He’s the patron saint of introverts, misfits, outsiders – anyone who didn’t belong within the cool kids’ gang.
“Lots of Weird Al fans, we’re geeks, freaks, losers, misunderstood outcasts, Star Wars nerds or guys playing Dungeons and Dragons,” says Ethan Ullman, who co-hosts a podcast in regards to the musical comedian. “You don’t need to be an outcast to love Al but he’s definitely helping in being a beacon of acceptance for many who are.”
Weird Al Yankovic rose to prominence with comical spoof versions of classic songs, won five Grammy awards and gained a nicest-man-in-Hollywood status that rivals Tom Hanks’s.
Now 63, the lanky, longhaired national treasure is the topic of a suitably wacky biopic starring British actor Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. But Weird Al, too, knows what it was prefer to be the goofy one who didn’t run with cool crowd, the bashful boy who never got the girl.
He told the Recent Yorker magazine last week: “I used to be not a preferred kid, I used to be not a social kid. I used to be at all times just a little bit ostracized, because I didn’t quite slot in.”
Born Alfred Matthew Yankovic in Downey, California, he grew up within the nearby working-class suburb of Lynwood, the one child of Nick, a medic within the second world war, and Mary, a stenographer. An only child, Weird Al combined his father’s eccentricity along with his mother’s shyness and, having began school early, was at all times the youngest member of the category.
In a definitive profile within the Recent York Times magazine two years ago, Sam Anderson wrote: “Although Alfred’s grades were perfect, and he could solve any math problem you threw at him, his social life was agonizing. Imagine every nerd cliche: he was scrawny, pale, unathletic, nearsighted, awkward with girls – and his name was Alfred. And that’s all before you even consider the accordion.”
Accordion lessons began a day before his seventh birthday and he was in a position to practice without the traditional distractions due to a mother who was protective to the purpose of stifling. Weird Al lived a mostly reclusive life in his bedroom, never playing at a friend’s house or riding his bike greater than half a block.
Anderson again: “All of his classmates hit puberty before he did. He never had a girlfriend, never went to a celebration or a dance. His parents never taught him about sex. ‘Steer clear of women,’ his father once told him. ‘They’ve diseases and stuff.’
“Lynwood High School was directly across the road from the Yankovic home, and when Alfred went there his mom would sometimes watch him during gym class, through binoculars, simply to be certain that he wasn’t being bullied.”
If the kid is father of the person, Weird Al’s tastes as an adolescent revealed the genetic code of his profession. He adored British artists equivalent to Elton John and Monty Python, spent Sunday nights listening to novelty hits on The Dr Demento Show and devoured the humor of Mad magazine.
He said within the Recent Yorker interview: “I saw my first Mad magazine after I was perhaps 11 or 12 years old, and it was an epiphany for me. I assumed, That is my form of humor. This was something that I hadn’t been exposed to. I immediately subscribed, and I begged my mother to take me around town to all of the used-book-and-magazine stores to purchase back issues.”
Ullman, the podcaster, who has met Weird Al persistently, reflects: “He got here from a loving family, just a little bit overprotective, and a number of the over-protectiveness perhaps is what got Al eager about Dr Demento show, where he found his love for comedy music. It was him branching out and trying something somewhat forbidden, although I don’t think he was forbidden to take heed to it.”
Weird Al graduated from highschool at 16 and went to review architecture at California Polytechnic State University. Anderson’s profile memorably recorded: “As he drove off, Alfred’s parents got of their latest automobile and followed directly behind him. Alfred watched them in his rearview mirror. As soon as he hit the freeway, he gunned the engine and lost them.”
At school, he introduced himself to people as “Al” reasonably than “Alfred” but he remained painfully young, shy and awkward with a moustache and thick glasses. He was not drinking, smoking and dating as “normal” students do. It didn’t take long for somebody to anoint him “Weird Al.” He decided to run with it.
Ullman adds: “He was a little bit of an outcast to some extent. He had friends and his own communities but he wasn’t necessarily the favored kid and, in college, people would give him a tough time and that’s where, as a derogatory term, he was called ‘Weird Al’.
“Al has at all times been smarter than everyone else within the room and he knows to not let something like that affect him but turn it around and embrace that name. I’d like to see what those bullies consider Al’s profession now.”
Weird Al got his big break at the faculty’s open-mic night in 1977 when he and his accordion were a sensation. He knew what he desired to do along with his life. He performed anywhere and in every single place, wrote his own songs, recorded parodies of chart hits, became an everyday on his beloved Dr Demento show and was the proper alternative for MTV on April Fools’ Day in 1984.
In Weird Al’s hands, Queen’s One other One Bites the Dust became One other One Rides the Bus. The Beatles’ Taxman translated to Pacman. Robert Palmer’s Hooked on Love became Hooked on Spuds. Michael Jackson’s Beat It was became Eat It, and have become a top 40 hit and won a Grammy. Madonna’s Like a Virgin spawned Like a Surgeon. Coolio’s Gangsta’s Paradise became Amish Paradise.
The musical Hamilton was became The Hamilton Polka; the Broadway musical’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, is a Weird Al superfan. Indeed, artists are frequently flattered by his attention, especially because it has been known to present them a lift in sales, as within the case of the Smells Like Teen Spirit homage Smells Like Nirvana. The brand new film, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story, refers to it as “the Yankovic bump”.
The master of pastiche – he fastidiously crafts every word, every lyric – has built a faithful following. He still draws big crowds to live shows and inspired the 2019 launch of Dave & Ethan’s 2000 Weird Al Podcast, co-hosted by Ullman and Dave Rossi, who has been to 224 Weird Al live shows and helped spearhead the long and successful campaign to get him a star on the Hollywood walk of fame.
Rossi, 48, says by phone from Bloomfield, Recent Jersey: “Weird Al gives people the permission to be themselves. Definitely, going back to my experience as a toddler, while I wasn’t bullied or anything like that, I definitely was not a part of the in-crowd, a part of the cool kids at college.
“I didn’t necessarily connect with the sort of music that other people listened to. The parodies gave me permission to say, ‘Oh, I don’t need to slot in with everybody else.’ I’ve definitely heard that from other Weird Al fans as well. I’m sure you will discover multiple example of fans who say that they were in a foul place and listening to Weird Al music helped them come out of that bad place.”
The oldest cliche within the book is the tears of the clown, the suspicion that comedy performers have to be in search of laughs to compensate for a dark side. With Weird Al, nonetheless, it doesn’t seem the case. He’s happily married to his wife, Suzanne, and has a teenage daughter, Nina. Weird Al is definitely Normal Al.
Rossi notes that the cable network VH1 did a Behind the Music special on him. “On the whole, they’d attempt to dig deep and find dirt on the musician that they were showcasing and, within the case of Weird Al, they couldn’t find anything on him. He’s been an open book and he says he doesn’t have any skeletons in his closet. He’s just usually a extremely good guy.”
Ullman adds: “He’s a fun guy and he likes making people laugh. Al hasn’t had that form of weird profession where it’s like sex, drugs and rock’n’roll. He’s at all times been a standard guy and has been treated that way by his fans and I believe that’s helped keep him as pure as he’s.”
Indeed, Ullman recalls interviewing Weird Al’s longtime friend and former college roommate Joel Miller: “Probably the most salacious thing he was in a position to mention is that Al can have sworn one time in his presence. Al doesn’t think that happened and Joel doesn’t have anyone to back that up.
“There’s been loads of opportunities over time where we’ve talked to individuals who could have even off the air said something negative about Al or an experience that they had with Al and that has absolutely never happened. Someway Al is just this incredible being who has never done anything mistaken.”