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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
May not be reprinted, copied or distributed.
Interview copyright Dorrie Williams-Wheeler, imissthe80s.com 2006
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