Hi, this is Bermuda Schwartz with the Weird Al
Yankovic Band, and you're listening to My Weekly
Mixtape with Brian Colburn. What is going on,
friends? Welcome to My Weekly Mixtape, the show
that takes the classic mixtape approach to building
a modern playlist. I'm your host, Brian Colburn.
And each and every week, I love to cover all
aspects of the musical world here on the show.
And I get especially excited when I get to speak
with the people responsible for the soundtrack
to my youth. However, my guest this evening isn't
only a part of the soundtrack to my youth. He's
also a part of my children's as well. Serving
as the heartbeat of Weird Al Yankovic's band,
it's my absolute honor to welcome the one and
only John Bermuda Schwartz to the show. Bermuda.
Thank you so much for joining me this evening.
Well, thank you for having me, Brian. So since
this is your first time on the show, let's start
with the basics here. What does the word mixtape
mean to you? Well, the real origin, when we made
cassettes for our cars before we had CDs or could
burn CDs or didn't like every song that was on
the radio, we made tapes of our personal mixes
of the songs we liked. So we put together our
own best of. It was a mix of our best of songs
on a tape, hence mixtape. You got the assignment.
I love it. I did that too. And I did it with
CDs as well. Of course. And we still called it
a mixtape, even though it was a disc. By all
means. And now it's made its way to playlists.
And I still take a lot of thought into how I
craft the order of the songs. It's not just throw
a bunch of random songs on a playlist and hit
shuffle. That takes all the fun and love out
of it. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So let's get into
business here. You met Weird Al Yankovic through
a chance meeting on the Dr. Demento show in a
what I would call a right place, right time moment.
And the first time you performed with him was
in the studio playing Another One Rides the Bus
on Al's accordion case. Did you realize at the
time the musical fuse you were lighting during
that moment? No idea. No idea. And I knew who
Al was, of course. But I met him that night and
literally began working with him that night.
Unbeknownst to me, I had no idea what was to
follow. And, you know, we exchanged numbers.
You know, he knew I was a drummer, of course.
And, you know, I told him, you know, you should
have a band, you know, and I'll be your drummer.
Don't know why I said that. Just it was, again,
right place, right time, right thing, spouted
off. Again, you know, not something I say when
I meet everybody. But there was just something,
something said, You know, you should see this
guy again. And it was after that meeting that
Al coined the term Bermuda for you based on Bermuda
shorts. Yeah, that's the connotation. But I am
not the first Bermuda Schwartz in entertainment.
There was at least one other. And that was on
the Rocky and Bullwinkle show. Oh, yeah. There
was a Dr. Bermuda Schwartz who invented the Hushabomb,
which was a silent bomb. Yes. And I don't know
if Al referenced that specifically. I think it
was more a case of Bermuda shorts. But that same
thing that spawned Bermuda shorts from shorts
obviously spawned that back with the producers
of Rocky and Bullwinkle. And that was the connotation
then as it was almost 20 years later with me.
Now, as important as Dr. Demento was to Al's
career, one would have to assume that MTV played
just as significant a role in making him a household
name. Can you talk about those early days on
MTV and the impact that exposure had on his professional
trajectory? Well, the timing was absolutely right.
MTV was in its infancy, as were we. And that
was a place where that was like the only place
you could see videos. And it was great. It was
a great promotional tool, except not everybody
really had gotten, you know, entertainers hadn't
really gotten on the video bandwagon. They sort
of. Came a little late to that. And so MTV was
hungry for product. And it was not any problem
at all to play Al's funny videos, parodies of
songs that they were already playing. You know,
but again, when I say the time was right for
that, you know, there's really not such a thing
now. There are a million outlets for videos.
The problem is how do you get people, you know,
MTV had an audience and you had to watch MTV
to see that stuff. I mean, that was the deal.
Now there's a million places anybody can put
out a video, but how do you draw people to it?
Because people are looking at all sorts of different
places. You can put stuff on Facebook and YouTube
and, you know, put stuff on your own website.
There's a million ways to put that stuff out
there. But how do you get people to see it? Because
they don't always come to you. Well, they came
to MTV back in the day. And we were there. And
that certainly, that was huge. And the fact that
Al, over the next couple of decades of MTV, still
playing videos, Al was able to keep producing
entertaining product and stuff that viewers wanted
to see. And that got good ratings. and spawned
MTV to bring Al in and do some specials called
AlTV. AlTV, yes. I don't know where he came up
with that, but it seemed to work very well. And
where he would play the videos that he wanted
to watch, and he would take over for between
two and four hours. He would have a block on
there, and of course he played a few of his own
videos, but he played all sorts of other videos.
He did fake interviews. He would... overdub like
different character voices and stuff on these
other you know regular rock videos i mean he
just it was just a fun thing and those got great
ratings i mean very popular and and those things
are all on youtube and the fans still love them
30 35 40 years later as a fan that would be something
that i would love to have a blu -ray box set
of but obviously the licensing rights would make
that nearly impossible between all the different
labels and companies and artists you'd be dealing
with in that situation. Yeah, you know, that's
hard to say. You know, that's kind of the story
of all product now, all video. I mean, do we
need physical products at all? It's all out there,
you know, whether it's legal or not. And the
quality is pretty good. I mean, you know, and
I hate to say it because I have a lot of CDs
and I have a lot of vinyl and I have a lot of
videos, you know, physical product, but I rarely
listen to them. I mean, if I want to hear something,
I just go find it on YouTube or, you know. Or
YouTube. Yeah, exactly. And it's all there. You
know, it's all there for you. And before we dive
into the actual music of Weird Al Yankovic, I
want to let the listeners know all the songs
we talk about tonight, you can find over on the
episode page at myweeklymixtape .com. So we touched
on Dr. Demento. We touched on the early days
of MTV. And now I want to talk about a critical
moment that I consider to be. a pivotal point
in Al's catalog, and that is the time period
between Weird Al's self -titled album and In
3D, because his self -titled album was, dare
I use the term, almost punk rock in its production
style. Then In 3D arrives, and there's this tactical
shift from Al's accordion -driven sound on the
self -titled album. Towards making the songs
sound as close to the original recordings as
possible, which over the years has become his
signature of an Al parody where you can't tell
if it's the original or the parody until the
lyrics actually start. Was there a moment or
a person that drove that transition? Well, there
was a very obvious transition. And yeah, the
first album was very just kind of rock accordion
based album with little effort to. other than
melodically and arrangement wise sound like the
songs we were parodying i mean it was just you
know it was an accordion and that was the gag
and uh you know yet uh ricky and i love rocky
road did very well you know on mtv and and uh
you know as singles but when it's time for the
second album and i i really don't know who came
up with it you know you you want to say the producer
rick derringer uh you know suggested that you
want to say the label suggested it you know not
that the album didn't sell well before but Maybe
we'll sell more albums if you sound more like
the original song. If it was something that Al
or his manager had, it had occurred to them to
target the originals more, you know, meticulously.
I don't know. But that was a turning point. And
that was a huge leap in terms of popularity,
in terms of sales, when we started sounding like
the song, you know, and the parodies, the song
we were targeting. You know, and we listened
to that first album and Dare to be Stupid after
that. The first several albums where we were
in there trying to duplicate those sounds, you
know, trying to keep up with modern production
techniques. You know, we got, we did okay. We
did, you know, well enough. But we got really
good at it later. We got really, really good.
And if you listen to our last few albums, if
you were able to listen to just those, just the
audio, you know, just the instrumental. of the
parody and of the song we went after that we
targeted. If you listen to both of those side
by side, if you like, you probably wouldn't know
which one was theirs and which one was ours.
We had gotten that good. And as a drummer, you
know, who basically, you know, had very little
melodic background, you know, I had to learn
a lot about programming. I learned sound design.
I mean, I just, and a lot of that came from you
listen, but we'd always done that with Al. That's
a, well, listen to this song. That's the one
we're going to parody. That's going to be the
single. Well, That was the instruction, to listen.
But that came in very handy in terms of honing
our craft. And for each of us, I mean, we were
all involved in electronics to different degrees.
You know, I probably came along the latest in
terms of drum machines and samples and things
like that. But I have to be modest when I say
I got really good at it. And I listened to that
stuff. It's like, you know, that's something
I couldn't have done 30 years ago. Now, 30 years
ago, on In3D and Dare to Be Stupid, you were
doing this to tape. Was there a challenge in
doing it analog versus when that shift went to
digital and Pro Tools? Did it make life easier
for the band to be able to capture those sounds
and styles? From a production standpoint and
a mixing standpoint, certainly it was easier
once everything went digital. In terms of what
we did, in terms of providing sounds and playing
our instruments and stuff like that, I don't
think there was a real difference. And I actually,
I don't have a preference. And sound -wise, it
all sounds great to me. You know, people talk
about the analog sound and all that. And I know
where that comes from. And, you know, I dare
say you can duplicate that in the digital world.
Not on MP3s, you know, not listening on YouTube
and stuff, but on a CD or a higher quality item
like that, you can sound like vinyl. You know,
you can sound analog. But whether anybody wanted
to do that or not, I don't know. You know, the
target songs we went after to parody at a certain
point were basically all digital anyway. Right.
So in that realm. you know for us to go digital
that just you know there was no real change in
fact it only made sense to do so and to accomplish
what we wanted to but but i think in in terms
of uh editing and mixing i think a digital platform
and cutting and pasting and and you know pushing
buttons in and out and muting stuff and and blending
stuff was infinitely better than you could do
on tape I mean, I remember the old days when
they'd be mixing songs and Al would record. This
is a thing that a lot of singers do. He'd record
three, four, five, six vocal takes on something.
And he would listen to each of them. He'd go
home that night, listen to each one all the way
through, decide which phrases, which sentences,
which choruses, which words sounded best from
which take. And he would piece them all together.
