John Mulaney, Rock Hall Enthusiast, Breaks Down This Year’s Class

John Mulaney has learned a few things about life from the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This sounds like the setup for a joke. But the comedian, late-night host, and low-key music obsessive has long been fascinated with the Cleveland institution, the artists it deems worthy for inclusion (or continually snubs), and especially the annual induction ceremony that can reunite bands, rekindle old feuds, and cause music nerds to argue endlessly.

For example, to the yearly batch of inducted artists who seem deeply uncomfortable with the idea of the ceremony, he says, “Life is hard, and when someone wants to give you your flowers, don’t overthink it. Just accept it. Whatever terrible moment you’re imagining with your former bandmate or whoever you might run into there, you’re already having it in your head, so you might as well go, and it probably will be better than you think.”

When Mulaney first broke down all the Rock Hall inductees and snubs for us in 2018, the plan was to make it an annual tradition, à la Billie Eilish’s Vanity Fair interview on the same day every year. “Covid and some personal problems got in the way,” Mulaney deadpans. But now, he’s ready to recommit. “Hey, listen, I’ll make this an annual thing now.”

Before we get started, does he have any other big takeaways from following the event each year? “When you’re in your twenties, take as many photos of yourself as possible,” Mulaney says. “You are so good-looking. You are soooo good-looking. All these photos of the Cure, I was like, ‘Look at these early shoegazers, so awkward. But they look great. Everyone looks great.’”

Here, what Mulaney has to say about each of this year’s honored artists — and the ones that didn’t make it.

Editor’s picks

Mazel tov, Bad Company. A friend of mine read these to me over the phone a week ago and he accidentally said Badfinger and I almost drove off the expressway. I was so blown away by the power of Apple Corps to get Badfinger into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. I know the hits and I like a supergroup in [the Hall]. There’s certainly other examples.

Who’s your favorite supergroup?
Let’s name some. Traveling Wilburys.

Sure. Blind Faith.
Everything Clapton post-Yardbirds feels like a supergroup.

Derek and the Dominos is up for debate.
Yeah. Were there even Dominos? My favorite supergroup song is “Highwayman” by the Highwaymen. It’s an excellent use of each person’s personality, in a way that [Traveling Wilburys’] “Handle With Care” is a great song but it feels like they just divvied up… I mean, no, sorry, that’s really well-plotted, actually. But “Highwayman” is like each of those guys is singing the appropriate backstory for their character and I like that Johnny Cash is going to be on a starship.

Bad Company’s biggest songs: “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” “Can’t Get Enough,” “Shooting Star,” “Rock ‘n’ Roll Fantasy,” “Bad Company.” Do any of those songs conjure up any emotion or feeling for you?
Well, it’s tough. No.

What does “Feel Like Makin’ Love” feel like? It feels like walking into a bar I’ve never been in, like I have a memory of walking into a large pool hall kind of Dazed and Confused-like bar with that playing, but I think I just saw it in movies. I don’t think that ever happened.

But here’s my mission statement: More groups in the Hall, not less.

The Mulaney Hall of Fame would induct every group nominated? 
Why not? Do a whole weekend of ceremony. If it’s about the ceremony runtime…

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Last year, they went more than five hours. That’s pretty typical.
Because Steven Van Zandt gets to induct a bunch of 45s? Doesn’t he always get a grouping? [Imitates Little Stevie] “Doo-wop on my corner. Da Moonglows! Da Ink Spots! These were 45 records that changed the way I saw doo-wop that year. This cover of ‘Bule Bule’ changed the way that block in New Jersey dealt with noise complaints.”

Chubby Checker 

I was already psyched for him. Mazel, Chubby Checker. Knowing that it was part novelty I think is great. I’m a big proponent of novelty music. I’m a big proponent of “Weird Al” getting into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. This is one step closer, though I don’t know why they need to be led via steps. “Weird Al” brought more people to music than is recognized at all. 

