Rick Moranis already had one of the odder résumés in show business. This week he made it more so with a new album of songs about, among other things, a brisket and a bris.
Mr. Moranis, 60, seems to be on a permanent campaign of reinvention. Early in his career he was half of the McKenzie Brothers, the Canadian sketch comedy team. In the movies he has been Dark Helmet in Mel Brooks’s “Spaceballs,” the guy who shrunk his kids in that family-friendly franchise, Louis in the “Ghostbuster” films and Seymour in the cult favorite “Little Shop of Horrors” (where, yes, he did his own singing).
Then, in 2005, came a humorous country music album, “The Agoraphobic Cowboy,” which was nominated for a Grammy. And now, “My Mother’s Brisket,” released by Warner Brothers on a label identified with the Southern-themed comedy of Jeff Foxworthy and friends. Mr. Moranis recently sat down to discuss the new record. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Q. Give us a little about the origin of this project.
A. The writing of these songs came out of the fact that so much of my life had moved from being very involved with show business, which in the Jewish aspect is very secular, back into family and friends and community and much more of a practicing Jewish culture. Many of my friends and family were more involved with the faith, with their temple, with the practice of rituals, so day to day it was back in the orbit I was in, which it hadn’t been for a long time. As I was thinking of things, these ideas for these songs were coming up, and I started writing them.
In the past if I were to have come up with stuff like this, this filter would have been on it. And it goes back for me to when I first started out writing variety shows and awards shows at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We would come up with something, and one of us would say: “No, no, no, it’s too Jewish. Can’t do it; it’s too Jewish.” This time, because I was essentially going to make this record on my own, I could just say, “The hell with it.”
And I think the last variable is — and I said this to my mother and she got a great laugh out of it — I said, “Mom, there’s a big revenge component in here, and this is no good to me after you’re dead. I’ve got to get this out there while you’re still alive.”
Q. Tell us about a couple of the songs on here.
A. There’s a song called “Live Blogging the Himmel Family Bris.” I kind of went for it here in terms of — it was really fun to be explaining ritual circumcision in Nashville — a lot of brises are done in hospitals, but many are done in people’s homes, and there’s a lot of food, and a lot of leftovers. It just felt like a good setting to do a very up-tempo, almost klezmer-sounding song. And this whole blogging stuff has been bugging me for years. Talk about no filter on things. People feel free to do and say whatever they want with no vetting, with no editing, with nothing. And I thought, I’m going to put these two ideas together and explore something.
Musically, this record I thought originally was going to sound more like a klezmer record, but I wasn’t happy in that direction. I wanted a much more dynamic studio album, and I got very, very lucky meeting Gary Schreiner, who produced and arranged the record. He heard in these songs a couple that edged toward klezmers, but there’s also some world music on it. I somehow wrote a couple of jazz tunes, and he took advantage of those time signatures and that feel and did some beautiful arrangements. And so it’s a very eclectic-sounding record.
Q. Tell us about the album cover.
A. When I was a little kid, it was not uncommon at all for one of my cousins, an uncle, someone who had either been to our house and tasted my mother’s brisket or been to someone’s house where my mother had brought her brisket, for them to come up to me and, before they said hello or anything, they would just say: “You know, your mother’s brisket is fantastic. Your mother’s brisket is so incredible.” So the album is called “My Mother’s Brisket & Other Love Songs.”
I said: “You know, Ma, I’m going to put out this album, and I think I want to shoot the front cover at your house. Can you make a brisket, and we’ll just sort of have a Friday night dinner and my daughter will take the shot.”
And this filled conversations for two months leading up to it. She told me when she was going to buy the brisket, where she was going to buy the brisket, how big the brisket was going to be, how many people were going to come for dinner — this went on and on and on, and believe me, I run out of material quickly with my mother, so it was handy to have this.
Now comes the day. She’s made the brisket, we’re going to eat it after, but in the afternoon we’ve staged this little Sabbath dinner situation. And my daughter at the last minute said, “Grandma, go and put on your duster, your little housecoat.” And she put it on, and we took the shot, and it was only after we took the shot that I noticed that the fabric of the housecoat is almost identical to the tablecloth. It looks like one continuous fabric.
