Blocks w/ Neal Brennan - "Weird Al" Yankovic

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Neal Brennan interviews "Weird Al" Yankovic about the things that make him feel lonely, isolated, and like something's wrong - and how he is persevering despite these blocks. ---------------------------------------------------------- 00:00 Intro 2:02 How He Got On 8:20 Imposter Syndrome  32:07 General Social Awkwardness  37:45 Fear of Confrontation  49:26 Pressure to Make A Comeback / Stay Relevant  56:45 Dread of Mortality  59:56 What He’s Done  1:00:09 Hoarder  1:06:30 saying yes 1:08:01 Goals ---------------------------------------------------------- https://nealbrennan.com for tickets  Watch Neal Brennan: Blocks on Netflix: https://www.netflix.com/title/81036234 Theme music by Electric Guest (unreleased). Edited by Will Hagle ---------------------------------------------------------- Sponsors: GameTime App Code: BLOCKS for $20 off your first purchase Babbel.com/BLOCKS for 55% off your subscription Shipstation.com Promo Code: NEAL for a FREE 60-day trial MarineLayer.com/Neal15 for 15% off Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Rum 40% alcohol by volume. Where do we go? I've never... Hi everyone, Neil Brennan. It's the Blocks Podcast. People love it. We heal the earth. You already know what it is. You already know the healing that's happening. My guest today is... you're hard to summarize am i kind of you could i'm not like i didn't say i'm not gonna i don't like when people say like this guy needs to introduce him try me a little bit uh yeah uh i mean it's the things that they always

um it's the amount of records which is 12 million which seems light because it's you amount of records, which is 12 million, which seems light because you did a big single. It was 12 million like 20 years ago, so it's got to be. Come on. What are we talking about? Who even knows, though?

Who even knows? Let's double it. I'll send you a plaque. Okay. You've been a part of my life since, I don't want to say my first memories,

but pretty, pretty early looking at some of these songs like I i love rocky road oh yeah of course um my bologna old school oh yeah no i'm going and on another one rides the bus do i need to tell you who it is eat it it. Fucking white and nerdy. What do you people want? He's got two biopics. I learned that on his Wikipedia. We knew about the one last year,

but there was one in 1985, which is funnier because you hadn't lived any life. Yeah. That one doesn't count. Okay. You've erased it from the records. I canceled it. Yeah.

Great. It's Weird Al. Here is Weird Al Y it. Yeah, great. It's Weird Al. Here is Weird Al Yankovic. Here he is. Weird Al. Hello. It's Weird Al, everyone. Please, please sit down.

Yeah, so reading your Wikipedia, and we talked about this a little bit, is how haphazard life and show business used to be yeah it's we roughly explained to people how you got on uh it's it's crazy the fact that i even uh have any kind of career whatsoever i i um you know i grew up playing the accordion and uh right there. Right there. It's the recipe for rock stardom. And I was a big fan of the Dr. Demento radio show.

Okay, Dr. Demento for the young people. It was a weekly radio show and they would play parodies. But I heard white lines on Dr. Demento the first time I've ever heard it. Grandmaster Flash? Yes. So I don't know what he thought it was but I remember hilarious and no it's very fun about about cocaine addiction it's one of the funniest songs about cocaine addiction there is but I remember hearing it and being like this isn't funny but this is excellent so I'm wondering was it all song

parodies it was just kind of like stuff that wouldn't get played anywhere. Not song parodies. I think it certainly leaned towards comedy. Although Dr. Demento, a.k.a. Barry Hanson, has a Ph.D. in rhythm and blues music. So he's very learned. He knows his stuff. Yeah. So, I mean, when he first started out doing local radio in Los Angeles, it was more of just an eclectic show, stuff from his personal collection, just random things that he thought people would be interested in. But the songs that really lit up the phone lines, as they say, were the funny songs.

There used to be phone lines. For the young people listening, there were dedicated lines for phone. None of it was satellite. Cables. Yeah. Okay. And then so you send a song in you saw and again literally i'm like 14 15 years old and i'm recording a song with my accordion in my bedroom uh on like a little cassette tape

recorder using a 39 cent compact cassette and they record this horrible song send it in and plays it on the radio and it's the a live performance there's no it's a live performance. There's no, it's just one recording. Yeah. No, no tracks, no channels. Oh, it was bad. It was bad. But, uh, Dr. Romano said that, um, if I was playing the guitar, he would have just thrown the tape

in the trash. Cause like, who cares? But this, this kid was like playing the accordion and somehow thinking he was cool. Were you always drawn? Did you, was it just, you were were that was the accordion was the the the instrument you were given was it like a hand-me-down was no that that's it it was it was sort of uh um uh uh there there was in fact a door-to-door uh salesman that came around again that used to be a thing it was actually a thing people would come

to your house uninvited and knock on your door and they would and they wouldn't get shot usually no i was gonna go the other way out god damn it um uh okay so they so you your mom got you an accordion yeah so so the salesman came around offering music lessons and and the choices were uh your son could take a guitar lessons or accordion lessons. And my parents being visionaries, it was the 60s after all. And they thought, oh, young Alfred would love the accordion. Like, why not be the life of every party? Yes.

This is going to be the, it's the, it's a pussy magnet. Yeah. Basically, son, here, we got you a pussy magnet. There you go. Merry Christmas. Thank you, mom and dad. Thank you. And people don't like you playing the like whatever it's not it you can't even really be

in the band right no i i learned that very early on when i was like 12 years old i started i wanted to like put together a band with some friends and nobody wanted to be in my you couldn't even mean the school band oh no you know what there was uh you know i went to this accordion school for three years and every year at christmas time and this is a real thing this actually happened was it hard to enter the school with all the women out front it was difficult i had to make my way through waiting to get fucked but what i was gonna say uh-huh uh they they actually had an accordion marching band so if you can imagine this like fuck like an army of nine-year-old kids wearing accordions like walking for miles through and they make a mini accordion

or is it there well there's different size accordions in fact to this day i i generally don't play a full-sized accordion because those are big as a house and you know i like to wear it on stage and jump around and i I wear, they call it a student model or the more sexist term, ladies model. Hello. And they don't even make those anymore. If I want to get an accordion that's my size, more often than not, I have to like find it on eBay