I will, in fact, greatly devalue my coolness by saying [when I was young], it wasn’t until “Smells Like Nirvana” defanged “Smells Like Teen Spirit” that I could enjoy “Smells Like Teen Spirit.” It was scary at first. It just was like, “I’m pretty happy, I’m a kid.” I needed a way in. And after you laugh at “Smells Like Nirvana,” you go, “Oh, this is a really good song.”

Let’s talk about the ballot and the nominating process.

So there are 30 people on the nominating committee who draw up all the nominees and around 1,100 people in the industry vote after that.
Why aren’t I on the committee? Is Boz Scaggs on it?

He is not. 
I always thought he was in with that, but that’s just based on nothing.

Did you have any experience with “The Twist” or “Let’s Twist Again”?
Well, I really appreciate “Let’s twist again like we did last summer.” It’s a very funny lyric for a reboot. I really, really like the bald-facedness of “Let’s twist again like we did last summer” — saying, “Remember we did this song ‘The Twist’ last year? We’re doing it again.” Also, I think “Let’s Twist Again” is a better song than “The Twist.” I don’t think I’m alone in that. Sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound like such a novel idea. Is Chubby Checker still with us?

He is. He partnered with New York City two years ago for a campaign against opening car doors with bikers in the lane. 
Sick. I didn’t know we could partner with New York City.

You could. Billy Idol did an anti-idling campaign with the city right before lockdowns in 2020. 
And people followed his advice because the whole world shut down.

I do want to tell you about a 750-word letter Chubby Checker wrote to the Rock Hall in 2002 lamenting his lack of inclusion. It read, in part, “Before ‘Alexander Graham Bell‘…no telephone. Before ‘Thomas Edison‘… no light. Before ‘Dr. George Washington Carver‘…no oil from seed or cloning of plants. Before ‘Henry Ford‘…no V8 engine. Before ‘Walt Disney‘…no animated cartoons. Before Chubby Checker…no ‘Dancing Apart to the Beat.‘ What is ‘Dancing Apart to the Beat‘? ‘Dancing Apart to the Beat’ is the dance that we do when we dance apart to the beat of anybody’s music and before ‘Chubby Checker,’ it could not be found!”
I love this letter. I love every part of it. I love all the examples leading up to it and I trust him.

He ends the letter with, “Where is my more money and my more fame?”
Ohhhh, you buried the lede.

I had to build to it.
“Where is my more money and my more fame?” Well, you know what? We have quotes at the beginning of each episode of my show and I think we just found the finale’s.

Bizarrely, I knew his cover of “With a Little Help from My Friends” and I knew “Up Where We Belong” and I didn’t see [the 1971 Cocker documentary] Mad Dogs and Englishmen till I was in my late twenties. Lorne Michaels told me about it. It wasn’t streaming anywhere. It was hard to find when I went looking for it.

What did you like about the film specifically?
Just how hard that tour was, like Festival Express. Just the hard living of it. And again, this brings me back to Chubby Checker and “Weird Al.” It’s like John Belushi’s parody of Joe Cocker brought me to Joe Cocker as well. As a little kid, Cocker was upsetting-looking. He looked like he was in great pain and he looked like he was passing a kidney stone at all times. John Belushi defanging that helped me enjoy it more. And I’m very pro-Joe Cocker.

He’s not like Stevie Wonder, but he has a bit of that “I Just Called to Say I Love You” phenomenon of, I sort of knew “Up Where We Belong” and “You Are So Beautiful” just as pleasant wedding music. And then you go back and indeed he was a Mad Dog.

I kinda thought his cover of Randy Newman’s “You Can Leave Your Hat On” in 9 1/2 Weeks was a little corny.
What do you think of the original?

Love the original.
You take the laughs out. “Turn on the lights. No, all the lights,” is a very funny line. I’ve never seen 9 1/2 Weeks, but I would love to have Mickey Rourke on my show.

He was just fired from Celebrity Big Brother a few weeks ago for making offensive remarks toward Jojo Siwa and another housemate.
He was? Oh, then I retract saying I want to.

