In the '80s, I was the only game in town, I was the only one getting that kind of exposure in any rotation on MTV. Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they're not all good!
I start with a comprehensive list of all the recent songs that have been big hits - and then I go down that list and see if I can come up with funny ideas for them. I can always come up with ideas, but not necessarily good ones!
My own personal tastes don't really have an effect on whether song is a parody target or not. But having said that, I try to pick songs that I actually like because I realize that I have to live with these songs for a long time, from when I'm working on them in the studio to possibly playing them onstage for the rest of my life. So I try not to pick songs that I know would drive me crazy.
I don't watch a lot of other people's parodies because I don't want to be unduly influenced.
When I started out, I didn't feel like I was really accepted in the music or comedy communities, and I was somewhere on the edge, but now I feel like I'm accepted in both, which is extremely gratifying.
I cut my teeth playing rock songs on the accordion when I was a teenager and my friends always thought that was extremely amusing. I think that was the genesis of my polka medleys, because every rock song I played on the accordion just sounded like a polka and my friends thought it was funny. So that was a joke that I continue up to this very day.
Buy our album, were Nirvana, a garage band from Seattle. Well, it sure beats raising cattle.
I like the guitar-driven music of Nirvana at its peak. At that point, I thought there was a lot of really exciting music coming out.
Some people want to advertise their weirdness, and spread it out, that's not me.
The irony is of course that my career has lasted a whole lot longer than some of the people I've parodied over the years.
As a kid, I certainly never thought I would get to spend my life doing something fun.
You still have Top 40 radio now, but it's 40 different stations. There aren't many hits that everybody knows, and there aren't many real superstars.
I was a huge fan of 'Mad' magazine when I was 11, 12, 13 years old. I'd scour used bookstores trying to find back issues, and I'd wait at the newsstand for a new issue to come out. My life revolved around it.
When I was a kid, I thought I was going to be an architect, because when I was 12 years old I had a guidance counselor that convinced me that that was the best career choice for me.
I suppose I had my rock star fantasies while I was singing into my hairbrush in the bathroom mirror, but I never really consciously said, 'OK, this is what I'm going to do for a living and I'm going to be Weird Al.'
If I could find the right kind of property, get tied in with the right movie, I'd love to be involved, but I just find it hard to be motivated to do another screenplay right now.
I did have a child, and I was reading a lot of picture books to her, but at the same time writing a children's book was something that I'd been wanting to do for many years, pretty much since the start of my career.
By the time I'm in the studio recording my parody, 10,000 parodies of that song are on YouTube.
So I'm one of the few celebrities that got to do a repeat performance on 'The Simpsons,' which I'm very flattered by.
My hobbies just sort of gradually became my vocation.
I'm very analytical, I'm very precise. I mean, I don't write for kids.
I mean, I hate to gloat, but I'm extremely satisfied with my position in life and the way things have worked out for me.
I know now that everything I write, I'm going to put out, and I'll have to live with it for the rest of my life.
I think that nerds, if you want to call them that, have only gotten more hip and assimilated into the culture.
I'm very analytical, I'm very precise.
