or the think of what you do for a living i haven't told you yet. that's today on larry king now. welcome to larry king our special guest my man weird al yankovic grammy award winning singer songwriter producer parodist for this music video until directed here that was known for his comedic songs often parodying contemporary music acts and poking fun at current pop culture trends he's just released his fourteenth studio album i have it right here mandatory fun they drink tracks like tacky a renewed version of the song happy and foil based on lorde single royal mandatory fun is now available for purchase congratulations thank you larry king out of yours to be a regular on my late night radio show on television the new album is battling for

the number one slot on i tunes does that surprise you it does i mean i've never had this kind of response to an album for you know whenever i do an album i always in my mind it's the best thing i've ever done but this is one of the few times everybody else has agreed with me why what you call it mandatory fun well some of it i have to watch it is that it is good there's no take it any choice in the matter of you know you have to enjoy this album some fans of theorize that because this album is the last album on my record contract you know it's mandatory fun so but that wasn't really the idea i just like the oxymoron of a mandatory fine and i like to combine it with that kind of totalitarian propaganda art imagery for the benefit of the older people who are already is are you the follow up to spike jones i'd like to buy jones parody of everything i think he gets it making can we talk about that or allan sherman stan freberg tom lehrer these are the people that inspired me and influenced me growing up and that i heard on the document to show as a youngster the. dr demento god what this what what how do you decide what to

parody you know obviously i pick a song that's been on the top of the charts for a while that's getting a lot of radio play getting a buzz on the internet i try to see you know what i try to determine what is the mainstream and then once i've got a list of targets i go through that list and i try to see if there's any song that i can come up with a good comedic angle for to give it a little twist and make it funny you have to like the song i don't have to i mean that isn't a prime consideration like some of the songs well you know i don't i can't say that i actively dislike any of the songs that appeared because i have a i have a really appreciate in from use it so i know in these kind of snarky guys that hates any kind of music really i like some better than others but i do appreciate music and i you know want to pull pick it apart and try to figure out what makes a tick that makes you really have a deeper appreciation for something or you parroting both the song on the artist not always i mean you know i've done that in the past and been more satirical one

when i did my nerve on a parody that was a song about nirvana and how their lyrics were somewhat and comprehensible so i've done that a few times but most of my parodies are just straight purities they're taking and. pre-existing work and just tweaking the content or the idea behind the song once the trick. what's the secret of a good paradigm of a spike jones cocktails for two and he had bubbles going all right wrong than mickey katz doing matzah ball soup instead of shrimp boats and what's the secret. there are several things that i try to do when i do a parody you know the recipe for success number one i think a parody should be funny even if you're not familiar with the source material like even if you're not following pop music even if you don't know you know what is at the top of the charts you should be able to listen to this album and still enjoy it on its own merit it'll be even funnier if you do know it it's a parody of but by itself it should still be funny and also you know i think parody

should be as funny if not funnier in the third verse than in the first first because a lot of amateur people doing parodies will have an idea that kind of. a punchline in the first chorus and then it doesn't go anywhere so it needs to build it has to be at funnier and funnier as it goes along said i listen my kids listen to rap on the radio i didn't understand what they're saying so if you parody a rap song well i understand it hopefully so i mean there is a iggy azalea pretty on this album is are about song about being fancy and there's a lot of terminology in there that you know you may not understand but i do a song called handy about being a handyman and working with tools and being and a lot of home improvement stuff that might be more pure ali and a lot of supporters in the industry it seems that way may have been around for so long i didn't get backlash and they were going to get mad because i think parity is a form of tribute yeah i think people take it that way and i've made a point of not burning bridges that's one of the reasons i've gotten permission for

parodies you know my entire career legally permission i get permission a legally it's a great area i don't necessarily need to you don't have to me of course not know i'm with the record but but i want to make sure that the artists are ok with that i want to make sure that they know that it's all done in good fun it's in all my eyes and i've had very little pushback over all this time did you have a parody sinatra. i haven't gotten around to that but for you ever even you've asked me that before and it's one of these days jerry for you and you have it. ok i'm workin on it you call yourself weird. well i did i made the decision to take it on professionally but i think people were calling me weird al my freshman year in the college dorms i don't know why i think i'm a perfectly normal guy. but it was a nickname and i took it on when i started doing college radio was the weird al show every saturday night on like a tempest radio station was your school the california polytechnic state university at san luis obispo sounds like a prison. but i had i majored in architecture so i have my degree in architecture

