Am I basically the main particular person to undoubtedly feel irregular calling you ‘uncommon’?”
John Mayer — bespectacled, grinning goofily, very great nerding out — is sitting all over from “Unfamiliar Al” Yankovic, interviewing the Hawaiian shirt-clad parody song king, who’s sitting all over from him for his SiriusXM show, How’s Lifestyles With John Mayer.
“You may maybe presumably well call me Al, love Paul Simon says,” Yankovic says with smile, sooner than adding that basically the most unique factor about him is, potentially, his pancreas.
It’s a amusing quip, however also an underestimation. Let’s fair get this out of the intention: “Unfamiliar Al” Yankovic is, under his accordion-taking half in, polka-loving surface, exceedingly unique. He likes lengthy evening walks to get his steps in. He enjoys seeing movies and trying out contemporary restaurants alongside with his necessary other and daughter, who fair graduated college. He grumbles apt-naturedly about the ongoing renovation of his home within the Hollywood Hills. (“It’s going to survey nearly exactly the equivalent to it did sooner than, except for it price a fortune!”) The 65-year-used artist’s one are attempting at rock megastar habits, abet in his early-’80s heyday, became comically un-vain: On a touring rider, he requested, within the spirit of Van Halen’s basic ban on brown M&M’S, “one in actual fact imperfect Hawaiian shirt for each show I did.” (On that trot, he did 200, and a assortment that now extends to a storage unit somewhere in bigger L.A. began.)
Collected, if now not precisely uncommon, Yankovic is in actual fact singular. His catalog will seemingly be divided into two forms of songs: intricately crafted, meticulously arranged, hilarious yet by no intention mean-involving parodies of hits by acts starting from Michael Jackson to Coolio to Nirvana to Lady Gaga, and customary pastiches, for which he deep dives into artists’ catalogs to manufacture songs that, with eerie accuracy, mimic the sounds and idiosyncrasies of these genre-spanning artists.
Between the 2, he has accomplished feats normally reserved for the very artists he parodies. All the plan in which by strategy of every of basically the main four decades of his occupation, he has had entries on the Billboard Sizzling 100, and eight of his albums possess reached the tip 20 on the Billboard 200 — including his most most up-to-date studio delivery, 2014’s Significant Fun, which grew to turn out to be his first No. 1 on the chart. He has won 5 Grammy Awards and an Emmy. Billboard estimates he has offered 12 million albums within the United States (according to RIAA certifications pre-1991 and Luminate info from 1991 on).
Extremely, he’s done all this without ever altering his mandatory “Unfamiliar Al”-ness. “From day one, there became by no intention even a dialogue that won’t be about following his singular imaginative and prescient,” says Jay Levey, Yankovic’s manager of 43 years and sometime inventive collaborator (notably, they co-wrote the now nerd canon comedy UHF, which Levey also directed). “It’s now not easy to hunt down any occupation where there’s literally no compromise, however we’re going to be in a position to depend on one hand the need of compromises he’s made in his occupation.”
Joe Pugliese
In most cases, that’s supposed turning down lucrative deals, love the $5 million beer endorsement that Yankovic handed on in 1990 on yarn of, he feared, the place became “trying to manufacture me into Joe Camel.” Time and again, it’s supposed standing as a lot as yarn-label executives, love when, amid his “draconian” first album contract with Scotti Brothers (an indie then disbursed by CBS), he became requested to shoot 10 song videos on a $30,000 budget fair on yarn of he’d proved he may maybe presumably well moreover attain one for $3,000. (“I’m love, ‘No. No, I will’t!’ ”)
Nonetheless fair as normally, it’s supposed embracing an initiate-to-the relaxation spirit that appears to almost repeatedly figure out in his prefer. Yankovic determined very early in his occupation to query permission of any artist he parodied — now not since the legislation required it (it doesn’t) however on yarn of he merely had no pastime in making enemies. With only about a exceptions, it grew to turn out to be out, the artists stated yes, even supposedly impossible-to-persuade ones love “American Pie” scribe Don McLean, who OK’d “The Saga Begins,” Yankovic’s 1999 parody that undoubtedly summarizes the place of Superstar Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Threat. “When I heard his version, I believed it became higher than the distinctive. The sound quality became exceptional,” says McLean, who calls Yankovic a “straight-ahead apt boy” who “will seemingly be on Leave It to Beaver.”
