1990-11-02 Imprint
< Archived Interviews & Articles
They Might Be Giants among men
By John Hymers, Imprint, November 2 1990
Archived from: https://issuu.com/uw_imprint/docs/1990-91_v13-n16_imprint
"There are some joys to the thankless task of being Arts Editor. Despite the fact that my exam/essay schedule is at its peak (I am a student after all — sometimes I forget), I still have to find 30 hours a week to waste at Imprint. But this is made more palatable by certain assignments, such as picking the minds of They Might Be Giants...
"Anyway, sit back and enjoy the conversation that John Linnell and I had; a parlance that spanned about 450 miles and crossed a time zone, thanks to the miracle of the telephone."
So how long have you been together as They Might Be Giants (TMBG)?
Uh, we started... um... lets see now. We did our first show as TMBG in the winter of '83, January of '83.
Well, your first album did not come out until 1986. What did you do in those three years?
We never made any records before that. We recorded a tape, with much of the same songs as the first album eventually had. We also did a few singles, and a flexi-disk for some magazine.
Was it always the two of you?
Yeah, well, um, at one time we considered getting other members, and we kind of ... you know, um tossed this idea back and forth about getting a bass player and a drummer and after a couple of months, right at the very beginning, we started auditioning people and checking, out ions on rehearsing. Because you know if we had a drummer then we would have had to rent out rehearsal space, or figured out some place we could rehearse with drums.
I suppose you use a drum machine now?
That's right. But at the same time, they weren't — um, you know that its really strange that in such a short time, technology has grown up so much — really a viable option in 1983. You couldn't really use a drum machine to capture a full sound. In the seven years since then the technology has really blossomed, and it's lucky for us that it did 'cuz it happened just in time.
I think that it was in the middle of '84 that we decided we were gonna ask a friend to loan us a drum machine in order to make a record with, instead of with the real drums we had been recording with. I think the machine we used at the time was a DMX. Boy, I don't even know what's happened to those things now. It was state of the art then, and I listen to the tape now and the sound just sounds like one of those things that are attached to your parlor organ, like the rhythm, you know.
So, just the machine and the two of you, from then on?
Yes. The main thing was that we worked so much better with just the two of us. We never had to explain the songs that went into the album. It was so easy to put it together, particularly when we got the machines to do it for us. It just made everything, really, very easy, and we had no philosophical problem with using the machines. So it just seemed that in every way, we were able to do more work, and it was easier.
How do you split the songwriting duties?
Uh, we each write songs, we generally don't get into that Roger's and Hart situation, although we have done that. I've written, you know, a sort-of song without words, kind of just a melody, and I've given it to John. Puppet Head' was written this way.
That was your first video, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was. We've done other collaborations, but mostly we've written separately.
What are some of the songs that you've written?
Well, I wrote 'Birdhouse in Your Soul', and, well, I'm just trying to only remember the hits (chuckle, chuckle): 'Don't Let's Start', 'They'll Need a Crane', Purple Toupee'. I've written a lot of the singles.
What about 'Youth Culture Killed My Dog'?
That's John's song.
I was gonna ask if there was a story behind it, but I guess you might not know then.
(Chuckle, chuckle) Well, I don't know if there really is. I mean, I don't wanna speak for John, but I don't know if there really is, I think he just used his imagination. I think he generally, well, there aren't really experiences that correspond exactly to songs. God help us if they did.
How do you split up the instruments? The albums don't list any credits.
I play the keyboards, and woodwinds. And John plays guitar and we both program the machines. That's the primary thing, but we each play other little instruments.
You've worked a little with the Ordinaires, and even had Eugene Chadbourne play guitar over the phone on one of your albums. But how comfortable are you in playing with other musicians?
We had a lot of people come and play on our last album, Flood. But I guess because we are not really a band, but a duo, we probably have more freedom than most people do, because we can put anything we want onto our records, and still call it ours. Ha ha.
The first track on Flood is done by all sorts of people. We just hired a few singers, and a trombone player, and just worked with them. In fact we're not on it at all. I liked that so much, it makes me want to do it again.
Your name has become more and more recognizable over the past three years. Is the speed of your rise comfortable?
I wouldn't say that I would like to go faster. That's kind of a recipe for ending your career quicker. But, uh, so far it hasn't been too much overwhelming, I think that we can handle the pressure. I get really nervous when we are called on to do some new thing, like the first time that we did 'Late Night' with Letterman; or like the first time we performed before 2000 people.
Sometimes it feels like we'd be healthier, have lower blood pressure, but we are getting a lot of interesting experiences. We get to go to Japan and Australia, and we've never done that before. I'm really glad about that: doing stuff like that.
Are you from Hoboken?
Let me dispel a myth: We are not from New Jersey. We have never lived in Hoboken. Our old record company was based there. John has a great aunt who lives there, but that's it.
Well, tonight (when the interview was held) is Halloween. Are you celebrating it in any way?
Yeah. sort of anyway. I mean. we're not gonna wear costumes or anything, but we're in a celebratory mood. We're in Northwestern University, just outside of Chicago, tonight and doing a show. Somebody made pumpkins for us that look like us. So I've got a pumpkin effigy of my head, which is sitting on my dresser.
How often do you change the songs on Dial-A-Song?
Um well, they're supposed to be changed everyday. John's landlady is supposed to change the set, which really isn't a big deal; and I don't know if she does it everyday anyway. I think it's like permissible to miss a day. But it's a really easy thing to do.
Do you grab the songs off of old albums?
They're all unreleased; in fact, virtually everything we've put out on record has started out on Dial-A-Song.
So you must have a huge inventory of songs.
Well, I wish that were true. Um, I don't know why you'd think that; we're pretty much out of songs actually. They're not always new songs, they're really just the old ones that are left over, so a lot of them are old songs which we really wouldn't consider releasing for new records.
We've pretty much exhausted our backlog at this point. So it's really time to go back and write songs.
At the end of the (She was a) Hotel Detective' CD single, there is this dialogue, which I guess is essentially a monologue. Who is that lady and how did you end up recording her?
Those two didn't realize that they were being recorded. Yah, it's amazing and she's amazing, I'm kind of impressed that people like her... I think people get the idea that we're making fun of her, when that really isn't the case. I'm kind of impressed: I'm very impressed with people like that who are not part of the downtown scene. She's just got this burning curiosity about the stuff she reads on the back of Village Voice. So she calls these things up, and you know they've captured her imagination. It's really neat and interesting. I wonder what she's doing night now?
What kind of musical training do you have?
Uh, not really much that we've brought to this band. I went to music school for a summer, and I did music in high school. I think we're both basically self taught. But basically for what we're doing here you don't have to go to school.
So, does John play the accordion?
No, I play it.
How did you pick it up?
A friend loaned me it. I already played keyboard, and it just suddenly seemed like the exact right instrument. It's a great for a keyboard player. Lots of keyboardists are beginning to pick it up, even Billy Joel, who used to sneer at it publicly.