Al Yankovic
Al Yankovic
Alfred Matthew "Weird Al" Yankovic is an American singer, songwriter, parodist, record producer, satirist, actor, voice actor, music video director, film producer, and author. He is known for his humorous songs that make light of popular culture and often parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts, original songs that are style pastiches of the work of other acts, and polka medleys of several popular songs, featuring his favored instrument, the accordion...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionComedian
Date of Birth23 October 1959
CountryUnited States of America
Like, I have had moments, which I think most people have, where you'll be watching TV, and it'll be interrupted by some tragic event, and you'll actually find yourself thinking, 'I don't want to hear about this train being derailed! What happened to 'The Flintstones?''
You fake something until you're good at it.
People never ask people doing serious music, 'Do you ever think about doing funny music?'
There's enough people that do unfunny music. I'll leave the serious stuff to Paris Hilton and Kevin Federline.
One of my pet peeves is that sometimes the talents of my band get overlooked because, and it was the same problem that Frank Zappa had, with a lot of groups that use humor, people don't realize there's a lot of craft behind the comedy.
At this point I've got a bit of a track record. So people realize that when 'Weird Al' wants to go parody, it's not meant to make them look bad... it's meant to be a tribute.
As much as people are griping about the Internet taking sales away from artists, it's been a huge promotional tool for me.
The irony is of course that my career has lasted a whole lot longer than some of the people I've parodied over the years.
Some people want to advertise their weirdness, and spread it out, that's not me.
In the '80s, I was putting out an album virtually every year, I think mostly based on fear - that if I didn't, people would soon forget about me.
I don't watch a lot of other people's parodies because I don't want to be unduly influenced.
I've always known that if I recorded an album, it would come out, and people would enjoy it! Whereas if I wrote a movie script, chances are better than even that I'd just be another guy in L.A. with a movie script in his drawer.
If something is good enough, it can be out there and people will see it.
I'm always a little leery about doing shows where I'm not the headliner because when I first started playing in 1982 I opened for Missing Persons and got pelted for 45 minutes. After that, I made the decision to headline no matter what, even if I was playing to seven people. I wanted people to be there to see me.