if that's where it all thing doesn't work out i can always fall back on that you're married i am children i have a eleven year old daughter there's a normal side of where that you know the weird thing i think that's it's sort of ironic at this point because i'm one of the most normal guys in hollywood it's like when they call like big big people tiny it's like that's how i am now you concert do you go out i do i do we're not warm we're not touring right away but the mandatory tour will happen next year well we're going to be back with a vengeance and you're hot again i guess i don't get hot again and you say you're surprised how do you think it happened i think i'm a big part of it was the marketing campaign on this i wanted to do eight videos in eight days i wanted to come strong with the music videos instead of stretching it out over a long time i figured ok release week we're going to hit it with everything we've got the internet just turns things over very quickly things go viral and people get tired of it in twenty four hours and the way they want something new so i figured

every day a new video and it seems to work we're going to look at one of these videos handy a parody of the hit iggy azalea song fancy let's watch. first things first down the crash that's me my thinking my only passion. and i'm the greatest individual for all my clientele the bear you witnessed by going when your jam stayed there was nothing in the world. i can't fake i don't like a stone i don't break some combination of i would not take a trip to. poland. probably just i think. we. should. play.

now i'm going to take a wild guess and assume that you're not that familiar with the israeli is that i read no idea who it is there were able to appreciate that i prefer career my job is done it's very funny i wouldn't take to do that what we do with a one day shoot and it was a one day show yeah it was one a shoot and then there are a fair amount of post-production as we've done a couple weeks doing the after effects and things like are you a good singer weirdo well at that so subjective thing i mean i've been getting better over the years i think i'm a much better singer now than i was when i started out because you spent thirty years doing something you're bound to get good at it what do you make of the on demand nature of the release is that will is the audience impatient it is i mean that's just the new nature of our culture and everything is on demand which i think is a really healthy thing so it's great you know and i've kind of tapped into that with this release by making things available so quickly and i think if you got to feed people's appetite you sign your record deal thirty two year contract well it didn't say thirty two years in the congress who did it yes so initially i signed in one

thousand nine hundred was a ten album during the a well was r.c.a. at the time and they sleep with scotty brothers and i got i got my contract that sold a few times but in one thousand nine hundred two i signed a ten album deal and it wasn't a great deal but at the time i was working for a minimum wage in a mail room and i thought well this is better than working in a male remote signed this deal and then i had a few hits and we renegotiated a couple albums got tacked on and then we renegotiated again a couple more got tacked on it was a fourteen album deal and it finally got fulfilled with this was your first hit. well i depends what you call a hit i mean i thought of their play people by the for the first out of people get to know the name weird al yankovic the first really big hit was eat it in one thousand nine hundred four the michael jackson parody that was when i went from sort of a. guy that didn't get recognized on the street to an overnight sensation all the sudden i was the eat it guy you know well how did you handle it well suddenly i mean here's a kid you're kind of a freaky kid loving all these parody ah yes right it was him and oh yeah i mean it

was it was a change in my life and i hopefully didn't get a big head about it but it was just a different way to go through life alone all of all of sudden people are staring at you you know when you know part of that was not part of my reality but as soon as it was like an overnight he said what overnight fame it was literally overnight fame as soon as that video went into heavy rotation on m.t.v. where i went have your fans grown with you i like to think so a lot of the fans that got into me in the early eighty's a lot of them are still fans another bringing their kids to the show so it's sort of a family bonding thing it's quite nice of you i mean keep it fresh. that's always a challenge because i've been doing this for so long it's tempting to repeat jokes and repeat ideas and repeat themes you know in the eighty's there was a lot of some of the food that i had a whole food album so i kind of i don't do so much of that anymore and i'm sort of like doing a lot of signs of the internet so it's difficult to keep putting out things and not always be doing the same subject matter do you feel like

a true member of the music industry or are you sort of on the out of friends i've always felt like i didn't quite fit in i've you know starting out i was never totally accepted in the comedy community or the music community because i kind of slipped between the cracks you know in the in the record stores back when there were record stores you know they'd never even knew where to rock me. but nowadays i'm kind of feeling the love especially this last week i kind of feel like i've been accepted in both worlds which is which is nice youngsters now know you're right they seem to be yeah because you get airplay mouth right right what it was your how do you view the current state of the music in the shorts the record it is their record in the street well there is i mean you know for the last decade and a half the record industry is a bit and in a bit of freefall but you know everybody's still managing to make a living and they're still managed to be a record industry and we're just trying to figure out you know in the current environment how to how we can also stay in business and make money and and move

forward what happened to the music we mention killing about sinatra you know what happened to that great music was another passed away i don't don't know if anybody told you. he talks to me though. but what what happened to music that you could hum. you can hum it gives aliah but i mean come on what i think we've interviewed a lot about is art is there any contemporary music that you like anything i'm trying to think yeah. i like john legend oh ok gushy contemporary yes absolutely absolute. like that oh my god i said i don't know john legend purdy i don't know if i don't know when he was a favorite his wife was who is so nice nice i like my i liked some of it but to be the swing era of the big bands was music it was music i think from an xterm is going to be like a benny goodman parody and all segue into a frank sinatra parody why don't you. if you promise to buy a copy though after

a break we delve deep into the creative process of the one and only. on merit in the financial world. to see these developments happening and stop it only takes no demand for credit you're not going to get any economic benefit in life they're on to. your friend post a photo from a vacation you can't. call it different. the boss repeats the same old joke of course you like. your ex-girlfriend still pens tear jerking poetry keep count nora's. we post only what really matters i don't see your facebook news feed.

