There are people who think the film 'This Is Spinal Tap' is simply a very funny 'mockumentary.' Well, with Yes, we lived it. Take the hilarious scene in the film in which the bass player is trapped in a giant pod - that actually happened to Alan one night.
The movie Spinal Tap rocked my world. It's for rock what The Sound of Music was for hills. They really nailed how dumb rock can be.
There are bands that make parodies of being in a band, like Spinal Tap. That's a big influence. They're making fun of a rock band, but they write lyrics that are better than real rock bands.
By the time I'm in the studio recording my parody, 10,000 parodies of that song are on YouTube.
Everyone needs an escape, whether that is through music or humor. My personal escape is through both of those things so I thought why not combine them? But not in a cringe way, I don't want to make parody songs. I just want my music to have a humorous edge to it.
One of my favorite things about sketch comedy is doing parodies and music videos.
Weird Al is not gonna do a parody of your song if you're not doing it big.
I make charts of songs that are good candidates, good targets, so to speak. Then I try to come up with ideas for parodies. And 99% of those ideas are horrible.
Whenever I do a parody it's not meant to make you hate anybody's music really.
I am no friend of the modern so-called 'black metal' culture. It is a tasteless, lowbrow parody of Norwegian black metal circa 1991-92, and if it was up to me, it would meet its dishonorable end as soon as possible.
I start with a comprehensive list of all the recent songs that have been big hits - and then I go down that list and see if I can come up with funny ideas for them. I can always come up with ideas, but not necessarily good ones!
Recently I danced in a video spoof of the song 'Gangnam Style,' and it was quickly banned across multiple Chinese online video platforms. But the story still traveled all over the world, carried in hundreds of international media reports.
In the '80s, I was the only game in town, I was the only one getting that kind of exposure in any rotation on MTV. Now with internet culture it seems like everyone is doing music parodies. And they're not all good!
I enjoy all kinds of music. But it is kind of strange when I do parodies, instead of setting up drums and guitar amps.
I think the American legal system sucks worse than a Celine Dion cover version of Whole Lotta Love.
My process for the parodies is that I get an idea for a song and then get approval from the artist and then go in and record it and probably try to get it out as soon as possible.