And then he and the engineer would sit down when
it was time to mix. compile comp the different
parts from these different takes into one master
take that didn't really exist before well that
was a lot of mute this and and you know unmute
that and and pan you know there was a lot of
hands -on to make some of those things happen
i mean there were some times where he split words
i kid you not wow you know on the on the syllable
of course but there were i kid you not because
al is that meticulous And Al was lucky because
we are all that meticulous. We didn't learn that,
you know, it's not like our boss makes us, you
know, be really particular about things and do
things exactly right. We just, we were all on
the same page. So he happened upon, he got very
lucky, really, first time through from first
album to the last one to this upcoming tour with
the same band. Because we just all, he likes
us, we like him. And, you know, it's a lot of
fun. That's a lot of work. Uh, you know, it's
not, you don't just come in and, and just, uh,
play and, and, uh, goof off. Well, yeah, it's
supposed to look like that, but it's actually,
it's, it's a lot of work and, and we're all very,
uh, meticulous and, and, uh, what's, uh, you
know, persnickety about stuff and all that. And
he hears that and he's, and that's why the product,
that's why the albums sound that good. That's
why the videos look that good. He produces, he's
been directing those videos forever. Well, not
forever. Since 1993, I think he directed his
first video. And he knows what he wants and he
knows how to get it. And what he wants is a good
thing. And what he gets is a good thing. And
that's why our videos were that popular. That's
why the records sold the way they did. I mean,
we sold a lot of records for a comedy artist.
We've done very, very well. Oh, yeah. When I
think of music videos, the first thing that pops
into my mind anytime I talk about... because
I went to college for broadcasting, so in shooting
video and doing film and everything else, was
the Amish Paradise video and the whole ending
segment where Al shot it in reverse and then
rolled the tape backwards to show everything.
Nowadays, that would all be done digitally. But
the fact that he had the wherewithal in a time
when there was no digital effects and no AI and
no CGI. to have the horses walking backwards.
And meanwhile, Al is taking the lyrics and literally
lip syncing them. It was brilliant. Yeah. I mean,
that that's a, yeah, all of that would be AI
now, of course. Yeah. But back then, you know,
what are you going to do? Well, you do it in
reverse. You want it to, to look like things
are backwards or, you know, or it looks, looks
like everything's right until you see the horse
and the carriage going, you know, that's just,
that's how you had to do it. And Al did it. And
everyone else was, you know, you always got.
good camera people. And, you know, he just, everyone
has always been on board with him in terms of
how he wanted to do stuff. He was very good at
conveying what he wanted to do. Sometimes it
was a case of showing, in the case of the Target
song, their video, he would show them that video.
He said, I want it to look like that, but instead
we're going to have a monkey up here or something,
you know, whatever. And he was all about explaining
it very carefully. how he wanted it done. And
people were able to do it. I don't know if there
was ever a time he wanted to do something and
somehow it just couldn't be done. You know, he's
always been able to get what he wanted in those
videos. And what he wanted was always good and
was always entertaining. He has a real keen ear
and eye and brain for what works and for what
translates what he's trying to do, which is,
you know, add some humor to some of these songs
in some cases. You know, and whether it's a song
that we're parodying or one of his originals.
which also is humorous and very often targets
some favorite band to his. It's supposed to sound
like that band was doing that song. Now, legally,
obviously, it didn't sound exactly like that.
We didn't copy the parts. We didn't copy the
song. But we got enough of the flavor, the production,
to have people think if Weezer was doing this
song, that sounds like Skipper Dan, I think,
was a takeoff on Weezer. I don't remember which
specific songs we kind of listened to to get
the vibe for that. or going after Hanson with
If That Isn't Love, which Al then, of course,
got Taylor Hanson to come in and play piano on
that, just for some authenticity. Not like Ruben
could not have done it, or not like, honestly,
Al turned into a very good piano player. Not
like they couldn't have done that. It just was
very cool. There was some cachet in having Taylor
Hanson come in. There was cachet in having Dweezil
Zappa come in and do the opening solo on our
Frank Zappa pastiche, Genius in France. It was
just not like Jim West couldn't have done that,
but it was very cool having Dweezil come in.
I got to add two more to that list. Guy Fletcher,
who is a former guest on this show from Dire
Straits, when he was on, he talked about working
on Money for Nothing and Beverly Hillbillies
for UHF. And then in another instance, you got
Ray Manzarek from The Doors to play Keys on Craigslist.
From the band's perspective. Especially because
in these instances, you're bringing the artists
on board. When you're parodying and stylizing
their sound, what's it like having them join
in on the fun, for lack of a better term? Well,
it's very cool. Honestly, a guy did not. And
Mark Knopfler was on that, too. He did all the
guitar on Money for Nothing, Beverly Hillbillies.
Guy Fletcher did the keyboards. But they did
that in England. They didn't come in and work
with us. Okay. Ray Manzarek was up in the San
Francisco area. Al went up there and recorded
his parts up there. I was not in the studio.
The Dweezil or Taylor were in the studio. So
I missed. I could have been. It just wasn't my
day. Those were basically overdubs. Quick note,
though, about Guy and Mark. Well, two things
about Mark playing on that is our version of
Money for Nothing was about five years later
than his. And, you know, of course, he'd been
on the road and parts change a little bit. And
so the part that the guy that wrote the song
played on our parody while we're trying to duplicate
what he did wasn't quite exactly what he did
on his original one. In fact, I have a recording
of us doing it with Jim on guitar who played
the part. And then you listen to Mark and it's
like, it's really close. It's not absolutely
identical, but it's really close. I doubt most
listeners would know the difference. And frankly,
it's Mark Knopfler. I mean, you can't tell them
it's wrong. It's not wrong. You can't tell them,
oh, don't you, did you forget what you did five
years ago? Come on, what is this nonsense? And
I should add one other thing. My brother, Richard
Bennett, ended up recording and touring with
Mark for many, many years up until, well, up
till now. Wow. He joined him back in 94 and had
been recording with him and touring with him
up until just a couple of years ago. And one
other thing, the drums that I recorded, our Money
for Nothing version, are in my brother's basement,
which I gave to his son a long time ago. So there's
all this kind of like, you know, two degrees
of weird Al Mark Knopfler, Bermuda's drums going
on. But having those guys on there is very, very
cool. I mean, having, if you go back to the original,
and Jim West wasn't quite, he didn't show up
in LA quite in time to be on the first album.
So Rick Derringer did all the guitars on the
first album. So that first band really was me,
Steve J., Al, and Rick Derringer on guitar. That's
pretty cool. I mean, Rick's a great player and
a great guy. And that was just very, very cool.
Jim was kind of in the background. And we had
a gig a couple of weeks after we did that first
album. And Jim was already on it. So Jim was
just, you know, he was like this close to being
on that. Actually, I think he played on Ricky
and Buckingham Blues, which are two tracks we
added. later, and Jim was already in place. Rick
did go on to do a few other bits and pieces throughout
the next few albums, but at some point, he just
stepped back into the producer's role, let Jim
do what he does best as well. And, you know,
Rick produced our first six albums, produced
everything through the UHF soundtrack, and did
a great job. You know, in the meantime, Al is
watching everything and absorbing an Al on the
very next album off the deep end for 1992. Steps
in as producer and did a great job, does a great
job because he knows what he wants. He either
knows how to get it or how to tell the engineer
how to do it or to say, I want it to sound like
this thing. And maybe he'll bring in a recording
of something that he wants something to sound
like. So the engineer knows how to tweak it.
But Al got very good at doing that stuff as well
and can, you know, could certainly sit down and
engineer an album if he was so inclined. I want
to dive into something you were talking about
earlier. Could you walk me through how the band
deconstructs an artist's style to honor it so
perfectly during Al's originals, however, not
stepping on the toes of the original songs? Because
in a style parody, and I'm just going to use
Dare to be Stupid and Devo, for example, because
Devo has gone on record saying it's essentially
the best Devo song that Devo didn't write. I
don't care how much studio wizardry you have
without the proper gear and without the proper
miking techniques and all the other stuff that
goes about. Those sounds are going to be so difficult
to achieve. Can you talk about how that comes
about for each and every style pastiche that
you do? Well, you know, of course, listening
to the sounds you're trying to get and then knowing
how to. get them. In my case, for a long time,
you know, I was dealing strictly with acoustic
drums. I would go out and buy different drums
and cymbals to approximate the sounds as best
I could. Now, you know, guitar player, bass player,
keyboard, you know, patches and outboard gear
and all that stuff, you know, you have to know
what they do and all that, but you have to also
have the gear. Sometimes the guys went out and
bought specific guitars or, you know, products
to make those sounds. They say, well, I just,
you know, a patch on this. Keyboard isn't going
to, I'm going to have to buy this other keyboard
that's capable of making this sound. And that
was what we did. So, you know, as it turns out,
I ended up with a lot of equipment. I still have
a lot of equipment. Honestly, 90 % of it I don't
use because I don't, you know, one, we've stopped
making new albums. The last several recordings
we did were pretty straight ahead drum sounds.
And what I use on the road, I mean, I get one
kit I can take out on the road. I don't get to
change drums for every song we do. You know,
my drums are not electronic where I can change
the patch and suddenly my whole drum kit sounds
different for this next song. Well, like it would
for a keyboard player, a guitar or bass player.
They have the luxury of doing that. I have to
have drums that will basically work on every
song because that's just that's what I've got.
I don't have the opportunity to change it. That's
not something they can do very effectively out
at the soundboard. I mean, there's only so much
they can affect my drums. So, you know, it's
not something I can leave up to them. Consequently,
I use very, I dare say, average sounding drums,
meaning my snare drum doesn't sound, wouldn't
sound out of place on anything we do. It's not
tuned so far one way or the other to a specific
song where, oh yeah, it works great for that
song, but it doesn't sound quite right on the
other 18 songs they're doing in the show. You
know, I have to have something that's like, you
know, yeah, that works, that works, it works
for that song. It sounds great on that song.
Sounds pretty good on that one. You know, it's
got to work, you know, the whole way. And those
are decisions I make. You know, nobody had to
tell me to do that. It's just, I know going in,
I better have a kit on the road that's going
to work for everything we play. Well, when we
go in and record the songs in the studio, we
do have the luxury of picking and choosing gear
and making specific sounds as close as we can.
And, you know, again, I get as close as I can.
And there's a certain amount that the engineer
has to take it from there. But there's certain
things I bring in. And I would go into the studio
and bring in. two or three different kits you
know maybe five different snares you know maybe
30 symbols i would bring different cowbells different
tambourines you know whatever we needed i really
would go after those sounds and you know and
whatever i didn't have in my arsenal i would
go out and buy it he said i was ready to record
but i never sold any of it so i just built up
this arsenal of stuff which honestly i'm just
not really using anymore i mean i'm not using
the the bulk of it you know i'm using just very
sort of normal I have all sorts of sound effects
and whistles and horns and bird calls and stuff.
