1998-09-19 KVRX
Interview with John Linnell
Conducted by John Erler and Eric Swedberg, KVRX, September 19, 1998
Archived from: https://www.tmbg.org/discussion/mail/list/tmbg-digest.archive/1998/Digest.11-8
Before the TMBG show at Stubbs BBQ on September 19, 1998.
JE: I've got kind of an off-the-wall question right off the bat, which was inspired by one of your songs: DO you sing like Olive Oil on purpose? And are you into the Eurythmics?
JL: Well those questions in that song, the idea was that they were irritating questions that people asked us. So they're obviously not meant to be answered in a serious way. [laughs]
JE: Speaking of the Eurythmics, do you have any guilty-pleasure bands, bands that you wouldn't want anybody to find out that you actually like?
JL: Sure, I suppose so. I never listen to the Eurythmics particularly. There's really a lot of bands that you like not because they're good, but for some other reason.
JE: For instance, I love the Stars on 45, an early 80s Dutch pop group.
JL: Dutch pop is a whole guilty pleasure of its own. Another Dutch band was Focus, who did Hocus Pocus. It was a really big instrumental hit in the 70s. You'd recognize it if you heard it, 'cause it was everywhere.
ES: I think you guys were quoted as saying that you'd tried vegetarianism but you quit because life was too boring without barbecue. And now you're eating here at Stubbs.
JL: Wow, I don't remember that. We just have chowed down on barbecue. Stubbs really packs a punch.
JE: Do you have any particularly fond or bitter memories of Austin?
JL: Oh no, I have good memories. People have asked us about memorable gigs, and Austin has come up in that context, because I remember these particular times at Liberty Lunch, which is almost the only club we ever played at for years and years, when we got the crowd to scream at a certain moment in the show. And people were so into it; they were so ready to scream as if they were in hell. That was the instruction, and they went for it in such a heavy way that it was earsplitting, really memorable. So even 10 years ago when people would ask us what the memorable gigs were, I would say Austin for that reason. And there was another similar show in Dublin, Ireland. The same thing: people really knew how to scream loud. I'll never forget those shows for that reason.
ES: When you write songs do you write them thinking, "in 10 years I'm still gonna want to have fun playing this song"?
JL: No, I wish I did think in those terms. Probably for most of the songs we've written I had no idea that we'd still be playing them in 10 years?
ES: How do you keep the energy in your sets?
JL: Mood enhancing drugs [laughs]. We drink a lot of coffee before the show. I'm pushing middle-age; sometimes I do feel a little weary stepping onto the stage. Terrible thing to admit. But we do these long tours and sometimes we don't get enough sleep. It is really hard to jump around and act crazy night after night, not that I even do that, but it would be hard.
JE: What do you think of some of these fans? You've got a lot of great fans, but you've also inspired a lot of rabid loyalty?
JL: Yeah, I think its a double-edged sword in a way because sometimes we do have awkward moments with our crowd, where they want something from us personally, and we see them outside the gig and they want some kind of interaction with us. And it's something that maybe we can't quite supply. We're just not... I should speak for myself... I'm just not maybe a generous enough person to really satisfy people in that way. And I don't feel like for me it's that meaningful a relationship. And they feel very personally connected to me, but I don't actually know these people. They come up to me and they feel like I'm their friend because they're a fan of the band. So it can be very awkward and strange for me in that way. But having said that, these are the people who are supporting me. It's like, everything we do is dependent on these people, so we're super-grateful that people like the band so much. We do have a very intense following, and luckily it's a very loyal following too. They tend to stick around.
JE: ...And shout like they're in hell sometimes.
ES: How about the new album. Is there anything you'd like to say about it?
JL: I think it's an interesting kind of record. You have to sort of declare what your record is if it's not just a regular studio album. So it's been proclaimed the live album but at the same time it's not really a collection of all our greatest hits. There are new studio recordings on it. There's a bunch of tracks that were only performed once ever, and have nothing to do with anything. So it's an oddball kind of record. So I think that's very good for us, that we didn't make just a standard live album. But it does have a lot of good performances of songs that people know on it and for the most part they're different from the studio versions. So that made it worthwhile. I'm proud of it; I think it's a good record.
