Rick Derringer said working with 'Weird Al' typecast him and 'ruined' his producing career

Rick Derringer, who died in May 2025 at age 77, had a winding and fascinating career as a musical journeyman: scoring early garage-rock hits (The McCoys' 1965 cover of "Hang on Sloopy"), playing guitar with everyone from jazz-pop giants (Steely Dan) to power-ballad queens (that's him on Bonnie Tyler's "Total Eclipse of the Heart"), and working with the ultimate parody-song master. That latter entry, of course, refers to his long and fruitful collaboration with "Weird Al" Yankovic—he produced the artist's first six studio albums, including timeless spoof singles like "Eat It" and "Fat."

Derringer had immense respect for Yankovic, and that love appears to have remained throughout his life. But he was also frank about how, at least in his view, that professional connection negatively impacted his résumé. “I left him after six albums, two Grammys, and two stars on a Hollywood Walk Of Fame," he told Guitar Player in 2024. "He's done very well. But here's the bottom line: I thought that it would help my production career. Suddenly I became known as a novelty producer. As much as I love 'Weird Al'—he's a good guy, very talented and a hard worker—he single-handedly ruined my production career.”

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The guitarist expressed a similar view in a 2021 interview with the Arcada Theater YouTube channel, essentially calling the experience both a blessing and a curse. "I really, really enjoyed working with Al...That’s one of the things that I can brag about: I produce 'Weird Al' for six albums. But what I don’t get to tell people about is: It pretty much destroyed my production career," he said with a laugh. Yankovic, also present for the video chat, sarcastically added with a chuckle: "Because how could you possibly live up to that?"

"People [would] come to me and say, 'Hey, we’re looking for [you to maybe] do our next album,'" Derringer continued. "And then they’d check into [my credits and go], 'Oh, but you produced 'Weird Al’'s albums!' I’d go, 'Yeah, they were all successful. They all did great.' They’d go, 'But you’re a novelty producer!'...I’d tell them, 'The only novel thing about Al is how hard he works in the studio as compared to all the other artists I’ve worked with.'"

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This wasn't the first time Derringer felt musically typecast. In the same interview, he says that, after his breakout '60s success with The McCoys, the band inadvertently earned the "bubblegum" label, which impacted their gig playing with blues-rock artist Johnny Winter. "We looked at ourselves as good musicians, so that was the worst thing people could say about us and really made us feel terrible," he said. "So when we finally got the opportunity to join Johnny Winter, the [band was named] Johnny Winter and The McCoys, but they were ashamed to say 'The McCoys,' so they said, 'Let’s just shorten it to 'Johnny Winter And.'"

Following the Derringer-produced soundtrack to Yankovic's 1989 film UHF, the parody master took control of his own recording sessions, producing every subsequent album—all the way up through his soundtrack to his 2022 film, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story. But even though the duo drifted apart creatively, they clearly remained complimentary of each other. In the Arcada Theater chat, Yankovic looked back on recording his self-titled 1983 debut as "rock and roll fantasy camp," calling Derringer a "rock god." And after learning of the guitarist's death, he posted a heartfelt statement on Instagram: “I’m very sad to say that my friend, rock guitar legend Rick Derringer, has passed. Rick produced my first 6 albums and played guitar on my earliest recordings, including the solo on ‘Eat It.’ He had an enormous impact on my life, and will be missed greatly.”

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