1988-10-17 The American Eagle
< Archived Interviews & Articles
They Might Be Giants Traces Path To Hipness, Success
By Cori Taratoot, The American Eagle, October 17 1988
This article seems to have mixed up Linnell and Flansburgh's names. For answers where context differentiates the two, their names have been switched back [in brackets]. Portions where the names have not been corrected may misattribute dialogue.
Eagle staff writer Cori Taratoot interviewed Linnell and Flansburgh at their 9:30 Club show Thursday night, They Might Be Giants' second concert at the club this year.
Tell me about the first time you played together.
Linnell: It was a free concert in Central Park in New York.
Flansburgh: It was the third anniversary of the Sandinista revolution. It wasn't a very big rally. But a friend of ours who is like a leftie person had us come and do this thing, and nobody in the audience spoke any English. They were all like recently-arrived Nicaraguans, but they apparently really dug the show because they came back and tried to tell us how much they liked us in the few words of English that they knew.
How did the two of you meet?
[Linnell]: We went to high school together in Sudbury, and we were buddies. We kind of made tapes and stuff, but it wasn't like music specifically. I mean, we definitely did some sort of music-like things. John had a tape recorder. He was kind of a techno-kid.
[Flansburgh]: Yeah, I would've been in the AV (audiovisual) department had I like not even then known it was the geekiest thing. So instead I just kind of kept to myself.
So you graduated from high school...
[Linnell]: Well, sort of.
[Flansburgh]: I was absent 153 days my senior year. It was a great school- they allowed me to be absent 153 days.
What did you do after high school?
[Flansburgh]: I went to a lot of different colleges for about a minute and a half, and I finally went to New York to study art.
[Linnell]: I dropped out of college after one year, and I joined a rock band. A real new wave band called The Mundanes, and we played around for about three years. I actually bleached my hair blond.
How did you two end up together?
[Linnell]: Well, my band ended up moving to New York, and John was already there in school. We called our mutual friend in New York, and there were spaces in this building, which actually seems weird now, thinking about everyone else who looks around. So we lived up and down stairs from each other, and we started working together. We made little tapes, and we talked about making a flexi-disc. That was our big dream.
[Flansburgh]: One day, one day, we'll make a flexi-disc....
[Linnell]: And we had this big plan. We were going to release "Cowtown" and "My Father's Son." And that was like 1981.
Is the sound you had then anything like the sound you have now?
[Flansburgh]: It was the tiniest sounding music. I have tapes from back then and it's like amazingly small. It just sounds like it's about an inch tall.
[Linnell]: We really weren't into the idea of expanding beyond where the music was. The songs were even shorter than they are now. There were no drums at all.
[Flansburgh]: And y'know drum machine technology has just changed so much. I mean, we could turn into the Monsters of Rock at the flip of a switch.
[Linnell]: Our version of the Monsters of Rock...
[Flansburgh]: We could be like the Percolators of Rock...
When did your first album come out?
Flansburgh: At the beginning of 1985, we made this cassette that we tried to sell in stores. It had 23 songs on it. Glen Morrow ran this record company. At that time, the only record his company had was his record. He heard the cassette and liked it, so he made the suggestion to clean up the tracks, cut a few songs, and he said he'd press it as a record. We're really lucky that deal existed. We were totally unprepared to be signed by a record company to record a record. I remember when we put out our first record. We thought if we sold 2,500 copies, it would be a big big success. When we reached that goal, it was like all right! We've arrived. And now the album has sold 125,000 copies.
Are there any bands you really like or really hate?
Flansburgh: We've got the new Aerosmith in the van, and we've got Hairway to Steven by the Butthole Surfers. I bought the new Silos album. We've got Get Happy by Elvis Costello. We've got The Beatles... what's the Beatles record we have?
Linnell: We don't have any of the Beatles' records.
Flansburgh: No, we do. We have that one, um...
Linnell: Hairway to Steven by the Beatles Surfers? (laughs)
Flansburgh: No, it's that old one. I can't remember. We've got that REM album that you hate... AC/DC is the best, the BEST, heavy metal band.
Linnell: No doubt about it. Those guys rock. Actually, our booking agent, when we first started touring, described us as half Squeeze, half AC/DC, and he was completely serious.
How would you describe what you do?
Flansburgh: Kiss ass rock and roll.
Linnell: I think we do a lot of songy-songs. We're into this general generic song thing. It's more like the classic American pop song. They are formal. songs, with choruses and verses mapped out in a standard way. It isn't really expressionistic music, with a few notable exceptions.
With songs such as "She Was a Hotel Detective," "Hideaway Folk Family," "Three Songs" and "My Father's Son," They Might Be Giants have attracted a diverse and cultish following. The new album. Lincoln, is now on the shelves at record stores around the country- and perhaps with this release and nationwide tour, They Might Be Giants will become true Giants.