away like, oh, weird Al's still hanging around. What's he doing here?

Because everybody thought, you know, that I was just. kind of phase that, you know, people are going to get tired of and, and some people did. But, I mean, in general, I was able to maintain some semblance of a career since the early 80s. And it wasn't until about 10 years ago, people were like, oh, I grew up with Weird Al. Like, really? Okay. Nah, seriously. No, this is like a direct, you were a direct link to my childhood, like straight up. Like, just everything.

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On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you did the Amish Paradise, first off, where did that idea come from? Well, it's funny. I was trying to think of an idea for for gangstess paradise. And when I, as soon as the thought, Amish paradise came into my mind, I thought, the idea was so good it made me depressed. I thought it was perfect because like the Amish lifestyle is diametrically opposed to the gangster lifestyle. So to see Amish people acting like gangsters, I thought was just hilarious. And I thought, I can definitely do this.

And it made me depressed because as soon as I thought of that, I thought, okay, the machine is going to, you know, happen to action now and now I have to write it now I have to like book video time we have to like figure out the release date and I just saw my whole like next six months ahead of me like okay we're doing this come on who's idea was it I don't know who directed it the scene where all the sweat is pouring off your head I directed the video oh god yeah that should because that was something that I always noticed in the original right right singer LV where he was sweating yeah and then the scene was like yo he caught it too I was like I was like he was hot as hell saying that damn song.

It's air conditioning. And Florence Henderson. Yes. Yes. Was she like your first? What was the approach to her? And how did you get her to? In all truth, we did ask Michelle Pfeiffer first because she was the reason. And then I obviously Florence Henderson gets all the work that Michelle Piper turns down. So we went to her second.

And she was amazing. She was like, you know, she really was into it. She was like sucking in her cheeks like Michelle. I was just really going for it. What was the issue or what was Culeo's problem with the song and how did that even get to be a thing? Because did you have to approve it from him first?

Or did you have to approach him first to parody the song? Yeah, I mean, like I said, I always get permission. And unfortunately, I'll never to this day know really what happened because it's very he said, she said kind of thing. My record label at the time told me that they talked to Culeo and that he okayed it. And then after the fact, You know, Coelio made a public statement saying that he never approved it and that he was essentially offended by it.

And it was horrible because, you know, I like my track record of not upsetting anybody and having good relationships. So that was, and Coalio was fine now, by the way. But there were a number of years that there was, you know, I don't want to say bad blood. But, you know, I kind of kept my distance. So Coalio felt some type of way, but T.I. He was cool. Yeah. No, he was great. Yeah.

Tell me about the T.I. Pitching. I mean, I'm sure he was over the roof because he probably is like us. he was a child and fan of yours. I'm not sure about that. I mean, I don't have a really personal story about that. That was one of those kind of things where, like, I told my manager why I wanted to do, and he contacted TI's people,

and it came back that he was cool with it. Damn, I wonder what your percentage rate is of that. Like, that's crazy. I will say that was part of my pitch to, Camillioner. No, no, no, fancy. Oh, you're so fancy? I'm so fancy.

Furgy. No, no. It's not Fergie. I can't remember. I can't believe I'm blanking. Oh, the girl with the booty. Azzelia. Yeah.

No, no, no, no, not her. Ziggy. I'm so sorry. Ziggy, I'm so sorry. Damn, yo, it's so in the past. We forgot her. Wait, I didn't see that one. But that was, that was one where I couldn't,

I couldn't get permission through their management. We weren't getting through. And I was like one song away from finishing mandatory fun. And I wanted to do my parody of fantasy because fantasy was sort of like the song of the summer. Like, I just, you know, we have a release date. I want to record this, but we don't have permission. And nobody was getting through.

And finally, I basically had to stalker. I said, oh, she's doing a concert in Denver, Colorado. I was like, I'm flying there. And I flew to Denver and I hung out backstage. And literally, as she was walking offstage, it said, Iggy, hey, it's a weird owl. I really love to do a parody group song. Did she know who you are?

