Shows/1986-01-15/Interviews

The following is a transcription of the interview conducted by the Things That People Carry crew with They Might Be Giants after their set at Larry's Hideaway on January 15th, 1986.

Key:
TPC = Things That People Carry crew
JF = John Flansburgh
JL = John Linnell

They Might Be Giants wearing their masks backstage at the venue. (Photos by Chris Buck)

Interview

JF: It's, ah, Arthur Koestler. The famous author. Who killed himself without my knowledge. Without my consent.

TPC: Who's the other person, on the left?

JL: A Turkish dignitary. And that's John Cale [playing music live] in the background...

[crosstalk as photos are taken]

TPC: I want you to tell me about these and don’t feel the need to tell the truth.

JL: They’re made of porcelain. They cost 18,000 dollars.

TPC: Now this series is “Things That You Carry Around With You.” Now this implies that you guys wear these [masks] all the time, now what’s the story here?

JL: We’re insane.

JF: Um. We wear them all the time, cause—

JL: We get in a lot of trouble with the police. We don’t care, we’re committed to our art.

JF: It’s symbolic of a lot of things, but we can’t talk about that right now. [pause] What more do you want from us!?

TPC: Okay, um.. Where do you wear them?

JL: On our heads.

JF: We wear them in stages.

TPC: What?

JL and JF: On our heads.

TPC: Okay, um..

JL: On our heads.

JF: So, um.. Yeah, we’re really committed to these things. We wear them everywhere, all up and down the eastern seaboard.

TPC: Why do you wear those particular faces?

JF: Because they look best on us.

TPC: What do you mean, they fit your bodies or something?

JF: Yeah.

JL: From the principle of the least likely face.

JF: We went through about 150 faces before we found these two particular faces.

TPC: Really?

JF: Yeah.

TPC: Now did you pick the particular expression or just the person’s?

JF: We picked the most inappropriate expressions we could find.

TPC: Oh, okay. What’s appropriate? Who are they?

JF: What’s appropriate? Oh, big smile, button faces... Lazy susans.

JL: That would’ve fitted our mood exactly, but that wasn’t any good. We didn’t wanna do that, that would’ve been redundant.

TPC: Why?

JL: Because we’re very happy people. If we wore masks like that, we’d go up to our friends and they’d say, “Hi John, Hi John. Boy, you look normal today. What’s going on?”

TPC: So, what’s the relation between, umm.. [the faces]

JF: They’re best friends.

TPC: Oh, I see, okay.

JF: They’re best friends, they’ve known each other since high school.

TPC: So, tell me about their relationship.

JF: Well..

JL: They both share an interest in two-dimensionality. They’re both committed to our art. We believe in art.

JF: Oh, yeah. Oh, lots of art. As much art as possible.

JL: We think the more art you have, the better art it is.

TPC: What is art?

JL: Yeah.

JF: Oden.

JL: We think so too.

JF: Oden? No, it’s not Oden.

JL: Oden?

JF: William Oden. Famous rock lyricist. So, uh, how about John Cale, huh?

JL: John [Cale]’s a really nice guy. We knew that he was on the fence about us, but he lied and said he really liked the show anyway. And we appreciate that.

JF: I lent him my shittiest guitar cord for him to play through. It’s yellow and it broke about a year and a half ago.

TPC: He use it tonight?

JF: He’s playing through it right now.

TPC: It broke a year and a half ago?

JF: Well, it’s all bent and covered in dirt.

JL: You lent him the yellow one?

JF: Yes. I lent him the yellow one cause I didn’t—I thought if I lost that, I didn’t wanna lose one that I just paid 15 dollars for.

JL: Gosh, you gotta be nice to him.

JF: Yeah. Basically we we respect rock stars more than anyone else and that’s why we got into this line of business.

JL: Right. Not to be rock stars, but to be near rock stars.

JF: We’ve been near a lot of ‘em. I rocked past Joe Jackson once. He looked real unhappy.

TPC: John Cale too is a biggie.

JF: He’s what?

TPC: He’s really a biggie.

JF: He’s a biggie, yeah. Oh yeah. So um, what do you think of John Cale?

TPC: Um, I think he’s..

JL: Come on.

TPC: I think he’s good, a definite personality. That’s one reason why I'm attracted to him.