1990-11-07 Honolulu Star
They Might Be Giants (but they're musicians)
By Wayne Harada, Honolulu Star-Advertiser, November 7, 1990
They Might Be Giants, named after a movie, is no ordinary rock duo.
"We're too old to have triple-pierced ears and color our hair wild," said John Linnell, 31, accordionist with the group.
His partner is another John, John Flansburgh, 30. Said Linnell: "It's no problem between us; we just call each other John. It's the others who have to figure us out."
Honoluluans will get a chance to try and figure They Might Be Giants out, when the duo plays Wave Waikiki Sunday and Monday.
With a hot album, "Flood" (Elektra Records CD and cassette), the group has been on tour since January, playing college towns, small clubs and some big cities.
In a conversation recently from Bloomington, Ind., Linnell said that Hawaii will be "the exotic, exciting stop on this western hemisphere tour. After Hawaii — our second time there — we will play Japan, New Zealand, Australia."
The duo's songs are as witty and quirky as the personalities behind them.
Take their name. "We were attracted to the title, not the film," said Linnell. "The name sounded good. We also had thought of Dump Truck as a possible band name. Fortunately, we didn't use that because later, there was a group out of Boston called Dump Truck; we avoided a legal battle."
The two Johns were pals working together on a high school newspaper in Brooklyn when they met and turned to music instead of journalism. In their first incarnation, they were known as The Brave New Whales. They had a whale of a time playing together, but never recorded anything.
"Flood," their primo work, has done well in England and attracted a crowd beyond the college-age realm.
"We have fun making the music," said Linnell. "Because we exist in a climate of gloomy rock bands, we're intentionally not gloomy. Our music has a lot of wit...
"Also, we don't change our style to suit the whims of the public. Along the way, we thought it best to just do what we know how to do. If we change, to second-guess what the people want, things would all come out worse. And I think we were right all along, we've succeeded in attracting an audience."
Both Linnell and Flansburgh write music. Linnell's accordion is augmented by Flansburgh's guitar. And they both sing, usually their own compositions.
Linnell doesn't consider his accordion an oddity on the rock scene. "In an abstract way, it's the perfect instrument for me," he said. "It's enabled me to walk around the stage, something a keyboard player cannot always do. It looks cool, it's very versatile." Besides, he's in good company. Bruce Hornsby and Billy Joel unashamedly employ the accordion; and bands backing such acts as John Cougar Melencamp also periodically showcase the accordion.
They Might Be Giants might have been strictly a recording band but commerce nudged them to start touring.
"It became apparent, after we did our first two albums, that in order to be a band, you had to try to sing your songs in public," said Linnell. "So we started to tour, not really for the money, but to get people interested in what we do. But the whole function of a tour is to promote your record."