2002-04-28 CultureDose
Interview with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants
By Kim Lumpkin, CultureDose, April 28, 2002
Archived from: https://web.archive.org/web/20021028192307/http://www.culturedose.com/review.php?aid=1000303
It's not remarkable to come across a rock or pop musician who is passionate about his or her craft when just starting out. But to find one who is still not only still passionate but still vital, productive, even idealistic after 20 years in a grueling business is virtually unheard of, which makes John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants a truly open and refreshing person to interview. I recently had the pleasure of talking to John about such things as his views on censorship, CD gimmickery, his very first influences, the drawbacks of being so open with their music, and just a handful of the many things currently going on in the ever-changing life of the band.
Kim Lumpkin: CultureDose's motto is "Uncensored Views from Media Mavericks." You guys are definitely media mavericks, but have you ever had to deal with censorship in any way?
John Flansburgh: Well, that's an interesting question. We don't work blue, you know, we don't swear in what we do, so the idea of being censored doesn't really come up that often. Really because I find that songs with swearing in them tend to not hold up to repeated listening, so it's more of an artistic aesthetic position than a fear of censorship.
KL: That's true. I was just thinking that censorship can seem so arbitrary and so strange that I was wondering if there were ever a time when you did something and didn't even realize that somebody might take offense at it.
JF: We've done things that have offended people. We have a song called "Kiss Me, Son Of God" that is sort of a breezy song that mentions Jesus in it that I think might have been offensive to some people. But in general, our orientation is more toward entertaining people than offending them.
KL: What nationalities are you guys, and were there any cultural influences on your musical development when you were growing up?
JF: Well, you know, we're two children of the '60s. John's 42, I'm 41. I think we were really hypnotized by the radio between the ages of 5 and 10, which coincided with 1965 to 1970, which were probably like the only really good years of top 40 pop radio. So, you know, we grew up with the Beatles and James Brown and, you know, all the great British rock and American soul music and American rock music of that period, and our lives were irrevocably changed by that experience.
I think for a lot of kids who grew up then, it was very exciting. You know, I have to say, it was like music was "the thing." Probably in a way like a lot of kids these days experience the Internet as like this kind of unlimited sphere of the imagination. I think that the idea of the pop song seemed like a place where anything could happen and a great vehicle for ideas. And then as teenagers, things started kind of shifting and the rock scene became much more boring and much more "superhero" oriented. As teenagers, there were some bands we were interested in, you know, David Bowie, and Kraftwerk was very interesting to us; they seemed almost like a performance art kind of project. And there was a band called Sparks that I really cherished as a kid because they were like a fascinating, strange, misguided band. And then, basically when the whole punk rock/new wave thing came along, the New York bands, Talking Heads, Television, Blondie type of stuff, Tuff Darts, Ramones. I mean, all those bands were like, that was the kind of thing that reintroduced us to the idea that we could be in a band.
KL: What is the very earliest musical memory you have and when did you first feel inspired?
JF: Inspired to write a song or inspired, just like, inspired by something?
KL: Yeah, just inspired in general.
JF: Well, I bought A Hard Day's Night by the Beatles with my birthday money when I was 5 years old. My grandmother gave me a $5 bill, and I bought this album, and that was kind of like... it was an interesting experiment in culture because half the record is essentially muzak. It's instrumental versions of Beatles songs arranged by George Martin, and they're kind of... there's something very cheesy about them. They're very muzak-y and very over-the-top in their orchestral flourish, but they are kind of strangely fascinating. And the strange thing is that it goes back and forth between Beatles songs and these kind of muzak songs. It's a very strange first record to experience.
KL: Yeah, I was raised on the White Album (laughs).
JF: Right, well, that's a great record, too.
KL: How do you decide if a song is right for you to cover as opposed to...
JF: Hold on, let's talk about the White Album for one second 'cause I have a thought about the White Album, which is I believe that "Revolution #9" is many people's only encounter with experimental music. And what's interesting about it is that, as something in the world, as a piece of experimental music, most people feel like they're pretty confident that they know what experimental music is like, simply from hearing that song... do you agree?
KL: Hmm, no, not really.
JF: Do you feel like you've experienced experimental music?
KL: Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean, I live in Miami, and there are all kinds of things going on here as far as different cultures experimenting with things. As I was growing up, my parents were pretty hardcore hippies, and they were listening to all these different things, and that really shaped who I am, too.
JF: I mean as far as you've heard electronic free form music performed, or did your parents have those kinds of records as well?
KL: Oh, yeah, yeah.
JF: Well, that's cool. With my having been raised by folkies, there were very, very few examples of that kind of stuff around. But I dunno, it's an interesting thing to have on a Beatles record.