live. live. live live. cross-talk rules in effect that means you can jump in anytime you want to. live. well you like me i want you comedy here's me some t. want you comedy news to be a bear fisted no holds barred fight to the dad. like

a vampire biting into the next in the corporate elite billionaire freaks while they're going. well that's what you get with my new show projected in night. on your arm and a lot of. people. are happy with us here on t.v. today i'm researcher. back with weird al yankovic mandatory fun is the last album on the thirty two years

with the company is that the last of a probably the last album for me yeah i think that from now on i'm going to be releasing singles because it's the new thing that's a new thing i mean you know because now with digital distribution if i have an idea for a song i can just get it out on the way for you know it to be pressed up i don't have put out an album i think that's a way for me to be timely you know from now on the album as a format is served me well but it just feels like i shouldn't have to wait until i have twelve songs before i put out something how do you decide what you will parody . you know it's really kind of on a whim i mean that's to be a hit it's better if they had i tend to go for hits and i look first songs that have a unique kind of musical or lyrical hook something that really jumps out at you when you heard on the radio or see it online and then it usually boils down to whether or not i can come up with a clever enough idea for it you work in film and television you see is over leaving the musical world. this is always been my first love i've always loved doing the

music and the videos and the tour so i don't think it ever get away from that but i love working in t.v. and film and you know i've gotten some offers to do some some writing for possibly a broadway musical so there's different things i can do. with my kind of sensibility and you know just do the same kind of comedy but branch out of videos still important you know they are they are there was no musical video channel i mean one of those well there's no m.t.v. as as i used to know growing up m.t.v. doesn't really stand for music television anymore which is then full well it's you know you have to ask them but it's the last time i checked which was a while ago it was pretty much all reality shows and there was a period of time after m.t.v. stopped playing videos and before the advent of you tube were it didn't make a whole lot of sense to even make music videos as far as i was concerned because they're very expensive and if there's no place for people to see them what's the point but then you two came along and all of a sudden it became very relevant to be making music videos because people you know

it was video on demand if you wanted to see what an artist was up to you be certain and there you can see the new videos produce your own work i've been directing my own work since since the early ninety's i like to i've always had a fair amount of creative control over everything that i've done i edit my own videos so it's important to me to do that when you go out and tour since you dress up as the artist you do all these videos what is it like when you're on stage what do what is your stage act like it's a multimedia show i dress up you know i still wear the fat outfit i dress up like kurt cobain offstage and change yes so basically you know all the other old videos we show there's video clips on the big screen while it with the band runs off and does a quick change and comes back so it's it's almost as much of a broadway show as it is a rock show because it's so theatrical there's a lot of production going on it just never a dull moment are you disappointed that m.t.v. went away from videos i miss the old m.t.v.

i guess. tell you i mean i know that they had to follow their their new business model and do what works for them because they have to change like everybody else you know i guess he made more money with a reality show so that's just their business like i always easy money maker all exactly i mean you know i thought reality was going to go away but it's very cheap to produce and and it's very popular and that means that it's going to be around forever would we do we would you and your wife and your daughter i've been pitched that several times and i have no interest in that i think people would expect me to be weird and we're very normal family it is home life like at the at the end of a disappointingly normal. high school she's a she's just going to sixth grade she's eleven years old and and she's you know she's going for a black belt junior black belt in karate i would say again you know she loves animals and nature and sheens very artistic very talented sweetest girl in the world who i was wife i would describe or as such i mean she used to be the senior vice president at twentieth century fox. so i mean she's you know she's very bright

obviously and i mean how you meet we were set up on a blind date through our mutual friend bill mooney who played little will robinson on lost in space. and it was a it was a nice meeting because we both met at a time when neither one of us had a lot of free time i was getting ready to put out an album she was working as an executive and we couldn't figure out a time to have a date but we talked on the phone late at night for a couple weeks you know before our first date and we got to really really know each other just by talking over the phone and so by the time we actually met i didn't even know what she looked like i had a severe crush on her because i just got to know her from her personality. what kind of dad are you i like them a good dad i mean was your daughter the thing go for you do for a living i haven't told her yet but i know of course you know that she's she's very grounded she's she doesn't roll arise and she doesn't go gaga over it i mean she just it's just what dad does for a living you know and she's accepted it and she's