And I just, some of them were used once. And
that was it. You should just set up a kit on
the stage that just has every drum you've ever
used. Just kind of this massive. Stage, we don't
play stages that big. Well, we do, but we don't,
no, there's no. I bring actually a very, I have
a very modest setup. I really do. Yes. And, you
know, was even toying with the idea of shrinking
it a little bit. And I just, and I would think
of all the songs we were doing and say, I can't
even lose like one cymbal or, you know, or one
tom or something. You know, I just, it's got
to be this. And there were times I had slightly
bigger kits and I kind of played a little, you
know, I found ways to use everything, which wasn't
always good. So I've found a setup that I've
been using steady for, well, now 30 years. And
I mean, I use different drums, but the actual,
the piece count and the layout has been the same
for the last 30 years. Wow. And it has served
me very, very well. I can't get too crazy on
it. I never find myself limited by it. I mean,
it's the right setup. And for the drummers out
there, it's a basic five -piece kit. You know,
kick, three toms, snare. I've got five cymbals
up in the air, a ride, three crashes and a china.
Hats, of course. I've got a cowbell. When we're
doing songs that require a cowbell, I have a
cowbell sitting right above my hi -hats, so I
can go back and forth between that and the hat.
You know, it's just a matter of about six inches.
And then I've got electronics. I've got my electronic
pad up there, which had evolved from... Now I
just play sound effects, but back in the day,
I started using electronics on stage, I guess,
the early 90s. On the 92 tour, I first brought
out a Kurzweil rack sampler. meaning that was
the electronics. That was a brain behind a Kurzweil
keyboard, just no keyboard. And when I say rack,
I mean, it fits like in a 19 inch wide vertical
rack or whatever. In this case, it sat on top
of a big road case that I had. And so I had all
sorts of stuff in there, but I triggered some
of the tracks that went to the front of house.
Some of the tracks that we used, you know, the
percussion things and stuff like that. Those
all came from me because I had the most capable
piece of gear to do that. We weren't really.
We always ran video and stuff, but we really
didn't have the kind of sound capabilities with
just a straight video, whether it was a U -matic
or later a beta cam tape, later DVD. We just
didn't have all the sound options on those yet.
Eventually, we went to proper servers that sent
out video and audio, multi -channel audio, and
that Al can configure. He knows how to do all
that stuff. And that took over my having to hit
a pad to trigger a song. for example but my stuff
was so just to play like sound effects in the
tambourine or hand claps or something like that
was so over the top it was just it was ridiculous
well it eventually got down once i had the opportunity
to just i was relegated back to just some simple
sound effects and percussion i went back to a
much simpler smaller sleeker more compact less
expensive situation and less to hook up I mean,
I had to hook up all these other things. I had
a separate pad that talked to the Kurtzweil.
Then I had to get a second Kurtzweil because
if the first one went, the show went down. So
I bought a second Kurtzweil and I had the two
of them, you know, one on top of the other. It
was just, it was getting out of hand. I'm so
glad the video servers came in and someone runs
those and we all just listen to those instead
of me having to start something. If something
goes wrong, it's my fault. So that's a lot of
extra. And again, that's those two Kurtzweil
units and I had two. you know, big pads are things
that are just sitting in storage that will never
get used again, that I haven't used in, you know,
about 15 years. And that I hope I don't have
to use again. I mean, I had to learn so much,
again, at a time, and that was not my first sampler,
but the Kurzweil, and I had an Akai S900. The
S900 in the late 80s was the popular sampler
unit for artists doing a lot of rap and stuff
like that. And it was great piece of equipment,
except it was very, it wasn't extremely capable.
In other words, the RAM in it was like, it was
very small amount of RAM. Meaning, you know,
depending on the sample, you know, you couldn't
necessarily have a sample on there. If I wanted
to have a sample of a symbol with a nice decay
on it, like a 10 second decay, like a real symbol
would have, it wouldn't do it. Okay. So how did
all these people making all this, you know, deal
with? a unit that could only hold a few samples
in it, really. They would have stacks of these
S900s in the studio to all at once generate all
the sounds you could because one unit couldn't
handle it. Well, the Kurzweil could do that.
It was certainly capable of doing that. Anyway,
I finally evolved out of that technology, got
a lot simpler. You know, now I don't even know
if you would have a sampler unit. You would have
a laptop or a server, which, you know, is a nice
laptop without the screen. So that's what it
became to. And none of that stuff is mine. So
that's something taken off my plate. I still
make a couple of sound effects, but, you know,
I don't have that. It's not as complicated as
it once was for me. And I can just, you know,
I can relax a bit more when I'm playing. And
there's a lot less on me, you know, about the
success of the show. And there's a lot on all
of us about the success of the show. But, you
know, if something doesn't happen right, it's
not my fault anymore. And I dare say there were
probably a couple of times that something didn't
go quite right. But that's not why it was taken
away from me. It just, there were better systems
and things that Al could deal with if he needed
to. Like when we go out and start a tour and
he's got a video, a whole series of video montages
put together and those allow us to change costumes
between songs. Sometimes a video will run while
we're playing a song. Anyway, what he'll do is
on these sections between. the songs where we
change costumes he pays pretty close attention
to how the audience responds to certain clips
that are in there it's a montage of all sorts
of different clips he pays attention to well
we're we're already all in our costumes and there's
still another 90 seconds worth of video this
is ridiculous i'm going to cut it down so once
we're on the road he can go in and he adjusts
all that and he modifies it and tailors it to
the show and if if something uh you know if one
of the costume changes if it's if it's a little
too tight he'll put something back in No, you
need another 30 seconds. We'll put this clip
back. So the first week or two or even three
are dedicated to massaging the video content.
Again, Al does all of that. And by the time,
you know, someone that comes to see our first
couple of shows, we'll see pretty good shows.
But if they were to come back a month later,
it would be probably a slightly better show.
Might, if they're like really meticulous, you
know, if they really observant about the video
clips, they might notice that there's some changes.
You know, things like that. And we have some
super fans that come to a lot of shows and they
know. They know when something's been taken out
or when something's been added because they're
that intent on what's going on on stage and on
that screen. They just know every little thing.
And, you know, they're that devoted. They're
that into what we do. And that's cool. I mean,
they're as into what we do as we are. Can't beat
that, right? No, that's, you know, we should
all be so lucky. Amen. And before we move on,
Bermuda, I just want to remind the listeners
that they can hear all the songs we're talking
about tonight in this discussion over on the
episode page at myweeklymixtape .com. We were
talking about the sounds that you create. I want
to dive into your mind as a writer, because in
a lot of these original tracks, yes, you're emulating
an artist's sound, but you also need to get inside
that original drummer's head. and write a new
song as if you were them. So two examples that
come to mind, Stuart Copeland of The Police on
Velvet Elvis or Brad Wilk of Rage Against the
Machine on I'll Sue Ya. How do you get into these
artists' heads if you don't know them personally,
listening to an entire catalog saying, you know,
Stuart here, because Stuart Copeland is not a
drummer that you could probably figure out. a
pattern for, if you want to put it that way,
because he's a very eclectic drummer. I mean,
you listen to the stuff he's done with Oysterhead.
He kind of improvises a lot. How do you get inside
that mind and put it out for a Weird Al song?
Well, you know, again, listen, you have to listen.
And the idea is not necessarily to play exactly
what they played, but sometimes there is a signature
thing. There's a little signature fill or, you
know, a push that they do. And I try and incorporate
those without just stealing parts. But yeah,
absolutely. Getting inside their head. And that's
fun. It's like, I get to be that drummer. I get
to be a lot of drummers and most drummers don't
get to do that. They get to be a rock and roll
drummer, you know, or they get to play jazz and
that's kind of, and they're not out there imitating
and being all these other different guys. And
that's one thing I really, really like. So for
me to sit down and when Al presents the originals
to us, he'll say, you know, sort of get the vibe
from, these two or three or five or six songs
from this artist and that's kind of what we're
doing obviously don't you know melodically don't
duplicate anything exactly but the flavor the
sound just the attitude of the song and so i
mean i just i try and get that in my head and
when i'm listening to these songs it's like you
know i like that little thing i'm going to do
that little thing from this song and but i like
the beat from this other song and then he did
a fill over here that i'm going to modify a little
bit but that's going to be from this song so
i would go from different places and put together
my parts and do that stuff. And usually, you
know, for all of us, Al would was, you know,
we would go through a rehearsal process on the
originals. We didn't just, you know, he didn't
just tell us what we're doing and we showed up
in the studio. The process on the originals is
that Al would do his own demo, sometimes just
on a little keyboard. Maybe there'd be vocal.
It just depended what the deal was. Sometimes
he got more imaginative. There'd be drum tracks
on it, you know, drum machine track, you know,
just to give us an idea of what he what the song
was, what the arrangement is, the tempo and melodically
what he's trying to do. We would listen to that.
We would get together as a band then with him
and rehearse those after we'd listened to his
demos and we would record band demos with Al.
So now Al's got, you know, a full band version
with him of that song that he can listen to and
sort of. you know oh this is really close or
you know that's exactly what i wanted you know
he would he would massage those parts with us
a little bit you know by email or over the phone
or whatever and we would then get together in
the studio and uh usually run through it once
or twice if we had any changes sometimes we'd
go in and just start playing just start playing
and recording and you know because he'd say the
demo was great let's just you know let's do that
just like on the demo uh sometimes and this is
a common phenomenon You know, you would, you
would think not, but sometimes the demo is, is
really good. Sometimes there's something about
the demo without that pressure of, you know,
we're in the studio on the clock and this is
like for all posterity and this is going to govern
sales. Sometimes you're just in the studio, just
having a good time making the demo and it sounds
and feels really good. And it's, and it's a,
it's a phenomenon called chasing the demo. You
wanted the final track to be as engaging as the
demo was. There's, there's probably, I can't
think of any specific ones, but you know, I know
there were some songs that's like, gee, I thought
the demo sounded a lot better than the final
track. Now that's for the originals. There aren't
any demos for the parodies because we don't have
any reason to do a demo. We don't have to rehearse
them. We don't have to do anything. We, we just,
we know what we're supposed to do. If there's
a tempo change, if there's a key change, if there's
a, an arrangement change, that's what we do.
