I was a huge fan of 'Mad' magazine when I was 11, 12, 13 years old. I'd scour used bookstores trying to find back issues, and I'd wait at the newsstand for a new issue to come out. My life revolved around it.
It fit pretty nicely into my schedule because we'd pretty much finished the bulk of promotion for Mandatory Fun and were just getting geared up for the World Tour so this was a nice time for me to be working on it.
One of the hardest things I've had to deal with in my career is keeping my material topical even though I only release albums every three or four years.
In fact, when I come up with an idea for a parody I try to resist the urge to Google the idea to see if someone has done it already because the answer is almost always, "Yes, of course they have, they've thought of it!"
It's hard to say, I picked one of my favorite articles for the MAD vault. Which is one of the features of the Magazine so they don't have to actually pay artists or writers to come up with new stuff.
It was difficult to get into my friends' rock bands when I was a teenager. They somehow didn't see the need for an accordion player. That's when I realized that I had to find my own path in life.
Somebody will come up to me after a show and have me sign their arm, and the next time I see them my autograph has been permanently inscribed on their arm.