For almost thirty years, They Might Be Giants have been serving up their unique blend of innovative, experimental pop music. This Friday, the band will grace St. Louisans with a truly unique concert experience when they perform their 1990 platinum album, “Flood” in its entirety at The Pageant. InsideSTL recently caught up with TMBG’s co-founder, John Linnell, to discuss the bands’ history with St. Louis, and their current state of affairs.

You obviously have somewhat of a history with St. Louis, as you have been through here a bunch of times throughout your career. Do you have any particularly fond memories of St. Louis?
Our very first gig here was at Cicero's and we were only just learning what it was like to play for a room full of strangers. Most of the crowd at that show was polite and attentive, but one guy stood right up front, next to us, and gave us the finger for the whole show. As we were packing up our gear and loading up the van at the end of the night, he came out to the parking lot and shook our hands and told us it was the best show he'd ever seen.

If you wrote a song about St. Louis, what would you focus on?
I don't know. The thing that springs to mind is a line from a Sammy Davis Jr. song where he's ticking off all the other great cities that aren't New York. When he gets to St. Louis he says "they have nice shoes...!" There are many little towns that call themselves the gateway to this or that, so I guess St. Louis is the king of all the gateways. I'm also interested in the city's patron saint, who was a king of France as well as a saint. How did he manage that?

Between your song-a-day hotline, platinum albums, cartoon appearances, a documentary, and theme song credits, you guys have found yourselves immersed in several different mediums of exposure. What would you say, personally, has been your weirdest experience throughout your career?
It's surprising how unweird many things seem when you do them for long enough. Taking a step backwards it seems very weird to live for weeks and weeks sleeping in a coffin sized bed while speeding down the interstate on a bus. Likewise, it turns out to have been weird that we get to make a living doing what we do, though we take it for granted now. Things that should be unremarkable like swapping positions on stage (which we have just done for the first time) are, in the moment, much stranger.

The two of you have such tremendous chemistry when playing together. Was this something you two picked up on immediately, or is it something that has kept gradually building throughout the years?
I think to a certain extent that we speak a mutual language that emerged among our best friends when we were growing up in the suburbs of Boston. This is something I used to think was true for certain other bands like the Ramones, until I found out that they hated each other and that they weren't really all brothers.

You guys have been on several different record labels and you have obviously seen the music industry (i.e. the ‘majors’) gradually sink. What are some of the steps you guys have taken to avoid sinking with them?
As far as record sales are concerned, we're in the same leaky boat as everybody else, major or minor. But by selling children's DVDs we're catering to a market that is less inclined, and less able, to steal music. So we're still seeing some income there.

What are some your favorite newer albums that you guys have been listening to on the bus?
I mostly listen to spoken word on the bus, believe it or not. I get kind of O.D.'d on music by the end of the night. Any of the other four guys would give you a better answer but they listen with headphones so I'm not in on the new stuff they dig. Most of us on the bus watch TV shows or movies when we're not arguing about politics, and lately we've been watching lots of Mad Men, 30 Rock, and The Wire.

Your last couple albums have shifted focus towards the children’s market. Is your writing process much different from a ‘typical’ release geared towards adults?
Not really. There's a subtle difference in the ideas that we put into the work. We do some filtering of the sickest, most abject material. The rest of the process is identical, from the demoing and arranging through the rehearsing and recording.

You guys have been doing this now for almost thirty years. What would you guys like to accomplish that you haven’t yet? And what can fans expect in the future?
We never really had a checklist of goals in the first place. Every new thing we tried was a surprise to us as well. So at this point I'm expecting that things will continue in that vein for as long as we're still going.

Be sure to catch They Might Be Giants this Friday, October 9, at The Pageant. St. Louis is one of only a few cities the band will play the entire “Flood” album for on this upcoming tour. Don’t miss out !