We come into the studio and it's like, we play
it for the first time in the studio because we
know what to do. And we know how to play in a
band together. So that works obviously too. And
then there's times we don't even, I mean, if
a parody has all sequenced parts on it, we don't
even have to be in the studio at all. We just,
we work on those on our own. In fact, that's
what we did on the last album, Mandatory Fun
from 2014. Every parody on there, there were
five parodies on there. Every one of those was
completely sequenced. Wow. And there was no,
I mean, maybe there was some live something I'd
have to look at the tracks, but in terms of,
of any of the keyboards, any, you know, it was,
it was all sequenced stuff. And, uh, we just,
we work on that stuff at home and then just email
the files, email them all to Al. And we go into
the studio just because we go in and Al would
buy pizza. You know, that was, but we didn't,
we didn't need to be there to do anything because
the tracks are already done. And, uh, I, that
might be the first album. Where every parody
was sequenced. But we began sequencing stuff.
We began sequencing stuff back in 1985. Or really
even before that. But I began personally doing
drum machine stuff for Dare to be Stupid. In
fact, the Dare to be Stupid song, the Devo song,
is a drum machine. Which is interesting because
Devo didn't use machines in the beginning. They
had Alan Myers was the drummer. And they would,
at a certain point, they would trigger a Lindrum.
Which was kind of the first cool machine. circa
1980, 79 or 80. They would trigger what he played
through that. So they would get his parts, but
they would get the Lindrum sounds. So the production
sounded a certain way, but the parts were still
played live. Well, in the case of Dare to Be
Stupid, that was all just a machine, which is
okay. Now we do that live and I play it live,
because I wanted the sound and I thought, well,
what's the difference if it's a machine or me
playing and trying to trigger those sounds? It's
just, we didn't really have that capability.
at the time it wasn't that easy so that wasn't
a question in my mind you know that was just
we had to had to be a sequence part and that's
fine and so there was there was almost always
at least one or two or more sequences on these
albums and again that that had a lot to do with
uh you know did didn't all in my case come from
machines i i at some point actually and starting
i think in 89 for uhf i had a sampler and i had
created sounds I had that Akai and I had to create
sounds, which was not easy without a computer.
You know, a lot easier to create sounds on a
computer, load them into a sampler or, you know,
trigger it through a unit out of the computer.
But that's where I first got into. That was the
very earliest kind of sample stuff for me. And
by the mid 90s and certainly by 99, by, you know,
running with scissors and thereafter, I had gotten
into computer based samples. And, you know, originally
those were triggered out of my Kurzweil. I would
create MIDI files for the sequence of the song,
triggering the samples I had created. So I would
basically play the drum and percussion parts
into the recorder, into Pro Tools or whatever.
With the push of a button, I'd have eight outputs
on the Kurzweil. And if I had eight more parts,
we would come back and we would do it a second
time and trigger like a different set of samples
to make up the difference. But then that turned
into, from being a piece of machinery that I
brought in, that turned into me just creating
the files myself, you know, knowing what the
resolution for Pro Tools was going to be, which
I think was 192 instead of 1644 is CD quality.
Yes. While you recorded a higher resolution than
that. And it was something, something, something
192, which is many, many, many times what it
needed to be. But that allows you to... massage
things without getting all sorts of artifacts
in the sound the higher the resolution the more
you can play with it so i would create files
you know in that resolution send them off to
al and uh he'd walk him into the studio we'd
meet him there we'd hear it all together for
the first time as a band you know while we're
just sitting in the control room you know eating
pizza and uh that's what it became and uh which
is fine you know as long as i'm creating and
making the drum parts I'm happy with it. I think
that's why I got into machines in the first place.
I realized if I didn't do it, he would go find
someone else to come in for those tracks to handle
those drum parts. And I didn't want that. I'm
the drummer. And if I'm not playing it, I'm going
to find a way to create it the way the producer
did on the song that we're going after. If there's
people out there doing it, they're a little ahead
of the curve than we are. We could certainly
figure it out. And like I say, we got... We did
figure it out. We got really good at it. We got
really, really good at it. And I dare say that
I could, without having a template, you know,
without, well, you listen to blurred lines and
reproduce all of those parts and sounds. That's
easy. Well, it's not easy, but I can listen to
it and I know when I've got it and it's done.
Well, if Al said, we're going to do this and
I want you to create sounds and stuff from scratch,
you know, you don't have any template or kind
of thing to go by. You just, you make the sounds
and do it. I would feel comfortable doing that.
I wouldn't have felt comfortable back in the
90s probably doing that. But like I say, I grew.
And, you know, I got to thank Al for that. I
mean, he didn't ask me to. I just knew that if
I wanted to maintain my position as the person
responsible for the drum sounds, I would have
to grow as he was growing, as we were all growing,
as the artists that we were going after with
the parodies were growing. You know, so we're
always like chasing them and we're chasing that
technology. And we got good. We got really good.
So what would you say over the years was the
hardest drum sound for you to reproduce? Well,
there was one that specifically I had to go outside
and get. I went, we were doing Imagine Dragons
instead of, yeah, we did Inactive for Radioactive.
And I had sort of all the parts and stuff, but
there was just, I wasn't able, you know, with
AI now. it would be a little easier to pull the
drums out and get a better idea of what it sounds.
Not perfect technology, but it could be done
in a pinch. Well, I didn't have that. And I was
really, I wasn't happy with the sounds I was
getting for the snare on that. And I didn't know
why I wasn't happy with it, but I just knew it
wasn't the sound on the record and it wasn't
a sound that was going to be okay in my mind.
It wasn't something I wanted to bring to Al and
say, well, here's my snare. And, you know, that
I cooked up and for him to say, that sounds nothing
like the one on the record, you know, that we're
going after. So I reached out to Daniel Platzman,
their drummer, Imagine Dragons drummer, knowing
that he may not have had anything to do with
it. But I mean, the way I presented it was, you
know, is there any way you can find out what
that snare sound, you know. Give me some direction
on it, you know, and i've never i've never ever
reached out to anyone before and asked for their
help But I just this is one I want to get it
right and I just I haven't got it I'm about 80
there and that's not good enough And I hadn't
heard back from him and i'd already had i'd already
pieced together the whole song and a snare that
I thought Maybe would work, you know that in
a pinch and the day that I was getting ready
to send the parts in I got an email from their
guitar player and he had sent me at length the
snare uh a verse and of course worth a snare
from radioactive oh wow the actual snare and
and listening to it was nothing like why i had
what i had cooked up i could not hear at all
what was going on there first off there was a
whole thing where there was a sweep that led
up to like a reverse sound that leads up to the
hit There's a sweep that led up to that. But
then there was a gap between the sweep and the
snare hit. I didn't hear that at all. I mean,
it wasn't even a question of the sound of the
hit. It was this other part, too. So I thanked
both of them profusely, of course, and put that
together for the whole song, made a stem of the
snare for the entire length of the song. And
when I sent that in, I said to Al, I said, this
is the snare from the Imagine Dragons song. Do
not. compress it don't you know eq it this is
actually the snare from the guys in the band
so that was pretty cool and and honestly if i'd
been able to hear that and hear what it did i
could have gotten pretty close but i couldn't
i would have never it wouldn't have been exact
and you would have listened to it al would have
listened to it as the producer and listen to
it he goes it's it doesn't feel the same it's
not quite there's something not there and what
was not there was this little sweep that leads
up to it this little almost like a reverse echo
thing they used to do you know back in the day
and then this little gap for some reason there's
just a little tiny gap between that and it's
very strange very very strange to hear it it's
like i never would have got that never ever ever
but that's the only time that i really had a
tough time with something and reached out that's
not to say i didn't spend a lot of time on a
lot of sounds i mean there were things that were
perplexing and took a while but i got them there
was nothing so impossible that i just gave up
on it well except for Imagine dragging. And I
didn't quite give up, but I was ready to give
up. And I thought, I'm going to give it one more
chance to try and get the right sound. I'm going
to ask them for it. And they did, which was very,
very cool. It's going to make me listen to it
a completely new way now. Well, yeah. It's just
knowing that that's the one tie -in, a direct
tie -in with the original band. That's their
drum. Now, earlier you were talking about when
the band works on original music. And I would
be remiss if I didn't talk about my favorite
Weird Al song of all time. And that's the stream
of consciousness known as Albuquerque. Oh, indeed.
The lyrics on my original Running With Scissors
CD become a written apology from Al. Like, that's
how long this song is. And it's 11 plus minutes
of basically everything I love about Weird Al's
sense of humor. Since the first time I heard
this track, I've always wondered what the story
behind it was and how it came together in the
studio, because there are so many nuances of
how the song follows his story. It feels like
it would be a pretty complicated song to track.
Well, and again, that was a song that Al had
demoed for us to then demo for all of us to listen
to and then go into the studio and cut it. And
we did that. I don't want to say we did it in
one take. I think there were three sections that
we did. I think we got to a certain point and
something didn't happen. It might've been me.
You know, it's a fast song and it's relentless.
And that's, you know, you get past the five or
six minute mark playing at that tempo at like,
I think it's 186 beats per minute. And, you know,
you, you make a mistake. It's like, I cut, we
got to, you know, so we would go back to a point
where we could punch it in. So we didn't go all
the way back to the beginning. And I think that
was done in three sections. which is not too
bad for a song that long. But again, there's
not, the parts aren't that hard. It's just relentless.
You know, it's, it's just, uh, just beats you
up. So, and I felt bad for having to kind of
start over because you got bass and guitar player,
you know, you know, that's, that's as hard as
what I'm doing. It's like, they're going to hate
me, but we, we got that done. We, uh, the, well,
the, the fun part though, was to come when we
would do it live in concert. It's been my white
whale. I've never seen it live as many times
as I've seen Al. That song has just evaded me.
Well, you would see us then. Part of the gag
is because, again, it's a stream of consciousness
sounding kind of a thing. And there's a point
later in the song at about the nine or 10 minute
mark, I guess, where Al just sort of pretends
like he's forgotten where he's at and makes us,
you know, he says, stop, stop, stop, everybody.