It’s my mother’s dining room, it’s my mother, and it’s my mother’s brisket. And it was delicious.
Then, in 2005, came a humorous country music album, “The Agoraphobic Cowboy,” which was nominated for a Grammy. And now, “My Mother’s Brisket,” released by Warner Brothers on a label identified with the Southern-themed comedy of Jeff Foxworthy and friends. Mr. Moranis recently sat down to discuss the new record. Here are edited excerpts from that conversation.
Q. Give us a little about the origin of this project.
A. The writing of these songs came out of the fact that so much of my life had moved from being very involved with show business, which in the Jewish aspect is very secular, back into family and friends and community and much more of a practicing Jewish culture. Many of my friends and family were more involved with the faith, with their temple, with the practice of rituals, so day to day it was back in the orbit I was in, which it hadn’t been for a long time. As I was thinking of things, these ideas for these songs were coming up, and I started writing them.
In the past if I were to have come up with stuff like this, this filter would have been on it. And it goes back for me to when I first started out writing variety shows and awards shows at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. We would come up with something, and one of us would say: “No, no, no, it’s too Jewish. Can’t do it; it’s too Jewish.” This time, because I was essentially going to make this record on my own, I could just say, “The hell with it.”
And I think the last variable is — and I said this to my mother and she got a great laugh out of it — I said, “Mom, there’s a big revenge component in here, and this is no good to me after you’re dead. I’ve got to get this out there while you’re still alive.”
Q. Tell us about a couple of the songs on here.
A. There’s a song called “Live Blogging the Himmel Family Bris.” I kind of went for it here in terms of — it was really fun to be explaining ritual circumcision in Nashville — a lot of brises are done in hospitals, but many are done in people’s homes, and there’s a lot of food, and a lot of leftovers. It just felt like a good setting to do a very up-tempo, almost klezmer-sounding song. And this whole blogging stuff has been bugging me for years. Talk about no filter on things. People feel free to do and say whatever they want with no vetting, with no editing, with nothing. And I thought, I’m going to put these two ideas together and explore something.
Musically, this record I thought originally was going to sound more like a klezmer record, but I wasn’t happy in that direction. I wanted a much more dynamic studio album, and I got very, very lucky meeting Gary Schreiner, who produced and arranged the record. He heard in these songs a couple that edged toward klezmers, but there’s also some world music on it. I somehow wrote a couple of jazz tunes, and he took advantage of those time signatures and that feel and did some beautiful arrangements. And so it’s a very eclectic-sounding record.
Q. Tell us about the album cover.
A. When I was a little kid, it was not uncommon at all for one of my cousins, an uncle, someone who had either been to our house and tasted my mother’s brisket or been to someone’s house where my mother had brought her brisket, for them to come up to me and, before they said hello or anything, they would just say: “You know, your mother’s brisket is fantastic. Your mother’s brisket is so incredible.” So the album is called “My Mother’s Brisket & Other Love Songs.”
I said: “You know, Ma, I’m going to put out this album, and I think I want to shoot the front cover at your house. Can you make a brisket, and we’ll just sort of have a Friday night dinner and my daughter will take the shot.”
And this filled conversations for two months leading up to it. She told me when she was going to buy the brisket, where she was going to buy the brisket, how big the brisket was going to be, how many people were going to come for dinner — this went on and on and on, and believe me, I run out of material quickly with my mother, so it was handy to have this.
Now comes the day. She’s made the brisket, we’re going to eat it after, but in the afternoon we’ve staged this little Sabbath dinner situation. And my daughter at the last minute said, “Grandma, go and put on your duster, your little housecoat.” And she put it on, and we took the shot, and it was only after we took the shot that I noticed that the fabric of the housecoat is almost identical to the tablecloth. It looks like one continuous fabric.
It’s my mother’s dining room, it’s my mother, and it’s my mother’s brisket. And it was delicious.
