1999-09-03 Winston-Salem Journal
GIANT STEPS: Offbeat pop band has no hit record, but it's on a big roll
By Ed Bumgardner, The Winston-Salem Journal, September 3, 1999
Four-eyes about to rock...
John Linnell of They Might Be Giants was in trouble. His publicist had handed him the phone to do an interview. He glanced at the piece of paper bearing the name of his inquisitor and found that he couldn't decipher the fine print. "How are you... Al? No? Mal? Um, how about Abe? Shoot. Where did my glasses go? Hang on."
Linnell scooted away to retrieve his spectacles. People could be heard laughing in the background.
"Ah, yes, I see now, clearly, that I wasn't even close," he said. "My secret is out; you now know I'm an old man. Have we talked?"
Linnell was informed that indeed we had previously chatted. And, by the way, congrats on the success of "One Week." Canadian rock rules!
(Pssst: Yea, yea, the song is by Barenaked Ladies, and, yea, the Giants are from New York City. Turnabout is fair play.)
"Touche... Ned," he said, wryly. "Snappy song, but it's not ours. Of course, you knew that already didn't you? Of course you did. But we are from New England, which is kinda close to Canada, and we get a lot of snow, like Canada, so...."
He laughed. "Can we start over?"
There was a time when They Might Be Giants — Linnell and John Flansburgh — might have actually been confused with Barenaked Ladies. After all, each pun-happy pop band is profoundly, if not confoundingly, witty. Each has long sputtered along under the radar of the pop mainstream, the perverse pleasure of brainy nonconformists and misfits. And each creates music that lurks in the margins of high concept and high jinks.
"But we've never had a hit record," Linnell said, sounding oddly proud of his band's niche-dwelling status. "What we have done is sell a comfortable amount of albums and and create a sound with which our fans can identify.
"As a result, we have constantly figured out more and better ways to work and survive. We are diversifying our assets for the betterment of the brand name, if you will."
When Linnell and Flansburgh joined forces in 1983, they advertised their offbeat pop songs through Dial-A-Song — a call-in service that featured Giants songs on an answering machine.
The band's seemingly endless supply of catchy, arcane tunes — no subject is too silly or strange for Linnell and Flansburgh — eventually led to an eight-year stint on Elektra Records. It was a relationship that brought the band broad exposure and deep frustration. Linnell and Flansburgh were thrilled when Elektra a finally dropped the band last year.
"We had outlasted everybody who was at the company when we were signed, including the president," Linnell said. "By the time we parted ways, I don't think there was anybody there who even knew who we were. We essentially just got tired of having to sell ourselves."
It is typical of the band's unconventional career that its fortunes as multimedia Giants promptly soared after what most bands would consider a career setback.
In the past year, They Might Be Giants created "Dr. Evil," the opening theme to the hit movie Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged [Me]. It contributed five musical segments for Brave New World, a science-and-technology summer television series for ABC. And Linnell and Flansburgh composed theme songs for Stewy The Dogboy, a new animated series for Nickelodeon; Malcolm In The Middle, a new situation comedy for Fox, and Disney Home Video's scheduled sequel to Peter Pan.
"We have been around long enough so that our fans have found positions of power and influence in television and motion-picture places," Linnell said. "When we visited Disney and Fox, people literally jumped out of their cubicles to say hello.
"It seems weirder than it is. They needed somebody, and we were available. And it's not we go into these meetings throwing temper tantrums, spilling coffee and propping our feet up on the table. We are friendly guys who want to please the client."
He laughed. "The closest we've come to being difficult was when we were asked to do the Austin Powers project. They came to us wanting us to do a typically quirky They Might Be Giants thing — so of course we gave them something that sounded like Goldfinger. They didn't really want it, but Mike Myers did, so everybody walked away happy."
Linnell said that the band would consider returning to "the clutches" of another major-label record company if interest and terms were conducive to the band's creative spirit. Until that time, the Giants will continue to tour with its backing group, The Band Of Dans (guitarist Dan Miller, bassist Dan Weinkauf and drummer Dan Hickey), and market music and souvenirs on a thriving Web site, tmbg.com.
"We seem to be getting new, younger fans," Linnell said. "My guess is that kids who grew up hearing the music that we did for the Tiny Toons video series, which was nine years ago, have finally gotten old enough to leave the house on their own."
The band also has a new 15-song studio album, Long Tall Weekend, that is available at EMusic.com Linnell described the album, available only in the downloadable MP3 as "top-shelf material at an attractive price."
"I must add that we are not crusading evangelists for the Internet," Linnell said. "In fact, compared to Dial-A-Song, I find the Internet cumbersome. You need a computer and a phone. Why not just pick up the phone computer is plugged into?
"I also don't subscribe to rap that the Internet is going to replace the big record companies. Just because anyone can go on the net and find your record doesn't meant that they will. You will always need some big bank-like company to promote things.
"You can't be Ricky Martin on your own. Even he couldn't pull it off."
Linnell also has a solo album, State Songs, due on Rounder Records in October. The album is a collection of typically quirky songs inspired by and dedicated to 16 of the 50 states. "The album isn't even out and it begs for a sequel," Linnell said, laughing, "For instance, there is a North Carolina song, but it isn't on the album. Thus, the need for a sequel."
He stressed that his solo album does not represent a crack in his longstanding partnership with Flansburgh, who records without Linnell as Mono Puff.
"We still really enjoy working with each other," Linnell said. "We don't have separate tour buses. We do have separate hotel rooms, though. Our wives insisted."