And says, I lost my place. We got to start from
the beginning. And so we would go back to the
beginning and play the song. Again, so we get
about a 10 second break and we'd have to start
over. And then we would get to a certain point
and Al goes, oh, okay, I remember where we're
at. And then we would pick up, you know, where
we left off kind of, you know, because again,
the music is all the same. So whether, you know,
whether it was two minutes in or 10 minutes in,
we're still playing the same parts. So he would
just kind of pick it up, you know, where we left
off. So the song would become about a 14, sometimes
15 minute experience. Now we all always, always
did this at the end of the night. So we've already
been on stage for. an hour and a half or more
and now we got to do this song that's already
long and that's now become like 14 or 15 minutes
long at the fastest song we do at the end of
the night you know it's like oh jesus christ
so there was one night where we started over
and al just kept going and we did the whole song
again we did it was about 18 19 20 minutes long
by the time we finished the whole thing And I
know I've got a recording of it somewhere. I
know I've got it written down somewhere. And
we're kind of like waiting for him to stop and
then like jump ahead where we left off. And he
just kept singing the song. And that was a tiring
night. I was going to say, that feels like something
that should be released digitally. I'm just throwing
that out in the universe. And the good news is,
it's just as hard for him as it is for us. So
it's not like he was having fun at our expense.
I mean, he was getting beat up too. But he just...
He just kept going and I guess thought he would
be funny. And I think, you know, certain members,
you know, a lot of the audience has been to multiple
shows and they know the bit. And so they saw
a very special performance that night as well.
You know, they knew past a certain point that
it looked like we were going to do the whole
song again. And we did. Anyway, that's just,
there's a couple of little fun concert type things
like that. You know, not a whole lot, but I mean,
we already do a long show. We already do like
two hours. eight, two hours and 10 minutes, something
like that. There's only, we can only stretch
something or, or, you know, throw something in,
you know, that changes things by five or 10 minutes.
You know, that's hard after that length of time.
And we're going to continue to dive into the
live show in a moment here, but I just want to
remind everyone listening that all the songs
we're discussing tonight, except for that live
version of Albuquerque can be found on the episode
page over at myweeklymixtape .com. Now. Bermuda,
it's well known that artists have spoken directly
to Al about their thoughts on a parody from a
lyrical or comedic perspective. Have you ever
received feedback or thanks from the different
drummers and musicians regarding the band's performance
on reproductions that you guys have been able
to achieve? I know some of the drummers that
I've parodied. I don't think I've ever had a
comment from any of them. good or bad, which
is fine with me. I don't want Chad Smith to tell
me that our Chili Peppers parody didn't sound
like him. I don't want to hear that. I think
I did pretty good on that, on Bedrock Anthem.
I was going to say, you nailed it. Oh, thank
you. Thanks, Chad. I mean, Brian. But I've run
into the few of the drummers that I've parodied,
but it's never really come up. The guy in Cherry
Pop and Daddy's, Tim Donahue, I'd run into him
and I said, you know, we did a... parody of Zoot
Suit Riot, you know, called Grapefruit Diet.
And I said, that's hard. You know, that's, and
I grew up playing like swing stuff and stuff
like that. But I mean, I hadn't really done a
lot of it. I mean, I'd been mostly a rock drummer
in my professional career. So I had to sort of
get up to speed for that one song. And I, I didn't
do quite as well as, as you know, when we would
do it live. I think we've done that one live.
I know I got better at those parts, but I told
him, I said, that's, that's hard. He says, nah,
it's easy. It's, you know. Well, it's easy for
you. You know, that's what you do. That's not
what I do. You know, I had to step into that
role for that song. And, you know, I don't do
it as well as someone that plays that stuff as
a steady diet or a grapefruit diet. There you
go. Steady diet. Now, I can't talk about Weird
Al without bringing up Pocas. And I've always
wondered about the challenges in connecting the
musical dots between the songs chosen. And I
mean, that could be in terms of song key. pacing,
and what sections of the song you decide to pull.
Can you talk about that polka arrangement process?
Because it's been done ever since in 3D on every
studio album, except for even worse. So in the
grand scheme of things, most Weird Al studio
albums have one. Most albums, and we were doing
polkas live prior to that first album, even.
So the polka medley thing, in fact, he had been
doing it when he would get up in front of his
college. classmates you know back in the day
with just him and the accordion and he was doing
polka medleys and stuff he does all the arranging
on that he's a great you know a lot of people
don't understand exactly you know where all this
stuff comes from you know where these ideas and
where the arrangements but it all comes from
al he's really he's really really really good
at that stuff he's got a good mind for wanting
to hear a certain thing and a good mind for telling
us how to get it and we have good ears for listening
to him and it's uh you know that's it so all
of the transitions the sections of whichever
song whatever tempo changes whatever has to happen
in the polka medley all comes from him and we
just fall into line now we will usually do well
we do we do demos of the polka medley because
we have to play that and we have to massage those
parts so it's not just well i know what all the
little parts sound like you know and we'll just
figure out how to put them together in the studio
well not On the studio's clock, we're not going
to do that. We go into rehearsal, figure out
how to put it all together, make sure it all
works. I mean, sometimes something doesn't necessarily
work, you know, and that's the time to work that
out. Not while we're sitting, paying for studio
time, rehearsing in the studio. That's a very
old thing and an old and expensive thing that
bands used to do a long time ago and figured
out how to stop doing that. Well, Al knew that
right away. You know, he'd rather pay for a rehearsal
room at 12 bucks an hour. than a recording studio
at whatever they're going to bill him back for,
you know, when the album sells. So those things
that all of that stuff, the beauty of those polkas
all comes from Al. And we've done, it's interesting,
now that I think of it, we've done since our
last album, and I hate to call it our last album,
but that could very well, you know, in 2014,
Mandatory Fun, be our last actual album of, you
know, a dozen songs, that almost everything we've
done since then has been a polka. We did the
Hamilton polka. Yep. We did polka versions of
Portugal the Man songs. There were two songs,
Feel It Still and there was one other. And we
did, those weren't polka medleys, but we did
a straight polka version of that. And we got
their actual tracks and just basically took the
drums out. I think we used their vocals. We basically
provided the music track. I think Al put accordion
on it. I polka -fied it with the drum beats.
And we did those two songs for them. We did,
as an Al Polka, we did Polka Mania, which came
out in 2024 and was basically, since it had been
10 years since our last album had come out, since
our last Polka as well had come out, he wanted
to include 10 years worth of hit songs in the
Polka Mania song. So that covers a 10 -year period
since the last Polka that we had done, the last
Polka medley. And then that was something also
new that we could do on the Bigger and Weirder
tour. So we do polka medley is, is, uh, comes
on early in the show. And, uh, so that's, that's
a new song as it were. There's one other new
song that we do in concert now that was done
actually as part of the, uh, weird, the Al Yankovic
story biopic with Daniel Radcliffe and et cetera,
et cetera. And we did it. We did a side. Now
with the band recorded, I think just about all
of the songs you hear in there, whenever there's,
there's a live shot and all that, that's us.
playing the stuff live we re -recorded things
live in some cases having to go back to earlier
versions of the way we do things now because
it had to sound like it was 1985 so we we had
to kind of relearn what we were doing 40 years
ago but there was a new song in there that played
over the ending credits called now you know and
it's al sort of talking about you know, how all
this stuff you just saw in the movie, none of
which is true, you know, talking about, you know,
well, this is, this happened, you know, and it's
absolutely true. And now, now, you know, you
know, and it's, uh, it wasn't, none of it was
true, but actually it might be more interesting
than the truth. I don't know. I thought it was
a great movie. Oh, I loved it. I thought it was
done really well. I thought the acting was really
good. You don't necessarily, it helps to be an
Al fan, but you don't have to be an Al fan to
appreciate it. It's not like silly and misguided
and poorly done. It's just, it's very dramatic
at times. I mean, it's very dark at times, but
I think it's really, really well done. The pool
party scene in that movie is one of the best
uses of cameos I think I've ever seen. Yeah.
And it's interesting, not only were there people
in there portraying you know, well -known people.
There were well -known people in there as well.
You know, you had Conan O 'Brien playing Andy
Warhol. You know, I mean, that's really cool.
You could have got someone else to look like
Warhol, but no, it was cooler to have him do
it. It's funny that the other people that they
got to try and look like Alice Cooper and, you
know, the other people in there and Pee Wee Herman
didn't quite really, you know, I mean, but that
was okay. You knew who they were supposed to
be. And there are a lot, I still look at that
scene and I still think. That's somebody from
the B -52s in there. That's supposed to be like,
you know, Cindy Wilson or something. Anyway,
but we do that song, Now You Know, we do that
live, which is a fun song to do. You know, so
that's something new for the tour as well. So,
you know, there is the danger of going out on
the road and not having very much new product
in a long time. But there's also our fan base
is with us. And not only that, it's grown a lot.
And I'm not sure how that's happened without
the... benefit of any new albums. I mean, there's
been some new things happening, but an actual
album and a theme tour and stuff like that, we
really, we haven't done that. There's just the
fans are with us. Now, what Al has done is, you
know, so it's not just going to see the same
show or the same production. He's changed that
up a little bit over the last few years. We did
a couple of tours where we were kind of stripped
down. It was the self -indulgent vanity tour,
meaning, you know, it was just originals. And
he thought, you know, we didn't need costumes
and we don't need videos. And we'll just sit
there and play for two hours. And we'll just
play to our hardcore fans that love the originals.
And they did. They loved it. Saw that tour. That
was amazing. And we did, you know, it's mostly
a theater tour. And, you know, so we're playing,
you know, 1800, 2500, 3200 seat places. One of
the tours we did, in fact, the tour we did for
mandatory fun, we didn't tour when that came
out. We toured the next year and the year after,
2015 and 16. And we played the Hollywood Bowl
here in LA. We did two nights at the Hollywood
Bowl, in fact. And we played during the summer
and the Hollywood Bowl, I guess that's partly
their concert season. And so they said, well,
you know, if you're going to play here. You know,
you're putting the orchestra out of work. You
know, you have to hire the orchestra. You don't
have to have them play with you. You could just
pay them off, you know, but they have to be paid.
So Al says, no, they can play with us. They'll
write the charts, right? They said, oh yeah,
they'll do what they need to do, but they're
going to play on every song that you play. And
he said, okay. Again, not the first time an orchestra's
played behind a rock band, but that was, we got
paired up with an orchestra and a great orchestra,
I should add. And we rehearsed with them that
day. We were in the middle of the tour. And we
rehearsed with them that day and went through
everything and it was great. It really sounded
great. And we did the show and it was great.
Did the show the next night. Great. So Al gets
it in his head that it would be cool to do an
orchestral tour. Okay. So this is 2015 or 16.
