ANDREW W.K.
With new album You’re Not Alone out now and a UK tour on the cards, Chris Andrews finds the motivational rocker in typically positive mood.
Andrew Fetterly Wilkes-Krier, better known to you and me as Andrew W.K., was something of a revelation when he hit the rock big time back in 2001. His debut album I Get Wet spawned the outrageously anthemic single Party Hard and established a new niche in rock history.
To find out how the man ticks, though, you have to go back to his formative years spent in Michigan. “I started taking piano lessons when I was young and that’s how music entered my life in a profound and intense way.” That first introduction to music led Andrew to wanting to make music in his teenage years: “I’d been playing music since I was very young, but never endeavoured to make it a living. There were no aspirations to do anything beyond the love of making music. Even when I moved to New York when I was 18 I had no real ambition to make a career in music. I had aspirations of a career in other interests that I had.”
Typically, rock and metal are not scenes that spawn many successful solo artists, so why in the late 90s did Andrew decide to go solo? “Well, the friends I had didn’t really want to play the sort of music that I wanted to play, so out of necessity I went alone, rather than wait around for the perfect band.”
To these ears at least, Andrew’s output has always been quite unique. Was this his way to get noticed in a world full of nu-metal and pop-punk at the time? “Whatever I create is just how it’s supposed to be, and I try to follow that. I was even insecure about it at times. Was it heavy enough? Is it stupid? But deep down, I knew it was the music I had to make.”
One of the enduring images of Andrew is the famous cover shot by acclaimed photographer Roe Etheridge, where he’s sporting a rather bloody nose. So is that pure Wilkes-Krier claret in the picture?
“Partially. I took a piece of cinder block to my face to get the blood flowing, but couldn’t get the good heavy flow that I required, so the rest was animal blood from a butcher’s shop.” That’s commitment, people.
Motivational speaking is also something not normally associated with rock music, but the positivity in AWK’s music has taken him to avenues he might not otherwise have explored. “It started in 2005 when New York University asked me to do a lecture, which I was surprised by,” he recalls. “I thought they wanted me to talk about music, but they wanted me to talk about life and my party philosophy. From then on it just became another way for me to generate the party energy, not just via music.”
So does this mean the party philosophy is more of a metaphor for living life to the full? “It’s both. It’s literal and metaphorical.”
It’s been eight years since we’ve heard any new Andrew W.K. music. Why choose now to come back?
“The party gods said it was the right time. It was never intentional to take this long. It was quite frustrating at times. The more I wanted to record an album, the more things stood in the way. Incredible, beautiful things, but it was made clear that I wasn’t supposed to record the album then.”
So, with a tour having been postponed from November 2017 until the spring, Wales will play host to Andrew W.K. in April. The UK, he beams, “is where it all started for me, this is where I broke. My band’s first show was actually in London, so I have an extraordinarily profound connection to this place.” As do we, Andrew.
photo ASHLEY EBERBACH
Andrew W.K., Great Hall, Cardiff University Students Union, Fri 13 Apr. Tickets: £20. Info: 029 2078 1458 / www.cardiffstudents.com