Thanks to that aggregate of earnest apt intentions, work ethic, backbone and obsession with quality, Yankovic finds himself in an irregular place this day: He’s no novelty relic of the ’80s, however a in actual fact sinful-generational artist. Previously six years alone, he’s portrayed Rivers Cuomo in Weezer’s “Africa” song video, performed accordion (and regarded within the video) for teen rock band The Linda Lindas’ 2024 single “Yo Me Estreso” and lip-synced dramatically in a tux in Clairo’s “Terrapin” video. “Rising up alongside with his videos became a massive have faith my generation,” says Clairo, 26. “Aid when YouTube became in actual fact straightforward, it in actual fact hit home for us in center college to hunt his parodies. He repeatedly knew the actual solution to plan folk in.”
He and his personnel will present fair how loyal that is also when Yankovic heads out on the Higher and Weirder Tour this summer. It’s his quickest-selling, ideal-grossing tour yet, per his agent, Wasserman Tune’s Brad Goodman, and his ideal by other metrics, too: an eight-portion band (his ideal yet) onstage; first-time venues higher than any he’s performed sooner than, including Recent York’s Madison Square Backyard and L.A.’s Kia Forum; a mini-Las Vegas residency (the tour will initiate June 13 with six offered-out nights at The Venetian); and forestalls each expected (Crimson Rocks Amphitheatre) and now not more so (Rebellion Fest) on the route. And the concert itself is a trademark Unfamiliar Al spectacle: phase rock show, phase revival tent, phase Broadway musical, all “pleasure bomb,” as actor and longtime fan Andy Samberg puts it.
Whether or now not it turns into a springboard for the following Unfamiliar Al era is anyone’s guess — including Yankovic himself. Moral now, he has no further plans to begin albums; and since Significant Fun arrived over a decade within the past, he’s handiest sporadically launched contemporary song, most currently the 2024 “Polkamania!” single (basically the most up-to-date in his lengthy-running assortment of madcap polka medleys, this one recapping the past decade’s pop highlights, all sung in Yankovic’s manic tenor). Around that time, his contract of roughly Two decades with Sony ended, and he determined now not to renew with the label, or signal with anyone else.
“No person owns any portion of me,” he says, exhaling. “I’m at a level in my existence where if one thing isn’t going to be fun or a fulfilling journey, I’d now not possess any venture asserting no, even supposing it’s various money or various eyeballs. I will attain literally no matter I in actual fact feel love doing.”
Nonetheless, for Yankovic, that’s repeatedly been loyal.
“When I became a child, I worn to fantasize about being the following Unfamiliar Al, uncover it irresistible’s a suite he applied for and acquired,” says Lin-Manuel Miranda, a lifelong fan who’s now also chums with Yankovic. “And then you definately grow up and spot, ‘Oh, there’s handiest one amongst that man.’ We’re now not going to survey one other Unfamiliar Al.”
On an overcast April afternoon about a days after the Mayer taping, Yankovic meets me for lunch at Crossroads, a vegan living in West Hollywood where, years within the past, he ate his first No longer doable Burger. He’s quick to jokingly tell that he’s now not a member of the metropolis’s “vegan elite” — still, as he walks in, a particular person walking a golden retriever stops his phone conversation to hunt down and advise, “It’s that Al Yanko-vich man!”
In spite of his talent for writing songs about junk food (“My Bologna,” “The White Stuff”) and the proven fact that he once consumed the sector’s most ungodly snack, a Twinkie Canines, in UHF (seek and barf a minute bit), he’s been vegan since the early ’90s.
Chalk it as a lot as veganism, staying out of the solar (“I soften in thunder daytime”) or following the instructions of his longtime hair stylist, Sean James, thoroughly (he by no intention blow-dries these basic ringlets, hence their without raze bouncy and correctly-defined nature), however Yankovic has an ageless quality that lends various his fans to liken him to mythological figures. “He’s Santa Claus for nerds of a sure stripe,” Miranda says, a comparability Mayer had also made (moreover to to Forrest Gump). His curls may maybe presumably well moreover very correctly be a minute bit grayer, however his ultra-expressive face — acrobatic eyebrows in explicit — reflects his eternal curiosity and up-for-the relaxation-ness.
As we resolve in for almond ricotta-stuffed zucchini blossoms and meatless bolognese, Yankovic is terribly racy recounting his old weekend, when he made his most up-to-date surprise appearance: his Coachella debut. To finish out its surreal location, the crew from the cult-favourite children show Yo Gabba Gabba! introduced out a cast of characters each human (Thundercat, Portugal. The Man’s John Gourley) and now not so great (comic strip mascots love Sleestak, PuffnStuf and Duo the Duolingo owl) to vow “The Rainbow Connection” with its composer, Paul Williams — and, on lead vocals, Yankovic.
