It takes a special type of genius to hear the word Chirona and make it Bologona and go on to become one of the most beloved Americans of all time. You can see him live starting next month on the Bigger and Weirder Tour. Please welcome Weird Al Yankovic. That was a weird thing to do. Thank you. I didn't disappoint you. You never disappoint. How are you? It's good to see you. You remember the last time I saw you in an elevator somewhere? We're in an elevator at my orthodontist office. Yeah, we always seem to meet there. And we started talking to each other and there was one other guy in there who I could just tell by the look on his face felt he must have been high or some

something was happening because he wandered into our conversation. He probably just got an anesthetized perhaps. Oh, maybe that's what was going on there. Yeah. Uh you are you the word weird. I was thinking about weirdowl the name today and you probably didn't know this would stick with you for your whole life. I did not. No. And I was trying to think of other weirds and I thought like weird Harold and like weird Barbie or whatever, but that's none of them compare. I own the weird better than anybody else. Yeah. Like we've got so many I mean there are uh there are littles and there are uh bigs and there are intermediates.

Yeah. Youngs and kids and you know but there's only one weird Al and you are. Yeah. Um, you are you started in college radio, which is where I started my like broadcasting. Well, that's where the name Weird Alowl came from because everybody needed some kind of wacky air name and I thought, "Oh, Weird Al seems to fit." What were the other names of the other guys? You're amazing. I mean, it was like Macho Mike and the Sheriff and you know, all these crazy names and that's where you recorded my Bologona, right?

Yeah. In fact, there's a plaque there right now. Um, we ran some lines from the uh KCPR, that's our campus radio station, from the production uh office into the bathroom right across the hall because of course everything sounds better in a bathroom with a nice reverb from the wall. Even better than the recording studio pretty much. Well, we use 24 track bathrooms now. It's professional. Uh, but yeah, in fact, so to this day, there's a plaque on the side of that bathroom saying this is where we recorded my balona. That's funny. Yeah. And at that time you didn't get like clearance from the knack to write that song, did you?

Well, at the time, no, cuz I was just like literally a teenager like just sending in tapes to the Dr. Dante radio show. Oh, Dr. Deo, right. Yeah. Right. Okay, that makes sense. And you know, and never thinking, oh, this is going to be a record or whatever, but I ran into the knack uh at a concert at CalPoly. came to play and I weasled my way backstage and I met Doug Figer, the lead singer of the band and I said, "Hey, Doug, it's Al Yanker." And he goes, "Oh, you're the my Balona guy." And he turned to the guy next to him who's the vice president of Capital Records and said, "You should put this guy's record out." Really? AND HE DID. That's fantastic. And by the middle of the 80s, you'd become so popular that artists, big artists were asking you to parody

their songs. Like, didn't Madonna come up, I've heard, with like a surgeon or is that her story? It's it's it's uh there's truth in that. It's a little blown out of proportion. And I didn't help matters with my biopic where we really expounded on it. Uh but basically the story is that she was talking to a friend of hers in New York one day just and just off-handedly said, "Oh, I wonder what weird's going to do." like a surgeon and her friend happened to know a friend of my manager and telephone game got back to me and I thought oh not a bad idea. Did you ever have um big artists pitch you ideas that you're like no that's not good I'm not going to do it.

Every now and then I'll be in a party and somebody will come up to me when are you going to get around to doing one of my songs really offended that I haven't gotten around but they don't have the idea for you. Oh they might have I think I ran into Fred Durst at a party and he had some kind of great idea for I did it all for the Nookie. I forget what it was. I thought that was a parody song. Good. Um, when did you finally feel like, okay, I've made it. I'm now, you know, I'm not just uh when your producers called to invite me on this show.

Was that it? Really? That was the time. That was what I knew. Coming together. Funny cuz it still hasn't hit me yet. I'm here every night. Yeah. Was there a moment or no? Not. Well, I mean, the I knew that I was going to be weirded out full-time when uh my first single hit the Billboard charts. I was literally working in the mail room uh I think for minimum wage at the time and uh and I picked up the mail and Billboard magazine was sticking out of the bag and I opened it up to the charts and there I was and I thought I should give notice.

