Stereoboard Talk To Andrew WK About The 'I Get Wet' Anniversary Tour & A Brand New Album (Interview)
Monday, 16 April 2012
Written by Heather McDaid
Did you hear the one about when Chuck Norris asked Andrew W.K. to throw him a party? No? Sadly, this story likely can’t be verified but the jist is simple: if you want a good time, if you want to have fun, if you want to party then Mr. W.K. is the man for the job. Currently bringing the ‘I Get Wet’ anniversary tour to all corners of the globe, it seemed there was no better time for UK fans to acquire a ticket and head out for an evening packed with partying.
“I’m enjoying [being back in the UK] very much,” he begins. “It’s a beautiful day today, it’s really hot! The sky is a bit overcast, but the sun is still out and it’s a very, very nice temperature with a cool breeze. I have never been more excited and I really mean this, in all sincerity. I have never been more excited about a concert than I am with the show that I am playing tomorrow [in London].”
While his mere presence would be enough to lure fans to his shows, on this run Andrew and his band are performing the mammoth album ‘I Get Wet’ in its entirety. “Well, the whole thing to me has been this big adventure that we get to be on,” he explains. “This is the first record that we released that really launched the whole party and began the celebration of bringing the joy of rock ‘n’ roll music some life and some excitement. We’re just so privileged, so blessed, so lucky and fortunate to get to not only celebrate it but to get to perform it. That’s how I feel right now.
“Ten years is great, but I think that we have a lot more to go. At the same time, I’m very thankful and extraordinarily grateful for all the folks out there, whether it’s been my band or my amazing manager or my handlers or my team, the folks behind the scenes are really the ones who make this happen. That’s not even mentioning the folks who like the songs, who come to the shows; I’m so grateful for them. They make me feel very, very blessed that we get to do this and that’s really all that I can say. It gives me a lot of motivation and it gives me a lot of energy to get up there and give every, every, every single thing that I have on that stage every time we play. Everyone who comes to the shows – they know; they know that I gave it everything I’ve got.”
“You know, the beauty of it is that when I signed up in 2005 to do Andrew W.K. I, myself, was not that cheerful,” he adds. “I, myself, was a bit down-trodden and depressed, just a bit down and melancholy. I wanted something to believe in. I wanted to have a card to work towards. The Andrew W.K. music back then already meant so much to me and so many people already that I thought ‘Well, hey, maybe this is the way to go’. They were looking for someone and I was only so fortunate to win that spot. The thing is: even the worst day, the absolute worst feeling I’ve ever had, the worst, most depressing, most dire, most sad feeling I’ve ever had – once that song kicks in, whether it’s ‘Party Hard’ or whether it’s ‘I Get Wet’, whether it’s ‘Party Till You Puke’ or whether it’s ‘Long Live The Party’ – whatever song it is, that music itself – without any other effort – just itself – that rhythm, that melody, that lyric... That gives me the power to do my very best and to rise above.
“If I can offer that to other folks as well, then we’ll really be riding high. It’s a magical thing – it really is. People can very easily be ‘Oh, yeah, it’s just rock and roll music, you play loud guitars and you yell, you bang your head, whatever’ but it really is a magical thing. It’s fucking magic with a ‘ck’. Have you ever heard of Calvin Klein? That’s what I’m talking about. It’s magic – magic with a big CK at the end. Look that up!
“We’re ushering in a new era, a new eon, the new age. The human race, the human civilisation is heading into a new area, a new space, a new time, a new dimension and it’s led by the liberation of the human spirit. We get to enjoy ourselves. People aren’t able to tell us you can’t do that, you can’t have fun, you can’t listen to music that makes you feel good, you can’t wear clothes that you wanna wear, you can’t draw drawings or read books or do this or that. No. This is where we get to do whatever we want. As long as it doesn’t inflict on others, you know, this is our joy, this is our time – this is real. You’re living in it, I’m living in it, we’re both young – this is our time. It’s for real. It’s really a big deal.”
