1996-10 DETOURS
Interview with John Linnell
By Eric Justin, DETOURS, October 1996
Archived from: https://web.archive.org/web/20031228170740/http://www.tmbg.net/articles/detours1996.html
Holiday Inn employee (Albany, Ga.): Holiday Inn Express, this is Teresa. Can I help you?
DETOURS: Can I speak to the, uh... They Might Be Giants?
Employee: What's the last name again?
DETOURS: No. They're a band. Can I speak to... John Flansburgh [guitar, vocals—ed.]?
Holiday Inn employee: Hold on...
Flansburgh: Hello.
DETOURS: This is Eric Justin with the Alligator in Gainesville... Was I supposed to speak to you?
Flansburgh: I have no idea who I'm supposed to talk to. There's a lot of confusion about all this... I'm supposed to talk to some lady in five minutes. Call Linnell. If you can't get him, call me back and we'll knock it out.
Holiday Inn Employee: Holiday Inn Express. Can I help you?
DETOURS: John Linnell's room please.
Linnell: Hello (definitely just woke up).
DETOURS: John, this is Eric from the Alligator in Gainesville...
Linnell: Eric. I was expecting you. I'm just waking up here with my Holiday Inn Express coffee.
DETOURS: Me too. How's Albany?
Linnell: We're on our way to Providence, Rhode Island. I haven't really seen Albany. We got here and went to the gig, came straight back and I just woke up... There's a huge American flag draped outside my window and I keep thinking there's somebody outside my window... but it's just a flag.
DETOURS: How far are you into this tour?
Linnell: Well, it's hard to judge when the tour begins really. The album ["Factory Showroom"—ed.] hasn't come out yet and we've done a whole bunch of shows over the summer. I guess yesterday was the first day of a five-week period in which I'm not going to be home. At this point I've stuffed everything I own into a bag. I won't see my Brooklyn Laundromat for a long time.
DETOURS: Where in Brooklyn do you live?
Linnell: In Park Slope. John and I work in Williamsburg. We've got our studio there.
DETOURS: Do you guys know anything about the Harvest you're playing here?
Linnell: I forgot what town you said you're from.
DETOURS: Gainesville.
Linnell: Oh yeah... No... do you know who's playing with us?
DETOURS: A lot of Florida bands and George Clinton, Brides of Funkenstein, Funkadelic...
Linnell: They all fly in the same spaceship.
DETOURS: What do you guys do to relax while on tour?
Linnell: Let me look into my bag here. I've got a bunch of books. I'm reading this Japanese novel by Kazuo Ishiguro. He wrote "The Remains of the Day." He writes very formal, about the behavior between people... about the humanity that escapes between the cracks I guess. I do a fair amount of reading. And I've got a card game on my computer called 'Forty Thieves' and that eats up a lot of my time... And somebody in our band has a hackysack. That usually is what knocks over the drinks in the dressing room.
DETOURS: Sorry if my head seems clouded. I haven't really woken up yet.
Linnell: No, I'm right there with you. I'm on the same cloud.
DETOURS: So Flood is about to go platinum?
Linnell: Yeah, that's what we're told. We're up to maybe 900,000 sold. It went gold in a year and a half. It's one of those Carole King type records. It sold real well originally and is still selling well as opposed to a record that just explodes and disappears. That seems to be the kind of audience we have. People tend to be pretty loyal. We're not super-dependent on being the flavor of the week.
DETOURS: Did you ever expect a platinum album?
Linnell: Nobody ever expected anything. WE NEVER EXPECTED JACK!
DETOURS: How long since you formed and started making records?
Linnell: Well, John and I formed in 1959 and 1960, respectively, and we formed the band in around 1981. We've been doing They Might Be Giants for about 14 years now. We never had a plan. We certainly weren't rejecting the possibilities that we'd have our own TV show by now. We didn't have a specific goal. We just wanted to write music and make records.
DETOURS: Marisa wants to know if you guys are slowing down at all since you're getting old?
Linnell: I think we're not physically falling down because we don't have much of a choice. Yes, we are getting older. I got a much lighter accordion, 20 pounds lighter, five years ago. I used to feel really fatigued, but I don't so much anymore. I don't play the accordion all the time now. On the other hand, our show is twice as long now, two hours. In the '80s we only did one hour shows, but we still worked pretty god damn hard.
DETOURS: What do you guys listen to? Watch any TV?
Linnell: Actually we've been listening to books on tape in the car. I know that sounds pathetic. We often play with opening acts, which is a lot of the music we listen to at this point. We played recently with a group called the Candy Butchers. I like them. We're into the grab-bag technique of music appreciation. We just spin the radio dial while driving around. T.V.?
Mr. Flansburgh watches CNN. We'll be on CNN this week. Look for us. I saw this thing about the Lindburg baby kidnapping. It was pretty interesting.
DETOURS: My cat is eating my carpet.
Linnell: Flans has some cats. They cause him no end of difficulty. I pretty much have avoided the animal thing. When I lived in Williamsburg, our house wasn't pet proof, so we lived in terror of other people's dogs coming over. I've had girlfriends in the past who've had cat litter in the bathroom and then the scattered cat litter on the floor gets stuck to your feet. It hardens my attitude. I'm not responsible enough to have one anyway.
DETOURS: My friend Gregg wants to know how tall you guys are. Are you or are you not giants?
Linnell: That's a breath of fresh air. I don't have to think. I can have some more of my coffee. (Sips coffee) I'm 5 foot 10 and I believe John checks in at, very slightly taller, at 5 foot 11. We're not giants.
[Buy the new album for the origin of their name—ed.]
The new album, "Factory Showroom," comes out Tuesday. It was recorded at both fancy and unfancy studios in New York City, including their apartment-shaped personal studios.
The guys say that the freedom they had in making the new album allowed them to record in ways they had once only imagined.
The song "I Can Hear You" was recorded without the use of electricity on an 1898 wax cylinder recorder at the Edison Laboratory, and there are full string and horn sections on other tracks.