or Craigslist or the local pawn shop. I feel like you should be able to commandeer any accordion. You should be able to just take anyone with an accordion. You should be able to commandeer any accordion you should be able to just take anyone with an accordion you should be able to knock on their door and go give it i've bought some accordions on craigslist so next time when i show up at their house i'll say this belongs to me yeah yeah because it kind of does because you no one's ever like if you're synonymous with accordion stealing accordions with stealing accordions um i feel like they're all most of the accordions are in burbank that's just a hunch

that used to be a big accordion uh that used to be where i go to get my accordion that intuitively did you i did somehow and i don't know what ernst lauer used to be on on a vine ernst lauer's accordion repair sure long gone but old estonian man he was like the number one guy now it's uh dave's accordion school in in glendale i feel like your accordion fixed you're these are a lot of listeners live in la a lot don't but i feel like your head is your headshot up in a lot of places are you pretty generous with a headshot if they ask for one great that was another thing i've got a movie poster at toy on sunset uh pretty big deal i think i probably i don't know some cleaners i don't know who knows yeah great okay so do you feel like i can't believe

this is still working even when fat came out yeah what year is that 88 88, probably. By the way, you know that My Sharona was the inspiration for Beat It. Did you know that? No, I did not. No, Quincy Jones said it. He was like, I wanted something like a My Sharona. Oh, interesting. There's a thread going through my whole career then.

I know. I noticed it. I was like, I wonder if you knew that, that they were looking for a My Sharona type song. And so you owe the knack a lot. I do do but you're right i do have a lot of uh i guess imposter syndrome no yeah i haven't even gotten to the block shit are those words behind my head yes yeah there they are hit it hit it well this guy's first of all give him a weird

just give him ding weird thank you yeah thank you and then give, let's start with imposter syndrome. Because that is, that's one of your blocks. And I can, I, not like I believe it. You should, but it's a, it's like a niche that not a lot of people. Really? Because I kind of feel like most people, particularly in entertainment, with the exception of Kanye, have it at some point or another. You know, I just can't imagine but maybe maybe i'm uh uh projecting my anxiety on everybody else but exactly yeah but i i really feel like you know it's not and this is not false humility i don't want to say that i think i'm untalented or i'm not funny but there

are a lot of talented funny people in the world and why me you know i've i've you know like we talked about i was a nerdy kid with an accordion by all accounts i should not have had the life and career that i've had i i feel very fortunate and blessed but it just feels very very odd to me that you know every morning i wake up in a beautiful house with a beautiful wife i'm doing david burn lyrics now but you get the point so what do you what do you make of it? Do you just think it's like the songs are funny, like the songs are unequivocally funny, but is it just like you got in a jet stream, you're providing a service culturally,

and no one really replaced you? Even people like Lonely Island, they don't do parodies. I guess they kind of did a few parodies. Kind of, like genre par't, they, they don't do parodies. I guess they kind of did a few parodies, but I feel like you were doing specific song parodies, which did that exist in much before you? Well, I mean, I certainly didn't invent it. I mean, our national anthem is a song parody. Is it really?

It is. Yeah. Uh, and, uh, you know, uh, Alan Sherman, who I, one of my all-time heroes, he of course did a lot of song parodies, although most of his parodies were public domain and old folk songs like that. Uh, so, you know, I, I just came in, uh, at a good time. I guess I'd be what Malcolm Gladwell would call an outlier because I just struck it exactly the right time. I, I got signed like right when MTV started, they needed needed content they didn't have any funny videos and all of a sudden there was this guy that was making these low budget comedy parodies and like

that fed their content stream and do you do you feel like you have a good showbiz sense because you always had a look you always were like meditated though it's not calculated it's not like oh I'll wear Hawaiian shirts and glasses on a mustache and that's going to be like the iconic look you know yeah but you were either weird enough or confident enough to not try to change yourself yeah because i was so out of the box anyway i mean it's like you know i just had to go with my gut and just go with my actual personality instead of trying to fit some kind of mold because like from from the get-go i wasn't fitting any mold whatsoever so i figured why bother you wore hawaiian shirts yeah i like i like loud shirts

ridiculous shirts and you know one one uh tour early on uh i i figured that i should have one ridiculous request on my backstage writer like of the green M&Ms or whatever. And I said, okay, give me one garish, loud Hawaiian shirt for every show that I do. And I did like 200 shows that year. So all of a sudden, I had a closet full of Hawaiian shirts. And have you bought? Now people probably send them to you. Yeah, I get them from fans.

And they just appear on my doorstep. Great. be nice yeah it is um and do you you don't seem very neurotic are you neurotic in in subtle ways i mean i don't you know i don't feel like i'm a neurotic neurotic person but i have little impulses here and there like an ocd kind of thing or just you have weird habits or maybe that i mean you know some people suggest that i might be slightly on the spectrum oh yeah i took the test i did you yeah i probably should because i i kind of feel like i might be a little bit i mean here's what i learned on the so it it's a i don't know if it's a 50 point or 100 point, but the lowest score you can get and be considered on the spectrum is a 26. I got a 26. You're highly functioning.

Yeah. But if I have, thank you. If I get two, I'm a hero. I'm a hero. If I get two, if I answer two questions differently, I don't have it. Do you know what I mean? Right, right, right. You're borderline.

I got the diagnosis, and then I bet if I took it again, I might not have it. Do you know what I mean? Let's take it right now. Come on now. But I guess my point is it didn't make a difference yeah it didn't like somebody was saying it's good because it can help explain some of your behavior but you don't seem racked with you know i don't i i i was single for the 80s and most of the 90s and i had a lot of girlfriends i mean if you're if you're going to be single it's weird now i'd

say the 80s yeah but i had a lot a lot of uh women that i, if you're going to be single, it's weird. I'd say the 80s. Yeah. But I had a lot of women that I was dating at the time suggest that I go into therapy because for whatever reason. And I would always say, but I'm happy. Yeah. Why do I need to change? Why did they, what was it? I don't know. Like, is everything a joke with you?

Is it really? Kind of. Yeah. Oh, kind of. Yeah. Like, I mean, like a song parody you is it really kind of like yeah oh kind of yeah like i mean like a song parody really it's not like a job i don't know what do you consider song parodies but everything is um did you i am curious that i mean i feel like a lot of women do that to most guys like they we everyone could technically be in therapy. What, what were you emotionally unavailable? This is the 80s and 90s.