The problem is he already has this vanity tour
in mind for 2018. So, you know, you don't want
to change that. So that wasn't going to be the
orchestral tour. We're still going to do the
vanity tour and then put together an orchestral
tour, which we did in 2019. and we had we didn't
travel with an orchestra that's really expensive
but we would have sometimes there was an actual
real orchestra like the colorado symphony or
the national symphony out in washington dc you
know an existing proper orchestra or they would
put together a bunch of people from the union
and they put together you know 40 50 people and
it would be what they call a scratch orchestra
you know and and they all had music of course
they would rehearse the show during the day but
they would rehearse to a track of us playing
the show So we didn't have to do an entire show
and then come back and do an entire show. Granted,
they did, but, you know, violin players and stuff
like that don't put out quite as much energy
as we all do, certainly not Al. Right. So they
would rehearse to a performance of ours, and
then we would play together for the first time
that night, that show. And there were a couple
of areas, metro areas, where we would play around,
and we would have the same orchestra, you know,
like we'd come back in a month and play that
same area, and it'd be the same orchestra that
would play. In LA, we played a lot of famous
players, played in the orchestra. We're hired
to play at the Greek Theater in LA, which is
a 6 ,500 seat outdoor amphitheater. Very cool
place. So we played before and just not with
an orchestra. It was just really cool to have
them. So we had, what was interesting is there
was the harp player that night was, I believe,
Dorothy Remsen. Dorothy played the harp on the
end of the Ricky song. in 1983 that we recorded
it wow and here we are on stage with her and
the orchestra you know 40 years you know whatever
later that was pretty cool that's a full circle
moment if i've ever heard one yeah and not not
a lot of those i mean you know but that was a
cool one that was you know so we and i was it's
funny i was there when she recorded that because
i was hanging around the studio i have photos
of her from from there so i know i was there
And so I had met her, this has been however many
years, 30, was it 2019? So 36 years, close enough
to 40. But anyway, that was pretty cool. And
I made sure to bring Al out and like reintroduce
him because that's not something we would have
thought of running into people that had played
on our records before, but it happens. You know,
it's a small circle of pros that everyone works
with and as do we. Now those two tours probably
served as almost, I don't want to use the word
palate cleanser, but. As a little bit something
outside the norm from what you did for many decades
leading up to them, given those outside -the
-box songs that showed up during those runs,
are there any songs in the band's catalog that
you've never played to date that you would personally
love to break out of the show? No. You know what?
There's reasons that we don't play certain songs,
and because they're not going to be workable.
Not workable as is. One of those, a classic one,
is Hardware Store. There's just no way that Al's
going to be able to sing because he didn't sing
it live live. It was comped. It was put together
from several takes, that whole little bit in
the middle, you know, Garden Tweezers, that whole
thing where he just lists off all this crap in
the hardware store. There's no way that could
be done. And we had talked about, well, we'll
play the song and when we get to the part, we're
going to slow it down and just do it as kind
of a ballad, a very acoustic little thing while
I just talk through it. And then we'll pick it
back up at the end. And we decided not to not
do that. So basically that's a song, unless we
completely change the whole song and then it's
not the same song. Then it's, if you're going
to play the song for the first time, play the
song. We've done dare to be stupid as a completely
different type song, you know, cause we've been
doing that since 1985. So that's something to
change up. That wasn't, you know, we weren't
forced to do that. It just, that was a creative
decision. Hardware store is something that, you
know, if we changed it, it would be because we
were forced to change it. Not because he would
want to change it. Not because he wants to do
the song so badly that he's willing to change
it. You know, and then now you're not doing the
song that people like anymore. Another one that
we maybe could, but extremely unlikely, Genius
in France would be very difficult. And there's
just, there's so much going. And it's not that
we can't play it because we recorded it. Of course
we could play it. It's just vocally, there's
a lot of stuff going on. Arrangement wise, there's
a lot of stuff going on. And there's, we didn't
record that in one pass by any stretch. That
was done like in. 16 or 17 pieces because there
were just some hairpin turns that just we knew
up front we're just going to do this section
then we'll piece it together with that section
again this is where pro tools comes in uh it
makes that very easy seamless so we went in and
uh actually what's funny is we thought that doing
it's like a six minute song or an eight minute
song or something like that or 11 something like
that it's a lengthy song but not impossible we
thought it was going to take a whole day to do
all the parts and we got through it and we were
done in about three hours Wow. Which is, you
know, stopping and starting and stopping and
starting. And we were done and Al's like, oh,
well, I guess we can start working on tomorrow's
songs today. So we got a little bit ahead of
schedule and not that he didn't trust us and
not that he didn't think we could do it. We just,
we all pretty much knew that that was going to
be, it's going to take a lot of work, but we
had rehearsed it. And, you know, we'd rehearsed
it and done it. There's a demo of that. I think
there's an Al demo. I'm sure there's an Al demo.
That's how we knew what he wanted to do. There's
a band demo, I believe. And then we came in and
did it. So we had played the stuff and were ready
to do it. And it just, it went very smoothly.
Went smoother than a lot of songs. A third the
length that didn't require all those hairpin
turns and all the Zappa weird phrasing and time
things and all that stuff. And that was a very
fun song. That would be so cool if we could do
that. I know the fans would love that. It's just,
I don't think we can do it justice. You know,
it already replaces like two or three songs and
it would have to just be great in order to pull
it off. I mean, if I had to vote for, you know,
I don't know if I could vote for it. You know,
I would hate to be the guy that insists that
we do it and then we find out it doesn't sound
that good, you know, after all, you know, without
stopping and starting 17 times. So I don't know.
Really, when we did the Vanity Tours, we did
another Vanity Tour in 2022. We pulled a lot
of songs, mostly almost all originals, except
for a little parody medley at the end. We pulled
out originals that we had never played before,
stuff we played 30, 40 years later for the first
time in 2019 and again in 2022, maybe. So there's
not too many songs we haven't played. There's
things that, you know, I mean, I don't think
we ever played Georgia, the jungle, for example,
that's not really an Al song, but I mean, it's
on an album, but that's one of those tracks that,
you know, I keep a list of what we've done live.
And at some point when we started doing it live,
so I don't just check it off. It's like, gee,
did we, you know, a song from 1985, did we play
that in 1985 or did we not play it until 2019?
So I put the date. So I know it wasn't live until
35 years later, 34 years later. So. I don't know
if there's any really that, you know, there's
a lot of songs. I'm perfectly happy with the
selection of songs that we get to play. I mean,
there's way too many than we can do in a single
show or, you know, in a week's, you know, the
fact that the Vanity Tours, every night was a
different show. Maybe there was a song from the
night before, but there were a bunch of different
songs that were not the night before. Every list
of songs, 16, 17, 18 songs was different for
every show on each tour. And Al had written those
all out in advance. We all got those set lists
in advance of the tour, which in 2022 was like
100 and some odd shows. And he had all of those.
And I don't think there were ever any changes.
It was whatever he wrote out in advance. Those
were the set lists all the way to the end. He
had a basic set list for the tour that started
in 2025 in May of 2023, like literally a few
months after we finished that tour. he sent a
set list is this is what i'm looking at for the
next tour and it's almost exactly what we're
doing so he's he's got a lot of stuff in his
head he's he plans stuff out he knows what he
wants and we do it we do it so the things the
songs that he pulled out that we hadn't played
before are songs that he knew we could do justice
to and i don't know if there's anything missing
we played a lot of originals and a lot of parodies
over the years and a lot of polkas over the years
and a lot of medleys in the middle that included
some of our songs sometimes a parody of someone
else's song just to throw it in you know maybe
we wanted to represent you know uh simple minds
doing uh don't you forget about me well we did
don't you forget about meat you know it was a
song in a food medley every song had to do with
food the girls just well girls just want to have
fun we we recorded girls just want to have lunch
that also ended up in the medley i mean basically
that was a way to represent you know doing a
lot of the parodies we had done or a lot of the
funny ideas he'd have. We do a verse and a chorus
from Simple Minds, for example, and then go on
to something else. There was a Night Ranger song.
I can't. Sister Christian? Sister Christian.
And the chorus in there is motor and what's your
price for flight? You know, something like that.
So it became Burger King, what's your price for
fries? And just a little tiny section. This was
like 1985. And then it was, as soon as it came
into the medley, next tour was gone. You know,
it was something, so things would come and go
out of this medley. So we would, we would just
do all these little things. There's a bunch of
stuff. There's really, there's not much we haven't
done live and there's no way we could do it all
live. I mean, there's just not a show long enough
or an audience dedicated enough to sit there
for 10 hours while we play everything we do.
I mean, I wouldn't go so far. I think I could
handle that, but not maybe it'd be tougher on
you than me. Yeah. I don't think, you know, we're,
we're all on Medicare. I don't think, I don't
think we can handle it. We're going to have to
start bringing a doctor on tour. And let me take
this moment to remind everybody listening, all
the songs we're talking about tonight, except
for those little tidbits from inside the show,
unless they're available on YouTube, they will
be embedded over on the episode page at myweeklymixtape
.com. Now, one thing I've always appreciated
about the Weird Al live shows are the little
nuances within. the performance that goes beyond
the costumes, the video interludes, and the songs
themselves. Moments like during Fat, when Al
jumps up, hits the ground, and then the entire
band kind of bounces in place afterwards. How
much thought goes into making the concert that
experience that lives beyond the songs and videos?
Is that all Al, or does the band throw in some
from time to time? I'm pretty sure that one was
Al's. I'm pretty sure 99 out of 100 things are
Al's. And maybe somebody comes up with something
and if Al likes it, then that becomes a thing.
But it still has to go past Al. But everything,
Al puts that whole show together. He's in charge,
100%. And again, maybe there are some suggestions.
I'm not even sure I've ever come up with something.
It's just, he's got it covered. The chances of...
asking him, you know, you know, or suggesting
something to him and then him saying no, because
it doesn't meet up to his standards, probably
worse than just shutting up and letting him figure
it out on his own. You know, and I don't think
he's got any things that he's put in there that
don't fit or that don't work. I mean, it all,
it's all good. I mean, but he's just that thorough
and he's that good about what he wants and how
it comes out. And again, we're all on that page.
You want us to jump up? You know, if I could
jump up, I would do it too. I mean, I just, I
can't physically do that from my sitting position,
but. I would certainly be on board. And honestly,
nobody's really watching me in the back anyway.
