Awesome AWK Interview

Posted by Maximum Fun on 27th February 2008

Thanks to MFer Jimbovaquero who pointed the way to this awesome interview with our man Andrew WK. Nicest guy in rock & roll, and he has a pretty deep knowledge of the genre, too.

Here he is talking about meeting Lee Perry (video of same above):

I met him in Texas last spring, in Austin, when I was doing interviews for DirecTV, and performers were performing and I was interviewing them before and after. So they gave me a list, and it was very exciting, everyone from Rickie Lee Jones to Iggy Pop. And Lee Perry was on there, and somehow I just felt that that was going to be the interview that would be really special. I was very excited to meet him. As we were getting ready for the interview, people were telling me he’s very eccentric, so don’t be offended if anything strange happens. I had such a hard time believing that considering all the joy people got from his music. But when he came in, I kind of understood what people were saying in the sense that, he’s just a very different human being. To the point where I could see some people thinking he is not a human being. But he is just a very advanced human being. He’s further down the road, like Tom Smith is. And those who are not down there and don’t give him the benefit of the doubt that he could be that far, they just assume that he’s different, so he must be crazy. But if you give him the benefit of the doubt that he’s further along than you, then all the sudden he’s like a God. And he really blew my mind. Because it was all so new to me, I felt a little embarrassed that I didn’t know all there is to know about him, and I didn’t have all those facts. There were a lot of people around that knew a lot more about him than me. But I just kind of went with that, and figured, if I’m going to get into him, now is as good a time as ever. And I decided I wanted to do another interview with him again on my own, and so we did that in New York a few months later. And he was just as nice, and very exciting and inspiring.

Let it be said that Andrew WK, himself, is a VERY ADVANCED human being.

And what’s this? I hidden discussion of The New Sincerity?

MARC MASTERS: Their music straddles the line between humor and sincerity, which I think your music does as well.

ANDREW W.K.: I’ve never liked the idea that something has to be either/or, that it has to be binary – that either it has to be a complete joke, and they’re totally aware of what they’re doing, or that it’s the dumbest, worst music ever heard. Can’t it be both those things and many more? And don’t I get to decide what it is? There’s so much that comes from the observer that it doesn’t really matter what the person who made it says it is, or what the majority of people say it is. That’s what Lee Perry is so good at, looking at things the way he wants to look at them, and having the courage to follow that instinct.

ANDREW WK: THE KING OF ROCK & ROLL FRIENDSHIP!