We didn't even have terms back then. You see, I, I, I don't like spending money on therapy. So I just go on podcasts. Great. So that works for me. Great. Fantastic. I didn't want to be licensed.

So I just have people come on and talk to me about the problems. Now, do you, okay. So when you did fall in love though, Allison is your wife's name? Suzanne. I call her Allison now. Who I saw at, me and Weird Al saw each other at a vegan restaurant called Crossroads. Now, did you know, sidebar, did you know that Crossroads, a vegan restaurant, was one of three restaurants in the entire country that served the Impossible Burger back when it first started out? I did.

I knew, I did know that three in the country. And then like six months later, it was like white castle. It was a real delicacy for a little while. Uh, I did know that. And it was funny to,

I went there with a woman and it was funny to explain to, she was British and it was funny to explain to her who you were i was like he would do like uh eat it oh like the baron knights and like uh fat and uh uh white and whatever i the funniest story is i told her your kurt cobain story which if you would tell the people quickly once again yes or the bad the one i think you're talking about is when i got permission for a smells like nirvana uh i i wasn't my my manager wasn't getting through to their people and he said it's up to you you know stalk kirk cobain track him down see if you can get him to orally agree to having you do the parody i love orally it was a different time oh man better than the other way um yeah yeah uh so i i had a i had

a friend uh on the cast of saturday night live and i i called up and said if you can get kurt coban on the phone put him on the phone because i would love to talk to him you know this is the first time nirvana played saturday night live yep i i heard after the fact that kurt may have been on the friday he went and got heroin yeah Yeah. Yes. On the Lower East Side. So that might have affected his decision. I remember that story. I don't know. Yes.

But I talked to him on the phone, and I said, listen, I'd like to do a parody of your song Smells Like Teen Spirit. And he said, oh, is it going to be a song about food? And I said, no, it's going to be a song about how nobody can understand your lyrics. And he said, okay, yeah, great. That's funny. Fantastic. I'm going to go do some heroin yeah um now if you'll excuse me um i have a date with destiny

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I'm approaching the finish line now. You're getting away with the jewels on your, on your speedboat. So what I'm saying is retire. No, but what I'm, do you know what I mean? Like, even to this day, like, you know, I have moments in my life where I really, I told a story on Seth's show, but Seth Meyers, but I told about like on this last tour,

I played Carnegie Hall, which I'd never played before in my life. And it was a big deal for me. I mean, you know, it was Carnegie Hall. And, you know,

I, I talked myself into not being nervous about it because, you know, something I'd wanted to do my whole life. And I thought I, it was the end of a long six month tour and i was like it's just i would like to interrupt and say that someone i know saw your show in the 90s and said it was one of the best shows you ever saw oh nice yes keith seifert was his name and he said he saw you at universal in orlando nice There was like an adult island that you did a show at. Paradise

something. So no longer there I'm sure. Yes. No, don't look for it. Okay. Yeah, so great show. Anyway. So yeah, so I finally show up at Carnegie Hall and I'm trying not to be nervous about it. Just another show, just another show. And I walked in the hall and there's like floor to ceiling

pictures of, you know, Frank Sinatra and Judy Garland and the Beatles. And I'm thinking, okay, I don't belong here. What am I doing here? But, you know, some of them didn't either. Well, you don't think? Well, no. I don't even feel like I deserve to be on this show, honestly, because I've looked at some people that you've had on,

and even to be mentioned the same breath as Steve-O. I mean, it really- I mean, what an honor. It really is. And I appreciate that. Good. I didn't know who you were going to say, and you picked a funny one. Thank you.

Yeah, but I guess it's, you did it, is how I feel. i feel it's like i don't know man you are we done can we no steve steve all right please um you must have you must have done something is would it would be my argument with the imposter syndrome in your head i must have done something you must have done something yet right yeah like no i like it done something right Like I said I'm not saying that I entirely don't deserve it Because I do feel like I bring joy to some people Some

Not all I'm on social media You're no Steve-O I've done a few things right in my life But again I'm just very grateful because I kind of deep down inside, I kind of feel like I just kind of don't deserve the life that I've been lucky enough to have. OK, if you look back on your life, is there any inkling at all that it would be this? Because I know when people go like, I'm shocked, I'm I'm kind of overwhelmed by it's beyond my wildest dreams.

I'm kind of overwhelmed by, it's beyond my wildest dreams. I know for myself and friends, it's been like, you've always had a little suspicion that you could do something. And I'm wondering if you had that or if it was just, like there must have been some part of you

that thought I'm worth recording and sending in. Yeah, I mean, you know, I figured, you know, I was young at the time. I was in my early 20s and I figured, you know, I don't want to be an architect, which is what I got my degree in, and I thought, you know, I'll give this a shot. You know, what's the worst that could happen? Like, you know, I'm already, like, unpopular and not famous, and nobody likes me, so what's the worst that could happen? put myself out there like that and when i signed my first record deal in 1982 uh it was the initial deal was for 10 albums which doesn't mean they're gonna make 10 albums that's just their draconian

way of saying if by some crazy yeah if you're good you owe us yeah you owe us we own you but that was it we all kind of laughed like 10 albums and it's been 14 you know same same label same well because they it's the same contract but they uh renegotiated it twice uh so in 2014 i delivered my 14th album so after 32 short years i finally fulfilled my recording contract how many points you get kidding um i am curious as to what kind of deals what What, okay. Let me ask you that. Do you remember the advance you got on your first deal? Specifically, but it was virtually nothing.

It was, um, I, it was one of those kinds of things where, uh, I was working for a minimum wage in a mailroom at the time and the choices were continue working in the mailroom or take this horrible deal. Yes. And I opted for the latter. Okay. So that's, and what kind deal yes and i opted for the latter okay so that's and what kind of budgets would you have for the albums well the recording studio for my first several albums were actually uh in the uh record company's offices they had their own recording

studio okay so it wasn't like they had a big uh out-of-pocket budget like oh come record here we've got our own engineer i'm sure they charged you if i know anything about the record business i'm sure they absolutely it's it's like against royalties yeah of course so yeah so so for the first decade or so you know i i remember very clearly like after eat it hit it was an international big hit yes, and some, uh, some, uh, uh, interviewers came to where I lived to get, you know, do an in-depth, uh, uh, uh, article on me. And they came to my place, uh, on Gramercy place, uh, a one bedroom house, apartment with a Murphy bed that folds out from the wall.