They're focused on Al and, you know, and there's
two guys next to him, you know, Jim and Steve
are on either side of him. And that's kind of
their focus. You know, if we don't jump up in
the back, it's not the end of the world, but
everyone who can does, you know, we've got four
extra people on stage on these tours. Now that's
the bigger part of the bigger and weirder tour.
I don't know what the weird part is. I mean,
so far we've all gotten paid. So it's not that
the money has money. Hasn't gotten weird yet.
I don't know what the weird part is, but it is
definitely bigger. And it is definitely, our
audience has grown and the venues we're playing
have grown. We're playing arenas. We weren't
really doing that, you know, before. We're playing
larger, what they call sheds, these outdoor amphitheaters,
not a 6 ,500 seat Greek theater, but, you know,
a 19 ,000 seat Pine Knob, 20 ,000 seat Blossom
near Cleveland, you know, Wolf Trap, you know,
all of these places that. We really, and Merriweather
Post, stuff like that, that really have some,
you know, big capacity and we're selling them
out. So when I say, well, you know, we go around
and we do stuff for the hardcore fans and we
play for 2 ,500 or 3 ,000 of them a night, you
know, and that's nice. That's all well and good.
You know, we're playing for 15, 18, 20 ,000 people
in some of these places. And some of these arenas
are, you know, 16, 18 ,000. And again, I'm not
sure exactly what happened. It's not for, you
know, because we've got a new product out, but
where things are growing, we're attracting new
fans. And we're playing bigger places and filling
them. And that's a very cool thing. Most bands,
I can't think of a band that's done that. Well,
that's something I kind of wanted to bring up.
So you're leading me right into it because last
year I brought my entire family to Al's first
ever sold out show at Madison Square Garden in
New York City. And at one point, he even paused
the show to take the moment in, which in between
all the laughs that that show provided. especially
for me growing up with his music and now being
there with my children who are big fans and kind
of having that full circle moment for my family.
It felt just as special to those in attendance.
You could tell the people that have been listening
to Al all through the years as it was for Al
in that moment that he paused. When you first
toured with Dr. Demento four decades earlier,
like we talked about at the beginning of this
interview. Did the band ever imagine the road
leading you to that moment? Oh, not, not at all.
Not at all. Every, every, uh, turning point,
you know, every, every new chapter was, it was
always a pleasant surprise and, uh, you know,
enjoyable and, and we're grateful for it and,
you know, work hard for it and we continue to
work hard for it, but it just, you know, we stopped
making albums per se and the growth didn't stop.
It just kept going. And this leap into. arenas
and and bigger sheds that we wouldn't normally
play is just one that's really cool i mean we're
selling a lot of tickets you know and playing
for a lot of people and and you know that's great
i i don't really have an explanation for it i
mean it's not like al wasn't popular before uh
it's just suddenly we're we're asking more people
to show up basically in these bigger venues and
they are and uh that's pretty cool and and playing
iconic venues like madison square garden i mean
we played carnegie hall you know, on a couple
of tours ago. And actually at the end of the
2022 tour was Carnegie Hall. And that's not a
giant venue, but that's a really cool place.
Radio City was a really cool place. You know,
Red Rocks near Denver is a really cool place.
There's just, there's certain places, certain
iconic venues that, you know, if they're not
big, they're cool. But, and Madison Square Garden
is pretty big. I think we sold 13 ,000. seats
there. You know, by the time they blocked part
of it off to have abandoned, I think they, they
can do like 13 or 14 ,000 and we sold it out.
And that's pretty cool. That was pretty cool.
I'm sure Al sold a few t -shirts that night too.
I guess he did. I could vouch for that. And I've,
I've got a book on sale on that tour. And I think
I sold a few books that night. Now the next two
questions, I'm going to apologize in advance,
but after every Superbowl, I inevitably see posts
about how the world needs a Weird Al halftime
show. Has there ever been any remote discussion
beyond social media discourse that could give
fans just a glimmer of hope that this could one
day maybe be a possibility? You would think so.
And, you know, we would hope Al has enough mainstream
appeal. But that's one thing to sell 18 or 20
,000 seats. And that's another thing to take
a 10 or 12 minute block on national, international
TV where ad dollars are at stake and eyes on
the tube. You know, will people sit through 12
minutes of Weird Al who are not already fans,
you know, who didn't deliberately come there
to see Weird Al like they did at Madison Square
Garden? You know, are they going to stay tuned
in? You know, are the advertisers going to appreciate
it? And they have some pretty good artists on
there that attract eyes. I don't know. You know,
I would like to think Al is as mainstream as
them. But in the bigger picture, in terms of
will the advertisers go for it and the networks
and all that? I don't think so. Or they would
have done it already. You know, I don't think
I've seen anyone on there where I thought they're
not as well known or well liked or, you know,
whatever as Al. I don't think that's happened.
I think. You know, I think Al is probably in
there somewhere with most of them. And that would
be a very cool thing. I don't I don't see it
happening, but it would be very cool. I mean,
I will be there if it does. Well, Weird Alice
had gold albums, number one singles. He's won
Grammy Awards on this very show. I hosted an
episode with Patreon mixtaper Philip Bergman,
where the two of us made a 20 song case. for
why we each believed that Weird Al should be
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Is that something that's ever crossed the band's
mind over the years? Because you would be a part
of that as well. Well, it should be, yeah. I
mean, you know, one, there are a lot more opportunities
for the Rock Hall than there are for one shot
at the Super Bowl. Yes. You know, so the opportunities
are there. I don't see why not. I believe you
have to have been... releasing albums for 25
years and that's the qualification which is not
hard to do you know so we're certainly al is
certainly qualified i don't know if it was a
popularity contest i think our fans would have
us in there if it was a question of you know
go to this petition and we'll pay attention whatever
the petition says we'll do it they would go in
there and al would be in it doesn't work that
way there's a committee there in the rock hall
and they make those decisions based on Popularity,
of course, to a certain point, you know, longevity
in the business, maybe contributions to rock
music. You know, there's a lot of different qualifications
for being able to get in. It's not strictly a
popularity contest. I believe they have some
sort of a machine at the rock hall and you go
there and you can like nominate people. And again,
it's for fun. It's just for fun to do that. There's
not somebody looking at that at the end of the
month and going, ooh, wow, Weird Al is number
six on there, so he's going to be within the
10 people we bring in every year. If it worked
that way, Al would have been in already. So I
think that would be very cool, though. Now, that
said, I have been to the Rock Hall and took a
tour of it, and it was pretty cool. I enjoyed
it very much. And it would be cool if it happened.
I don't know. I think he deserves it. I could
not agree more. But again, that's not, there's
all sorts of factors. But I think, you know,
based on the people I see in there, based on
his, he's become very mainstream. And, you know,
I like to say the novelty has worn off. He's
not just a funny accordion player. He's a mainstream
artist. It's a humorous show. He does a lot of
acting stuff and voiceover stuff. I mean, he's
become a very mainstream entertainer. Agreed.
And for that reason. You would go, yeah, but
there's a lot of people that are mainstream.
So I don't know. I don't know. It could happen.
Again, there's a number of people that get inducted
every year, and it's certainly possible. So we'll
see. And I'll be there for that, too. I hope.
Now, Bermuda, as a member of Al's band and having
played on every single record he's released,
is there one that stands out to you as a personal
favorite? I mean, I always say that my favorite
album is the last one we did because. One, it's
the most current. And two, it represents our
best work as a band. And Al as well. I mean,
he's gotten really good. For example, a lot of
his early songs, you know, and he will admit
this, were about food. Eat it, you know, fat,
girls just want to have lunch, you know, et cetera,
et cetera. I mean, I love Rocky Road. I mean,
a lot of songs about food. And you almost don't,
I mean, that's almost not happening anymore.
I mean, I don't know if there's anything quite
like that on, on the last, you know, two or three
or four albums that we did. So he sort of got
out of that phase. And, uh, I don't know if that
means the songs were better or worse, but, uh,
you know, I think they're good though. I think
as he put more thought into stuff and not just,
well, any song that has the word love in it,
I'm just going to change it to lunch, you know,
Led Zeppelin, whole lot of lunch. We used to
do that live stuff like that. Easy to see why
that was never released. But I mean, that would
be kind of the formulaic sort of a thing. You
know, if it has this word, then it becomes lunch
or whatever it is, you know, and I'll just make
a song about it and it'll be funny and Dr. Demento
will play it and we'll just make sure we have
one or two, you know, good lead singles on the
album. It's fine. I mean, that's not to say he
didn't care about what he put out. I think he
just got more dedicated about what he put out
in later years. And the tracks became more important.
They weren't just sort of like, ah, it's an album
cut. That's not why they're buying this album.
They're buying it to hear Edith or Dare to be
Stupid or whatever, like a surgeon. It became
more important that every song stand on its own.
There was nothing on there that was throwaway.
And in that respect, then I would say the last
album, I would say Mandatory Fun is the best
album for that reason too. I will also add that
going into that, Al knew that that was going
to be his last album with the record label. That
was the last album on the contract. And he knew
ahead of time that he wasn't going to re -sign
with them that, well, frankly, albums just weren't
selling anymore. Product, physical product just
was not selling. There wasn't a reason to have
a label behind you to distribute product because
people weren't buying it. And if he wanted to
record something, he could certainly do it on
his own and put it out there. through Apple Music
or whatever, you know, Napster at the time or
whatever, and promote it on YouTube or whatever
it was. He could do all that himself. He didn't
need the label to step in there and work with
these other entities. They're all designed, iTunes,
Apple Music. You can just be an independent artist
and get your stuff on there. That wasn't always
really quite the case. You know, it always helped
to have the label in there to negotiate a release
date, you know, so you could talk about the debut
and then the label would help coordinate all
that. It wasn't happening anymore. The artist
could do it and Al could do it and Al has done
it. So he knew that's where things were headed.