I think so. It's hard to say, but I think so. And she said, well. She's just so aloof to me that I wouldn't imagine that. I wouldn't give a damn. But she said, you know, I'd have. to see the lyrics first and said, well, I actually happened to have them in my pocket. And I put them in front of her and while she was reading it, I said, you know, T.I was cool

with it. That was because, you know. Right. It's the boss man was cool. Is that the most extreme that you had to travel to get? It might be. I mean, yeah, I don't think I've ever gotten on a plane to get permission from somebody before. But wait, but wait, Al, because as I'm looking at this video for Tacky, I'm like, so Aisha and the other people that you had my man from Modern Family

Eric Stone Street Jack Black and Kristen Shaw and Margaret Cho When you asked them I'm sure they were like Hell fucking yeah I'm sorry But right like tell me what was there again

I mean I kind of went through my address book And I picked some of my friends And everybody that was available on that day were happy to do it That was the most fun I've ever had doing a video It was just such a blast I mean That was what we got done so quickly

I was almost sad. I wish you could do this all night long. This was so fun. Yeah. Damn, that's dope. How did you approach doing the R. Kelly trapped in the man? Because that was, I mean, that was one of the moments. I'll say, like, you've been, because I'm a person, I work, I do a lot of work.

Like, in TV and I do, like, musical parodies and stuff or show, whatever. And the thing that I think listen to your music has taught me is that in order for something to be funny, it has to be good. Like, so if you're going to parody something, you've got to. to really be singing it. Like, you really got to, you got to believe it. Sure. Yeah, it's got to be believable. And the thing with all your stuff is that it always, it's funny.

But if you just listen to that song, it's like, yo, this motherfucker is really singing. Like, even like the harmonies from the, uh, the junk was this to the other night. The Johnny. Yeah, the Johnny. It was like, yo, he really singing this shit. So when I heard the trapped in the closet, it was trapped in the closet. Trapped on the drive-thru. Trapped on the drive-thru.

That was a trap-in-the-clos is a song that is probably a paragon. in itself. So for you to do it, like, what led to that? Well, that was a tough one to do because that was one of those things. Trapped in the closet was just such a monumental composition. It was sort of like, you know, it was such a thing that, again, it was sort of like, you know, if Weird Al doesn't do anything with this, like, what's he thinking? But at the same time, it was so weird anyway, like, where do you go with it?

You can't really make it more bizarre or more ridiculous. So I thought, well, you know, the humor of opposites, I'll just make it as, boring and banal and monotonous and mundane as I possibly can and just make it about 11 minutes about like a couple discussing what they want to do for dinner, you know? But still keeping all the drama,

keeping all the high drama of the original but making about it is something ridiculously stupid. Man, no, you definitely, you know, that shit was hilarious. I haven't quite figured out how this idea would work, but have you ever considered doing a duets album? I was going to ask, have you ever did any collaborations?

Not as such My first single was sort of a duet Because I did a song called Ricky Which was me being Ricky Ricardo I thought you were Lucy No no no That was Tress McNeil Who now is like one of the most famous

Voiceover artists in the world I mean she's on animaic She's on Simpsons I mean she's like one of the top people But at the time she was new in L.A I mean brand new And we put out an ad in some music paper saying we're looking for somebody to impersonate

Lucille Ball to somebody sing like Lucy Lucille Ball and we got literally two responses and one of them was Tress. Oh, damn. What are like getting backstage paper? Yeah, it was one of those kind of things. And she came in, she was great and she played Lucy in the video as well.

That's the same person that does it on the record. And unfortunately, she couldn't tour with us. So whenever, you know, it was kind of weird because during that first tour, our big single, we couldn't do live. So we basically just played the video, I think back then it was like on a 16 millimeter projector like

and here's our video, you know. Really? We couldn't have my drummer like I don't make it you. You know, we couldn't have him trying to do Tress's part. That's the costume change time. Yeah. Said Terry Bozio did it with Frank Zappa, anything could happen. You ever think of doing other not that I would assume to have known that you haven't, but

other genres, is there any other genres that you would like to dip into? Like, is there a reggae weird? There is. There is. I mean, I, I, I've covered most of the... I'm sure there's some I haven't yet, but yeah, I did a reggae song called Buy Me a Kondo. It's sort of like a Bob Marley-ish kind of vibe. Like a Jamaican yuppie song.