I mean, just like, yeah, like, like, like I have a squatter, but but like you know like they they didn't give me a big pile of money when i signed a record deal and i didn't see any royalties for years so i was still living like i was living when i was working in the mail room yeah how was it dealing with michael jackson uh he was great um you know uh i i never thought that he'd give his blessing or permission it was one of those shots. Let me ask you a question. Would you make the songs first and then send them? Um,

like in that case, in, in the case of eat it, I don't exactly, I think maybe I already had the song written at that point. Uh, and I've learned over the course of my career not to do that because sometimes they'll,

they'll say no. Yeah. That's a lot of wasted effort. Uh, so now I would just you know hours what are these songs hours hours two hours two hours per song that's your multiple hours yes that's your yen you need for the time away um oh and so he so you sent it to him and he was like oh that's funny you can yeah and then he asked for an ungodly amount of money and

it wasn't that it was uh no i mean he had a actually a great sense of humor about it in fact when we did the um uh the fat video uh we found out that michael jackson set from from his uh he did like a a version of bad called baby bad or bad or whatever for his moonwalker video which is like the fat the bad video recreated with kids so that existed a full soundstage in culver city and they're about to strike it and we said no no no we want that can we please use your set and you and he let us you guys were like don't that's evidence that's never said that sir um okay so did with the imposter syndrome you just kind of you waited it out i did you know it's

would you okay let me okay say this you seem to take long breaks although you made 14 albums so some hit and some don't i guess yeah because from to my cultural radar i wouldn't hear from me for a while and then it'd be like oh white nerdy oh great like he's still weird al still in circulation that's an interesting phenomenon where uh for virtually every album that i put out most people consider to come back because you know and it's not like i spend well sometimes i spend years between albums but i was putting out albums fairly regularly for a while but because uh the music that i do is considered the domain of one hit wonders people just kept waiting for me they're amazed that i just wouldn't go away yeah you know every time

i come back they go he's back yeah like they're very surprised did you i it seemed pretty clear to me you had no other skills yeah there was nowhere to go i got nowhere else to go. I mean, basically, uh, so, and do you, are you tenacious? Are you competitive? Do you take that as a challenge? The one hit wonder, um, rubric,

maybe a bit. I mean, I'm, I'm not one of these kinds of people that's motivated by, Oh, I'll show him. Yeah. But,

uh, but yeah, I, I, I, I walked into it knowing, knowing full well that like i better like grab the brass ring every time it comes around because this is going to go away it's

it's ephemeral what i'm doing you know i might have an album or two and then i'll probably go away so i just went gave it everything i had every time out it's a good policy yeah um and it seemed to work i mean you know um because in the 80, I think I put out an album virtually every year. Uh, and then after a while I started to relax a bit and like, oh, maybe I, maybe I can stick around for a while. And then I would spend two or three or longer between albums. Just when I realized that, you know, most people probably weren't going to entirely forget who I was. I can't. Neither can I. I've, trust me. I can't. Neither can I. I've, trust me, I've tried.

Um, you know, you know, the, the weird thing about the imposter syndrome thing is like, um, this is kind of a weird dark thought, but sometimes I feel like a make a wish kid. Like,

like I feel like, do you remember that kid? You remember bat kid? Yeah. Yeah. I feel like that sometimes, like people are just humoring me. Like when they're like super, super nice to me, I oh let's just i'll let i'll pretend that he's

a rock star for 40 years you know what the bat kid i always see as like that's what most celebrities are treated like every day where it's like you we got you especially like i'll do commercials for um with athletes for their shoe uh-huh and at a certain point i was like this is just like a bar mitzvah kid we're like and we have things about your mom we put your granny's name on the insole and the coach from it from fourth grade the iron sharpens iron right here there's a biblical reference we tried to do like a little bit of black history month. A lot of the symbols, a lot of the names on it, the connections to different cities. It just, it just all started to make sense.

And just like, this is just like this embarrassing thing where they're trying to flatter one person. Yeah. And, and so, yeah, you, and most people in showbiz are in some form of bad. Once you have people working for you, you've got, it's like, oh, it's another hit. It's your lucky day. Yes, another hit.

All right. You have on here general social awkwardness. Yeah. Well, you know, we discussed I am, I was and am a uh and that's okay now but uh being a nerd in the 70s was not particularly cool nobody in the 70s was bragging about their nerd cred correct that was that was not a thing you know you didn't have supermodels saying oh i love nerds i'm such a nerd i'm such a nerd uh that did not happen freddy did a joke where she was like, yeah, do you love nerds? Go have sex with this guy with cystic acne on his back. Do you love nerds?

Yeah. So it's funny. That's another thing that you sort of outlasted. Yeah, because around 2006-ish, there was a bit of a paradigm shift in that people are going, oh, nerds aren't so bad or nerds are cool when everyone was on a computer once and for all yeah so that on their phone and on their computer a lot but it also didn't help that growing up like when i was 15 years old i looked like napoleon dynamite great i mean for i showed jared has who directed the movie i showed

him a picture of me as a teenager he's like whoa like everyone says they look like them you did it um but i couldn't dance that was the thing well not as cool as napoleon yeah i would assume fame made you better with wits uh interaction that's for sure and you're dude you're funny so like like what do you the good thing about comedy is it kind of bails you out of social situations. Yeah, I mean. I believe it's the point. Yeah, I think, yeah, the fame definitely did help because I'm inherently a very shy, withdrawing kind of person, particularly when I was younger. And I would never go up to people at parties

and introduce myself and put myself out there. Well, they wouldn't invite you. No, that's true. I wouldn't have even been there in the first place. But when I was 23, 24 and starting to get semi-famous, people would actually approach me, which meant that I could like, you know, meet people, which was a whole different thing in my life. Were you lonely?

