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Weird Al Yankovic
Weird Al Yankovic
Musician
If you do what makes you happy, you'll never be a disappointment to yourself.
About Weird Al
- After excelling in art and math, his counselors recommended that he study architecture.
- He went to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo-an excellent school for the subject-but about halfway through his studies, he realized his heart wasn't in it.
- What he truly enjoyed was doing his shift at the campus radio station (where he invented his stage name, "Weird Al").
- Says that the years after college were "pretty scary" because he had a degree he didn't want to use, and he had no idea how to break into the music world.
- Throughout his life, he'd recorded songs with his accordion and sent them to the Dr. Demento show, which played novelty songs.
- Some of his parody songs started to get positive responses from the show's listeners, so Dr. Demento decided he'd fund Al's first EP.
- In the beginning, most people wrote him off; the irony is, his career has outlasted the careers of most people he's parodied over the years.
- Says you need to know you went through life giving it your best shot; you don't want to look back over your life with regret.