Added to the exciting headlining run, there is also a new album in the works for fans to look forward to. “We have been working on that for a while and we’ll keep working on it as soon as I get back to New York City after this tour – I mean, we’re on a world tour just now. It will be done I guess around June of this year when I go back to New York City and I’ll continue recording the new album. We’ve got somewhere between 5% done and 93% done.”
Does he approach the album as it comes rather than meticulously planning? “Yes! You are correct. That is exactly how I do things. We do it one song at a time. The whole group here – the organisation – we do it all one song at a time and we try to make the most exciting song we can. Once we finish that song, we’ll sit down and be like ‘Okay, now we’re going to make another song!’ We do that about eleven, twelve, maybe thirteen times – lo and behold, you have an album! I do whatever it takes. I’ll play the instruments that I can play to get the songs going and then some other folks will pop in there and play some instruments as well but the real point is that we make the songs that sound as good as we can make them. It’s not supposed to sound like a band, you know what I mean?
“You know how some people say ‘Hey, this is a moment in time’? They want to make an album and a song with a band that is to capture a moment – You’ve heard people say that? That’s not what we do. We try to construct something with as much artifice, with as much inorganic quality within as much artificial, inauthentic... We want to be as inauthentic as possible because that’s what a recording is. Recording is not real – it’s not real and it’s not a real moment. We want to make something that is as powerful as possible using every single tool and every piece of technology, all the computers – we never use analogue equipment. Some folks out there will say that digital equipment is bad, it’s evil, right? That’s the good kind of evil. That’s what we want to use and that’s what this music is: we want to use every single power that this human race has developed to serve this vision of musical joy. There is no, no, no, no authenticity.”
“What I respond to personally,” he continues, touching on the notion of artists with no real musicality hitting it big, “is the way I feel about things in the world – whether it’s music or a book or a movie or a TV show or a radio show – what I respond to is vulnerability, culture and putting yourself out there on the line. If someone is trying to make themselves look god damn cool, I’m probably not going to respond to it. If somebody is up there making a fool out of themselves like a jester, that’s how I’m going to get to that place. You don’t need training – all you need is a lot of balls, a lot of courage and you put yourself on the line. You put yourself on – the – line. You – put – your – self – on – the – line.”
Touching on the issue of downloading, Andrew succinctly says, “People should download anything they want. That’s how I feel. There’s not enough people listening to music and getting more people involved in listening to music is all I care about.”
What should fans expect from the rest of 2012? “That I will do my very, very best to live up to the Andrew W.K. promise. That I will do my very best to live up to the party hard sensibility. That I will do my very best t give everything I have to do this and everything else that we’ve agreed to do. I trust everyone else will as well. We have a very short time here on this version of being alive, this reality, on this earth, and anybody who scoffs at that or says that’s a silly thing – I’ll see you on the other side.”
To fans: “Thank you so much for believing in music, for finding some form of joy in what I or anybody else has offered. Thank you to everybody that enjoys rhythms, melodies, loud sounds, intensity – we want to blow our minds. We’re not looking for comfort in music, we’re not looking for comfort in culture...
“Comfort comes from a warm blanket. Comfort comes from a hot bath. Comfort comes from a nice pillow. Comfort comes from a very soft lady; or if you’re a lady who likes men, comfort comes from a man with a nice hairy chest. And if you’re a man who likes men – a hairy chest as well. If you’re a woman who likes women, you know, there’s very soft skin. You want to find pleasure in those things but when it comes to music, you want to have your mind blown.
“That’s what I’m trying to provide – stimulation and inspiration.”
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“I’m enjoying [being back in the UK] very much,” he begins. “It’s a beautiful day today, it’s really hot! The sky is a bit overcast, but the sun is still out and it’s a very, very nice temperature with a cool breeze. I have never been more excited and I really mean this, in all sincerity. I have never been more excited about a concert than I am with the show that I am playing tomorrow [in London].”