They were already there and it was just going
to get, you know, in terms of physical product,
it was just going to get smaller. And therefore
he didn't need a label behind him. The labels
like they do with many groups and it's called
a 360 deal, 360 degrees. In other words, the
label has their hand in. The tour sales, the
merch sales, they basically, you know, get a
cut of everything the band does because they're
not selling records, you know, so the label can't
profit from that. So, but they still, you know,
they'll get bands in there and they'll, there'll
be some product, but when the band goes out,
you know, hopefully makes money on tour, you
know, the label makes money from that. And, uh,
you know, and the band makes less and it's just,
you know, for some bands that may be an attractive
deal. I think for others, it's like, you know,
we're just, we're giving money to the label and
we're just not, you know, we're not getting anything
for it. Uh, they're just taking it because they
signed us. So that's something Al doesn't have
to worry about. And, and they, they were never,
we never had the label involved in any of that
stuff. They were never involved in our, our tour
revenue or any of that stuff. So that's always
been Al's business. And the records have always
been the labels business. And as they began to
not sell records anymore, Al realized he didn't
need a label. So I have to follow up then it's
been 12 years since mandatory fun. Even though
there's no labels involved, there have been some
singles, and you can argue that the weird soundtrack
with the re -records is conceivably an album,
even though it's a compilation of sorts with
the new song and other soundtrack elements, similar
to what UHF was with the and other stuff. Considering
the wealth of music that's out in 2026, that's
ripe for parody. Do you foresee any new Weird
Al full -length albums in the future, or was
Mandatory Fun truly the curtain call for that
era? I think that's the last album of 12 new
songs. Al is free to record a parody or two or
four if he wants, or originals or whatever. We
can certainly do that, but we're not under contract
to come up with 12 songs before it can be sold,
before it can be marketed to the fans. That's
the real constricting thing. You know, that,
that was always tough. It's like, I got to cook
up songs, you know, and sometimes it was easy
and sometimes it was hard. And, uh, now it's
neither. Now Al can do what he wants when he
wants it. And it just happens that there have
not been any parodies in the last, you know,
10, 11, 12 years now. And I'm not aware that
he's necessarily looking for one. If something,
he, if he hears a song and it pops into his head,
you know, something, an idea, and it's not about
food, uh, you know, he might, uh, He could certainly
do it. And he might say, you know what, we're,
we're going to do a parody. I'm going to release
a parody. We haven't had a parody since 2014,
you know, let's do this. I think it's going to
be good. We'll do a video for it. And, but that's,
again, that's completely up to him. And honestly,
the, the touring schedule is, is enough for me.
I don't miss the recording demo process at all.
You know, I mean, it's not like I'm dying to
get back in the studio. You know, going out and
performing this stuff live is really, I think,
what we all enjoy, you know, most. I mean, yeah,
it's fun to go in and record, but that's, it's
work. It's a job and there's a lot more focus
in the studio than there is, you know, there's
a lot of focus on stage, but it's not quite,
you know, parts don't have to be absolutely 100
% exact. They could be 99 .4 % and that's good
enough. But in the studio, it's got to be 100%.
Right. Because it's going to stand the test of
time. People can listen to it over and over.
You know, that music's going to outlive all of
us. But the performance, you know, being in the
moment in the audience, seeing us play live,
you know, if it's not 100%, it's okay. Now, we
can't be 95%. You know, the fans will know. We'll
know. Al will know. You know, we all know. If
I'm not playing 100%, I know it, even if Al can't
really tell. And I think he can. But, you know,
not that he's listening to me, but if there's
something I've done that's so egregious out there
that people can hear it, you know, I might hear
about it. You know, and he'll say, what happened
to you? Did you fall asleep? Did you drop a stick?
Did you, you know, whatever. But that's really
rare. That's really rare. But I'm happy with
the performance schedule, you know, and I like
playing drums. That's the idea is to play drums.
Not to, you know, it's not surgery about going
into a studio and punching in little parts and
stuff like that and editing stuff together. And,
you know, it's playing live with people for people.
And that's what I enjoy. So I don't miss the
concept of not putting out an album. If that
never happens, that's okay. And I would sort
of like to, I'd like to see a parody or something
come up again. It's possible. Anything's possible.
But I'd love to see that happen because I'd like
to get back and make sounds. It's probably going
to be not something I play drums on, but that
I create drum tracks for. I was very proud of
what I did in terms of the sound design, in terms
of concocting sounds, in terms of listening to
something and not even knowing what that producer
did to get those sounds, but listening to it
and in my head and with my library of samples
and with my ear being able to say, you know,
I hear a little bit of, there's a little bit
of a rim click on that snare and there's a little
bit of a sort of a. Sounds like a single dark
hand clap, maybe. I don't know. I'm going to
put some of these things together and see if
I can. And son of a gun, then I've got that drum.
I've got that snare all of a sudden, because
that's what the other people did. I didn't know
that, but I listened and figured, well, what
can I do to do that? Undoubtedly, it's the same
in some cases. I mean, those are the elements
of the sound. And in other cases, it's like,
you know, I'm 97 % there. And once it's in the
track, I think it's going to be great. and even
their original producer on the original song
wouldn't know the difference. And it's like,
that's okay. I can get away with that. But I
try not to get away with stuff. I try and do
everything 100%. And I miss doing that stuff.
I miss the challenge of creating sounds like
that. There's nobody else, and I'm in some other
bands in town here, but there's nobody else that's
really doing stuff the way we do it with Al.
Well, on top of recording and doing the live
shows, you're also the official band historian.
You've run WeirdAl .com since its beginnings
in the mid -90s, and you've released two books,
Black and White and Weird All Over in 2020, and
Lights, Camera, Accordion in 2022. With all the
memorabilia and all the history that you've amassed
over the years, is there one item that you would
consider the Weird Al Holy Grail of the collection?
And if there is, why? Oh, boy. Well, there's
a lot of very individual items. Probably the
Holy Grail for a lot of reasons would be his
original accordion case. And Holy Grail because,
well, it housed his accordion, of course. The
connection for me is that's what I beat on on
Another One Rides the Bus. And I've had it in
my, it's been mine ever since. We took it out
on a couple of tours. He got a different case
for his accordion for touring. So that became
my case. I just, I've had it all these years.
I just gave it back to him last year. And I can't
say why. But I gave it back to him. It didn't
happen. What was supposed to happen didn't happen.
And he asked me if I wanted it back. And I said,
no, just keep it. Because all of this stuff I've
got is going to him anyway, in the end, in someone's
end. If he passes away before I do, I don't know
what to do. I guess his wife and daughter might
want it. I hope so, because my wife doesn't want
it. You know what? I know some fans that would
be very happy to take this stuff off my hands.
But the idea is that it's all going to go to
Al. So with the accordion case, I thought, you
know, it's going back to you anyway. Just hang
on to it. That'd be the first of many things
coming your way someday, I'm sure. Now, before
we wrap things up, Bermuda, you had mentioned
earlier that the Bigger and Weirder Tour was
already swirling in Al's head long before it
came to fruition. So I have to ask, what's coming
down the road beyond the Bigger and Weirder Tour?
Is there another ill -advised vanity tour coming
or something else that maybe you can't say yet?
You know, it hasn't been discussed. You know,
I really don't know. Our touring schedule typically
is we tour two years in a row. We take, you know,
two sections out of two years and the third year
is a year off. So 2027 is scheduled to be a year
off. I assume that we're going back out and I
assume that will be in 2028 and 2029, but I don't
know. I mean, there's not, you know, this tour
is far from over. I mean, we're not technically
even in the middle of things right now. So it's
a little too early for Al to say, or to, I think,
have a concept that he wants to pass on about
what's next. I don't know if we'd go back to
the Vanity Tour or not. I think he liked that.
He liked the simplicity of that. But I think
he likes the show as well. And I'm pretty sure
he likes the larger audiences and the bigger
revenue that comes with them. You know, it's
just, it's, you do get a real rush playing for
a big, not that 3 ,000 people isn't big, but
18 ,000 people is a rush. That's really cool.
I don't know. I don't know what's next. I would,
I'm up for another tour after this one. You know,
I'm certainly, you know, I'm in. decent enough
shape and mentally certainly ready to go back
out again. I don't know. I know Al does this
not because he has to. He likes it. He likes
doing it. And that's the best reason to do it.
You know, he doesn't do it for the money. He
does it because he likes doing it. And that's
good. And as long as he still is having fun,
he'll still do this. And you know what? Same
for us. As long as the band is still having fun,
you know, we will all stay in our respective
positions. Now, there's an age range. between
al and and the oldest member of the band not
a secret the oldest member is steve j on bass
he just turned 75 in january and al just turned
66 last fall so there's quite an eight you know
and being the youngest guy he's you know you
assume he's in the best shape and and you know
the most amenable to being out on this schedule
and performing every night and stuff like that
i mean he works harder certainly than all of
us up front there and he's still having a good
time So I would, I would like to see that continue.
I'm still having fun is Steve or even Jim, uh,
or even Ruben, you know, and they're older than
me as well. Are they gonna, you know, still want
to go out and do this, this kind of schedule,
you know, five nights a week in five cities for,
you know, 18 weeks. I don't know. That's hard
to say. I mean, there was probably a point where,
where I just don't want to do that anymore. Not
yet. I'm not there yet. So if Al wants to go
out again after this, I'm pretty sure I'll be
there. And I would like to see the rest of the
guys there too. That's the band. That's what
people want to see. You know, it's not like going
to see Journey and you think you're going to
see Steve Perry up there. And it's like, no,
it's this other guy who has, I think, now been
replaced by another guy. And it's like, well,
yeah, but we're still Journey. See, the contract
says we're Journey because the keyboard player
owns the name. So we're Journey, right? No, no,
Steve Perry up front was Journey. That's Journey.
A lot of bands like that, I guess. You know,
now you can't replace Weird Al. You can't have
someone come in and sing his songs and say it's
the Weird Al Show when it's not even Al. But
all of us, honestly, we're all replaceable. And
I think the fans would still enjoy it. But I'm
going to hang in there as long as I can, as long
as I want to, and as long as I'm having fun.
And it's still fun. And I'm looking forward to
this tour, this May through October tour that
we're doing this summer. And it's going to be
a lot of fun. Got a couple of little changes
in it, but it's going to be fun. Oh, little tease
there for everybody. Well, Bermuda, this has
been such an incredible discussion. I want to
thank you for your time, the decades of music
and laughter, and most importantly, for joining
me tonight on My Weekly Mixtape. This has truly
been an honor for me. Well, my pleasure, and
you're very welcome. And I hope I didn't say
anything too stupid or that's going to get me
fired. I sure as hell hope not. And if it is,
tell me and I'll edit it out before it airs.
How's that sound? Okay. The one and only Bermuda
Schwartz, everybody. And remember, you can hear
all the songs we discussed tonight over on the
episode page at myweeklymixtape .com. If you
have suggestions for future episodes of My Weekly
Mixtape, feel free to hit me up, myweeklymixtape
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And until next time, enjoy the tunes.