JE: Another off-the-wall, Barbara Walters-style question, so get ready:
JL: I'm gonna stonewall when it comes to anything personal.
JE: Some of your best songs are love songs to or by inanimate objects: "Exquisite Dead Guy", "Birdhouse in your Soul", "Metal Detector". If you were going to write a love song to a snack food, what it would be?
JL: I'm trying to think if we ever did anything like that... But I can't think of one. I think we try to stay away from product names, because then you get into, I don't know, more of Frank Zappa territory.
ES: You're into Frank Zappa?
JL: Well I did like Frank Zappa when I was a kid. But I should qualify that by saying I liked certain things about Frank Zappa and I really still find a lot of his stuff problematic. I don't want to give an unqualified enthusiastic two thumbs-up for Frank Zappa. But he obviously influenced both John and I. I think that we try to be more... I think one of the worst things about his general view of the world was that he had a very condescending attitude towards his audience and everybody. And he was not a superior being. So it was an unattractive posture.
ES: Someone wanted to know if you were planning on releasing the State Songs.
JL: I would like to. I don't have a record deal for it, but it's kind of in the works. It's gonna require a little bit of time blocked out for me. I work slower than Flansburgh. He's much more of a workaholic than I am. So he's been able to direct videos and make his solo records while we've been doing other stuff. And I'm sort of preoccupied with staring out the window a lot of the time.
ES: Are you planning on doing 50 [state songs]?
JL: Well that would be nice; I don't really have a plan yet. One of the problems with the project is that I keep writing new songs... like I've written songs for states that I've already written songs for. And then I tear up some of them. I don't know, I think it's one of these life projects that I'll never completely finish working on.
JE: Do you have other ones like that? Ideal, back-burner projects?
JL: Well I put out another CD on Flansburghs Hello Club thing, which was a collection of instrumentals that represent the mayors of New York. You can see the thread.
ES: I've overheard rumors of a children's show album?
JL: Well we had a discussion with Jim Henson's group that was doing a Doctor Seuss thing. And unfortunately it didn't turn out to be the kind of project that we actually wanted to do. I think the problem for John and I working with other people is that we don't know exactly how to collaborate musically with a company, with somebody that we're employed by. We haven't quite figured that out yet. But I think it's something want to try and do. We've talked to a record company about putting together a children's record, but it's completely our own production. So that may happen. We still haven't charted it out yet.
JE: You mentioned collaboration: what's the collaborative process like between you and the other John?
JL: Generally we don't really work in the same room together at the same time. We have done that, but I think we find that for both of us it's more productive if we work privately and then just show each other what we're doing. In cases where we have collaborated and one of has written lyrics and given them to the other or written some music as a MIDI file or something... we'll give stuff back and forth that way. Most of the work that we've done has been individual, you know we each write songs. On the other hand it's for this project that we're both involved in, so I feel like it's all collaborative in one way, which is that I can't write a song that think John isn't gonna like, because there's no point. It wouldn't be a They Might Be Giants song.
JE: Do you ever, for instance, write a song for the other John to sing, or do you pretty much sing what you write?
JL: Yeah, we've done that on occasion. For example, John wrote the words to Subliminal and gave them to me and I made up the music and sang it. And there's a bunch of early stuff that I wrote for John to sing: "Cowtown", "The World's Address", and with "Puppet Head" I wrote the chorus and the melody for the whole thing and then John made up the words for both of the verses for that one. There's a few more like that. There are some that haven't been released that are collaborative. With "Spider" basically I put together these samples in a kind of a sequence and I gave the whole batch of stuff, like a bunch of discs, to Flansburgh and he kind of put it all together. He added the bongos and the little cocktail horn and everything.