Because at a certain point you kind of have to decide like, am I gonna, I, am I going to take matters into my own hands and just sort of try to overcome this feeling i don't know if i was you know would define myself as lonely because i was always a pretty happy guy i mean i you know i'm an only child and i was used to being by myself and that was sort of like the world that i was comfortable in so i didn't you know i i could live in a cave i you know i i don't mind that kind of lifestyle, but I like people. I like to be around people. So I like that too. Like you, do you prefer it? Would you say, again, it's introvert extrovert is overused, but like, do you, when you, do you leave parties energized or do you feel like, that's a whole different kind of social anxiety because, uh, these days, you know, and this,

you know, this, this is maybe a little bit of my neuroses coming to light is, uh, you know, and this, you know, this, this is maybe a little bit of my neuroses coming to light is, you know, I could be at a party with people I love, like old friends of mine and I love them and they love me. And I feel, you know, a compulsion to leave because I feel like, oh,

they like me now. It can only go downhill from here. Yeah. I'll mess, I'll screw it up somehow. So you say hi to everyone and then you just keep going right on the door yeah great the grandpa love you bye yeah do you get nervous just interacting with people or is it pretty like because i feel like my experience with fame is it is a bit of a customer service job uh-huh where you just go like hey what do you need need a photo let's get you a photo service job where you just go like, hey, what do you need? Need a photo? Let's get you a photo.

And then you take the photo and you go, Sona, and then they tell you what they're going to say. You go, great. That which obviously puts it in a container. Yeah. When you get into friends, is it, what's the, are you a like talk on the phone guy? I suppose so.

I mean, I don't do a whole lot of that. I mean, you know, now it's- Very few people do. Very few like talk on the phone guy? I suppose so. I mean, I don't do a whole lot of that. I mean, you know, now very few people do. Very few people talk on the phone now. So only if I need to get let into a building. He was calling me to get into the building. But now it's more text and email.

Yeah. Are you and your wife communicating all just ongoing, ongoing, ongoing? Oh yeah. We live in the same house. No, I know. But some people live in the same house and some people live in like separate parts i'll text her from the bedroom she'll be in the living room right no but do you know what i mean like do you is it an ongoing dialogue throughout the day

more or less i mean she's an only child as well so she's she's okay being in her own world so we we have you know big stretches of time where we're not mad at each other, but we just kind of stay in our own little circles and we do our own thing. And then, you know, we get together. We've been doing this thing where we go for a walk every single night for like four miles and have long talks. Four miles? Yeah.

Where, you live in Pasadena? No. Where do you live? LA. We walk in like Beverly Hills. Pretty, must be nice. Beverly Hills is hilariously nice. Never been. Really? No, if you like? LA. We walk in Beverly Hills. It must be nice. Beverly Hills is hilariously nice. I've never been.

Really? No, if you've never been. Oh, if you have. I took the British woman to Beverly Hills, and it was like, I forget. It's like heaven on earth. When it's sunny and in the 70s or low 80s, it's what you want. Yeah. It's the Warren Beattyity movie the football movie uh

heaven can wait i feel like production is i it was like that's it's beverly hills thanks for your um encouragement i love that movie did you see it no it was like i love it you could have i could have seen it you were an adult you were there it was the 70s you could have you there was nothing else going. You were an adult. You were there. It was the seventies. You could have, you, there was nothing else going on. It was either that or smoke cigarettes. Cause we know you weren't part.

Nope. No. Yeah. Okay. We have a block guys. Fear of confrontation. Oh, you don't even like hearing about it.

I don't know if it's so much fear as it is just something that I don't like. I guess you don't like tension. I don't like tension. I don't like to get in people's faces. I don't know if it's so much fear as it is just something that i don't like i just you don't like tension i don't like tension i don't like to get in people's faces i don't like you know it like on social media like um i obvious i you know i don't use social media as much as i used to but even back in the day i never discussed politics or religion or anything remotely controversial and i mean there's a pragmatic reason for that because you don't want to alienate half your audience. Yeah. But more than that, I just didn't like, you know. When they find out you're Republican.

Go ahead. I didn't like. You were saying? Go ahead. Thank you. I just didn't like confrontation. And I have friends. I have a lot of friends that just thrive on that.

Your gun is in the safe yeah when we're done here i'm gonna give you back your gun you go back no problem walk back into the streets with the gun out with his gun out who does that um okay oh yeah no i know you mean like it is i don't i'm more itching for a fight naturally, so I don't mind confrontation. I don't mind disagreement. Yeah, there are people like that. I mean, people like you, obviously, but yeah, I don't like that. I don't like getting in flame wars. I don't like people not liking me, and I'd rather just kind of like,

you know, if you take my parking spot at Trader Joe's, I'll just maybe roll my eyes. That's about as much as I'll do. If you're in a horrible mood, you'll roll your eyes. You know, I deal with anger in, I don't know if it's a healthy, probably not a healthy way, but I never yell at people. Unless it's like as a joke and we're both in on the joke. Right. But I don't think I've ever yelled at somebody in anger.

If I get like really angry, I'll get very quiet. I'll just like let it eat me up on the inside. Fantastic. It's great. What a policy. I'm a yeller and I regret every single one of them. Like I thought, I grew up, I'm one of 10 kids, Irish Catholic, yelling, so much yelling. Yeah.

So I thought that that's the way to do it. That's how you do it. Yeah. So I thought that's the way you do it, and it's not. Turns out it isn't. Yours is, there must be some happy medium between, do you communicate your issue with people well yeah and sometimes it's really effective um like uh i heard on another uh a podcast an interview with dan butts who's an old friend of mine and he's also the um uh um art director for a lot of my music videos

and uh a number of years ago he did something on a set where he really messed something up badly to the point where we had to fix it in post at a considerable expense. And I don't remember. You harnessed his wages, is what I understand. No, no, no. But I remember I talked to him on the phone after the, and he remembers this a lot better than I do, but he says that I called him up and I said something to the effect of, I'm not angry, Dan. i'm just very disappointed and it was traumatic for him he was like i've never

heard al lose it like that yeah like the most i've ever been like dressed down by al and and were you angry and did you let it eat you or did you just do you get through it quickly i got through i mean it was like it was a bummer and you know i i know that he didn't do it on purpose yeah and and you know he you know he's down to a little close friend and it was it wasn't uh i mean we it cost us a lot of money but but you know i i told him like you messed up and he acknowledged it and moving on yeah um i i'll tell you what i would have done it would have he would have done it intentionally and i'm telling you about my inner monologue he did this intentionally everyone's trying to fuck me all the time life's trying to fuck me despite the mounds of success and everyone's trying to fuck me all the time

and uh and i would have thought the i have i owe it to him to yeah or i owe to myself to yell at him this will be my revenge but again it it doesn't work do you think i should like revisit this with him i think years old there's a lot of meat left on that bone. Okay. I would be bringing it up. Let's call him right now. I'd be waiting to bring it up. Like, this is just like the fucking whatever.

