Now I'm gonna I'm gonna know Wall of shame for me.

I'm gonna do this.

Here we go.

Hey, what's going on?

Everybody For first, we feast on Shaun Evans and you're watching hot ones.

It's the show with hot questions and even hotter wings.

And today we close out Season seven with Weird Al Yankovic.

He's a four time Grammy winner, a pop culture icon with more than 35 years in the game, and he's not slowing down one bit, either.

Tickets are on sale now for his strings attached to our coming to a city near you in 2019 Riddle.

Welcome to the show.

Thank you very much.

Are you a spicy food guy?

The world needs to know.

You're not really I I love of Indian food and Thai food and Mexican food, but I usually order it medium.

So I'm not a big fan of the kind of food kind of spicy food that burns twice.

I know what you mean all too well.

Okay, let's go Proof.

So your pathway into show business is not unlike the blueprint for many in 2018 whereby you have teenagers all over the globe, making music in their bedrooms and hoping that it finds an audience.

The difference between Weird Al and a Soundcloud wrapper, of course, is that you didn't have the benefit of the Internet in 1976.

When you look at this song parody genre and how it's exploded on YouTube, when are you proud of this monster you've helped create?

And then when you feel shame, Yeah, I definitely came upon the pre YouTube days, and there's a lot of people out there doing comedy videos and music parodies, and some people are doing extremely well and some people not so much.

I want to see somebody that it seems like.

Maybe I influence them in some way, and they're doing doing a great job to take a lot of pride in that.

And there are other times I look at the in it and say, What have I done?

You know, the Internet is a place where it seems like fax have almost no value, and you've experienced that an extremely nish way.

What's been the most annoying example of having to defend yourself against a parody song that's not even yours?

You can't police the Internet.

And in the Napster days, every single song parody on the period of peer sites were.

If it's the parodies were in Al, of course, it's weird out like and some of them over like, extremely profane, somewhere racist, somewhere just horrible.

Somewhere all of the above.

And it had my name attached to it.

And some of that is around today.

People I remember, Alan the nineties.

You think these horrible, racist, profane songs like that?

No, that was not me, but I became sort of like the brain name.

I was like Xerox of parody music like People just assumed Well, it's a very It's out.

Okay, deal.

My head hasn't fallen off yet.

That's a good sign.

Yeah, very good.

Very good.

I know that you got your first start music when your parents signed you up for an accordion lesson.

And here you are, some 45 years later, still playing the instrument proudly in the accordion.

I feel like it's an instrument that gets a bad rap.

You know, people lump it in with the bagpipes at the ukulele.

One of these things that doesn't get taken seriously.

Do you think that That's unfair, in a way.

Yeah, because the accordion is, in all honesty, very essential instrument.

I always talk about Dick Contino, who's a famous according to her in the fifties, and he was afraid of Ah, sex symbol, accordion player.

I mean, you look at his album covers and he has a beautiful woman draped on his legs like, Oh, play the accordion for ASIO Dick canteen.

Oh, I think in the sixties with Lawrence Welk it became sort of like your grandma's music and became sort of unhip.

It really essential.

Very dynamic.

Uh, instrument, You know, the bellows create the dynamics can be very, very soft and be loud with it.

It flows, you know, which is one of the reasons why I think a lot of artists are now picking up on that recording is not that bad.

Alright, here we go.

What's this one out?

That maybe five bakery smoked onions.

Okay, here we go.

Get a little a little harder.

And she must have Scoville on this.

Oh, drop in.

Scoville on me, huh?

Well, here we're in a very chill zone.

25,000 maybe even less.

Okay.

Okay, relax.

Do you know about the Scoville scale out, Uh, Aaron schools, one of my favorite singers.

So throughout your career, you've always made it a point to clear your ideas with these artists that you spoof, which has created a whole mythology around some of these run ins with high profile musicians.

What's been the most amusing interaction you've ever had when trying to get an artist blessing?

Um, when I first approached to Kurt Cobain from Nirvana, if I could do a radio, smells like Teen Spirit called him over the phone when he was doing Saturday Night Live and his immediate The first thing out of my mouth was Oh, great is gonna be a song about food because I was like the eating guy, you know, and I had to explain it.

It's gonna be a song about how nobody can understand your lyrics, you know?

Sure as funny.

Do you have a favorite Michael Jackson memory?

Um, one time I actually gave him a gold album for my album.

Even worse, which had the fat song on it.

And, uh, you know, I hate it was very nice and gracious.

I imagine he just threw it on his pile of gold albums, but he was always very sweet, very nice.

Soft spoken, seemed to appreciate the parodies, had a great sense of humor, which is a prouder accomplishment for you getting recognized by Paul McCartney at an industry party early on in your career.

Or having Kurt Cobain's say that Nirvana really made it when they got parody by Weird Out.

It's hard to pick.

I mean, you know, I'm hugely flattered by both, but I mean, uh, when I met Paul McCartney for the first time in 1984 and he recognized me in a crowd that blew my mind, I gotta take Group is such a huge Beatles fan, and in fact, there's a There's a video from MTV where Martha Quinn is interviewing Paul McCartney and you can't see my head bobbing up in a Yeah, it blew my mind.

I introduced myself finally to him, he said.

I said, Hi, Mr McCartney and my name's Al Yankovic Weird Al and turns the Linda Look.

