After 35 years and 20 albums of music, They Might Be Giants have run into trouble: too many songs.
“The truth is we have somewhat of a Jimmy Buffett problem,” co-founder John Flansburgh said, referring to Buffett’s need to please his audience by making every live set a greatest hits set. “It’s not a big Buffett problem, but it is a problem a lot of legacy bands have. There are a lot of people who have very specific songs they want to hear. They have this one song that has tremendous meaning for them.”
When Flansburgh and musical partner John Linnell, both of Lincoln, bring They Might Be Giants to House of Blues on Friday, the club will be packed with people who just have to hear “Don’t Let’s Start” or “I Palindrome I” or “Can’t Keep Johnny Down” or literally anything from the 1990 fan-favorite album “Flood.” The band aims to please, both fans and themselves.
“There are shows where we haven’t done (their hit single) ‘Birdhouse in Your Soul,’ but not many,” Flansburgh said, then laughed. “We like these ‘Evening with They Might Be Giants’ shows because they are so long. We can fit in like 30 songs, which means there’s a lot of room for your favorite song and what we want to play.”
Which means, thankfully, the band is exploring new tunes.
Earlier this year, with the release of their 20th album, “I Like Fun,” the band proved it can still make strange, tuneful indie rock in their own glorious, geeky style. While the album is in fact fun, it also has a musical complexity and a real darkness to it (lots of songs about death, dismemberment and lake monsters who creep out of the slime to vote on Election Day). Flansburgh says the band has comfortably slotted half a dozen songs from the new album into set lists.
“I have to give credit to the president of the United States for creating a sense of alienation and hopelessness,” he said. “It really makes people want to come out and see music. And these songs work for the times we are going through.”
Flansburgh believes building a set list “somewhere between pandering and relentless personal integrity” is a tough goal. But as long as he’s playing to adult fans, it’s not that hard.
For over a decade, They Might Be Giants have spent about half their time making children’s music and putting on kid-friendly shows. The kid-centric stuff can be a blast and the albums can be less work, but the tours are just the opposite.
“Not to be on some ego trip, but we assume that adults are paying attention to us at the show, that they are at least facing forward while we play,” he said, then laughed. “You can’t make those assumptions with kids. It’s a bit unnerving how needy that audience is. Sometime I feel the big winner of the night is the confetti machine.
“It is nice to be a tour like this, where the winners are the actual songs,” he added.