This Is Later with Lee Matthews, The Lee Matthews Podcast More What You Hear
Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive. When I last had him on to talk about
his Weird Al Yankovic story starring Daniel Radcliffe, I asked him, Hey,
what do you got in the pipeline? He says He's got a whole new
release. Will it is out today? Weird Al Yankovic celebrating the ten year
anniversary of Mandatory Fun with his new Polka medley pol Come maybe Weird Al Yankovic.
Hello, Hayley, how are you? I'm good. You got a
whole new list of parody songs for us to consume. Well, they're Polka
versions. Over the last ten years, I haven't really had a chance to
take my shot out a lot of big hits, and I thought, you
know, someone need these songs. Just sounds better than polka style, So
I thought I would gift the world with his Polka edley. I love it,
you know I do that. Maybe it's because I've been in radio so
long and you're hearing the same songs over and over and over again, so
you just start singing different lyrics to it, or thinking I like I like
to take different versions of songs and make them operatic. You know, yeah,
I just I just I just think Billie Eilish sounds better with a tube.
But you know, yeah, that's just me though. I'll do like
Rusberry Brie the conjur fly that's from the opera. That'll be Prince Prince the
Opera, you see. Yeah, So I know where you're coming from with
this. What are some of the songs on the new album polk Manbia.
Well, it's not really an album. It's just a single, so I'm
not really anymore. It's just a one off. It's just I spent the
last ten years working on this four minute of songs, so I hope I
appreciate it all right. So it is a medley along the lines of yah,
yeah, along the lines of Barry Mannel, who used to do a
very strange medley in his act where he would sing all the jingles he wrote.
That's right, and Barry Manilow's grew up playing the accordion as well,
so we're connected that way very well. Yeah, how did it all start
for you? I mean I mentioned hearing the same songs over and over again,
and then just out of boredom, having to sing different lyrics to it.
Is that the way it worked for you? Pretty much? Yeah?
In fact, I did a college radio That's where I first got the name
weird Al. I needed some kind of wacky air name, and honestly they
are. They're already calling me weird Al in the dorms in college, So
it was it was a natural fit. And I played the accordion. I
guess that that made me weird. So but the parody songs, how did
that all begin? Well, you know, I think like every eight year
old of the world, and maybe I made fun of the songs on the
radio, and it's just one of those those habits I never grew out of.
And uh, you know, doctor Demetro started playing myself on the radio
when I was in my early teens actually, so I got encouragement there.
And uh, you know, I never I thought I'd be like doing this
for a living. I didn't think. I thought I'd be an adult and
grow up and get a real job at some point. But never worked out
that way. No, got you right to the Grammy Awards and the Walk
of Fame on the Hollywood. Yeah, this is polka mania. We're talking
about. Whirred Al Yankovic, the best selling comedy recording artist in history,
and his new medley, So who are you poking a little fun at?
Who are you having fun with in this medley? Oh, let's see it.
It's we got Billie Eilish and Adele and Taylor Swift and Little nas X
and Cardi B and Meghan the Stallion and Live here Rodrigo and how am I
doing? Like a dozen of them? So it's like all the biggest hits
of the last ten years. Is it easier or harder to make fun of
artists than it was, say in the late seventies early eighties when you got
when you began it's I mean, in terms of figuring out what to do,
it's a little harder because like back in the eighties when I first started
out, people were mesmerized by MTV and if a video is in heavy irritation,
everybody in the country was intimately familiar with every frame of that video.
So I think nowadays people their at tension has been fractured. Everybody's into their
own, you know, genre, and there's not the monoculture there was in
the eighties. And there's still big hits and big artists, but it's a
little bit harder to say, oh, this is a hit or this isn't
a hit. Yeah, And I'm starting to at least I feel like there's
more formulaic because the production value is anybody can make any sounds with anything.
It's not like, oh, Gee, I want this certain sound, so
I have to set up a certain recording in a certain room so it'll have
that certain sound. You can just create it digitally, right right, Well,
I still do it old school, like you know, for the polka
medley. I mean, we could have done the synthesized clarinets and trumpets and
tuba and all that, but no, it's old school. Man brought I
brought in the same horn players I've been using for forty years into the studio
and got the gang back together. Are these guys polka players on the side
or or they've just studio musicians? They're just a studio musician and my band.
I mean, I've had the same band since nineteen eighty two and those
are the same guys that are with me the studio and on the road,
and they do everything from polka music to gangster rap everything between. They're amazing.
So will we see you making the tourist circuit at German festivals, October
festivals. Back on the road. Yeah, I'm sure I'll be putting the
leader hosing on and hitting the road to at some point we have we haven't
announced anything yet, but at some point in the future. I think that's
kind of a given. Polka Mania it's weird Al Yankovic's newest release. It
is out now. We're going to take a listen to it here in just
a minute, and you can get it anywhere you get to your music or
is there a specific place you want to send people? Any place you want
to find it, Amazon, on Apple, you can go to weird al
dot com if you're one stop weird awl shop, but uh yeah, any
anywhere that music is sold or streamed or stolen. Tragically, I don't think
it can go to Tower Records anymore, can you. Well, you can
go there, but there's nobody hanging out there here where now you Thankovic.
Polkamania a medley of some of the best hits by Taylor Swift, Miley Cyrus,
Billy Eilish, Adele, Olivia Rodrigo and many many more out now.
We thank you for the laughs and for joining us. Today. Thank you
appreciate it. Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews
Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to
seven and iHeartMedia presentation