KL: Yeah! Well as a kid, I was more drawn to the songs with more childlike melodies like "Bungalo Bill."
JF: Right.
KL: On the subject of music that kids like, as far as No!, you're releasing it as a CD-rom, and based on that experience, do you think you would like to do anything like that again?
JF: You mean an enhanced CD?
KL: Yeah.
JF: Well, it was very easy for us because basically we were working with a group of graphic designers called The Chopping Block who do our website, and it's all built in Flash, so it works very seamlessly and you can play it as a CD and it works fine. There's no, you know, bugs, there's no phantom first track, there's no chance of hearing horrible digital ugliness; it's very seamless, so it's appealing. And I think that just giving people an extra experience or a different way to experience a song is kind of exciting, and I really like working with those guys. And they bring a lot to our projects, so it's a really good collaboration.
KL: Do you think that things like enhanced CDs and hidden tracks are a good way to keep people interested in buying CDs, or do you think there's a danger in it becoming too much of a gimmick?
JF: I don't know. I don't know if anyone would buy a CD just because it was enhanced. I think it's just kind of like a little bonus. I don't really think about it... I never even thought of it that way. I think basically for us, most of the things that we do, most of our motivation for doing things like the enhancement of the children's record, or Dial-A-Song, or the eMusic Unlimited program, usually the impulse is more just to have a different kind of creative challenge in front of us. We're not really thinking about... it's a good way to keep people interested and keep people intrigued, but ultimately it's the best way to keep us interested and us intrigued.
KL: Oh, definitely, yeah.
JF: And that's something we try to work into the equation on a regular basis. I mean, we've been doing this for a long time, and it would be very easy to become complacent if you were just simply faced with the same tasks over and over again.
KL: Back to my question about covers, how do you decide a song is right to do a cover of as opposed to a song that you think is really cool but you wouldn't touch as far as doing a cover?
JF: That's an interesting question! I don't have a... I would like to say that we choose a song because we feel like we're bringing something new to it, but on a number of occasions we've actually done very, very reverent, almost sound-alike covers because we like the original arrangement so much. I mean, there's a song on the child's record called "In The Middle" that was a PSA in the '60s for New York State. It ran in New York City a lot and it was trying to encourage kids not to cross the street in the middle of the block. And it was just a very intense recording, with a lot of '60s style kind of production values, and I think I was intrigued by the idea of reproducing that arrangement quite thoroughly, so that was our goal. It's a very obscure piece of music, it's hard to find at all, and most people don't even know it.
KL: Yeah, I remember you guys put a call out on the Internet to see if anyone had it...
JF: Right, right, yeah, it was kind of a search just to even locate the original recording. On the other hand, we've done some recordings that bear very little resemblance to the original. I mean, our version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" is pretty much the same song, but we never even had a version of a hit recording of it as a reference. You know, I knew the song from my childhood and kind of put the arrangement together without something to refer to, and that was a real exciting experience. Checking out the difference was kind of interesting, because the original version was much slower, and the whole feel of the song was quite different.
KL: On the kids album there are a couple of songs that are totally different from the original versions, "4 of 2" and "Sleepwalkers." Is there any chance of the original versions of those being recorded for a future project?
JF: Well, we demo all of our songs before we do final versions of them, and a lot of those things, because the culture has changed, and because of the Internet, our audience has a much bigger glance into our work process. It's always been that way with Dial-A-Song, but now with the proliferation of MP3s, people tend to hear everything we do in every form we do it. And it's a little bit unnerving, and I can't say I'm like a big fan of it. It's hard for me to even answer that because, you know... I was just online trying to find a good online interview with John Linnell to do as a link for our mass email, and so I was reading reviews of Mink Car, and one thing I was noticing was a lot of people were saying, "Oh, they're just redoing songs they've already recorded." And, you know, there's virtually like just one song on the record that actually had had a proper release before the album was released, but because all this stuff is kind of out in the world in other ways, all of a sudden it's like... you know, I don't think people really want us to go and like completely hide away for a year and then emerge with another project, but at the same time I feel like we're being unduly punished for leaving our windows open.
Our albums are the definitive versions of our songs, and that's the way we'd like them to be represented. Like, you can hear some work-in-progress type stuff pretty easily, and I think that sometimes they're interesting recordings. I mean, I guess I just don't want to be critiqued on stuff that we're giving away by and large. I guess that's how I'm feeling about it at this moment. It's like, you know, stuff that's sort of doled out in the spirit of generosity, and (laughs) I don't like to be slammed for not living up to the potential of a demo or whatever, I dunno. I realize I'm sounding a little defensive about it, but it's just like suddenly, it's, you know, I'm a sensitive guy. But anyway, what were you saying, what was your question, I forget!