We’ll skip the John Mulaney Wants Mickey Rourke on Show headline.
How about, John Mulaney Hasn’t Seen ‘9 ½ Weeks’. But again, here we go and I’m not trying to force a through line but the humor of something [like Newman’s original version] is our way in.

And there’s a Randy Newman connection coming up.

Lenny Waronker

I know. It’s Lenny Waronker. 

I thought you might be stumped on that.
No, not at all. I met Lenny Waronker when Randy was on Everybody’s Live; he came. These dudes have known each other since they were three and he’s at the gig with him and he’s his guy. Their relationship was incredible to see up close. Then I was talking to John Cale [who did A&R for Waronker in the 1970s] after the taping of our show and he goes, “I love Lenny. I loved all those guys. Everyone at Warner Brothers was very good back then.”

It’s weird to think of John Cale behind a desk.
But that’s why Cale is so brilliant and is the most relevant, because he produced so many people and was an A&R guy. He didn’t do a couple vanity productions. He really invested in new groups and continued to develop and didn’t escape into persona.

What’s interesting about the record business is they’ll be like, “Well, this is the single and we’re pushing the single.” And I’m like, “Isn’t it just like people come to whatever song they come to?” Lenny, Randy, and I were talking about standards and practices and lack thereof on Netflix, and I said, “Have you ever done ‘Rednecks’ on TV?” and [Randy] goes, “No.” And I was like, “Right, that makes sense.” And I said, “But that’s the big hit from that album,” and he goes, “No, it wasn’t a hit.” And Lenny goes, “The first hit was ‘Short People’ [three years later].” If you’re in the trenches looking at numbers every week, you don’t go, “Yeah. That a lot of people have come to it over the years, doesn’t mean it’s a hit.”

But if Randy had asked to do “Rednecks” on your show, would you have said yes?
No. I think everyone would go, “Let’s not do that.” By the way, let me just be clear: No one asked. It wasn’t like I said no to something. Everyone involved is smart.

The White Stripes

They’re incredible and what a great treasure of American music. I love Jack in that way that he has what I love so much about David Byrne: just this desire to innovate and collaborate, be it Loretta Lynn or doing some music for a Maya Rudolph and Martin Short variety show or whatever it is. 

Meg White hasn’t really been seen at all in more than 15 years. The big question is if she shows up. 
Just things the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is made of. This is no surprise. Such re-emergences into public life is the whole thing of the induction ceremony. Standard stuff. Most folks you see at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction you haven’t seen in a while. That’s the most fun of it.

So do you think she shows up?
Yeah, why not? I say “why not” not trying to cause any controversy. I don’t know if there’s any issues. I just would say why not.

I think the “why not” is just having not been in the public eye for so long. Is the Rock Hall enough of an event to get her to come out?
Yes, it is. Yes, it is. And I’ll make the case. Couple examples: Kurt Cobain’s mother said when they were inducted, and I’m paraphrasing, “Kurt would really love this, but he would act like he didn’t.” And at the Radiohead induction, which I was at, I think it was Ed O’Brien who said, and I’m paraphrasing again, but this was the spirit of it, “I wish the other guys were here to see it, because this is a big fucking deal.” And I think it’s one of those things you might appreciate when you get there. 

Your first memories of Cyndi, I assume, are probably in the mid-Eighties?
Yep, The Goonies. It’s the way the camera lingers on the TV in Goonies. I just remember being like, “Well, they’re making a moment out of this.” I didn’t know if it was a clue to the mystery. It was one of those things where just the very fact, the way the camera hangs on her, I was like, “Well, this must be someone.” I don’t remember when I first heard “Girls Just Want to Have Fun,” but it’s obviously Eighties canon. I found her really funny and I found the whole persona fun and funny and still do.

Any other Cyndi songs that you gravitate towards?
I love Kinky Boots. I love her whole thing. I can’t say I know more than the hits, but they’re so singular and were so important for music and music videos that I’m just thrilled.