“I’ve had a pretty weird and wonderful existence, so it wasn’t love, so irregular,” Yankovic reflects. “Nonetheless it undoubtedly became positively a minute bit little bit of an out-of-body journey.” He admits that the “hi there children, let’s place on a show” vitality became fun and that the invite wasn’t a total shock (having regarded on a season-three episode as an accordion-taking half in circus ringmaster, he’s tight with the Gabba neighborhood). Collected, he speaks of such invitations with a model of humble apprehension.
“Nothing I’ve ever done became me pondering, ‘Boy, I hope children sight this 40 years from now,’ ” he says. Starting within the ’80s, he launched an album nearly yearly “on yarn of I became terrified I may maybe presumably well be quick forgotten. It became drilled into me: ‘You’re a comedy artist, you’re a novelty artist, you’re fortunate while you’re a one hit-wonder — you’re now not destined to possess a lengthy occupation.’ I needed to take that brass ring every time I went round.”
Joe Pugliese
Developing on the same time as with the delivery of MTV, and savvily taking advantage of it, helped Yankovic snatch that ring. He had a eager ear for (and apt taste in) hits at a time when, attributable to each MTV and top 40 radio’s prevalence, a monoculture reigned — and even presumably extra importantly, he knew the flexibility of a viral video sooner than this type of part existed.
Tweaking hits love Jackson’s “Beat It” (“Eat It”) and Madonna’s “Worship a Virgin” (“Worship a Surgeon”), Yankovic created contemporary songs that, attributable to his painstaking re-creations of their arrangements, had been straight away recognizable however rewarded repeated consumption — as did their accompanying videos, whereby Yankovic demonstrated his incredible gape for aspect and ambitious performing chops. “MTV became on love video wallpaper within the background 24 hours a day,” he says of that time. “They had been hungry for vow, and I became anxious to give them vow.”
Since then, Yankovic’s figuring out of the promotional energy of visuals has remained prescient — rob when, main as a lot as Significant Fun’s arrival, he insisted on releasing a song video on YouTube everyday (now not , as some urged) to whet fans’ appetites for the album. And his genre-agnostic solution to making song has proved sooner than its time, too. Sooner than hip-hop became widely accredited as pop, he became particularly drawn to rap. “Comparatively about a pop songs are very repetitive,” he says. “How can I be amusing in seven syllables, you know? Nonetheless rap songs, I mean, it’s nothing however phrases, and it’s straightforward to craft jokes that intention.”
Parodies love “Amish Paradise” (Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise”) and “White and Nerdy” (Chamillionaire’s “Ridin’ Dirty”) are amongst his most streamed — though he’s been equally adept at literally any microgenre he takes on, from fair-electrified Bob Dylan (“Bob,” entirely comprising palindromes) to arty contemporary wave (the Devo pastiche “Dare To Be Boring”) to crunchy Detroit storage rock (“CNR,” a tribute to Charles Nelson Reilly by strategy of the lens of The White Stripes).
“The extra you listen to him, the extra you get entry to making (any genre of parody) sound legitimate,” says Samberg, who calls Yankovic the ideal impression on his enjoy comedic song neighborhood, The Lonely Island. “The persona of what he does is extremely populist. He’s now not snooty about it; he’s love, ‘This is what the children love, and as lengthy as I in actual fact possess a apt perspective comedically, I’m going to attain it.’ And attributable to that, it’s repeatedly appealing to children.”
Rising up in Compton-adjacent Lynwood, Calif., Yankovic listened to rock radio, however as a teen discovered taking half within the accordion a minute bit solitary. (His chums’ rock bands weren’t in actual fact attracted to an accordionist joining up.) “Whereas you rob accordion lessons, I mediate the excessive-water label is ‘Per chance sometime I’ll play in an Italian restaurant or at a wedding,’ ” he says with fun. “I assume I became shameless. I grew up a total nerd in excessive college. And while you happen to’re now not any person that’s socially acceptable, you model of don’t possess the relaxation to lose. I model of held on to that mentality: Worship, you know, ‘Who cares?’ ”
“Unfamiliar Al” Yankovic photographed April 17, 2025 at Mud Studios in Los Angeles.