But I had an interesting thing happen. Was on MDMA don't do it you wouldn't like it now they've gone back to MDMA they've gone like past because everything's science and psychology now

everything's healing and I was thinking about my multiple enemies my enemies list. And, uh, gotta keep that list. You have to, um, your, as you call it, the disappointment list. Um, and I had no problem forgiving them. Right.

And then a couple of days later, I was like, I had, when I was flooded with oxytocin, serotonin, and dopamine, it was very easy for me to forgive people right and then I thought about what I'm like most of the time and what I realized is I don't have enough good chemicals so most of my the chemicals in my brain are cortisol and adrenaline so that's why I'm yelling that's why I'm petty that's why and i'm like you need the right drugs that's your whole thing i know i know so but i've been i've been on ssris i've been on everything but i'm saying i realized what i consider my personality is not even my personality it's just the chemicals on hand so who are you really there's no way of knowing i was hoping you could help if you're

just joining us peel that onion 1-800 um no but so i'm realizing that what i consider my personality or the parts of myself i don't i really don't especially like i did i don't even need to engage with them so the last week i've just been not engaging with i feel like i have a kitchen in my brain and it's giving it's serving mercury sandwiches and i'm like i'm just not gonna eat it wow yeah that's frightening me now great um but i it's are you dangerous should i no i'm not i'd sound sociopathic or something but it's i'm just not indulging the part of myself that i have acid in my brain that wants to eat people. Ooh, that sounds kind of cool, actually. Yeah, now I've made it sci-fi.

Yeah, now I've made it sci-fi. That it just wants to destroy people and criticize and enemies and you did this and vilify. And then eventually, believe it or not, turns on myself. I'm trying to stop. And I... I support you you thank you so much tell me more about this uh movie from the 70s go fuck yourself thanks to ship station for sponsoring the show the holidays are the busiest time of the year don't get stuck worrying about shipping orders let ship station do the heavy lifting so you and your team can put your time, money, and energy into more important things.

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Pretty clever. And sign up for your free 60-day trial. That's ShipStation.com, code NEAL. ShipStation. Don't use it for drugs. You're going to jail. Support for today's podcast comes from Marine Layer. It's official. I'm cute. do you see this shirt guys it's a cute shirt you know where i got it marine layer is where i got it uh you see

how it's like a nice cut and a nice fit i'll tell you why it's because they have they have good uh sizing they may have like small medium large and then they have like it's medium marge etc etc they it's like incredibly soft and i don't say that i don't look i wouldn't say that if i if it wasn't it's like really really soft like it's insane i got this i got uh a long sleeve shirt i got a henley the one with the three buttons at the top. I've been wearing, can I say I've been wearing the living shit out of it, out of it all. If anyone's been with me and they haven't been, but I've been wearing it to keep my dog. Keith will swear that I've been wearing this stuff and I'm wearing it right now. Like genuinely looks good. I look don't, you can't front on this.

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Ah! That's code N-E-A-L-1-5 at marinelayer.com. Go be a part of the magic. Look and feel like your friend, Neil. Not written, guys. That's off the top. Oh, all right. We've kind of covered this one.

But pressure to make a comeback slash stay relevant. I have a creative question, which is how do you decide? Is it a matter of a song being popular and then going now I'll consider it? Or is it just you think of a funny parody the first time you listen to it involuntarily? What's the is it different for everyone? Yeah. You know, I haven't had my antenna out for parodies for a while. But back when I was um more prolific

since me too you can't have your antenna yeah am i right guys i do comedy from time to time it seems like i'm a lot of about mdma and healing no it's comedy it's a dick joke uh you haven't had your antenna out okay yeah um you know back but back when i was doing it basically i would be scanning the billboard charts and looking for songs that are good contenders for parodies. And then for every song that I thought might be a good candidate, I would come up with a hundred ideas for it. And, um, maybe one of those

would be kind of good. So, uh, so I would do that. And it's not often. Would you pitch them to somebody? I'd pitch them to whoever's in the room with me, like my wife or whoever. And if they don't like it, I'll go like, well, how many Grammys do you have? Great now you're now you're playing my game yes now you're working the neil brennan system nbs um are you okay so it so why haven't you had your intent out um you know well um like my last album uh debuted at number one which was a big deal for

me it was the first album in 50 years that had a comedy album that had uh been on the billboard charts yeah and it was the last album of my contract and uh i kind of felt like well there's a number of reasons and the number one is like i felt like well that's a nice mic drop like yeah what am i gonna my next album is not going to go down number one, certainly. So it'll be a disappointment. So why not like go out on top? Yeah. So that's, that's like number one.

Also, there's just a number of factors like, like YouTube is as proliferated and, and for every pop song that comes out, there's a hundred song parodies for that song. In like the first 24 hours. Yeah. Yeah. So it's like, how do you compete with that? I mean, you know, and I certainly can't go for low hanging fruit because the most obvious idea has already been taken. Like the same way that, that social media has like ruined talk show monologues because

like all the topical political jokes, somebody has already made them. Immediately. Immediately. And, uh, the monoculture is, is, is eroding. Cause like in the eighties and nineties, a lot of people listen to the same music and watch the same music videos and now uh not so much so it's a little harder to tell what the the um big pop songs are in fact on social media uh even when my last album came out i was seeing comments like oh i just found out that i'm i don't know what song alice parodying years old

yeah because people like you know it's it's harder to like zero in on like you know they're obviously still hit songs and and major superstars but you know what might help do you do you speak korean not well because the k-pop market oh yeah is ripe go ahead all right so so what do you feel like uh so do you feel like you won't make albums anymore? I said, I pretty much said that, uh, in 2014, like I'm pretty sure this is my last album. And, uh, I'm kind of doubling down on that cause I really don't think I'm going to be doing any more, you know, conventional albums per se. Another reason is albums are not like moneymakers like they were in the eighties and nineties,

like streaming pays like next to nothing and people aren't really buying albums so much unless you're taylor swift right uh so i still tour a lot i love doing that um and same hair same you know that's great but uh yeah it's just uh not something i guess and i still put out the occasional single i'm still you know put myself out there but waiting until i have 12 songs and put them, putting them out all at once feels like an outdated business model to me. Did it feel like, well, I feel like you were like a largely a singles person anyway, right? Like that was kind of the, that always felt like the business model, even though it wasn't. It pretty much was.

