Party On!
AUGUST 25, 2007 Listen to this Story
- Andrew WK
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In 2002, hard rocker Andrew W.K. released his first record, "I Get Wet." It was a seemingly absurd endorsement of getting wasted. Nearly every song on the record had the word party in the title: "Party Hard,""Party 'til You Puke,""It's Time to Party," which was eventually used in a commercial for Coors. But these days Andrew isn't singing party anthems, he's giving motivational speeches. Josh Gleason reports.
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In this small New York City comedy club, the smoke machine kicks on and Andrew W.K. walks out in his signature uniform: white jeans, white t-shirt. He doesn't pump his fist or do that devil horns thing with his fingers. He just fumbles up to the mic and takes a seat.
"Hello everyone. Thank you for choosing to spend the time of your life in this room tonight."
This may come as a surprise, but the guy who wrote "I Get Wet" wasn't some bone-headed party monster. Andrew W.K. was actually was a sad and lonely guy. He didn't even go to parties. He said making such an over the top album was his way of overcoming shyness.
"I felt if I created something that was bigger than me, and more powerful than me, and more important than me, and just all around more demanding than I was on myself, then I would have to step to this other place and change in some way," he explained. "And the music was a leader, was someone that I could follow."
When "I Get Wet" first came out it was so loud and so outrageous, some people had a hard time taking it seriously. But other people loved the record. They would write to Andrew, tell him how his music made them feel really good. And he made a point of writing back. It even got obsessive.
"I couldn't keep up with that type of connection so I needed to find new ways to connect, new ways to meet people's expectations that didn't involve ten page letters."
Enter motivational speaking. It's one of these new ways that Andrew W.K. connects with his fans.
His talk starts with a free-form monologue - about how we should live more fully in the present: "People had told me for a long time that all that matters is a song. Nothing else matters with what you're doing. And it became more and more obvious to me that that was absurd," he said. "It was about the sensation and the sensation is way, way above the music. Any version of expressing that sensation which we might call joy or happiness is part of the same goal and nothing is more important. The music is doing it in one way and here's more ways to do it."
Eventually Andrew gets to his core message: "I've just recently thought about being famous or the idea of fame or the idea of success. All it is, is someone wanting to be loved. And we all want to be loved. We all have the capacity to love others and to be loved, if, before we see the differences, we could first look into their eyes and say: "All this person wants is to be loved - like that's the biggest thing - that really is."
You might expect the fans of a hard rocker to be embarrassed by this stuff. But this group took it in, even chimed in, without blinking. After the show one guy asked Andrew if we would come speak at his high school. He said he'd love to.
As one still misty-eyed girl told me after the show, rock stars are the perfect sort of people to be giving motivational talks. Corny or not, they're the ones most people pay attention to.
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- Music Bridge:
- You Will Remember Tonight
- Artist: Andrew W.K.
- CD: Close Calls With Brick Walls (Universal)
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