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greensparty · 3 years ago

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Talking with Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz of Weird Al Yankovic’s band

One of the biggest concert tours right now is Weird Al Yankovic. How can you not want to see a Weird Al show right now with everything that is happening in the world? I caught up with Al’s longtime drummer Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz via zoom recently. The last time we talked was in 2020 just before the release of his photo book Black and White and Weird All Over. Jon and the band are currently on the Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, which is a tour of mostly original non-parody songs.

Mr. Schwartz is one of the rare subjects I have interviewed more than once for this site. He was extremely generous with his time and I plan to save portions of our interview for later this year when his next photo book is released, but I’m getting ahead of myself. We caught up on Zoom while Al’s tour was in New England.

Schwartz (second to right) with Weird Al Yankovic (center) and the band at Al’s 2018 Hollywood Walk of Fame Star ceremony

Me: The tour has been going good so far?

JBS: Yeah, so far its going good. 6 or 7 shows in of 133. We rehearse everyday, but we do different songs every night. A different set list every night, there’s about 35 to 40 songs we choose from. And until we have done them a few times and gotten them under our belt, its different than rehearsal. Once we get that settled, we’ll be in a nice groove. I mean we’re already feeling pretty good.

Me: You and the band are currently on The Unfortunate Return of the Ridiculously Self-Indulgent, Ill-Advised Vanity Tour, which is a tour of mostly original non-parody songs. How did this tour come about?

JBS: We did a version of this in 2018. The differentiation of this and our other tours came about because we didn’t have a new album, so we needed to change it up a little bit. I mean, the fans would’ve been fine with seeing us do the same thing we have done over and over. But what we’re doing on this tour is changing it up and bringing in a lot of stuff - in 2018, a lot of things we hadn’t played before live. Things we had to learn how to play and re-learn how to play. There’s no videos, no costumes, no nothing. Its just the five of us onstage just playing. Al has an accordion he’s playing on almost every song. He’s playing parts he wrote that he’s never had to play before cause we always had it covered, now he’s up there and he has to work along with us. In 2019, we did the Strings Attached Tour, where we did the show again with videos and costumes with an orchestra. Based on the success of the No Frills Tour as we called it, we brought it back this year. We’re doing a lot of the same songs that we did in 2018. Different set list every night. And we also do, every night just a straight cover song: “Smoke on the Water”, “Honky Tonk Woman”, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and a lot of classic rock songs. There’s like seventy-seven of them we did in 2018. This year we decided not to learn, one-hundred-seventy-seven new songs (there’s a lot of dates on this tour). So we pulled a lot of the songs we did on that tour and do them maybe three times on this tour. We do them as close to the original as humanly possible with the instrumentation that we have. The idea of us being like a bar band, if its a Stones song obviously we can pull it off. If its a song with a lot of horns or voices, then it’ll be more of a stripped down version. The other night we did “Glad all over” by the Dave Clark Five, last night we did “Last Train to Clarksdale” by The Monkees, we’ve done “China Grove” by The Doobie Brothers. It’s unusual because you don’t hear Al do a straight cover song the way it was done. Either the words are different or it was intended to be funny. So this is new for us. So far, the shows are selling out. It’s a theater tour, so we’re looking at 1200, 1500, or 1800 seaters. The cool thing is we are ending the tour on October 29 in New York City at Carnegie Hall. We had been invited to do that in the past but due to logistics it wasn’t affordable. It would’ve been very expensive to put on our show. Now we’re coming in as five guys sitting on a stage, so this is our chance to do it. It’s very cool, we’re really looking forward to it. Unfortunately, even though we’re looking forward to it, its the end of the tour and we’re going to be beat. Six months with no breaks, we’re basically doing five shows a week. But wherever we’re at, I think we’re going to be really excited and its going to be a great show.

Schwartz in 2021

Me: There’s been a lot of debate within the music community (both musicians and audiences) about whether or not to tour right now. Some concert tours have had to pause their tour due to a COVID case. And there’s also been debate among audiences feeling comfortable in-doors and with crowds. Was it hard for you and the band to decide to tour right now?

JBS: There were bands out last year and you’re right, some of them did cut their tour short. There are a lot of protocols in place both for us and the audience. Regardless of local regulations, they come to our show, they have to wear a mask, they have to show proof of vaccination, or if they defer they have to take a COVID test. And they have to agree to that to buy a ticket, it’s not a surprise. That is what our rule is and the venue has to adhere to it if they want us to play. Everyone’s been great about it. The local crew know that they have to mask up. We’re all masked up. We take COVID tests every day including days off. We’re only about ten days into the tour at this point, but so far nobody has tested negative. But again we’ve been very careful. And we’re not seeing personal guests. It’s a very different tour unfortunately. Days off are basically spent in the hotel room. We’re not going into restaurants and sitting with people. There’s Doordash and other ways to get food to the hotel. On show days we eat at the venue. We’re very careful about what we do and who we can and can’t see and who we interact with. When we’re all onstage that’s almost the only time we don’t have a mask on. We’re masked up the rest of the time and being very very careful. I hope we can keep that up for the length of this tour. I know there are other bands out there who have paused their tour or cancelled dates. We’re doing our best to not have that happen, we have all kinds of contingencies in place should someone test positive. There’s a whole set of rules that govern how we’re going to continue, with the goal being to not cancel any shows if its at all possible. I mean we’re not going to make someone who is sick get up and play if its a band member and compromise the show by doing a poor performance. Or compromise their health by making them play for ninety minutes when maybe they should be in bed somewhere. So we’re all doing what we can to make sure the tour can go forward. So far the response from fans when we look out at the audience, they are masked up because they are right next to each other and that’s another concern. But if someone is that concerned about standing right next to someone they probably won’t come to our show. But so far, so good. We’re sold out. Everyone’s been very cooperative. We’re making it work as best we can. The only negative is we don’t get to see any friends. In my case I don’t get to see anyone from the drum companies that I deal with. I’m not seeing relatives. It’s a very socially austere tour. On the other hand, when I’m in a hotel room all day, I’m getting a lot of work done on the computer. One of my projects is going through old family photos and touching them up so they’re permanently archived. As I’ve done with all of my audio tapes, as I’ve done with all my negatives. Just want to preserve things so when I die my wife can throw out the hard drive and not have to worry about it. So these days off are productive.

