Based on the four preview tracks released to the public, They Might Be Giants - which teams Flansburgh with John Linnell - has found that trick with its forthcoming album, "Join Us," due in stores July 19 on Idlewild/Rounder Records. The advance songs were released digitally April 26 on iTunes, through its "Complete My Album" program.
"It's been a really exciting bit for us," Flansburgh said.
"We really haven't been in the pop world for a short while. These four advance tracks from the album have departed a lot further than we anticipated. We're making a video now for 'Can't Keep Johnny Down.' It's really getting played on radio stations. I live a lot of mass have heard of our circle and it shouldn't be surprising to me that our music is getting played on the radio. That's what people in bands experience. But it's really very exciting. I only got a number of all these radio stations that have added the song and it's so cool."
They Might Be Giants' unlikely success story started nearly three decades ago with its Dial-A-Song service, which allowed fans to claim an answering machine daily to see a new TMBG song. High energy, low budget videos broke them into heavy rotation on MTV, and the remainder would soon become alternative rock history. Along the way, the band became the recipients of two Grammys and a platinum record (1990's "Flood"), writing and/or recording numerous songs for television, including the Grammy-winning "Malcolm In the Middle" theme, among many more. Flansburgh is currently producing Jonathan Coulton's upcoming studio release, "Artificial Heart," which also features TMBG's Marty Beller on drums.
The duo took a lengthy detour into children's music, with the critically acclaimed albums "Here Follow the ABCs," "Here Come the 123s" and "Here Comes Science."
Notorious for its energized live show, They Might Be Giants will establish the 1st international circuit in more than a decade this fall, hitting six countries and more than 50 U.S. cities.
Flansburgh took the clock to speak to SoundSpike about the album "Join Us," TMBG's children's albums and the upcoming tour.
SoundSpike: The low single, "Can't Keep Johnny Down," seems to be doing good for you.
John Flansburgh: "Can't Keep Johnny Down" is actually getting a lot of attention. We're really talk to these video directors about devising a bonafide rock video for it. That'll be the first straightforward They Might Be Giants rock video - not animated - that we've done since the late '90s.
How big of a dispute was it to go from writing children's albums to adult-themed songs?
Our children's albums aren't like regular children's albums. They're defined by a lot of the same ideas that our regular stuff is. I've said this before, pardon me if you only take the same thing, writing a serious song is actually the biggest challenge you can have. For better or for worse, kids are fairly well at detecting if it's a serious song as well. The songs that address to them, they're pretty harsh critics in their own right. I consider the mystery to our success with the kids' stuff is we paid a small bit more care to the real quality control. I mean a lot of kid's music appears to be either phoned in or by people who stink. I don't live which is more damning. It's a strange field. But it's exciting for us to be out in the earth again and able to swear.
Why was now the sentence for "Join Us"?
The winner of the kids' stuff was tolerant of overwhelming our regular career. I suppose we decided we didn't need that to be our full-time gig. We only form of carried on with it after releasing our first children's album. That was leaving to be the only children's album we were planning on doing. It was received very warmly. It just sort of went incrementally. A couple days ago, we did two family projects in a row. We won a Grmmy and we got nominated for another Grammy for doing family stuff, so it had its own momentum. But, I guess, starting nearly a twelvemonth ago, I think we realized this is where our spirit is. This doing stuff for adult audiences is where we're at.
Is there a usual theme on "Join Us"?
We're second to our classic death trip kind of stuff. When we were putting the album package together with the graphic designer, Paul Sahre, he listened to a lot of
tracks and was stressful to get ideas for the cover illustrations, which is this Day-Glo pink hearse. Big wheels like a funny car, popping a wheelie. He came up with a whole series of things. It seemed like half of them were these death-obsessed things. In actual life, I don't mean we're that obsessed with mortality. I reckon it's only an exciting device in songwriting. It supersizes any song idea to spoil it up with death. Maybe that's why we had to get out of the kids stuff - to speak about death.
You've been together quite some time --
Twenty-nine years. We're 29 years young. Our career can legally drink.
To what do you attribute your longevity?
We've been lucky. I recall with any band, even the most ambitious or the most focused bands, there's ever a hug element of luck. There are so many gifted people who just get to have careers. We've lucked out in a lot of different ways. In the ways that we've had success, we've had the form of success that doesn't end of being a road block later on. There were a whole host of bands that came up at the second we were coming up, and a lot of them had bigger hits than we did. I recollect being profoundly jealous of a pair of bands, and now it seems almost like they're identified as one-hit-wonder bands, which is surely a doom that is companion to a lot of musicians. There's something vaguely damning about being a one-hit-wonder band - just being identified with one song or two songs. I suppose for a lot of people they might remember those are the guys who did "Istanbul" or "Birdhouse in Your Soul." But the accuracy of the subject is, all down the line, whether it was doing "Boss of Me" for "Malcolm" or Dr. Evil for the Austin Powers movies, we've had the good portion of light over different things that sort of get us known in different ways. We've done a lot of TV stuff that surprised people. It took a long time for masses to see our credit on "The Daily Show" because it flies by so quickly. But we've done the music for that. I think, at least within the music business, the multitude who hire people to do incidental music, that got us noticed on a completely different level. We've been lucky. We've been tenacious and we've been ambitious and we've ignored the obvious signs of bankruptcy and rejections pretty completely. We've soldiered through moments where we've been broke. We're still here.
Tell me around the transcription of "Join Us." I see you recorded it in a fairly short time span.
We're pretty effective in the studio. The actual sessions didn't get up too much time. But the composition of it took a very long time. We had the good chance of running in a brand new studio that was reinforced by our producer Pat Dillett. He's worked with a lot of super famous people. He worked with Mary J. Blige for a very long time. The New York studio scene is on the decline. A lot of studios are closing. It was sort of pleasant to be running in a brand new space, in character because it was such an optimistic environment. Ereallything was like it was very well-organized, and the guys putting it together were total pros. It was such a different experience. In the lowest 10 years, if you worked in some studio complex, the person booking it would be, "Oh, man. The music business is going down the toilet." It had a nice clubhouse environment. It was a one room studio, but there were a couple guys who were mixers on the same floor. There's something about working in a one room thatmakes you experience a little more emboldened that you're not kill the hallway from the superstar act that' s doing it the proper way. I remember of the albums we've recorded over our career - when we were recording "Apollo 18," we were running in a studio and New Kids on the Stuff were recording down the hall. It was at the total moment that New Kids were super duper big and it scarcely seemed really weird. When you're running at a big place, there are always such different acts coming in and out. It scarcely seems like you're running at the music factory sometimes. This experience felt very creative and very positive. The whole affair was a cask of laughs. It was also good down the street from where we recorded our album "Flood," which was in the wig district of New York It's a really small block, but there are a lot of shops selling wigs. Kind of hilarious.
Are you excited about the tour?
I'm super psyched about the tour. I cannot wait. It's loss to be so much fun. We're acting in a lot of theaters, which feels really different. Most of the time, we're sort of in clubland - that's its own funny man of happy-go-drunky people. Doing theaters it feels a small bit intimidating. I suppose the output rate of the shows is loss to give to be fairly high and pretty consistent. We give to bear that six years a week for a couple months. But there are things about playing theaters that are infinitely easier. There are so many more people there to help you get the record on the stage. It's an exciting moment.
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