ES: I saw you guys play last night [in Dallas] and one of you guys mentioned that the three guys in your backup band are all named Dan. Is that true?
JL: It's true.
ES: I was wondering if that was a coincidence... or, conspiracy?
JL: It is a coincidence.
JE: It's like a royal flush.
JL: Yeah, it's a full house actually. It beats a straight or a flush. I don't know what examples of bands you could think of that are straights or flushes, but we'd beat them if they were.
ES: The Ramones.
JL: That's right!
JE: Well that's four-of-a-kind isnt it?
JL: That's right, that beats a full house [laughs].
JE: When the tribute album to you guys comes out in 10 years, what bands do you want to be playing your songs, and which songs do you want them to play?
JL: I want... I don't know. Flansburgh could give you a good answer to that one. I don't really know.
JE: Do you like any up-and-coming bands that might be around in 10 years?
JL: Oh yeah. It would be more amusing to give a facetious answer, but there are a lot of bands. I wouldn't presume to think that these bands would be interested in us particularly, but there are a lot of bands that I like. And I don't even think they should really cover our work. I mean, I like Beck a lot. The sort of stuff that everybody has already acknowledged as good, I guess. So like, I'm always the last one: [in nerd voice] "Oh yeah, Beck's really cool".
JE: Get off the bandwagon!
JL: Yeah, everybody's already sick of that.
JE: Air Supply or that kind of thing.
JL: Now see, if Air Supply were around in 10 years I would pay money for them to cover our songs.
JE: We'll see. Who knows?
ES: I was wondering if your upper-body strength has varied any since you incorporated the keyboard into the set more than the accordion.
JL: That's a good question because that is a real concern of mine. We have nights where I play the accordion a lot, and the muscles you use for the accordion are not muscles you use for anything else. There's one in particular which is like... one of the Dans, our bass player, is a physical therapist so he actually knows all this stuff. There's a muscle here and when you're pushing and pulling something like that, which is what I do, you're using this muscle. And apparently it's a very good idea to use this muscle because when you're old its the thing that holds your arm in its socket, and a very common bone problem for old people is that the thing actually starts to fall out of its socket.
ES: So I guess we can expect more accordion-based songs coming out from TMBG?
JL: Well, maybe. Or I'll just learn to do the exercise some other way. In any case, it's just my left shoulder that's getting this exercise. My right one doesnt do that with the accordion. So I'm going to be one of these lopsided old guys with one arm that hangs down.
JE: It's kind of sad.
JL: It's terribly sad.
JE: Let's talk television. Do you like television?
JL: I don't watch enough TV. That's the problem for me. When I'm home, sometimes my wife and I watch TV, just 'cause it's there.
JE: But you're not a big fan?
JL: I can't find much to like on. There are certain cable things that are kind of funny. I mean I always like the Simpsons. Another example of that thing where everybody already likes it. There's no point in blowing the Simpsons' horn. But it's still funny.
JE: Have any TV shows inspired songs? Is there any connection there?
JL: I'm sure there has been: I can't think of what it would be now. I always liked the Perry Mason theme.
JE: And that showed up in one of your songs on Lincoln.
JL: Yeah, it was a total homage to the Perry Mason theme on that record. Very astute of you to notice that.
JE: So you're not a big TV fan.
JL: Not really. I watched a lot when I was a kid, and then when I was a teenager my mom threw the TV in the trash because she was trying to get our attention and she was fed up that we were even watching the commercials. We had this little black and white set and she just marched into the basement and whipped it into the trash can. We didn't have TV for the rest of the time I was living at home. So I actually missed a lot of shows in the 70s. I missed The Dukes of Hazzard. I didn't see Fantasy Island. A lot of shows that are considered seminal shows I completely missed out on because my mom had had enough. I was not following Dallas, the whole "who shot JR thing". I missed out on all of that.
[after the tape stops, we say like "I don't have any more questions, thanks for your time..." then we said something about the weather, i think, as we left. because it was really hot.]