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Interview with parody king Weird Al Yankovic.
His current album Straight Outta Lynwood is in stores
now. It features the Chamillionaire parody"White
& Nerdy."
I love the Chamillionaire parody "White & Nerdy."
Tell me where the idea come from?
Weird Al-Well I've been
white and nerdy my entire life so I have a lot of experience
to draw from.
After the whole incident with the Coolio song were you
ever apprehensive about doing a parody of another rap
song?
Weird Al-No, I
mean. The Coolio thing was a real singular incident. That's
the only time in fact in my entire career where an artist
has had a problem with one of my parodies and till this
day I don't know exactly what happened there. What happened
is there was some miscommunication because I was under
the impression that Coolio had given his blessing. Apparently,
according to Coolio he had not given his blessing. If
I had known that before I released the song I wouldn't
have put it out because I always try to respect the wishes
and the feelings of the artist.
Now I know you have a huge fan base, but it seems like
the industry is so much more serious than it used to be.
Did you ever wonder if a Weird Al would be relevant on
a MTV or a VH-1 in 2006?
Weird Al-Well I'm
not sure how relevant I am on MTV because they don't even
seem to be playing videos. As far as things getting more
serious, I don't know. Things were serious when I started
out as well. Artists always tend to take themselves more
serious than perhaps they should. At the same time I think
people are always looking for a little release from that,
the intensity and seriousness of life. I think a lot of
people, especially in the recording industry tend to take
their jobs a little too seriously so I'm just here to
here to get people to lighten up a little bit.
Would you ever consider doing a parody about real world
crisis? Like maybe high gas prices and different things
going on in the world?
Weird Al-I suppose.
I wouldn't want to get too terribly heavy. I think a little
of my comedy gets satirical at times and touches on some
important matters but for me it's not so much about having
a deep or serious message its just about having a little
fun and sneaking in a few jokes and a point here or there
if I can.
I just reviewed The Weird Al Show a couple of weeks
ago. Was bringing the show to DVD important to you or
was that something brought to you by people involved with
the show or who were trying to get it out there?
Weird Al-I was
approached by Shout! Factory who put out the collection.
They were the ones that brought it to me. Of course I
thought it was a great idea because even though I knew
the show itself wouldn't be considered a big hit, it became
a cult favorite. The people who were into the show were
very much into it and they had been circulating bootleg
copies of it VHS for years. It was kind of a hard show
to find. So the fact that Shout Factory wanted to release
a definitive collection with pristine copies of the shows
and a lot of special features and the commentary I thought
that was a really nice feature for the fans and I wanted
to do everything that I could to make that happen.
Tell me about your new album "Straight Outta Lynwood?"
Weird Al-Well its
my 12th studio album. It features the single "White
and Nerdy" which is the Chamillionaire parody. There
are parodies of Usher, Green Day, R. Kelly and Taylor
Hicks. Its got a lot of bizarre original songs on it like
"Don't Download This Song." It's even got a
polka medley songs called Polkarama!" which features
polka versions of everything from 50 Cent to Kanye West.
I've always wanted to ask you this. Were you interested
in the accordion because of the musical sound it makes or
just because it looks like a funny instrument to play?
Weird Al-Well I
grew up playing the accordion I started taking lessons when
I was 7 years old. I'm not sure how much I really thought
about it at the time. My parents just decided I should take
accordion lessons. Its just what I grew up with and my friends
thought it was funny. I guess that helped put me in the
right direction.
What have you been doing in between albums? I know you tour
a lot.
Weird Al-Well I toured
it a lot for the Poodle Hat album. I have a family.
I have a three year old daughter so I try to spend as much
time with her as possible. I spend some time helping the
Shout! Factory put together the Weird Al package. I spent
a lot of time working on Straight Outta Lynwood.
People think just because its comedy it doesn't require
a lot of effort and work but it was very time consuming
not only did I have to write and record all the songs I
was involved in the extra added value material like the
videos and the making of documentary and there is a lot
of stuff that goes along with the package for the new album
that I was extremely involved with.
Are there six music videos for this album?
Weird Al-Six music videos
on the album, on the DVD side of the album. On top of that
there's "White and Nerdy," and I'm actually shooting
the video for another song tomorrow. So far there are going
to be 8 videos for the album and six of them are on the
album itself.
That's epic for an artist now a days.
Weird Al-Its part of
combating piracy because a lot of people just download the
album and I figure if I give them enough cool stuff they
will just have to buy.
Are you going to be touring this holiday season behind
the album?
Weird Al-Not this holiday
season. We are probably going to wait until next summer
and we will be touring in the states. We might be touring
a little bit internationally before then but we are still
talking about it.
Related Links
http://www.weirdal.com
http://www.myspace.com/weirdal
Weird Al Yankovic-interview
copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, and Thabiz.com 2006
Dorrie Williams-Wheeler is the author of Be
My Sorority Sister Under Pressure and the Unplanned
Pregnancy Book for Teens and College Students. She is
the founder of Thabiz.com
and Imissthe80s.com
and writes for the Rap,
Teen, and 1980s
section at Bellaonline.com. She is an ASCAP member as a
writer and a publisher. Please contact Dorrie for advertising
inquiries, lyric writing inquiries, reprint rights,
paying
entertainment jobs, or general comments.
Visit Dorrie on the web at at MYSPACE.
Weird
Al Yankovic-interview
may not be reprinted, copied or distribute without permission.
You may link to this interview.Interview copyright Dorrie
Williams-Wheeler, thabiz.com September 2006.
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