Joe Pugliese
He didn’t survey to any explicit musician’s occupation trajectory as one he may maybe presumably well moreover discover. “It became extra cautionary tales” — and one became particularly haunting. One of his idols became Allan Sherman, the satirical singer best doubtless acknowledged for his 1963 summer camp send-up, “Hi there Muddah Hi there Fadduh!” “He became the final particular person to possess a No. 1 comedy album sooner than me,” Yankovic continues. “He had three No. 1 albums on, love, the pop charts — incredible! Nonetheless within about a years, he entirely burned out. He made some terrifying selections in his personal and legitimate existence and fair went off into obscurity and sadly died about a years later. So I became repeatedly extra focused on, ‘Don’t mess it up. Support doing what you’re doing and fair are attempting now not to manufacture unfriendly selections.’ ”
“In a intention, we’re nearly repeatedly taking a survey over our shoulders at that,” his manager Levey says. He cautiously admits that he and Yankovic possess lastly reached a stage in his occupation where they’re “now now not on the level where yearly (of persevered success) is a surprise,” then adds, “I don’t in actual fact even love asserting that out loud on yarn of it sounds love you’re taking one thing with out a consideration.”
Nonetheless if Sherman became a rocket that blasted off handiest to burst into flames, Yankovic has been the reverse: one which, as Levey puts it, has saved step by step traveling by strategy of place — presumably normally at a slower trot than others, however by no intention plummeting abet down to Earth, buffeted by basically the most surprising boosters. Worship, hiss, Unfamiliar: The Al Yankovic Story, the 2022 parody of a song biopic that Yankovic co-wrote, starring Daniel Radcliffe within the titular position. In spite of at the delivery airing handiest on the Roku Channel, it won nearly standard acclaim and a top-time Emmy, while expanding Yankovic’s universe any other time.
“His longevity is a testomony to his ability to be himself and stick to what his taste is, on yarn of it’s so particular,” Radcliffe says. (“Bob” is his favourite Yankovic tune, and he took the quite loads of on location to query his hero how he came up with the whole palindromes.) “He threads a really now not easy-to-thread needle between wholesome fun and one thing … in actual fact deranged and very, very irregular. And in a intention that’s now not affected.” At a time when the tradition values authenticity above all else, Yankovic is a walking example of it — by no intention now not himself.
Unwittingly proving the level, Yankovic gasps in glee as our lunch ends. “Mochi doughnuts!” He presentations me a describe his necessary other has fair texted him: a field of the treats for dessert later. Considerably sheepishly, he explains the event: “Eric Indolent is coming over for dinner tonight. That’s my giant flex for this day.”
Later that afternoon, Yankovic meets me in a park finish to Coldwater Canyon known as Tree Of us. He appears to be like a minute bit love a extra frail version of his faux-Indiana Jones in UHF: Hawaiian shirt (a Goodwill buy), fair appropriate sneakers, safari hat shielding the waning solar.
“I’m gearing up for a giant tour, so I’m mostly fair making sure I don’t possess a heart attack onstage or circulation out or one thing,” he says of the walks he takes in spots love this. “I mediate I’ve lost 20 pounds within the past couple months fair on yarn of I’m now not, love, eating junk food within the stupid of night anymore.”
Yankovic’s final tour outing didn’t require great of a physical routine. In 2022 and 2023, he took to smaller venues for The Glum Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Sick-Told Shallowness Tour, a discover-as a lot as basically the main Shallowness Tour in 2018. The premise, he recalls, came about to him when “I became placing on my ‘Plump’ swimsuit for the thousandth time and I believed, ‘Wouldn’t it fair be nice to love, exit onstage and play the songs, sit on a stool and possess an intimate evening with fans?’ ”
Joe Pugliese
So Yankovic eschewed the unique production stage of his tours — costumes, wigs, the parody hits — for an belief, his agent Goodman says, that the musician himself wasn’t entirely happy would work. As an various, it allowed him to chat over with contemporary, smaller predominant-market venues (Carnegie Hall, Tennessee’s The Caverns) and strengthen his presence in off-the-overwhelmed-course markets (love, hiss, Huntsville, Ala.) while superserving his jog-or-die fans. When the belief returned in 2022, he performed 162 Shallowness presentations globally (extending into the following year).
“I loved it, the band loved it, the folk that showed up loved it, and it positively scratched that itch,” Yankovic says. “And now,” with the Higher and Weirder Tour, he’s abet to “doing a show for everyone.”
For Higher and Weirder, Yankovic is in self-described “overpreparer” mode, the hyper-organized inventive core of his personnel. “I came up with the setlist a year within the past. I gave the band” — three of whom, as of our assembly, he has yet to meet — “their marching orders and stated, ‘Right here’s the setlist, here’s your charts, here’s the demos, here are the rehearsal days.’ ” He for my portion chooses and edits the whole show’s video vow — clips of Unfamiliar Al in Pop Culture (hiss, on The Simpsons or 30 Rock) over time that can play between songs and give him and the band time for basically the most frantic aspect of the show, which the audience by no intention sees.