Cause I mean, novelty songs, is a sort of a derogatory term but that's what it was i mean that's basically a singles kind of business and which is also why albums were not the the best place to do that because if i had a great idea for uh uh a single and it was topical i'd go oh great now we just need 11 more songs so i can put this out. Yeah. Yeah. You know, what do you make of your, obviously it's money and survival. Is there a emotional appetite for relevance? Do you think, you know, like anybody,

you know, you know, that's, it's sort of like my least favorite insult online. Like, you know, Oh, you're not relevant anymore.

Like, and they say that about any, uh, anyone, any comedian or anybody that hasn't had a hit movie or uh show in three weeks yeah you're not relevant anymore and you know it it means a little something to me but it's not what drives me it's also awfully nebulous it's awfully vague like relative what does that mean yeah like what what are you talking about i mean i know that there are people out there in the world that like what I do. What drives me is doing the things that I like, that I know that I'm good at, that I know will make other people happy.

That's it. So you have your fans. You can sell out Carnegie Hall. Literally, you've sold out Carnegie Hall. So that's pretty good. And I think the American thing is like you have to be growing constant growth every quarter and if you're not doing that you once you start questioning it you're like what what am i doing like what is this i've reached the end game and i'm just playing the

side quests that's funny and and do you do do you, are they satisfying? Yeah, it is. I mean, um, I don't say that as a challenge. I say that as like hopeful. Cause I don't, it, you know, there's no, there's not a lot of graceful ways to sort of age in America. Yeah. But you know, I, at this point I've, I've already released more albums than the Beatles. So I'm done.

Again, another way in which you've defeated them. Um, and right. But do you know what I, at this point I've, I've already released more albums than the Beatles. So I, I'm done. Again, another way in which you've defeated them. Um, and right. But do you know what I mean? Like, what do you, what, what do you consider the side quest at this point?

Yeah. Just doing other things. Like I, I've always wanted to do more TV and movies, stuff like that, that I've always been interested in, but I've just never, uh,

had the time or the opportunity to do it. And I still love, you know, doing, um, doing music. And I still love touring and I'll continue, um, doing music and I still love touring and I'll continue doing that. You could,

have you ever tried like scoring or, you know what I mean? Like, like purely music in media, uh, and musical. I could, I could probably,

I know doing it, doing a musical is something that's kind of been on my bucket list. Cause, cause you know, at some point there's nothing in the works right now, but it was something, you know, Lin-Manuelanda came to my house before hamilton and we're trying

to knocking ideas together like we should do a musical together and it hasn't come around yet but we're still close friends and you know who knows down the line uh but that's something that you know maybe someday who knows or just score or just like scoring like i could score it but you know there's so many other people in the world that do that better. At this point in my life, it sort of feels like, oh, the learning curve is too steep. Let's leave that to somebody else. Yeah. We have another block, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm getting another block. Ooh. It's a big one. That's a water break. Pretty great. Shout out to Marco Rubioio it's like the one the president laid out tonight the choice isn't just between big government or big business dread of mortality yeah what what are you so afraid of you know i think everybody has a bit of that i mean i don't think i'm unusual unusual uh my my wife is uh a lot more open about it i mean like we'd be filling out our wills or what something like that and you know it makes me uncomfortable and and my wife is totally fine

with it she'll um she'll say oh so you know just random everyday conversation so well when you died you want to be buried or cremated and i'd say i don't know surprise me you know just random everyday conversation so well when you died you want to be buried or cremated and i'd say i don't know surprise me you know great also why is she bringing that up at breakfast you know at breakfast you know let me have my orange juice first please uh is she is she more concerned with it than you are probably i mean she's like like what am i going to do with all your crap when you're dead that's what she wants wants to know. Do you want a weird old museum? Well, that's what you get for dating a woman 30 years younger than you. That's Hollywood for you.

What do you think happens when a man or woman dies? Well, Keanu Reeves had a beautiful answer when he was asked this on Stephen Colbert's show. And I'm paraphrasing roughly, but I believe he said, you decompose slowly and you're eaten by worms and maggots and microscopic organisms. And then you go to heaven. Did he say that? Maybe. Let's say that he did. Rest in peace, Keanu Reeves.

I didn't know he died. But do you believe in uh are you spiritual at all uh sure yes do you uh do you believe that you would something will happen uh that's my belief i you know i i'm you know i feel a little just outside my comfort zone but i will say that uh i i i'd like like to think that religion and science can coexist. Oh, you think I'm trying to get you to commit to something. I was an atheist until like two or three years ago. What happened?

Ayahuasca. I just kept drinking Ayahuasca. MDMA, Ayahuasca, and DMT. kept drinking mdma ayahuasca and dmt um uh basically i mean i basically had a spiritual experience which i'd never had before so i was like oh okay just i just needed something yeah and i'm not an atheist anymore but i don't know i don't think it's uh a sign of a lack of intelligence yeah if you do believe in something like thank you like uh uh yeah i'm not like idiot and i feel like you're skirting the line you don't want to be on the side of you don't want to lose fans um but you already lost them because of your gun because the gun

the gun locker um all right what have you done in life that has helped your mental health and it this doesn't have to be recently it could just be like things that you remember being like oh i feel better now well this kind of ties into the mortality thing because my wife helped me out because i one of my diseases is i'm a i'm a hoarder my whole life and i think i had it for my dad that's a fucking that's a block al oh yeah we could use this side block that's a that would have been on a main that would have been on the main okay let's start over quarter all right hey welcome to blocks ladies and gentlemen um do so i so so part of that is like you know there's a number of reasons there's a number of ways you