a fan i mean you know she's always enjoyed watching the show from the wings and she and she loves the new material and she she sort of my ears to the ground whenever i want to know if something is like big in sixth grade she sees the person i ask what is the internet name to you and you've used the internet well you know it's a two edged sword i mean it's made it difficult for me to be unique because there are now ten thousand people doing song parodies on you tube but at the same time it's allowed me to reach my audience and new. and various ways and i mean the internet is a big reason why my new album is doing so well because i've been able to. get into this video in a daze thing and been able to be very. of the moment which is what the unit is all about is there anything you don't like about all this progress. i don't want to focus on the negative i you know. technology is always changing and i like to embrace it i like to hear miss what we miss i miss the typewriter i miss edison

cylinders i think that was good. i wish you know i maybe i'll release the new album on and it doesn't cylinder we'll see ok anyway we have some a social media questions for you bryson knocks on facebook other any artists who are safe from you parroting their song absolutely not i don't think that anybody is sacred i think that everybody is fair game and everybody should be willing to take a joke they've dolling on facebook what do you consider your greatest achievement thus far being on the larry king show i think that this is i was probably i think it's all downhill from here frankly alledge towns in as what artists can't stop listening to right now frank sinatra twenty four hours a day nonstop good don't put me on who you know i i don't get to listen to to a lot of music out of personal choice because they know what my daughter likes those my daughter has this great eclectic taste in music at least i don't know where it came from but it's wonderful. for the longest time should alternate between listening to glen campbell and they're coming to take me away ha ha by

napoleon the fourteenth those are her to pay for things diligent make their instagram is being a vegan your secret to living so young or do you rub moisturizing cream on your face constantly. while i am vegetarian and you know i don't know if that has anything to do with it i've been getting compliments that you know i don't look at five so you know that old are you really i'm fifty i'm fifty four you look great thank you thank you how long you've been of the good wife i've been you know i can't really say that i'm a hardcore begin because i did cheat on the dairy products i'm vegetarian i lean vegan but i've been that way since ninety two what do you miss meat i don't really know i mean i ate meat substitutes and that's totally fine to me so i thought i would but i never really did your wife into it you know one when we were dating and when we when we got married my wife was vegeta. but that when she got pregnant. her body changed and we would be walking other things she'd see a billboard for like a roast or a prime rib ab ad and she'd start salivating oh oh that looks so good like who are

you what happen to my wife about your daughter she again say they lean vegetarian but every now and then build their veggies heretics at the all the time. bradley solar on facebook which artists inspire you to keep making use it oh gosh i mean the people continue to have careers after all this time there's only a handful that have you know also little who stands out to you today musically well i just admire the people that you know like bruce springsteen has been doing it since the seventy's those still going strong. gosh who else i mean brooks yet still doing it and and it was other ego christine as i have a big chris caines fans are in some ways the king of nerds a hero to many and we want to prove if you live up to that title so we have some questions or is this a gotcha moment or going to see if i'm going to be heard personally that ok. we're

now in a good change ok ok if you missed this there's no demand i thought i came in star wars who was shot first obviously han solo shot first don't have any otherwise complete this sequence kurt deckard cisco. ok we're talking let's start for eck and a kind of lose them is credit here for card cisco so whoever the fourth you say i'm not as big of a star trek fan as a star wars fan i did know that as a result and star trek captains janeway an archer i should have known that i didn't know that i didn't know that jailbreaking is the process of what is making your phone so that you're not tied into a carrier what does larp spell a r p stand oh i know this. it's a very familiar term see your body my nerd credit may not i don't know any of this ok live action role p.s.

i was going yes well it was a roleplaying thing i couldn't i couldn't remember what the acronym was for what's written on the poster in fog smolders office in the x. files. my my my wife worked on x. files as it is a believe i want to build i want to believe or i give you credit ok how did it what does lasers stand for with laser stanford's that's and i kind of. these are going to get this i'm going to give up on that one life amplification by stimulated emission of radiation come on i know it's scuba stands for but i did i forgot to leave the school is there a self-contained underwater breathing apparatus. without your one of the. best weird al yankovic yeah one is mandatory fun make sure you pick up his newest studio album and enjoy but it's available now and i do an amazon everything is available. as always you can find me on twitter king's things.

well. it's technology innovations all the developments from around russia we've got the future covered. i know c.n.n. the m s n b c news have taken some not slightly but the fact is i admire their commitment to cover all sides of the story just in case one of them happens to be accurate. that was funny but it's close and for the truth from the might think. it's because one whole attention and the mainstream media work side by side with joe actually on here.

at our team we have a different price. because the news of the world just is not this funny i'm not laughing dammit i'm not how. you guys talk to the jokes i will hand over the stuff that i'm. live. live live live .