And some of the new genres. I was supposed to say, have you wrapped your head around trap music yet? And mumble culture. So some genres are a little bit harder to parody because there's not enough... Words? Raw material.

Yeah, like EDI. EDI. would be fun to do, but, you know, you can't, it would be too repetitive. Or maybe you could just do polka covers of them. Yeah, that's true, which is what I do. Like, you know. Yeah, a polka, despicito. You know, like, like, yes.

Yes, despisito. Yes. Yeah. Oh, I would like this future. On a accordion. Yeah. And like, no payoff when you get to the top. No drops.

Right. Daly. Oh, yeah, I would love that. Have you ever, have there been any pitches for you to do, like, kids shows or children's shows? Man, yeah, really. I did a children's show in the late 90s called The Weird Al Show on CBS. It was like 97, 98, something like that. But, yeah, it was on for one season, 13 shows.

I was also 26 years old. You weren't the core. You're glad that, yeah. I'll tell you what TV show I would like to see back, come back, and that's Al TV. Oh, thank you. Yeah, I used to love those LTV specials. It used to be like almost one, like whenever you put out a new album. Yeah, it wasn't a peep.

Some people, I used to watch your old series. Like, it wasn't a series or like a special that I would do like every year or every, whenever I had an album to promote really. On MTV. But MTV would play them a lot. Yeah, those were brilliant. The interviews, the fake interviews, I used to love those. Yeah, take people's interviews out of context and play all sorts of random weird videos. I mean, that was back in the day, you know, when MTV would, first of all, they'd play videos.

Do your everyone like this? Yeah. I forgot he interviewed Prince where Prince did something like that with his arm. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Hey, could you do your arm like this? Yeah.

Prince, what do you think about this beach ball? It's multi-colored and it's very fun. Yeah, it's just and stuff like that. But yeah, I mean, that was in the days when MTV kind of, you know, was freeform. They're very guerrilla.

And to some extent, they didn't care. They're like, oh, well, you've got this four hours, just do whatever you want. I would watch. I did whatever I wanted for four hours. And I would watch all four hours. They gave me no money, but they said, do whatever you want. And kind of went nuts.

It was great. Like I said, I loved those specials. Thank you, man. How come you didn't pursue more movies after UHF? I would have liked to have done more movies. But the crushing failure of my first movie kind of dampened everybody. But it's almost a cult classic. Why do you think it failed?

I mean, it was funny. I mean, why do you think it didn't go? It's hard to say. I mean, critics, you know, know, generally hated it. Siskel and Iber thought I was the Antichrist, I think. And it came out, you know, this is sort of an excuse, but it's also true. It came out in the middle of one of the biggest blockbuster summers ever.

So it came out while, you know, Batman and lethal weapon and honey, I shrunk the kids and do the right thing. And, you know, a bunch of stuff was out at the same time. So it would have done a lot better if it'd come out during a slower time of the year. But, you know, there's no telling. I mean, I'm just very happy that, you know, it's found its audience and now it's at least got cult status. No, it definitely has it. When was Alapalooza? Oh,

1993. I have an autographed copy of that CD somehow. Oh, cool. Somehow. So do you often mean, the way that like cats come up to me, like, yo man, can I spit a few bars before you, you know, like people are always trying to I'm certain that every night

there's someone that when you're doing in stores and autographs and of the like, that someone saying like, hey, I'm the new you or that sort of thing. They always try to give me ideas like, you know what you should do. And it's always some awful parody idea that they found out in the third grade, but they were just waiting for their chance to meet me, you know, tell them this great idea of a Duran Duran parody from the 80s.

Oh, it'll be great. How do you laugh them off? Oh, yeah. The stock answer is, I'll get right to work on that. No, no, no. I remember people that meet you and say that, you know, I too want to be in the same. Because the thing is, it's like there's one weird out. And you've literally shut, you shut it down for anyone trying to come.

