| ANDREW W.K. - You Are What You Party. |
| Written by Michael McClelland |
| Sunday, 21 November 2010 14:48 |
 It’s all too easy to treat ANDREW W.K. as all fun and party games, but he means business. In 2001, he released his debut album 'I Get Wet' - a raucous glorification of the party-life set to stomping piano-driven beats doused in the kind of massive studio production that would drive a bus into Phil Spector. A party bus. Double-decker. Many found the concept absurd and amusing - it’s not exactly sitting-down music, after all - and after a while the Internet finished having its laugh with A.W.K. and the joke kind of faded. All that remained was the addictive personal aura surrounding this bastion of high spirits, this party liaison. This is a guy who is so nice that he allegedly accepted an invitation to play the piano at a fan’s wake after his death. So it’s no joke - Andrew W.K.’s party music is more than just about rocking out - it’s a personal philosophy. Party hard. Every day. And this is what Mr. W.K. and I did, over the phone. We partied verbally, so to speak. And speak he did - he has a lot to say. P.S. The A.W.K. fans among you may be pleased to hear that there’s a signed copy of 'I Get Wet' sitting around somewhere at Auckland’s Real Groovy store. Of course, a better idea may be to grab one in person when paying your respects at Big Day Out 2011 where Mr. W.K. will be partying harder than ever. COUP DE MAIN: Now, I feel the important things must be addressed first here: you’ve built a reputation as quite the partygoer. What I want to know is, what is the best party memory you have? ANDREW W.K.: I’m constantly adding to my party memories because I’m someone who is a professional partier. So you’re always trying to outdo yourself, always trying to up the ante, always trying to find new ways to party harder, to have more fun. Just a few days ago one of the best party experiences I’ve ever had was in a beautiful town called St. Augustine, Florida. St. Augustine is actually the oldest city in the US - even before there was a US. The oldest city on this continent, from my understanding, in terms of the United States portion of the continent. It was settled by pirates and the Spanish, and it’s incredibly ancient and haunted. So we got to go there and walk through the streets, and they had this beautiful resort, and they had this sort of Tiki bar out on the edge of this dock and it had very very very good drinks. Our tour manager works there as a bartender when he’s not on the road, just because he loves it so much. It was just a great night. I’m on this tour right now - for the whole month of October actually - until the first week of November where my full band and I are more or less the hosts and the hypemen for this special variety show of what dancers and illusionists and magicians have called the most interesting show in the world. It’s definitely challenging for us. It’s forcing us to develop new abilities as a band and for me as a performer and an entertainer. But getting to work with these types of performers is totally a dream come true. As much as I’ve been doing in show-business, there’s that whole other side... Broadway, and Las Vegas... that whole other realm that isn’t rock music. It involves dancers and magic shows, and it’s big – it’s just as big an industry, but they rarely cross over. So this is an amazing opportunity to learn from these other masters of performance and try to get better, myself. You always want to get better as a showman. CDM: I imagine you’d get lumped in sometimes with the whole ‘party music’ kind of thing - and even though you’ve branched out with your latest record [2009’s '55 Cadillac', A.W.K.’s venture in improvisational piano], are you still embracing the partygoer image? AWK: Yeah - for sure. And I mean, for me, partying doesn’t necessarily define anything in terms of the sound of the music or a certain activity - it’s just a state of mind where you’re just psyched, you’re celebrating - you’re glad you’re alive, and you’re making a point to actively enjoy it, and that to me is what partying is. And partying hard is doing that with every bit of energy and passion that you possibly have. So to make it all piano music, to me, is just more of: this guy having this adventure through life doing whatever he wants to do and celebrating the fact that he has a chance to do it. It’s also completely ridiculous for me to make a piano album like that, so there’s that side of it as well. I think it’s very important to do things that part of you maybe doesn’t think you should do, just to see what will happen. And there were a lot of reasons I made that piano album, but one of the biggest ones was because I was definitely scared to. CDM: That’s a real all-or-nothing kind of attitude, thriving in the face of adversity... where do you get the motivation from? AWK: I guess it’s that I’ll die one day, so that’s the most basic one. I just try to keep that in mind. Those very basic truths... you try to keep them in mind because sometimes they’re the easiest ways to get motivation. If you’re feeling tired, or you’re feeling down, you wanna have that staple of thought, of mindset - almost of mind-game - to get you to do what you truly, deep down inside want to do. Even if your body doesn’t feeling like doing it, even if your spirit at that moment feels crushed. You can tell there’s a bigger purpose for you, in your life and you try to find ways to stay in touch with that. And it’s really the joy of it. The balance between taking what you do very seriously and not taking anything seriously at all. CDM: And what kind of music drives you? Who are your favourite bands? AWK: Oh, there’s hundreds and hundreds and hundreds. Last night on the tour bus, we had a great, great, great rock-out session with 'Led Zeppelin' I. Just all the way through with me, and my drummer Rich, and my guitar player Kendall. We just sat and listened to it, and we had it cranked up loud. We broke the mirror in the bathroom on the bus, just split it right down the middle... but it was worth it.  CDM: I’ve been following your Twitter profile a bit... on October 8th you cryptically left a tweet saying just: "Girls." - What does that mean? AWK: On this tour that I’m on right now are the most beautiful women... these dancers, these other performers. The most beautiful women. And in my band, I have one of the most beautiful women in the world. Cherie Lily [A.W.K.’s wife] - she’s a singer and dancer. To me, a really great stage-show has women with energy. And I love bands that are all men - that’s how my band started out - but it was always my dream that there would be just this kick-ass woman in the band going crazy just like everybody else. But it was very hard to find a girl who could actually do that, you know, who knew how to go crazy. Sometimes I feel girls will grow up, and they’re just told so much that you’re supposed to do certain things and they don’t develop that ability to cut loose... or they’re too shy. And then I met Cherie Lily who was just very nice to join the band... and we ended up getting married years later. So when I wrote that tweet I was just in a state of supreme gratitude to be surrounded by so many beautiful women. It just really means after waking in the morning, you just feel better about the day and you’re just always happy. CDM: You must get a fair amount of invitations to parties, I imagine? AWK: Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And it’s a great, great side-effect that I never really anticipated - I guess not just about being a performer, a singer in a band... but when you make music that makes people happy - I guess like if you’re a comedian, you’re always making people laugh, and they’re all happy - people develop this goodwill towards you. And everyone’s really nice. I mean, that’s the most amazing thing. I was walking down the street last night and people were buying me beers, saying hello, and just being so friendly. So kind. Genuinely friendly. And I am just extraordinarily grateful to say that... because everybody wants to be treated nicely and it’s one of the great privileges of what comes with this business, is people can be very, very nice. And also, I guess it’s just a choice of the style of music we play and the vibe we put out there. I really believe that - if you put out good vibes, you get good vibes back. CDM: Anything in the way of New Zealand parties? AWK: Oh, I came to New Zealand one time, and it was actually one of the most fun trips I’ve ever had. We got to see quite a bit of the land... not as much landscape as I realise New Zealand has to offer - quite a diversity there - but we got to drive around a lot, got to see Auckland, stay at a beautiful hotel at a very high floor. I got to ride that awesome amusement park ride downtown where you go up in the ball on the bungy cords... and then we partied very well several of those nights. I can’t wait to be coming back and actually get to play. |