“Now we possess stage props, wigs, various costume adjustments, and a giant portion of what we need is a transient-commerce home within the abet of the scenes onstage, normally 40 by 20 toes,” says Melissa King, his tour manager of with regards to twenty years. On Higher and Weirder, Yankovic will attain 20 costume adjustments, give or rob a jacket or hat; his band contributors will attain nine; and all will occur in forty five seconds most.
That backstage planning ensures that in entrance of the audience, the one who has spent his occupation parodying rock and dad stars is free to embody one himself. “When I communicate to (talent) investors and hiss, ‘Have confidence you considered the show?,’ if there’s a cease, for sure I know the answer is now not any,” Goodman says. “On account of while you’ve considered the show, it’s fair a appropriate away ‘Yeah, for sure, it’s incredible.’ ”
Onstage, Yankovic isn’t fair bodily “working his ass off,” as Samberg says. “As a vocalist, he’s f–king incredible,” Radcliffe marvels. “He has this exceptional, obvious tone. His fluctuate is so impressive — he does issues to his verbalize that, as any person that sings a minute bit in musicals normally, if I attempted that I’d hurt myself.”
Joe Pugliese
In spite of the “higher” aspects of this tour — love how this may maybe occasionally presumably moreover exercise three trucks as a replacement of the unique one — King is still one amongst fair 11 folk comprising the crew. “It’s very lean, however it works on yarn of we all work together,” she says. “Al’s a actual, form particular person, and on yarn of he is, that’s the intention everyone in our camp is.” That ethos extends to each the fans who’ll wait on (“There aren’t many arseholes who’re Unfamiliar Al fans,” Radcliffe observes) and how Yankovic treats them: In step with Goodman, he’s saved most label costs for Higher and Weirder to $179.50 and has repeatedly refused to possess interaction with platinum ticketing.
Moral now, the tour is Yankovic’s level of curiosity. When he determined in opposition to renewing his Sony contract, Levey says, they examined the waters with “very restricted outreach” to a combination of indie and predominant labels. “And we bought spacious offers and I introduced these offers to him, and he notion about it and stated, ‘I’m in actual fact loving this feeling of now not being under contract to anyone … Please repeat these folk how appreciative I am of their beneficiant offers and we’re fair now not going to accept any of them.’ ”
He’s now just within the truest sense: He has an label, Manner Moby, that’s technically now his label, however he describes it extra as original for theoretical recording applications. He figures he’ll place out a single here and there, make a contribution to soundtracks if he’s requested and, as repeatedly, stay initiate to what may maybe presumably well moreover advance — love making a surprise appearance final November to duet with Will Arena of expertise on Chappell Roan’s “Sizzling To Tear!” at a charity tournament or growing a Broadway Unfamiliar Al jukebox musical that he says is within the very earliest inventive phases, a “bucket record” venture.
“When (he had) the No. 1 album within the nation, that became this type of triumphant 2d. I keep in mind us celebrating,” Samberg recalls. “It fair presentations you — I don’t mediate anyone else will in actual fact touch that place. It’s his place. No one is going to thunder, ‘I’m going to attain what Al does,’ ’trigger apt fair appropriate fortune. He owns that except he doesn’t are attempting to attain it anymore.”
The realm, Yankovic knows, is also now not the equivalent to when he first grew to turn out to be basic. “I purchased a yarn deal, I purchased on MTV, and I model of had the market to myself,” he reflects. “Now the taking half in self-discipline has been so leveled that anyone can add their arena fabric to YouTube or various portals love that. And if the stuff is apt, likelihood is folk will at final seek it. I’d desire to mediate that if I became coming up now, I’d still attain OK, however it may maybe maybe presumably well fair be extra of a venture.”
It’s a beneficiant sentiment, a reminder that, as Miranda puts it, one amongst Yankovic’s many abilities is also “reading the room.” Nonetheless in its humility, it’s also a reminder that, flooded as the market may maybe presumably well moreover now be with amusing folk on the get, none of them, still, are doing it love Unfamiliar Al: the 65-year-used who once notion he’d play accordion at weddings and Italian restaurants, who’s about to manufacture his Madison Square Backyard debut.
This story appears within the June 7, 2025, of Billboard.
Supply hyperlink