1995-12 Las Vegas Sun
Cracking skulls with They Might Be Giants
By Geoff Carter, Las Vegas Sun, December 1995
Archived from: https://lasvegassun.com/news/1999/jun/09/cracking-skulls-with-they-might-be-giants/
While we talk about expanding our horizons, They Might Be Giants, Brooklyn's Ambassadors of Love, are actually doing so. The new record, "John Henry," is an honest-to-God rock record from the former quirky pop duo, now a tough-sounding quartet. The core duo of John Linnell and John Flansburgh are now fortified with a live rhythm section featuring Tony Maimone on bass and Brian Doherty on drums, and the resulting music proves that giants still walk the earth. One of the two Johns - the bespectacled Flansburgh - relates the view from Up There.
Q: How's the expanded band working out?
A: It's good. On a personal level, it's really challenging to deal with being a full band, from my perspective and John's perspective, because it makes us have to be band leaders. There's a whole set of odd, boss-like responsibilities that are ill-suited to us and our situation, which is really chaotic.
Q: Tell me a little about the kids tossing the skull around on the "John Henry" album cover.
A: Just an image... there's no greater significance there. Some were friends' kids, some of them were actual, hired, "professional kids." Having done a bunch of shoots with kids, you actually become grateful for stage mothers, just for being there and saying [firm tone], "She's fine, she's happy." A lot of times, regular [parents] will be like, "She doesn't want to throw the skull up in the air."
Q: Let's go back a few years...I heard you were planning to cover Queen's "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions" for the Elektra Records tribute album Rubaiyat. What became of that?
A: We were never going to cover that. We were asked to, but we never had any intention of doing it. It seemed like a bogus idea to me, actually. "We Will Rock You" is really an amazing recording. It would be difficult to recapture what was good about that song; it's kind of like covering "O Superman" or "In The Mood", something that's got its own distinct vibe. Seems pointless to try and do it again.
Q: You're very prolific (TMBG has recorded over 100 songs). How often do you write, and how do songs get developed?
A: We write songs as often as we have ideas for songs; there's no schedule. You have a notebook with fragments of ideas, and if you have a day free, you'll just expand on it, and try to finish a song. Dial-A-Song is probably the most fruitful outlet for our demos, and has probably helped us keep active in song writing. It's a nice destination for a song other than a record.
Q: My friend the Professor wanted me to ask about "I Palindrome I." Any thoughts?
A: I was talking to John about how palindromes have this unique cadence to them. There's this way that palindromes sound that basically reflects the fact that they're symmetrical; the first half usually works pretty nicely, the second half works in this really lumpy way. I wrote a song called "I Palindrome I" that was slightly different, but had a similar "I always repeat myself" kind of theme. I kind of handed off the title to John, and he cooked up this song...it's kind of impressive, actually. At the time, I was reading Greek mythology, and there's this motif in a lot of Greek stuff of snakes eating their tails...the thing that makes you great is the thing that brings you down. I was kind of amazed that when John finished writing the lyrics to the song, it had those elements in it.
Q: How was working with Frank Black?
A: Our first real collaboration was on these two videos we did for his first album, "Los Angeles" and "Hang On To Your Ego." I was kinda trepidatious about going into it because he's a friend. It's hard to work on creative things with friends. You just have to have a certain kind of rapport with somebody to have it keep on going smoothly. I was scared that if the video didn't work out, or if there was a big disaster, that it would somehow screw things up. They came out really well, and everybody was happy with the outcome. He's a really cool guy.
Q: What do you think of hip-hop? ("Snail Shell" was recently remixed by hip-hop producers The Dust Brothers.) Have you ever tried to incorporate a hip-hop vibe into your music?
A: From the beginning, we were very aware of the way in which hip-hop records were made; that was a springboard for us to start working the way we did. When we first started doing this band, we were two people with a home stereo, a four-track tape recorder, a really basic synthesizer, and that was pretty much it. There was a lot of music around New York City-popular music coming out of people's cars, being played on the street-with exactly that kind of equipment. [Hip-hop] was very inspiring to us, because it was electronic music that wasn't trying to be a band.
Where we live (has affected us). People ask me, "What do you think of this alternative rock band?" Pretty much ninety-five percent of the time, I've never even heard them. It's not like I'm avoiding them or think ill of them, but there's very little exposure to them. There's not a lot of white, angst-filled teenagers running around our neighborhood! A lot more black and Hispanic angst-filled teenagers running around.