'Weird Al' Yankovic Has a Love-Hate Relationship With the Internet

Posted on Jul 2nd 2009 2:30PM by Dan Reilly
Comments

Rather than take the traditional released route with his new EP, "Weird Al" Yankovic embraced the inevitable, titled it 'Internet Leaks' and started putting out the tracks one at a time digitally. "My next album isn't going to be out for quite some time, I'm guessing next year, but I wanted to give the fans something new to keep them excited," Yankovic tells Spinner. "I thought 'you know, there's no point in holding these tracks back' so I decided instead of having them illegally to the Internet, I'll just leak them myself."

After last year's fast food-themed parody of T.I.'s 'Whatever You Like' and last month's Doors-inspired 'Craigslist,' the three remaining tracks from 'Internet Leaks' will be released over the course of the summer. "They're all originals, mostly style parodies of other artists and bands," Yankovic says, refusing to reveal any more about the content. "While 'Craigslist' was a live action video, the other three will be animated. I'm very happy with them and I hope the fans respond to them."

As a parody songwriter, Yankovic has had some competition as sites like YouTube have grown in popularity. "That's the biggest problem for me right now," he says. "20 years ago when I was starting out I could be unique. I was pretty much the only guy out there doing these kind of parodies. Now if I get an idea for a song, I'll check. 'Oh, I wonder if anybody else on YouTube has had this idea already. Yes, 500 people have had that idea.'" But Yankovic fans shouldn't worry that his comical spirit is broken. "I can't let that stop me because I've still got my job," he says. "So I trudge on ahead and I hope my parody is hopefully better than the others."

An avid Web surfer, Yankovic learned of a surprising piece of career trivia last month. "I heard from people that Tony Hawk was Twittering 'Guess which "Weird Al" video I was an extra in?' and I had no idea," he says. "It turns out he was one of the people in 'Smells Like Nirvana,' one of the punkers. I guess he's in one of the shots with Dick van Patten, so I went back to the video and freeze-framed it. I think I know which one he is but I'm not 100% sure. It just blows my mind that Tony Hawk was in my video."

Although Twitter is arguably the most talked about site these days, don't expect Yankovic to take on the topic any time soon. "You never know, but I don't want to repeat myself too much," he says. "I had eBay a few years ago and I've got Craigslist now, so it's always an option. I've had more than a few people say 'you should do a new parody of 'Beat It.' Instead of 'Eat It,' you could do 'Tweet It.'' I'm like, 'Well, yeah, I could, yet I probably shan't. Why don't you do it? Get your own record deal!'"

The next release from 'Internet Leaks' is expected July 14th.