Alfred Matthew Yankovic (born on October 23, 1959), best known as "Weird Al" Yankovic, is an American multi-Grammy Award-winning musician, satirist, parodist, accordionist, and television producer. He is known in particular for his humorous songs which make light of popular culture, parody specific songs by contemporary musical acts, or both. His works have earned him three gold and five platinum records in the U.S.

Biography

The only child of Nick Louis Yankovic (a Serb-American) and Mary Elizabeth Vivalda (of Italian and English descent),[1] Alfred Matthew Yankovic was born in Downey, California, but raised in the nearby town of Lynwood. He first started playing the accordion one day before his seventh birthday. When a door-to-door salesman came around offering accordion and guitar lessons, his father opted for accordion saying that there should be one more accordion playing Yankovic in the world besides polka king Frankie Yankovic (to whom he has no relation). He mastered the instrument by age ten, after which he quit lessons to pursue it on his own. He now uses a youth sized accordion, with which he is able to jump around more vigorously.

After hearing Dr. Demento's radio show (a comedy radio program featuring humorous music), Yankovic sent the Doctor a tape of a song entitled "Belvedere Cruisin'", a song about his family's current vehicle, in 1976. Another song, included on the tape, which never received airtime, was entitled "Dr. D Superstar" and was a parody of "Jesus Christ Superstar"[2]. He was a senior at Lynwood High School at the time, but that tape was the start of his eventual career.

Three years later, Yankovic was an architecture student at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo and a disc jockey at the university's radio station (KCPR). His air name was "Weird Al", and he has used it since. Although he has claimed that he had been referred to as "Weird Al" during high school, there is no confirming evidence of this. Since "My Sharona" by The Knack was on the charts and The Knack was scheduled to play at Cal Poly, he took his accordion into the restroom across the hall from the radio station (to take advantage of the echo chamber acoustics) and recorded a parody entitled "My Bologna", with a B-side called "School Cafeteria". The Knack thought it was funny after meeting Yankovic after a show at his college, and arranged for the song to be released on their label, Capitol Records, which gave Yankovic a six-month contract. Dr. Demento's listeners frequently put this track atop his "Funny Five" list.

In 1980, Yankovic was working in the mail room at Westwood One, Dr. Demento's radio network at the time, when he developed another parody called "Another One Rides the Bus", a parody of Queen's hit, "Another One Bites the Dust". While practicing the song outside the sound booth, he ran into Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz, who told him he was a drummer and agreed to bang on Yankovic's accordion case to keep a good steady beat to the song. They rehearsed the song just a few times before going live on The Doctor Demento Show. "Another One Rides the Bus" became so popular that it got Yankovic his first television appearance, The Tomorrow Show with Tom Snyder. On the show, he played his accordion and again Jon banged on his accordion case as well as squeaking and blowing some horns and other musical gizmos. The rare 1981 Placebo EP release of this song has as its B-side the track "Happy Birthday", an unusually (for Yankovic) dark song about the world's problems and imminent destruction ("There's garbage in the water and poison in the sky, I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die"), with the sarcastic suggestion that denial is the natural solution ("So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take, just blow out the candles, and have a piece of cake!") The Placebo EP recording of that song was recently remixed into stereo by Jon "Bermuda" Schwartz for inclusion on a Hurricane Katrina charity compilation featuring various other comedy musicians.[3]

The Dr. Demento Society, which issues yearly Christmas re-releases of material from Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes, often includes among these unreleased tracks from Yankovic's vaults, such as "Pacman", "It's Still Billy Joel To Me", or the demos for "I Love Rocky Road". The live version of "School Cafeteria" is also to be found on Dr. Demento's Basement Tapes.

1981 brought Yankovic on tour for the first time as part of Dr. Demento's act. His performances were particularly interesting as few, if any, people at the time were doing parodies of rock and roll songs on accordion. His stage act caught the eye of manager Jay Levey, who loved it and became Yankovic's manager. Levey insisted that the act would sound better if he had a full band, so he held auditions. Steve Jay became Yankovic's bass player, and Jim West played guitar. With Schwartz on drums, the band was complete. In 1991, Rubén Valtierra joined the band on keyboards, to allow Yankovic to concentrate more on singing during concerts. Rick Derringer would produce all of his albums until the 1992 release Off the Deep End. After Derringer's departure, Yankovic began to produce his own albums. So far he has released twelve albums, the latest released on 26 September 2006.

Yankovic's first show with his entire band (excluding Rubén Valtierra, who joined in 1991) was not successful at all. The audience threw items at Yankovic and his band and they were booed off the stage.

In 1985, Yankovic co-wrote and starred in a mockumentary of his own life entitled The Compleat Al that intertwined fact and fiction of his life up to that point. The movie was co-directed by Jay Levey, who would direct UHF (see below) four years later.

In January 1998, Yankovic had LASIK eye surgery and shaved off his mustache, radically changing his trademark look. Yankovic, who was revealed to be rather handsome in this conventional look, commented that "Millions of girls actually found me hot for the first time!" However, he is seen with a mustache and goatee combo on his 2006 release, Straight Outta Lynwood.

Yankovic married Suzanne Krajewski on February 10, 2001. Their daughter, Nina, was born February 11, 2003. He also has a pet poodle, Bela (pictured atop Yankovic's head on the cover of his album, Poodle Hat), and a pet cockatiel named Bo Veaner.

On April 9, 2004, Yankovic's parents, Nick, 86, and Mary, 81, were found dead in their Fallbrook, California home, apparently the victims of carbon monoxide poisoning from their fireplace that had been recently been lit (the flue was closed, which trapped the deadly carbon monoxide gas inside the house, suffocating them). An hour after his wife notified him of his parents' death, Yankovic went on with his concert in Mankato, Minnesota, saying that "since my music had helped many of my fans through tough times, maybe it would work for me as well" and that it would "at least ... give me a break from sobbing all the time."[