They Might Be Giants continues exploring new avenues of music
By Daily Bruin Staff
Jan. 24, 2001 9:00 p.m.
 Elektra They Might Be Giants returns with a TV theme song
as well as a children’s album and an Internet project in the
works
By Brent Hopkins
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
Call John Flansburgh the anti-rock star.
Half of the ’80s alternative duo They Might Be Giants, the
guitarist has built a two-decade career off of not being
famous.
“We’ve been lucky in that we’ve always only
had modest success, never overwhelming,” the guitarist said
in a phone interview from his Brooklyn studio. “It’s
kept us afloat, but it hasn’t been too much to deal
with.”
Formed in 1982 by Flansburgh and his longtime friend John
Linnell, TMBG bounced around the performance-art scene for several
years, building a cult following with its quirky songwriting.
Built on Linnell’s accordion proficiency and
Flansburgh’s rock-ish guitar, the band’s songs
showcased a wide variety of influences ““ ’50s soul one
minute, avant garde rock the next. While this formula endeared the
duo to a core following, it never crossed over into the
mainstream.
“We developed a little late-night following in the
performance-art scene in the East Village,” Flansburgh said.
“It was strange, because we’d go to rock clubs and
we’d be the weird band, and then we’d go to performance
spaces and be the rock band. We’d always be the odd men
out.”
Through perseverance, the duo was able to creep into the
spotlight, pushed by the success of its video “Don’t
Let’s Start” on the fledgling MTV in 1986. All the
while, it honed its craft through relentless touring and responding
to its loyal audience feedback.
“We got used to playing for cult audiences very
early,” Flansburgh said. “It kind of streamlined our
show ““ it’s like putting your idea into a cultural wind
tunnel. It taught us how to play to our strengths.”
The group also unveiled a novel way of spreading its music
““ the now legendary Dial-A-Song. Using an answering machine
in Flansburgh’s kitchen, the twosome put its unreleased
recordings on display for those willing to invest in a call to
Brooklyn. As a result, the band could road-test its new tunes
before committing them to albums. When the phone rang, Linnell and
Flansburgh both listened with an attentive ear.
“We could hear them hang up if they didn’t like
it,” he said. “If we could hear them laughing though,
we’d give ourselves an internal high five. It’s an
interesting test of a song, to see how long a stranger will
listen.”
Boosted by the popularity of “Don’t Let’s
Start,” Flansburgh and Linnell soldiered on, releasing the
catchy “Lincoln” in 1989 and the even catchier
“Flood” in 1990. The latter was the band’s first
major taste of the limelight, its sales ascending to gold-record
status.
This dance with success was a fleeting one however, with the
band’s latter albums selling in far smaller numbers. Though
sales dropped, the band was no less exhaustive in its touring
schedule.
Each member also tried side projects. Linnell toured as a solo
artist, and Flansburgh tried his hand with the rock-pop outfit Mono
Puff.
“The side projects we’ve done are a way to stretch
out and do our own things,” he said. “You can explore a
lot of different things and not have someone go “˜Hey,
that’s not your style, you can’t do
that.'”
Today, TMBG is still going strong, spreading itself as broadly
as possible. A children’s album is in the works for an April
release, as is a project to post the band’s rehearsals and
unfinished material online.
Referring to the project as “another brilliant,
over-ambitious project,” and laughing the whole while, the
gregarious axeman promised hard core fans loads of TMBG.
“It’s the artistic version of some
stalker-cam,” he said. “You actually have access to all
our back catalog. It’s not for the squeamish or the faint of
heart, but it’s pretty cool.”
For a monthly subscription fee, the devoted will receive six
unreleased tracks of music, in addition to videos of the band in
the studio.
Flansburgh credited this offbeat approach to distribution as a
key to the band’s continuing success. Rather than trying to
strike out down the same road that countless other bands have gone
down, TMBG will keep looking for new routes to success.
“We really built in a lot of job satisfaction in what
we’re doing,” Flansburgh said. “We made a point
of doing things our way. That’s never a mistake. If you
really want to do it for the long haul, you’ve got to find a
way so it makes you happy on a personal level.”
The band is currently touring in support of its “Boss of
Me” single, primarily known as the theme song for the Fox
sitcom “Malcolm in the Middle.” Though TV soundtracks
may seem like an odd venue for a group with its roots in the avant
garde, Flansburgh praised the song as yet another area to
explore.
“A lot of times as bands go along they think they can only
do one thing,” he said. “We definitely seem to have
lucked out in that respect. That’s as good an explanation of
our longevity as anything, that we keep trying to experiment with
what we can do.”