What was your biggest hit? Was it um was it uh Eat It or was it Amish Paradise? It was Eat It for a long time, but uh White and Nerdy actually was my biggest hit. Nerdy was the biggest hit. Wow. It's my only platinum single. I think it sold over a million. It was my only top 10 single. So, I'm no longer the eat it guy. I'm officially the white nerdy guy. Do you feel like Yeah, it's more appropriate. I think if you gain 100 pounds, you could be the eat it guy. Yeah, true. Um, it fluctuates.

Do you feel like the younger people know you from the Amish Paradise song mostly or It's It's really There's like a half a dozen hits that, you know, I think people really respond to. I mean, if you go to my live shows, some people cosplay, they'll dress up like Amish people or like, you know, or Jedi Knights or whatever. I'm sure they're just dressed as Amish people. Maybe there are actual Amish There could be few on rum springa. You know, did you ever get a reaction from the Amish community on that song? You know, they're not big MTV watchers apparently or I've heard. Uh but I do, you know, I do run into them from time to time. And uh I actually saw something online pulls over and uh I saw online there was an Amish person

that heard Kulio's uh Gangsters Paradise for the first time and he was like, "This is not Amish Paradise." But it's like really offended. like this. It's not funny at all. What are you doing? I do want to ask you about a photograph because this is a one of the great ' 80s photographs. Uh there's you, Lil Steven, and Pee Herman at Are you just Was this an celebrity event? It was I think it was a rock and bowl. It was uh maybe for the TJ Martell Foundation. It was a charity event, and a bunch of people got up and uh and bowled for charity. Who was the best bowler in the group?

It's been a several decades, but I'm going to say me. Yeah, you. Yeah. Well, you know what? I found a parallel between guys who can play accordion and guys who bowl. There seems to be a the ven diagrams. Two circles just round. Yeah. Two bowling balls. Yeah. When how old were you when you started playing the accordion? I took my very first lesson the day before my seventh birthday and I took three years of lessons and by the end of that I thought, well, they're not teaching me less up. What am I doing here? And I basically kind of learned on my own after that. Learned how to play by ear, played along with rock songs on the radio and just took it from there. And all through my teenage years, like

nobody wanted to start a rock band with me for some crazy reason. Right. Yeah. I can imagine being a kid with an accord. I've never seen a kid with an accordion. I heard you played the clarinet. I played the clarinet. Yes. When I was What was that like being a chick magnet? It was like that. Oh, there. Oh, yes. Yeah. That for some reason that always seems to be at the ready. Yeah. Right. I mean, half the other stuff we can never get to that picture is just permanently in the hard drive. Um anyway, uh you the tour is called Bigger

and Weirder. Is it Bigger and Weirder or is that just the name? It's It's uh was both. It is the name, but it is in fact it's bigger. The biggest tour we've been in to date. Okay. Uh and I would like say I'll say weirder as well. It's weirder. Yeah. What do you look forward to seeing? Part of the weirdness, the live weirdness. You have an opening act. Do Oh, yeah. Puddles Pity Party. Oh, yeah. I know who that is. Puddles. Seven foot clown is a amazing singer. I hate to describe it beyond that because it's kind of an indescribable act. You just have to see it.

Okay. Amazing. Uh and as far as the tour, if you saw the 2025 Bigger and Rur it's the same tour. Okay. So, but if you haven't seen it, it's me and the band. It's sort of a I guess a greatest hits tour. We're doing uh all the big fan favorites, a few deep cuts. As with all our big tours, there's costume changes and film clips and uh computer servers and it's just a it's it's madness. It's great. All right. Well, here there you go. Go see Weird Al on a tour. It's called The Bigger and Weirder Tour. You can get tickets at weirdowl.com.

Weird Al Yankovic. Everybody, we'll be back with Melanie Martinez.