INTERVIEW: THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS IN CONVERSATION WITH JOHN LINNELL
Interview by Cecilia Pattison-Levi
They Might Be Giants have always had a unique way of presenting their music and world view. The band has been making music together since 1982. They bring their idiosyncratic lyrics to melodic musical processes that drill deep into the contradictory thoughts and impulses of humans on: “Not enough sleep,” stated one half of They Might Be Giants’ songwriter and multi-instrumentalist John Linnell
Over 40 years and 23 albums, They Might Be Giants have built a band and a huge back catalogue on wit, a love of music based on the two-man operation of John Flansburgh and John Linnell. The band’s first major impact on Australian music fans was their seminal art-rock album ‘Flood’ that is beloved by fans to this day. In fact, Brisbane was treated to a fantastic evening with They Might Be Giants at the Tivoli in October 2024 as they played their brilliant albums ‘Flood’ and ‘Book’ in full.
“Yes. We know how popular ‘Flood’ is in Australia,” quipped John Linnell. “I do not think we could get out of the country without playing songs from that album. We might be run out of town if we don’t play ‘Particle Man’ or ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul’ for fans”.
“With the new album our view was – try and say something positive, in a world that is affecting us all – so, ‘The World Is To Dig’ has that optimistic view. We should appreciate the world and find joy in it,” said John Linnell. “We think fans will like the songs. We have gone back to the sounds and music that affect us when we were small. We were in thrall to The Beatles and into underground 1970s rock, but we like digging into the past and have spent our time as a band expanding the boundaries of what a rock band can sound like – but not gratuitously so, just with music close to our hearts”.
“Like all of our albums, we have pretty short songs – that’s us,” John Linndell continued. “We are driven by our own contradictory impulses. We love instrumentation and production. We always have lots of ideas. But we can take that impulse too far. We have been trying subtractive production. We just take things away to make things sound better – take the busy out. We just love writing, but it’s hard to know how our songs will be received”.
“It’s hard to know what people will think about any album,” John Linnell said. “We spend all of our time spent in our heads, and by the time we are finished recording – we are so inside of it. I often think: “Oh no! This is terrible. It’s never going to work. Musicians, artists, just get so into what we are doing in the granular state, we often are not good at seeing the big picture. But it comes eventually, and then you do see it and hear it. And when you play it live, you can hear and see the crowd reaction”.
Fans will really love the songs on ‘The World Is To Dig’ – all 18 songs are driven by wonderful imagery, conceptual mischief, and that existential unease. The amazing song ‘Wu Tang’ is a great example. It is a love song to a sound, a time, and the impact of a band on popular culture.
“I am a fan of Wu Tang Clan,” stated John Linnell. “The germ of the song was to write a tribute from an outsider’s perspective – being white and older. It could be seen as a joke, but it’s not. The music is like a Tin Pan Alley melody with the lyrics saying I really like rap and heavier music. Wu-Tang were a band who linked music from the 90s back to the 60s. Their impact on culture was profound – but there is the misogyny, the stereotypes, the tropes in sound and culture. But with time, you can see more clearly. I was a fan then and now”.
They Might Be Giants have spent more than four decades sidestepping the popular genre musical trap by settling into their own single, stable identity.
“We love all music – all genres and types,” exclaimed John Linnell. “Our ambiguity in our love of sound has allowed us to change, but we want to remain positive in these times, but the songs ‘What The Cat Dragged In’, ‘New Wave Will Never Die’, ‘Garbage In’ and ‘Character Flaw’ probably show that we think about the world in our way. We want people to know: this too shall pass”.
They Might Be Giants have toured relentlessly but state:
“We have no plan,” explained John Linnell. “We are touring the eastern US for the rest of the year, Texas, the West Coast, but we will start to think about Canada and Downunder soon. We try not to get ahead of ourselves”.
But until then, ‘The World Is to Dig’ will be available for fans to listen to the unique world view of They Might Be Giants. Their music makes the world a better place. They record the references between the high and low, sincerity and absurdity, with songs that chart evolving time and give fans a lifeline to see events and life with a sense of fun and an appreciation to the Earth under our feet.
‘The World Is to Dig’ is available to pre-save on streaming services now and will be released on 14 April 2026. There is an Australian They Might Be Giants fan site with access to vinyl and merchandise based on the new album. If you loved ‘Flood’, then this new album re-opens that musical door.