KL: Oh, it was just about those two specific songs...
JF: No, I mean they were basically preliminary versions of the songs. You know, "4 of 2" really, really got changed to become appropriate for children. It was kind of a regular They Might Be Giants song with like, you know, skulls, as ours generally go, and that got kind of softened to become appropriate for the wee ones.
KL: You've mentioned that your approach to songwriting is more like writing about different characters than confessional songwriting, and you guys are both such great storytellers, have either of you ever considered writing a book?
JF: I have a hard enough time just writing a third verse! I think we're kind of... we like to write tightly, and we're into compressed thought. And I think good lyric writing has elements of poetry writing in it, and one of the most interesting things about poetry is the notion of compressed thought. And once you start writing that way, it's like a strange skill fest, you know. I can't imagine becoming a poet, but I feel like I actually would be more qualified for that than I would to become, say, a novelist.
KL: Is songwriting more or less a collaborative effort than it was when you began?
JF: It's kind of the same. You know, we work together on songs on a lot of different levels, and in an essential way we write apart on a fairly regular basis. So there's like a very healthy collaboration and there's a very healthy kind of competition between us, and that's worked out quite well. Calling it a competition makes it seem less supportive than it really is, but I think it's actually very healthy for the band. I think it's one of the things that motivates us; neither of us wants to be tagged as the "lazy one."
KL: A friend of mine really wants to know how did you become friends with Frank Black, and do you ever plan to tour together again? It seemed like you were very close for a while...
JF: Yeah! You know I have not seen Frank Black, like the past few times I've been in Los Angeles for one reason or another, he's been out of town, or we've just been there for like a minute and haven't been able to connect with him... I think Frank Black is really one of the greatest songwriters of our time, and he's a really inspiring guy on every level, and I'd love to work with him again, I've gotta track him down. He's the best.
KL: You majored in printmaking at Pratt?
JF: Yeah!
KL: What made you decide to do that?
JF: Well, I've always liked printmaking and etching, and I got kind of tied up in this strange kind of gestural way of working with monotones that's... it's a very painterly type of work, but it combines the printmaking process and kind of a spontaneous way of working. But I like the effect of, I didn't know what to call it, but there are certain kinds of creative processes that have a magical effect. Like, you know, you actually do it, but you also put it through a system. Recording music is very much the same kind of thing, or doing photography, where there's the stuff of it you actually are directly involved in, then there's this additional process or technology that gets applied that kind of gives it an "otherness." And I've always enjoyed that, you know, I've always enjoyed seeing the extra part put on.
Like, if you're making a recording and you track out the drum part, then you apply a bass line, then you apply guitar, then you sing it, then you put some reverb on your voice, then you compress the whole thing, and that's it. You know, every single part of it is you, and might sound pretty humble and sort of earth-bound, but then when you put it all together, it really sounds like something else. And in a way it doesn't even remind you of yourself or your own limitations. In terms of just my own personal artistic insecurities, I feel like having a little extra secret spice in there helps me feel more confident about what I'm doing, and I kind of enjoy that. It excites me and makes me feel like it's gonna be OK.
KL: Yeah, and when you work in different types of art forms, you really notice all the parallels and how they enhance each other.
JF: Yeah! I mean, there are big differences, but I think it's not an accident that I was attracted to printmaking when I was in painting. I mean, painting is extremely blunt... painting is like playing the violin, you're either really good at it or ya suck, and everybody can tell. And you know, there's a reason I play the guitar (laughs), and there's a reason I was a printmaker and not a painter.
KL: What are you going to be doing to follow up No! with?
JF: Well, we have this big box-set anthology coming out on Rhino in the fall, and that's celebrating our 20th anniversary in music. And then we'll probably be doing a rarities disk that we're putting together for our record label, Idlewild. So that's three disks out this year, which seems like an awful lot, I guess. You know, writing songs... in a way it's just because we have a little bit of free time at this moment, so there are a lot of things coming up on Dial-A-Song, and a lot of things happening, so I dunno... we'll probably be making a record that'll be out sometime, a brand new record that'll be out sometime early next year... with a whole bunch of songs that people have already heard on Dial-A-Song!
KL: Tell me about the anthology booklet.
JF: It's like any box set kind of thing, it'll have all the lyrics to all the songs, and what the other components are is kind of in the works right now. We'll know more probably this week.
KL: Great! Ok, well, looks like our time is up. Thank you so much, John!
JF: Thank you for your interest!