I mean, there's some like morning shows that do, you know, things on radio. But the thing is nowadays, there's YouTube. There's avenues for people to get their stuff out there. When I started, it was sort of a mystery. Like, how do you penetrate this black box of, you know, of, you know, of, and TV and it was, you know, a little bit harder to navigate. But even if it seems like this stuff now, you have like high humor and your level of humor and your pin game is, is past just, you know, twisting a, a noun and a verb.

Yeah. So it's, it's like, are you, have you thought about like, is there anyone out there, like, that you would like to produce? That's the next weird hour. Gosh, the next word, you know, coming up, I mean, there's a lot of people that do funny music. I love Lonely Island, Tenacious Deep, Flight of the Concord. There's a lot of people doing great, great comedy stuff. As far as coming up, I don't know.

There's a lot of funny people on YouTube, Brandy Rainbow, is really funny. You know, I don't know about producing other acts. I mean, I'd be, I'd entertain that idea, I guess. But I don't know. We'll see on that one. Amir, can you tell the story or one of you tell the story about the Dillis sample with the... Oh, no, no, no, no. You're thinking of accordion.

Yeah, exactly. I don't even know what I'm asking. I want to have a villainy joint? Yeah. Yeah, no, one of my favorite moments with you ever was you, it actually made pitchfork, which is weird. It was like the nicest thing pitchwork said about me in 2013. No, you playing Acordian

Which, you know, that was Brilliant idea. No, but you're not telling Like for the listeners, like me, who don't really know Yeah, I don't know what y'all talked about. No, no, no, it wasn't a Weird Al song. It's just that when Weird Al came on the Tonight Show. Right.

And he had this accordion. I was like, yo, we have to do MF, what was the project? Matt Villain. The mad villain cover of a, accordion, which is basically a song that's looped over in an accordion. Actually, what? I found that loop.

Yeah, it's datilus. It is. Oh, wow. You know what they're talking about, Al? I do. Absolutely. Yeah, we did. Because he was there with me.

You kind of jammed on that for all. I got to tell you, man, some of my favorite times of my life are just hanging backstage with the Roots and playing with you guys. Didn't I see you one year at like a Roots Jam? Like, the Grammy thing, I swear I saw him one year in L.A. at a Roots Jam. You came inside of a rootsham? Every year, motherfucker. No.

You? Oh, Al. Oh, Al. Yes. Is it wrong for me to play for a weird out? Hell no. Cover your ears. I ain't mean it at that time. So I have a question. So did you end up doing 10 records for Scotty Brothers or what actually happened to Scotty?

I feel like they're tied up in a river. Scotty Brothers also owned I think All-American Broadcasting which owned Baywatch. So they're sitting on a pile of money somewhere. I don't think they're a record label anymore. But I was sold as an asset, you know, because they still owned however many albums on my contract. And I got sold to somebody else. And then I got sold

to somebody else. And I renegotiated the contact twice. And each time I renegotiated, they tacked on a couple more albums. So basically, it became a 14-album contract. Wow. And my last album, managed to be a couple of Fund was album number 14. So you just free agent.

Do you get to own your master's or? No, no. But in just 32 short years, I was able to fulfill my contractual obligations. You're still quote on the label? No, no. I fulfilled it when I delivered the last album and that was it. They wanted to to resign me, which is very nice and they made a

very generous offer. But after being under contract for so long, I just really kind of wanted to be a free agent and not beholden to anybody. I hate the idea of just owing people stuff you know i just i don't you know wow i just just want don't want to have that kind of pressure hanging over me do you know who richard cheeses sure yes mark davis have you that's i mean i'm i'm starting to figure out like who's the who's the closest person that could you know that that has a following yeah mark mark does sort of like with lounge music what i do

with polka music he does like you know the hits right of the day like in his kind of like Schmaltz-E-Begas lounge. But is he Latter-day Tupac's your Latter-day Biggie? You don't mess with each other. He's an old friend. I went to school with Sugar Night.

Wow. What other labels did you end up being on after Sky? It was BMG or something? Yeah, BMG and some version of CBS and Epic and RCA and Volcano Records and, you know, and

You know, they're even one of the... Weird sounding labels. Yeah, even when it was on the same label, sometimes they'd change their name or they'd add some subsidiary. And, you know, I've probably been on a dozen different label imprints over my career. How, how, um...