Talk about people that really care about music. And André’s career now is so interesting. What a great choice. It’s one of those choices where you go, “Well, let’s do half a dozen of those each year.”

You mean hip-hop or just groups that are universally beloved?
Both. I so admire [André’s] pursuit of music. It’s just in every direction. And someone not taking the easy road is my favorite thing. I think it’s like being a Prince fan. Who isn’t a fan of Outkast?

Really, really cool. Very cool choice. Very cool to go back and continue to celebrate those early Sub Pop artists and not just look at it as a montage of bands you mention after Nirvana.

Kim Thayil told us how he was looking at Nirvana using female singers as a possible model for what Soundgarden may do. Who could belt like Chris Cornell?
I’ll nominate Maggie Rogers just because I just had her on and thought she was so great.

Do you have a favorite Soundgarden song?
Again, I’m a hits guy. I think they’re going to play “Black Hole Sun,” so she’d be great at that. 

Salt-N-Pepa

I’m so happy for them. Like Cyndi Lauper, just ubiquitous, especially “Whatta Man.” Soundtrack of an era. So exciting and a great time in music to go back and revisit and honor. Did they do “Let’s Talk About Sex” on Blossom? Don’t even fact-check it.

I’m fact-checking, because I don’t know the answer.
No, your source here feels they did and let’s not even look it up. [Editor’s note: He’s right. Season Four, Episode 12, in 1993.]

Immensely provocative and groundbreaking at the time.
It was. This is Tipper Gore central. And it’s a great song, too. They’re going to be great.

Warren Zevon

Not a ton of knowledge. However, I think my senior year of college, he was very ill and his song “Keep Me in Your Heart” was very popular with my roommate, Matt Albert, and I. [Matt is] now a pediatric doctor in North Carolina. Then I’m at the Mark Twain awards for David Letterman some years ago and Eddie Vedder played that song and it just was a very full-circle moment. Tons of respect for Warren Zevon. I’m surprised he isn’t in already. He’s someone that the music business loves, deservedly so.

I remember listening to “Werewolves of London” a lot and thinking about the lyrics and still kind of not understanding what it’s about at all and I’ve never really looked it up. I like that they mentioned Trader Vic’s. I always liked that the coolest place was this Polynesian restaurant.

Nicky Hopkins

The organ on “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” alone. It’s incredible how big [session musicians’] contributions are. It’s bizarre the amount they affect the success of a track and their lack — and this isn’t meant to be controversial — their lack of credit and, through that, profit participation. I’m not criticizing it, I think it’s just what it is.

Sonny & Cher had every verse of “The Beat Goes On” and it was just this meandering song and then Carol Kaye, like 11th hour, just lays down [imitates bassline] doom, doom, doom, doom, and you’re like, “OK. So I guess she didn’t write it, but you wouldn’t know it at all [without her].” I am thrilled with Nicky Hopkins. I’m thrilled with the recognition of session musicians.

Carol Kaye

Andy Samberg and I would really press Lorne a couple of times to have Glen Campbell on. [Kaye played on hundreds of sessions with Campbell.] I’m often wrong, but I thought it would’ve been great.

I think it was when The Smile Sessions came out [in 2011], and getting into what the Wrecking Crew [the legendary group of session musicians that included Kaye] sounded like and just what they contributed was so amazing. I like the documentary a lot, and it’s just night and day. It’s just like, “Well, I’m going to take my songs over to the best band in the world that’s ever been assembled.”

The Hopkins and the Carol Kayes of the world are like, it’s not just a nice nod. They are 100 percent essential to these songs. If you think about how you take music in, they get authorship.

I think about that with Holland-Dozier-Holland, who are not unknown, but nowhere near as big as the artists they wrote for.
They get a good shoutout in a Magnetic Fields song.

Do they?
Yeah, “The Death of Ferdinand de Saussure.”

Thom Bell

Love “Rubberband Man” [written and produced by Bell]. The audience load-in playlist for my Baby J Tour was a lot of Delfonics, Spinners, Thom Bell-adjacent stuff. The O’Jays’ “Stairway to Heaven” was the big song on the lead-up to my arena tour.