can confront your sense of mortality you can like write like you're running out of time like lynn would say uh which you know i kind of feel like i've done that i'm you know i'm good there uh or you could just kind of give up you know which like and i that's not what i do but i i've had the impulses like you know why should i learn french or yeah do the dishes i'll be dead in 30 had the impulses like, you know, why should I learn French or do the dishes? I'll be dead in 30 or 40 years. Let's deploy it. You know? Yeah. Let's wait it out. But, but the, the, the, the main thing is it makes you focused on like what's important in your life. And my wife helped me with this because when we got married 22 years ago, she found out that I had not thrown away a single shirt that I've ever owned in my life they were like from high school

from well maybe maybe when i was a kid but like i had shirts that i wore in high school and she went through everything and and she kept some of the high school she wore some of my high school shirts look pretty hot but uh but she kind of went through all my stuff and thinned it out and um i still don't know how people have like live these minimal minimalist lifestyles where they have big houses with nothing in them like yeah i still kind of don't get that because we always have piles somewhere uh you but it's tough meaning we humans or or you and your wife my wife and i yeah um okay and what do you and so you think you're hoarding just as a nervous tick against mortality maybe i mean maybe a little the way I was raised because my parents grew up during the Depression.

And, you know, sort of like, you know, you don't want to throw away that moth-eaten sock. It could come in handy sometime. I know. My mom's still like, my mom saves everything. Yeah. And I get it. Like, I get how they got that way. And when my parents passed, you know, my wife Susanna and I spent weeks going through their house and garage cleaning it out.

I mean, it was just like. Did you find the money? Keep going. No. You're like, where's the money? No, it was, it was like a lot of stuff, like literal, literal garbage. Yeah. That they would keep, you know.

Yeah. And you were like, this is so stupid. It's unlike, totally different than my garbage. My garbage is great. Well, here's, here's, there, there are several things. And I, I've, I've been working on myself trying to like, just keep what's important. Uh, but aside from the shirts and things like that, a tough thing for me to get rid of was fan mail. Because when I, I, I, up until the early, up until the, well, up until, uh, about 20 years ago, I kept every single fan letter i'd ever received because i

figured their family their love letters i get that i understand that because it feels disrespectful to be like do you love me goodbye right no exactly that and and i read them all uh did i save your life rip rip right but my wife made the point like what are you gonna be gonna be like 80 years old in the attic reading these letters over and over like somebody used to love me. Yeah. You know, there was a man named Michael Jackson and he had a song and then I had a. It says here that if I'm ever in town, I can come over for a free meal. Okay. You know? Yeah. And he said, you've got a family now, you have people love you and, you know, you can let go of that.

So I had a storage facility with literally several dozen beacons boxes full of fan mail and got rid of it in one fell swoop. And it hurt because like I said, it was like I felt,

but they said, oh, those people still love you. Right. You just don't have their junk anymore. Imagine how hurt they are having heard this. Yeah. That it's all gone so now i just

you know i i still read the fan mail and i keep maybe one or two i keep the ones that say your music stopped me from killing myself like okay i'll keep that one no i i'm with you yeah and instagram messages and all that stuff like just the the that that's i that's a horde that i understand because it does feel disrespectful to yeah to like someone's actually like it's a hoard that I understand because it does feel disrespectful to someone's actually like it's a pain. You must have really touched them, especially mail, Instagram messages and all that stuff. I assume most people that Instagram me are drunk or on drugs. And I think that's pretty, pretty safe to say is true. Did you have to leave town?

Someone once did a sweep of my house and i was out of town and and uh permission yeah no she's like i'm she was like uh house sitting for me and she was like i'm getting rid of your shit and i was like what are you talking about she's like there's so much in here that you do not need. Literal feces? Say again? Literal feces in her? Not after the sweep. Okay. No, but she sent me a few photos like, do you need this? And I was like, no, you get rid of it.

But were you with her when she was doing it? Oh, yeah. So would you try to defend it and then be like what am i yeah yeah the one thing uh this the one thing i'm still blocking is uh she was like do you really need all your cds like you've got you've got all the music on your computer you can stream it you're like and that's that's my one holdout like i need the jewel boxes like don't touch the cds are you listening to them no i. I know what you mean. I mean, again, it's like bookshelves.

I know. Why do we keep... I mean, bookshelves are more like trophy cases in a weird way. They're like intellectual. They're like, huh? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh.

Uh-huh. Did you see what I did? Whereas CDs is a bit like... I know. Where are they? In the CD closet. Okay. As long as they're out of...

They're out of sight but no every you know virtually everything that you keep you don't need no really no and i'm slowly learning that but it's taking a lifetime to kind of like understand yeah and you're still planning on being buried with all of your things yeah dump all the cds in the casket with me just fucking yeah finally goodbye earth um okay and you've gotten a little better at that anything else that you've gotten a little bit better with uh at in life just time i mean that that's like stuff and time is another thing because um i used to say yes to virtually everything uh because like oh this will be good for your career. That's a lot of eyeballs.

People will see you. That's a lot of money. That'll be good. And now I don't do virtually anything unless I think, oh, that sounds like fun. That's great. And it's nice to be at that point in my life. Like Daniel Radcliffe is already at that point in his life because he made a ton of money. He got incredibly super famous.

Yeah. And now he just does whatever he feels like. And I'm certainly not on his level but but yeah it's nice nice because now you know i i feel like i can just live my life just kind of doing what i want did it feel uh sometimes i can feel a little disconnected do you know what i mean like if you don't it's it's a unique situation and i feel like human beings are so used to just surviving like i need food i need shelter and like that's our mission for the day uh-huh so what do you consider your mission now just enjoyment oh that sounds pretty hedonistic doesn't it but uh no no it's not i don't i don't

yeah i'm sure you're fucking and doing a ton of mdma um but i'm but but not even hedonistic i don't think it needs to be hedonistic i'm asking because enjoying my life enjoying my life uh enjoying my loved ones and help help and make them happy doing what i love i mean i don't know that was working out for me no that's great i just wonder did you ever feel like do you ever feel a little untethered or is it just like it always but i lean into that yeah great um and what i think i know the answer but what is your goal for yourself like what's your ultimate dream for yourself it's always been to, to do this interview with you. And I kind of feel like after this, it's, you know,

I, I have no goals left. Steve-O ladies and gentlemen. All you have to do is open, open up your hand My man