Honey, it's weird.

Al and my head exploded.

It was just couldn't believe it.

So this is a small axe Peppers.

You have a neuro mango habanero mango.

OK, all right.

Okay.

All right.

I like how the whole point of the show is to, uh is Thio torture public figures?

I'm gonna give this this idea for free.

This is my pitch.

Invite people on your show and just, like, just punch them in the face and ask him a question.

And every time they answer questions, punch him again.

You know, we're always talking about how he can continue to up the ante.

I think that would work good.

You got it for free.

I appreciate that.

L Yeah, well, you know, in your latest box end, it has more studio albums than the Beatles.

And some of your parodies have outperformed the songs that inspired them in the first place.

And I wonder, Do you ever get existentially as I know?

But let's start right now.

Well, I always think not to lead the witness at all.

But if we're just having this sort of existential conversation, you know, maybe people connect with something like Jon Stewart and the Daily Show Maur than the regular news.

Because we live in such an absurd existence that maybe people are connecting with the comedy in a way that they don't with, like, just the straight real thing or something.

I have to say, There's a lot of truth of that.

I mean, I get a lot of my news from from watching like late night show monologues.

It's, ah, more pleasurable way to get your information, you know?

So there's a lot of truth to that.

I think I'm glad that my hair is not on fire yet.

If I thought I would spontaneously combust by this point, but I'm hanging in there so far.

All right.

Well, you know, we still have some wings.

I know.

I know.

I'm not.

I'm not getting cocky.

I'm not getting cocky, believe me.

All right.

Now we have recurring segment on our show called.

Explain that, Graham.

We do a deep dive on August instagram.

Interesting pictures that need more contacts.

I'll bust out the laptop.

I'll show you the picture.

You just tell me the story.

Does that sound good?

Sure.

What about that top, please?

All right, First things first.

Do you ever get used to things like this?

How could you?

How could you possibly get you to that every that was on my last tour, which is the ridiculously self indulgent, vilified Vanity Tour, and that brought out the most hard core fans.

And this guy is obviously a pretty hard core fan.

That was, That's probably the biggest weird al tattooed that I've seen.

It's mind boggling.

I've seen people doing, Ah, references to my movie u H F.

There was a couple that got tattoos, tattoos of spatulas on their stomachs because there's a line in the movie that says, What better way to say I love you than with the gift of a spatula?

So they got a matching spatula, tattoos that sweet and then they broke up, like, six months later.

But but at the time, it was very sweet Here.

Ah, we have a wheel of fortune.

Throwback for the ages.

Yep.

Yeah, yeah, That was, uh, that was pretty so realistic.

I would have to be on Celebrity Wheel of Fortune.

My manager called me and said, You want to do this show?

I said, Somebody will A fortune.

I don't know.

That sounds pretty cheesy.

I don't think I want to do that.

And he said, Well, it would be with little Richard and James Brown and I said I'm there.

Get me on the plane s.

Oh, yeah, that was That was a lot of fun.

I don't think that either one of them really knew how to play the game.

We had all gone through our rehearsal and we all had spun the wheel and gone through, You know, everything you go through to prepare for the game.

And James Brown shows up, you know, half an hour late with his entourage.

And he wanted Toa still practice the game.

So we're in the green room watching on a monitor and we're learning watching game from learn to play Wheel of Fortune on.

It's pretty obvious that he had never even played hangman before.

He had just no concept, whatever of this game.

So he spins the wheel and he goes, Okay, gimme a gimme, uh, give me a A and the Producers, there's no James.

When when you spin the wheel, you have to pick a continent and he goes, Oh, uh, Europe and I didn't get much better after that.

A sum, all right?

It wouldn't be a hot Ones interview unless we got extremely granular about your obsession with snacks for our uncivilized viewers.

out there.

Can you give the origin story of the Twinkie wiener sandwich and provide a do it at home?

Recipe for the people?

I'm not came out of my sick brain.

I'm not sure what inspired it, but it was popularized in my move.

U h f.

And based on what you do, here is the recipe you take a, uh, a generic Twinkie, and you split it long ways as if it were a hot dog bun.

And then you put a hot dog regular hot dog or tofu wiener.

Whatever you do, you put that inside the Twinkie, and then, um, you use spray cheese, easy cheese, whatever it is that has come out of a spray can and you spray the cheese on top of the hot dog.

And for extra added bonus, you just don't get in your milk.

You know, that's a big debate on what kind of cheese to use, at least according to the Internet.

That's I'm happy that you set that straight because some people like you have to use Velveeta.

Some people get like, kind of fancy with it, but you're saying no as long as it comes out of a spray can.

That's okay.

Firewater.

Oh, okay.

All right.

That's starting a little scary.

Yeah, that's what that is.

Going up school.

Delicious.

Suffered.

You describe yourself as a pop culture Cuisinart.

You've had to have your fingers on the pulse to find inspiration for these right pop culture moments.

I wanna take a look at some of the finer notes of your highest charting song ever, which is white nerdy because on paper, a millionaire big rapper but not the biggest doesn't necessarily seem like somebody weird out would target and then riding Dirty Big song, not the biggest rap song.

So can you talk about why you went in that direction and your understanding of why you think it were?

Um, sometimes, you know, if the idea is the most important thing, So if it's a really fun idea that would lends itself to comedy, I mean, that's more important than anything else.