Let’s see. I just want to get this right.

Take your time.
Who’s had more Number One singles than anyone else? They’re from Liverpool. Who has the second most? It’s a travesty. I wouldn’t even call it snobbery. There’s a judgmental aspect to it due to aspects of one’s life. I think we have all had our ups and downs in life, but her accomplishment is just unparalleled. It’s a no-brainer, but the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame frequently doesn’t have a brain. Sorry, they have less than one brain.

I don’t know much about the Gallaghers. I know what a casual acquaintance of their music would know, which is they’re always pissed off about something. I know far more about their constant bitching than I have memories of loving their music. But they get a vote in my mind because they’d be disgruntled during the acceptance speech. You would like to see it just for the theatricality. That is a big part of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame: people of low character behaving badly.

“That is a big part of the Rock Hall: people of low character behaving badly.”

Is there another group that you don’t care about that you want to see in the Hall for the pure spectacle?
Oh, man. OK. I mean, oh, my God. Pure spectacle. A lot of them are already in. Help me think a little. Butthole Surfers? Flaming Lips, they’re not in, right?

They’re not in, no.
Yeah. I think [Wayne Coyne] would pop off.

Liam Gallagher did once say, “It’s like putting me in the Rap Hall of Fame and I don’t want to be part of anything that mentally disturbed.”
Whatever. “Wonderwall” don’t mean shit to me, but I’m not trying to start anything. I remember Soupy Sales’ Wikipedia page for a while was just debunking rumors and it was clearly him getting in there and it was like, “Soupy never told kids to send him a doll.” I was like, “Dude, you’re teaching me that you’ve had a lot of difficulties.” When I hear Jimmy Fallon do “Wonderwall” at karaoke, I don’t think, “Wow, what tortured mind is behind this?” And also, I’ll say that I like a difficult public persona very much.

Phish

This is a crime.

I haven’t read about your Phish fandom. How deep does it run?
I come on board around 1997 at age 14, 15. When I started listening to them, people at the shows told me, “You really missed it. It’s over now.” I think it was after A Live One came out, people were like, “Well, you didn’t see the early years.”

How many shows have you been to?
My numbers aren’t high. Multiple nights at Deer Creek, Alpine Valley, things like that, and then I went two, three years ago. I’d go anytime, I just keep not being able to.

Was it difficult to convince them to do the Seinfeld bit on your show? 
No, they were great. We talked about doing a variety of things on the show, but they were on tour and they had their time in Los Angeles and it was the greatest. I thought of it originally as, “What if they did a play of Seinfeld?” I didn’t know what this would be for and then I thought, “Oh, it would be through the telescope we’d see them living as Seinfeld.” It was going to be an ad for a Broadway show of Seinfeld starring Phish. We made it more palatable, a little.

So Phish is a no-brainer for you to get in?
Yeah. Phish, String Cheese Incident, moe., Disco Biscuits, Leftover Salmon. On every level, this was hugely important music to us. It really kept bands alive. The idea of a band in 1999 playing fucking guitars, piano, and drums was not always easy to find. In that documentary [Between Me and My Mind about Trey Anastasio], Trey said that Tommy Lee saw them on the cover of Rolling Stone and went, “Finally, a fucking band,” and the excitement of that. 

Now, on the business end, these people printed money. They are enormously successful. Most of my life being on the road, I have a real aversion to snubbing people that sell out football stadiums night after night but aren’t necessarily propped up by the industry.

It’s not that the money’s important, but whenever the music business has gone up and down and up and down, they have just consistently brought their music to fans at a huge profit. People pay and travel to see Phish at a time when it’s hard to get people to click on Spotify. I wonder what it is [that didn’t get them inducted]. So many people like Phish; I’m sure so many people on the committee like Phish. I bet it’s oversight more than snobbery.

