Andrew W.K.'s first interview
- By Jack Preston -
- Apr 24, 2012
We’ve had some strange first interviews here at Virgin Red Room, however we can safely say that none have been quite as eventful or brilliantly bizarre as our meeting with Andrew W.K. Want to know about Mr Party Hard’s best night of his life or his painful first memory? Do read on..
My first memory is strong diarrhoea – what did you expect? At that age you have a lot of fibre and thick food in your belly, so you’re going to have diarrhoea. The texture of mine was peanut butter and it smelled terrible, to be honest with you it smelt like shit.
The first gig I played was a piano recital when I was six years old, it was terrible. I was terribly nervous, it was a living nightmare. I was very, very poor. Yeah the people there clapped but they didn’t mean it, I was just one of many children. It was a disaster. That was my worst gig.
The first song I wrote was on a cassette tape album I made. Mechanical eyes, you know? Like a machine, with an eyeball – mechanical eyes. Anyway, so the song was called ‘Mr Surprise’.
The first Andrew W.K. album, ‘I Get Wet’, isn’t something I look back on. Don’t go back, ok? Have you ever heard of a nail? It holds wood together. Once you invent the nail you don’t look back and go “oh yeah, that old nail! What a strange and novel thing that nail was!” And then when you invent a hammer, you don’t look back and say “Oh yeah, I remember what people did before hammers!” When you invent a saw or no, water! Water! You don’t look back at nails, hammers, saws or water.
No. We don’t look back, we look forward. Hey! HEY! Have you ever read Ulysses? Well there’s certain things in the world that stand before you. These songs reveal themselves to me perpetually, I’m having more fun playing them now than before I even wrote them. And I didn’t even write them!
The first album I bought, sir, was Led Zeppelin 1.
The first tour I did was much the same as now. Stretch out, put on the outfit, get my wig on and just do the best I can to live up to the high standards that everyone expects.
The first film I saw was 'The Wiz' with Diana Ross, fantastic, fantastic movie. Tremendous, and I mean tremendous!
The first party I went to was ok, but it was kinda boring, let’s not talk about that. Let’s talk about last night [Andrew W.K. last night played Dublin]. Last night was the greatest moment of our lives, no disrespect to the rest of the world but everything we’ve been doing up until this point led up to last night. I spoke to the rest of the band and they’re in total agreement. It was the best show of our lives. Jolly, flamboyant, courageous, enthusiastic, energized – ALL AMPED UP. And that was just the crowd.
Andrew W.K. is currently on tour, we strongly advise you go check him out...
Did you enjoy those first times? How about some more from; The Ting Tings, We Are Augustines, Katie Melua, The Jezabels, Sleigh Bells, Kyla La Grange, Benjamin Francis Leftwich, Blood Red Shoes, Charlie Simpson, The Futureheads, Vanquish, Lostprophets or Tom Williams & The Boat?
By Jack Preston. Content Executive. Tweets at @JackPressedOn
