Weird Al Yankovic
speaker
271 appearances
2 recordings
2 series
first heard May 2025
last heard 22 May
Weird Al Yankovic’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in May 2026 with 1.
Appearances
It was a pretty cool job. So, again, I can't really complain.
Yeah, I wouldn't say it was a wasted college education, but yeah, it made me learn that that wasn't my passion. I had to remember that my passion was music and my passion was comedy. And I didn't know that I could make a living doing that, but I thought, hey, I'm young. I got to try.
maybe the entirety wasn't a way style but if you're applying for a janitor's job with an architect's degree you you have you have tossed aside the want to be an architect well i think i was my third year into college when i really had the epiphany like okay i'm definitely not going to do this the rest of my life but i didn't want to drop out because to me that that was failure i just wanted to i'm going to stick it out i'm going to spend another
Um, yeah, hearing from, from people that, that, uh, you know, that are my heroes, that, that means a lot to me. Um, you know, I, uh, Mighty Python was such a, uh, a seminal influence to me growing up and, and, uh, you know, Eric Idle came to one of my shows and, and he loved it. And we actually become fairly close friends at this point, which is kind of blows my mind because he's,
you know, a hero and a friend. And it's just amazing to me, you know, the people that inspired me now that, you know, they like what I do. And that just means a whole lot to me.
Yeah, I've definitely done some venues where it was pretty daunting at the time. I remember, you know, sometimes, I don't know if they're anxiety attacks, but my wife remembers when she came to see me backstage at one of my shows and I was curled up in a fetal position on the floor going, Because I was so nervous. But I've played the Hollywood Bowl a few times.
I played Carnegie Hall fairly recently. You know, Red Rocks is always a huge thrill to play. And on this upcoming tour, we're playing Madison Square Garden, which blows my mind. And we're also playing the Los Angeles Forum, which means a lot to me because it's my local gig. And it's the first place I ever saw a rock show. And I remember in the mid-70s, I went to see Elton John there.
And it was a big ordeal for me to go to a rock show because, again, my parents were very protective. And they just were so worried about me going to a rock show. So I almost had to run away from home to be able to go to that show. But I just remember watching Elton John from the nosebleed seats with my binoculars and just having the best time.
And it's such a nice bookend to like 40, 50 years later, be actually on stage playing the form.
Yeah. No, I mean, I wasn't completely falling apart, but I was definitely, definitely nervous. And it's just for certain shows and certain occasions. I get nervous at the beginning of tours because...
you know we don't have it locked in yet the muscle memory hasn't kicked in yet and you know you're going to make mistakes and you're just like not enjoying the thought of you forgetting words or hitting the wrong cue so i i get much less nervous after a week or two into the tour and everybody's you know going in all cylinders and there are a few big shows where the pressure's on uh i get very nervous any kind of live television i get very nervous
And I try not to, but it's just such a part of my personality to feel that way. And I really admire performers that don't have that. I like to tell the story about Donny Osmond. I went to see him in Las Vegas a couple years ago at his residency, and I was hanging with him backstage. And we're just chatting, chatting, chatting. And I realized you go on stage in like five minutes.
Don't you have to prepare? Don't you have to get ready? Don't you have to warm up? And he looked at me and said, Al, I've been warming up for 60 years. Oh, man, you are the man. And I wish I could be that. I wish I could be so confident in myself that I just was never nervous about anything. But that's not the way I'm built.
It's more performance based because otherwise I'm pretty mellow and I don't live my life in a state of anxiety. I'm sure we all have a certain amount of it, but I think my level is pretty low.
Yeah, and it's just such a different life to be on the road as opposed to at home, because sometimes I'll take a quick break from being on the road and be at home, and it's back to life as normal. And I'll be taking out the trash and thinking like, oh, tomorrow night I'm going to be on stage in front of 20,000 people. It feels like such a different world, and that's kind of what it is.
It's home world and tour world.
Yeah, in a literal sense, I put on about a dozen costumes because it's a very good... But, you know, I am myself on stage. It's not like Weird Al is a character per se, but certainly the version of me on stage is a lot louder and more entertaining. than me, you know, walking down the street.
Yeah, I probably fed into that expectation more in the 80s because I thought I've got to live up to the name, you know, and I probably put on a bit more of a show or was a little bit more smart alecky than than, you know, that I normally am. But I've kind of calmed down. And now I think people realize that I'm not bouncing off the walls all the time. I'm just kind of like a regular guy.
Yeah, I mean, as a teenager, once I realized that I was a social outcast, it was sort of like I had nothing to lose. Like, I didn't care, like, oh, I'm going to look silly doing this. Like, oh, people think I'm an idiot anyway. Like, what's it going to hurt? So it sort of gave me freedom. It gave me a license to let my freak flag fly a bit.
So I didn't have any qualms about being weird or caring really what people thought of me because, you know, it didn't matter at that point. And college was a bit of a restart because people in college didn't know who I was. And I thought, oh, I can maybe redefine myself. In fact, I think that's when I started going by Al because all through high school I was Alfred Yankovic, my full name.
Showing 221–240 of 271 · page 12 of 14
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