The music they introduced my generation to as well was hugely important. I learned to be eclectic from them. They were always getting compared to the Grateful Dead, but they had this whole world of influences that was really fun to pick up on and cross-check … Getting back into the Talking Heads. Getting into Zappa. That was all them. They also made you want to go to concerts. They’re just good for music and they have been for decades.

People that keep it at arm’s length and didn’t want to get into it because they thought it was their friend with the hemp choker in high school or whatever, we’re not dumb. They fucking rock. It’s not all Gamehendge [the fictional setting for numerous Phish songs], if that bothers you. I love it, but if that bothers you, it’s not all Gamehendge. It’s not all mythology and everyone in the crowd knows when to yell. The songs are great, we’re not stupid people.

Do you have a preference between Joy Division and New Order?
Both are extremely personal to me. During my worst drug times, I remember very bad moments and there’s two lines in “Disorder” [that go] “Lights are flashing, cars are crashing, getting frequent now.” I remember just thinking about those lines when it was at its worst. That song, when I listened to it, I’m like, “This is what it feels like when something you might’ve set in motion is accelerating out of your control.” So that’s a little dark tangent.

But then “Atmosphere.” What’s funny about “Atmosphere” when I listen to that is, I was born right as this was coming out, and I always wondered if I was ever an infant in a taxi cab in Chicago when “Atmosphere” was released.

“Leave Me Alone” is my favorite New Order song and that song, “Ceremony,” and the rest are just songs I’ve listened to for 20, 30 years all the time. And I think about [wife] Olivia [Munn] with that line in “Temptation,” “Oh, you’ve got blue eyes / Oh, you’ve got grey eyes / Oh, you’ve got green eyes” because Olivia has really beautiful eyes.

The Black Crowes

I have no opinion on the Black Crowes.

Are you being diplomatic? 
No. I genuinely have no opinion.

Do you remember when their big album came out or this was not in your wheelhouse at all?
What’s fun about music is you can be obsessed with a genre and not know a band at all. My blind spots are significant.

That’s fair. Maybe we just keep the one line, “I have no opinion,” and that’s it.
I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that’s the pull quote, we’ve got a viral story.

“I have no opinion on the Black Crowes. If that’s the pull quote, we’ve got a viral story.”

Billy Idol

So Fred [Armisen] is a big Billy Idol fan and I’ve been trying to get more into it. I know “White Wedding,” and he has real significance for me as this sort of MTV thing, but I’m ignorant of the rest of him. I think he means a lot to a lot of people. I think a big [thing] is some of the Hall is [about] teaching the audience and some of it is honoring the audience. But it should never be honoring the nominating committee.

Mana

I am ignorant of them.

Well, those are all the snubs. 
We haven’t gone through the biggest snub.

Who’s that?
The standing snub.

The standing snub?
Sonic Youth. Once again, It’s been a pleasure to talk about all these inductees and nominees. Once again, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame has completely disappointed the universe and all music fans by not inducting Sonic Youth. I think Smashing Pumpkins not being in is also a crime.

Actually, you did mention that in 2018. You said the Hall had an “anti-Chicago bias.”
[Laughs hysterically.] Did I?

Chicago Magazine picked that up with the headline, ‘Is the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Anti-Chicago?’ and subhead, “John Mulaney thinks so, but in reality, we may just punch below our weight as a rock town.“
“But in reality.” A lot of things I said in 2018 could be buffeted with, “But in reality.” “But in reality, John’s a little off.”

They said, “Is it possible there’s some truth to Mulaney’s charge?”
I like that they don’t say, “Well, John’s just misguided and might be on speed.” They’re like, “Is there some truth? We won’t say no,” but there’s a ton of Chicago bands that have been inducted.

A great way to clear this up would be to give the Musical Excellence Award to Steve Albini. Let’s just give that to him next year. I actually think that would be a great decision all around. I doubt they really have an anti-Chicago bias. They’re very blues-friendly. And white people loving the blues is, I think, the mission statement of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and that’s most of Chicago.

I think we’ve gone through everything.
Let’s do it next year. This will be called our annual Billie Eilish conversation.

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