Weird Al Yankovic’s 2022 concert poster

Me: With Weird Al concerts, it’s obviously a music showcase, but more than that it is a comedy show. People attend and they want to laugh and have a good time, so in many ways now really is the best time for this tour, right?

JBS: Yes. Definitely, the fans who are there are loving it and they are glad to see shows again. Many of them have written (Al has a fan group on Facebook where the fans gather) that this is the first concert they’ve been to in the last two years and this is their return to seeing a concert. Which is really flattering that everyone would come out. People have been really careful, but they are dropping their guard just a little bit to come see us. As we are to come out and see the shows. So far things have been good with observing the protocols, so hopefully it continues for the next six months. This could be a very good year, as long as we see it through to the end. Especially ending up at Carnegie Hall.

Me: Weird Al hasn’t released an album since 2014’s Mandatory Fun, which went to #1. Any plans for a new album recording?

JBS: Well the plan is whenever Al does want to record something we have the freedom to do it. We have the freedom to do one song and release it, which we didn’t have the freedom to do under the record contract. Labels were not in the business of selling singles in recent years, they wanted to sell albums. You had to have twelve full songs (or whatever it was) to put out all at once. And until you had twelve songs there was no product. Even if we had something in the can for a couple of years we had to sit on it. We couldn’t do anything with it until the whole package was ready to go. Now Al has the freedom to do whatever we wants. He can certainly go to Apple Music, Spotify and all the rest that have him promoted, he is in a position where he doesn’t have to rely on a label to do that.

On the other hand, there hasn’t been anything really new in recent years. That’s not to say we haven’t recorded anything. We have recorded as a band some songs for this biopic that should be out by the end of the year [Weird: The Al Yankovic Story will be streaming on Roku this year with release date TBA]. It’s with Daniel Radcliffe as Al. They got actors portraying the band. No known actors playing us, but in other roles some known actors. Rainn Wilson is in it as Dr. Demento. Emo Philips does as cameo as Salvadore Dali. It’s pretty fun! It’s not a true story by any stretch. A “mockumentary” I guess, with a lot of drama and things that never happened. Band members saying things that we never said and never happened. So we got together a couple of times to record some music for that movie. A few years ago we recorded “The Hamilton Polka”, which was the polka version of a number of songs from Hamilton. That came about because Lin-Manuel Miranda, who wrote Hamilton, had different artists do Hamilton related songs and he called them Hamilton’s Hamildrops. He released one song a month. He had asked Al to do a polka version of Hamilton songs. Again, not an original song, but that was a new release. There was a TV special of the Hamilton play [on Disney+] and Al took clips from that and he time-compressed them and edited them so they fit the polka version. So there’s a version out there that is approved by Lin-Manuel. Also Lin-Maneul got different companies from the Hamilton productions around the world to sing along to different parts of the polka medley and that was edited together and released. We also did - Portugal. The Man wanted a polka version of one of their songs, so we did two of them and they both got released.

As far as an Al composed original parody, we haven’t seen that yet. When we do, we can knock it out real quick and have it out in hours. It would be that fast. To do that with a record label just is not possible. So when it happens, when the mood strikes, we can get the band together and do something. He has the freedom to do that. In terms of making an album, it would take a lot of those singles to make an album. I don’t know if there will be an album per se in the future. But I don’t know. He might have a really creative streak and knock out five or six songs we really wants to do and put out a mini-album or EP or something. We’re independent now, so that would be his own label. Unfortunately product isn’t really selling now. Part of that is, you put music out to promote the tours. It used to be you went out and toured and people discovered you and went out and bought the album. Then that kind of turned around to you released some songs for streaming, which generates interest for people to see the band live. In our case we have lifelong fans. There are 10-year-olds in the audience, there’s 70-year-olds in the audience. Bunch of 70-year-olds on stage too. I don’t know that we need new product to get new fans, I mean there’s young kids who discover stuff we’ve done and they get it, they understand the humor. And the parents bring the kids to the shows now. Parents who were fans twenty years ago are bringing their 7-to-10-year-old to the show. Album-wise, I don’t know. It remains to be seen.

For info on Jon “Bermuda” Schwartz: https://www.bermudaschwartz.com/

For info on Weird Al’s 2022 tour: https://www.weirdal.com/tour/

#jon bermuda schwartz #weird al yankovic #interview #music nerd #comedy #weird: the al yankovic story #hamilton #lin-manuel miranda #portugal. the man

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