How did it feel? Because your last album actually went to number one, correct? Yeah. How surreal was that your... You had the number one pop album? It blew my mind. It really did, because, you know, it was basically unprecedented.

that the never before had a comedy album debuted at number one. Manitory fun, right? Yeah, mandatory fun. And the last time a comedy album even reached number one was in 1963. Bob Newhart, right?

That was Alan Sherman. But back in the early 60s, I mean, you know, comedy albums go to number one all the time. Alan Sherman had three number one albums and Bob Newhart won, like, the album of the year, the Grammys, I believe. It was like, you know, back then, like comedy was, you know,

viewed as more important. But yeah, there hadn't been a number one album since then. And I just kind of thought that that was, you know, there was a glass ceiling or whatever. It just was like not within the realm of possibility. I thought, oh, I really hope that my last album cracks the top 10 because that would be cool for me to kind of go out in a big way. And then when I found out that, you know,

I had a good chance of hitting number one, it was very surrealistic for me because, you know, I'm obsessed with the Billboard charts. I've been studying them for decades. And to think that I would have a number one album was just beyond my comprehension. That's weird. So you'd have to do a,

parody of one of your songs. That's right. That's impossible. The world of the sports. That weird out of inception. That's crazy. Al, uh, thank you for doing this for us. Well, such a pleasure, man. Thank you. We're such fans of yours.

Congratulations. Thank you. On the tour, on your, on your, on your, you're, I can get your star on the Walk of Fame, right? Oh, thank you. Yeah. It's all those things. Yes. I also have to come back into my roll call. I wasn't lying when I

said that was one of the top ten shows I've ever seen in my entire life. How were you when you seen? I was in my 20s. I was, I was in college at the time and it was like maybe 99, 2000 or something like that. Running with a scissors tour maybe. Yeah, I think it was. Yeah, yeah. And like I considered myself a fan, but I didn't really realize how many of your songs

I knew until I saw you before them all back to back to back to back. No, even sitting here just talking about, I was like, damn, you did do that one. Yeah, and that's how it was. It's like, yeah, I was like, oh man, I forgot about that one. I forgot about Ricky. And then I started realizing, yeah, I remember the lyrics too. And so I'm just like, I'm a bigger weird out fan than I thought I was, you know? And so, like, after that, I started really going back deeper and deeper into the catalog, and it was just, yeah, yeah.

Well, you know, I'm still going through my Red Al phase. Damn, now, you know, my first show is going to be the, the, you should go. Like, I saw this man was hopping around on one leg with the other leg behind his head during, like, it was amazing. It was amazing. Yes. Can I still do that? No. What?

You still got it. Wow. Be careful. Yeah, that is a lot. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and it is done. Damn. And I'm an old man. That must be that vegetarian.

Is that yoga? Is that yoga? I had out my bones removed. Wow. But yeah, one of the most entertaining shows I've ever seen my entire life. Wow. That's amazing. Anyway.

Wow. How do you describe that what we just seen on the radio? So he took his leg. We got a photo. We'll post it up on. Contortionist, Al Yankovic. Yeah. Yeah.

So on behalf of Sugar Steve and Boss Bill and Fonigolo and it's Laia, we thank you very much for coming on the show. My pleasure. I can't wait to finally see you in concert. The deep cuts, maybe we'll just do one of the hits for the encore just for me. This is Quest Love with the Quest Love Supreme. And we will see you on the next showroom. Thank you. Questlove Supreme is a production of I-Heart Radio.

This classic episode was produced by Team at Pandora. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. 2%. That's the number of people who take the stairs when there is also an escalator available. I'm Michael Easter. I'm on my podcast, 2%. I break down the science of mental toughness, fitness, and building resilience in our strange modern world. Put yourself through some hardships, and you will come out on the other side a happier, more fulfilled, healthier, person. Listen to 2%. That's TWO%

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Each episode, we pick a here, unpack what went down, and try to make sense of how we survived it. With our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s. It was a wild year. It was a wild year. I don't think there's a more important year for black people. Listen to look back at it on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When a group of women discover they've all dated the same prolific con artist, they take matters into their own hands.

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