fter more than 25 years of being misunderstood and underappreciated, innovative pop duo They Might Be Giants has become the subject of a documentary that aims to clear everything up.

Director AJ Schnack’s new film “Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns” (opening June 11 at the Broadway Centre Cinema) studies the work habits and musical significance of the collaboration between John Flansburgh and John Linnell, who established the independent work ethic and spirit from which alternative rock would later take its cue.

Introverted keyboard/accordion/saxophone player/singer John Linnell holds a faux-Greek coffee cup while guitartist/singer John Flansburgh looks off into the distance and contemplates the meaning of "Ana Ng."

The RED Interview
“We can barely stand to watch ourselves on TV.” Flansburgh—who, the film points out, is the extrovert of the two Johns—doesn’t consider himself a typical documentary subject. “I can’t say it felt like, ‘Oh, it’s about time somebody made a movie about us.’ It was more like, ‘Really? Are you sure you don’t have us confused with another band?’” he said during a telephone interview.

Being followed around with cameras isn’t as standard with They Might Be Giants as it is with more glamorous bands, Flansburgh said: “We don’t pay that much attention to ourselves [and] how we dress. We speak pretty freely. We’re not that calculating about that part of our scene…any part of our scene, really. We’re just really obsessed with our songs and our recordings and how that stuff gets put together. But it was definitely strange being the subject of a movie.”

The process of being the subject meant that the band didn’t see a frame until the film was finished, which Flansburgh said was fair, but disconcerting: “It was a little bit different for us. Usually…there’s a tangible creative product for what we do. To be the subject and not the maker was kind of a role reversal,” he said.

And Flansburgh even learned something about himself, he said, “I say ‘um,’ ‘like’ and ‘you know’ so much more than I ever realized. It kind of shook me up a bit.”

Flansburgh also said that being the subjects also made him and Linnell the heroes, which he didn’t realize until he saw the film. “AJ Followed us around for a long time and definitely had more than enough random blackmail material to make me feel really nervous…I was relieved that he stuck to the hard stuff…that told you more about the general scene,” he said.

Flansburgh was also impressed with how Schnack structured the piece, combining interviews, archival footage, material of the band recording 2001’s Mink Car and spoken word performances of their lyrics by people like Janeane Garafalo, Michael McKean and Andy Richter. “I thought it was really creatively done…It was so different from your average bio movie.”

“I thought a lot of the people he interviewed had a lot of interesting points to make. It put the band in context in a way that was really informative.”

Schnack interviewed “pretty much everyone the band ever worked with,” Flansburgh said, and “had a huge editing task shuffling it all together.”

The subjects featured in the film include friends and colleagues such as Ira Glass and Sarah Vowell of NPR fame, musicians such as Frank Black and Syd Straw, author Dave Eggars and several colleagues such as manager Jamie Kitman, producers and label representatives. These people discuss what makes the band important and try to reveal new ideas about the music.

“There are aspects of the film that I think are very perceptive that have not been picked up by other people,” Flansburgh said:
“We’re an original band and that’s a very rare thing. We’re not derivative of something else and we’re not interested in being like other things. And that’s a very different path to take. It’s kind of a low road, but it has its humble nobility to it, and I think the movie kind of captures that and shows what’s special about the band.”

The documentary, however, shies away from the alleged glamour of a career in music. That’s because there isn’t any, according to Flansburgh, who said, “People understand a performer being a drug addict a lot easier than a performer sorting out his business life.”

Flansburgh’s statements often venture into extended commentaries on the state of music today:
“There’s not a lot of glamour in our lives…I think the way our culture deals with musicians is sort of based on an Elvis/Beatles model that probably wasn’t even true for The Kinks. It would be very pleasant if you could just have a song on the radio and it would be like winning the lottery—you’d be made for life. But that’s really not what it’s like. You just don’t make very much money as a musician.

“Audiences have very strange preconceptions about that. I think people have seen far too many ‘Behind the Musics’ and have very underinformed notions of what the real practical life of a working musician is. And that stuff gets hidden away as well. Record companies—and maybe even musicians themselves—want to buy into the fantasy. They don’t want to appear pathetic or small time. Everybody pumps themselves up to look like the biggest deal in the culture that they can. That’s part of what makes you legitimate, that’s part of what makes you real.”

Without attention to image, the Johns have shown staying power, with albums reaching gold status several years after completion. The band’s catalogue of music continues to grow with impressive albums and songs. Flansburgh attributes the success to the band’s devotion to experimentation:
“It’s really important that the band keeps moving forward creatively. That requires a certain dedication…Being able to think outside the box is one of the ways we’ve managed to avoid these traps.”

Since the band has worked in pretty much every popular style imaginable, it’s hard to guess what genres will be included when the next album comes out.

“Where our skills lie and where our interests lie are different things. We’re good at certain types of songwriting, but that doesn’t mean that’s the limit of our musical curiosity. As I’ve gotten older, my…cultural background has really grown.” Flansburgh’s current interest includes the soul music of the ’60s and ’70s. “It’s hard to say how that rubs off on the music we put together.”

While the album is still a ways off, the film and an upcoming concert at Red Butte Gardens will satiate fans for now. The Salt Lake City show comes as a bit of a surprise, considering that there are only five other dates on the band’s roster this summer, all of which are in the East.

“We’re just doing shows at that time and this offer came in and we’ll fly in and be discombobulated and enjoy the beautiful day.”

The band has been stopping in Salt Lake City since the early years, and Flansburgh remembers some early performances:
“The first couple times we played there it was so obvious to us that Salt Lake City was not on the circuit…We played a lot of really unorthodox venues in the late ’80s. It was a strange time because you could tell that rock bands just didn’t come to Salt Lake City…I felt like we’d come from the moon. The level of excitement was really extraordinary…We always thought it was an interesting place and are happy to come back. There are some really good junk stores and some really good bookstores, too.”

In more recent years, They Might Be Giants performed at the Red Hot Fourth Independence Day celebration at Rice Eccles Stadium. “That was really Oddville,” Flansburgh said. “I remember the people working the show wearing red, white and blue sweaters. I was waiting for Fred Willard to walk out and shake our hands.”
jeremy@red-mag.com