1995-06 Kyosaku Zine
FEE FI FO FUM
By Mike Janssen, Kyosaku Zine, June, 1995
Archived from: https://www.kyosaku.net/kyo5/Kyosaku5.pdf#page=6
"In which John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants speaks of songwriting, Green Day and Del Monte spaghetti sauce with Mike Janssen."
For over a decade, They Might Be Giants, a duo comprised of John Flansburgh (guitar, vocals) and John Linnell (sax, keys, accordion, vocals) have been chugging out album after album of endearing and erudite pop. Their most recent album, John Henry, features the single "Snail Shell" and 19 other awe-inspiring tunes. I was lucky enough to snag an interview with Flansburgh by telephone in his apartment in the Williamsburgh suburb of Brooklyn. Our sordid conversation is brought to you, the reader, for your enjoyment. Feast your eyes!
Kyosaku: Where are you right now?
John Flansburgh: I'm in my kitchen, making spaghetti. Let me tell you, Del Monte canned spaghetti sauce is rockin'. It's like what they use in restaurants.
K: When did you first start listening to music? Who were your favorite bands in your youth?
JF: I first started listening to a music when I was really, really little. I was really into the Beatles and AM 1965 Top 401 radio. I bought A Hard Days Night when I was five with birthday money. They were one half of the musical universe. My folks were really into the folk scene of Cambridge, Mass. I grew up just outside of Boston. You know, Joan Baez, Dylan, Phil Ochs. That was when I first became aware--I would experience a fair amount of acoustic guitar strumming. As a teen, it became even more intense. It wasn't until the punk rock era that I started to learn to play guitar. I guess I was sort of afraid. Suddenly it was a good time to be not that good.
K: How do TMBG's songs get written? Is it a collaborative process? Are the hand members involved?
JF: The band worked on a couple of songs for the new record. For instance, the song "Nyquil Driver" was put together while we were rehearsing. John and I work pretty autonomously writing for They Might Be Giants. There are a few notable exceptions, but by and large we write independently of each other.
K: What are those "notable exceptions?"
JF: "Subliminal"... John has done some horn charts for songs I've written. "Spider". He made those samples. He created the vocal samples and give me the disks and the drum sequences. "My Evil Twin." John had the music together and I wrote the melody and words. That was a fifty-fifty job. Recently we've trading lyrics before the song is written, which is a real spacewalk. It's kina cool. It's a "just add water" approach. It's kind of like cheating. If you've got set lyrics, it's done in an hour. It's a lot different from the regular grind.
K: What inspired "Spider"?
JF. I'm not quite sure, but it's sort of got a monster-movie vibe to it, like an overdubbed Japanese horror movie. Six months ago John was talking about--well, I have spiders in my house. There's this hole in my bathtub which is over my basement and spiders crawl up into my house. I get spider bites in sleep. That might have been the genesis. I think I remember him reflecting on that.
K: What are the disadvantages of having a band?
JF: On a social level it's more extreme. It's having to deal with three times the personalities than before. People have really different desires. What volts them may be the opposite to another. It's different--it makes me feel like a boss in an uncomfortable way. For instance, if we have to decide, "Do we want a bus, or a van?", someone has gotta decide. It feels really weird. It takes away from the happy vibe. But we're a working band and we're not flying around in Lear jets, so it's figuring out what keeps us in the black and keeps everybody happy. It's a tough call.
K: Could you cite any musical influences?
JF: I really dig this Green Day record. For me, being in my 30s, it resurrected fond memories of the Buzzcocks. My response is different from a 17-year-olds. I can't pretend I've never heard anything like it. They're almost a revival band. Maybe I'm like the biker guy at Woodstock who really enjoyed Sha Na Na. Beck is somebody--the style is really inspiring because it's so loose. It reminds me of the way Dylan made his records. You can tell it's not going to be fussed over, and we're envious of that, because we're so uptight. The spontaneity is kind of inspiring. I got the new Guided By Voices record, which is kind of similar in that spontaneous attitude, but I haven't had much time to check it out. It's clear [Beck's] listened to a lot of music besides rock music. There are so many rock musicians today who have grown up listening only to rock music, and it's incredibly dull. He's definitely got that in there. So two thumbs up to Beck. I know John's really into Beck as well. I think John even went out and bought his indie release, so I know he's a big fan.
K: Maybe you guys should cover "Loser" in concert.
JF: Hey, who knows. I'm kind of sick of that song, though. It's kind of funny--"Loser" got played on black radio a lot down here, I guess on Hot 101, the disco station, because of the beat.
K: Are there any particular themes that, as a songwriter, you find yourself returning to over TMBG's career?
JF: A lot of the themes can end up being our crutches. I've written a lot of songs that are sort of about the frustration of being a worker. Sometimes it has more meaning than other times. For example, "Minimum Wage" is a nice, 30-second, lighthearted joke song. "Hearing Aid" is a little more cryptic but also more heartfelt. I sort of see the same themes functioning in different ways. I think we tend to animate inanimate objects. We're kind of a noun-driven band.
K: What do you find satisfying about being a part of TMBG?
JF: Wow. I've actually. I've been so stressed-out lately I'm not in the "I love my job" kind kind of mood. We do get a lot of recognition sometimes, and that's gratifying. There are people who really understand where we're coming from and I appreciate that. What we're doing has never been focused on gaining the most acceptance. I think we knew we were taking a low road by creating something more personal. There'd be more satisfaction with the band by keeping it at that level. The satisfaction is in what we do, in making songs.
K: I realize that John probably wrote this song and it may not be one to ask you about, but "A Self Called Nowhere" is an unusually heavy song. What is it about?
JF: I wouldn't be surprised if he said it wasn't a personal song. I'm always surprised at what he feels is coming directly from him. For us, songwriting is pretty theoretical. It's not confessional. You're putting something together that is going to stand on its own, where you don't have to know anything about the person to understand it. This spaghetti is rockin'.
K: What are you drinking with it?
JF: Nothing.
K: Hmm... you should be washing it down with something. You don't want it to hit you all at once. You need a buffer.
JF: Maybe I'll crack open this brand new Coca-Cola I just bought at the store. It's in the new retro bottle.
K: This is sort of a loaded question....
JF: Go right ahead.
K: ...but do you think John Henry has sort of a travel theme to it?
JF: Early on, we realized modes of transportation weigh heavily in our songwriting. Even before touring we realized there were a lot of vehicular songs.
K: Like "Alienation's For The Rich."
JF: Yes, and "Boat Of Car." There are about five on that album. It makes sense it's a very natural theme to me. I guess what I mean is, if I had to write a song about going somewhere or sitting somewhere, I'd write about going somewhere. Because you don't want the song to just sit there.
K: Have you collaborated with other bands? I know John has, but I haven't seen anything with you on it.
JF: Not really. I did this thing recently with Frank Black, a stage show called They Might Be Frank Black. John went off to Scotland and left us, but we had a festival date scheduled and couldn't get out of it, so we called Frank in. We did five of his and five of ours. It was a lot of fen. I'm not such a hot instrumentalist I could fit in with others too well. I'd be interested in producing someone sometime. I have some production and arranging skills that could help someone out.
K: Which came first: the song "Ana Ng" or the bridge?
JF: The song. There are a couple of those bridges out there.