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May 2, 2015 - Louder with Crowder
33:41
Andrew W.K. Parties On Louder With Crowder!
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*Dramatic Music* When it's fun at party, we will party hard.
Now, some of you watching this may not already know Andrew W.K., and that's a shame.
You really should.
Known as a rock star for partying hard, he's actually a really intelligent guy with a lot of insight.
From his Fox News appearances to his Village Voice help column, I guess you'd call it.
You have to read it.
To just getting a show now with Glenn Beck's Blaze Radio Network.
The guy does a lot of cool stuff, and he's got some interesting things to say.
So we caught up with him on a solo tour at a Western Michigan staple Derby Station pub to just hear his thoughts about life.
So we're here with Andrew W.K. Thank you, sir, for taking the time.
Thank you for having me.
I'm not having you.
Actually, it's a cool little pub here in Grand Rapids, Derby Station.
Yes, and it's Irish theme exposed, or it's sort of just...
I don't know.
I know you really like Irish pubs.
It was that place Gabby's I was reading about.
Yes, yes, yes.
Well, thank you for being familiar with that.
I always found, not just in terms of atmosphere, but especially in terms of service, that there was a standard level of quality that was maintained very consistently at Irish pubs.
Pubs, bars, you know, themed restaurants all across at least the U.S. Yeah.
And as someone who, you know, maybe wasn't always the most approachable or didn't look like the kind of person that should be served in an establishment, a respectable place, I was always impressed that they always treated everyone, no matter if they were regular or like some guy who looked like me walking in, you know, never having been there, I was always treated well by the bartenders at those places, so.
I think that's because in Ireland you're high society.
Yeah.
Oh, really?
I don't know.
I know bar fights are a way of life.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Well, I'm a pacifist when it comes to bar fighting.
You look like you've been working out, though.
Try to exercise, you know, have some fun.
Partying actually counts as exercise, so that helps as well.
The shows are very good exercise tonight.
I think that will burn about 1,000 calories.
Well, your shows do.
Well, yes.
It's not quite the same as Yo-Yo Ma going up there and...
Well, hey, you know, a cello, that's no joke.
I'd say it takes a lot of stamina.
Maybe not the same as, you know, prancing and headbanging.
Because I do do a lot of prancing.
But it's a choice to perform in an athletic style.
Right.
Now, do you feel like you have to gear up?
Like Alice Cooper, I don't know if you've ever read his biography.
It's fascinating.
He talks about his routine where he goes in, he gets into character, he eats one chocolate chip cookie because that's the right amount of sugar, and then he watches kung fu movies for like 45 minutes.
I might not have the numbers exactly right.
and then the room has to be dark for half an hour.
- Wow.
- So I don't have to sleep, but I just have to rest for half an hour. - I had no idea.
I never, that's very elaborate for-- - Yeah. - In any profession to prepare to that degree.
The cookie, I can relate to because I do like cookie.
Who doesn't?
Who doesn't like cookie?
But no, I've never, I think stretching out.
I think stretching out, that's my routine, you know, just so you don't pull a hamstring or, you know, dislocate your knee, which I've done before I've broken my foot.
I've broken my nose.
Definitely a lot of pulled muscles.
But stretching seems to be a good sort of also meditative kind of focused state.
I do that too before stand-up.
I actually blew up my knee.
See, there you go.
You can do it by twisting your leg and keeping your body...
The listener won't want to hear this, but I want to hear your story.
Mine was this.
So there was, you know, sometimes I build those stages of like those multi-purpose sort of wooden blocks.
Yes, yes.
They're modular.
Yeah, and they're supposed to like contain them somehow, but the kid didn't.
It was at a college.
So they shifted apart.
So I'm walking.
My heel slips in and stays, but the ball of my, so it's like a brace.
I keep walking, but my shin stays perpendicular as I fall over.
And it's still not like I'm looking at surgery.
I mean, people don't realize...
And it's not...
I'm going to have a pretty energetic show.
What you do is crazy.
I mean, how long is the show?
It's over an hour, right?
Well, these shows tonight will be an hour long.
The longest we've ever done is probably an hour and 45 minutes, two hours.
Our show, because of that kind of energy level, the style of music, it doesn't lend itself well to going much longer than an hour and a half.
Because the crowd also, they're going...
Full blown.
So to be sprinting for an hour and a half, that's asking a lot of anybody.
Right.
And I think there's a more effective kind of contrast when you just blow it all out and then it's done.
Right.
And then you're just sort of in this daze of what just happened.
Do you feel like exercising helps translate to that?
I had advice one time where someone said, hey, kid, as an actor, stand-up comedy, your career is not a sprint, it's a marathon.
And I thought, it's really not, it's more like interval training, you know, rhythms and margins.
Yes, high-impact interval training.
That's a much better comparison.
Okay.
Because it's dynamic.
Yeah.
And there's moments, even in any career, where...
The only way you can really appreciate anything you've done is to be able to have a time to reflect on it, to absorb it.
I think that's the most important thing.
When being very busy, It's not so much that you even want to reflect and think, oh, that was really fun when I did this two weeks ago, or last year, it's great to remember back.
You're going through so much so fast, in life in general, actually, with anyone, whatever their pursuits are, that I feel like you have to actually give your soul time to absorb your own life, to put it into perspective within yourself.
And it might not even be a very formalized, literal way of thinking about it.
It just...
You just kind of have to be like a sponge and soak it all up.
And you know, it's funny.
I mean, you're a very introspective guy.
And yeah, I've read quite a bit of your sort of, I guess, I don't even call them advice columns.
Yeah, advice columns.
Okay, advice columns.
And do you feel like there's this image, I mean, obviously people take party and you sort of put it out there as more of a generality, as like a positive experience.
But do you think people maybe have an image of you that's not inherently accurate?
Like, they picture, you know, like you're a very calm, well-spoken, introspective guy.
Do you think people expect, like, to party by Andrew W.K. all the time?
I can do that, too.
I know, and you're good with that.
I can go, well, we're here and having some fun, and we're going to smash things and then run amok us.
And that's just, there's times when that's called for.
You're in a, well, Ashley, you have a very high energy level.
The way I've seen you carry your program, it's definitely amped up.
Right.
But I usually just respond to whatever the atmosphere is calling for and try to, I don't know, mirror the surroundings in a way that adds to it.
Right.
I'm not here with some kind of MO that I have to get across this certain thing.
Like shtick.
Yeah, because it just doesn't feel right.
I don't know.
I'm more interested in trying to communicate.
Yeah.
So that's what we're trying to talk about.
We were sort of talking about this.
Do you feel like...
Because a lot of entertainment now, people our age, relatively our age, a lot of the entertainment, and we'll go to a break soon, though, but is very conversational, like podcasts.
That's true.
And it's sort of a...
And I almost feel like it's because our parents, they had their conversations in the house, and then they turned on TV and, gee, willikers, you know?
But now we're so engaged in our devices...
That we want our entertainment to feel more real.
Oh, that's interesting.
Maybe you're compensating for not having as many conversations throughout the day because of technology, the computer, or even just sort of your lifestyle, and then you want to listen to other people having conversations to make up for that void.
I mean, this would never play on traditional media, you know, ten years ago.
It's engrossing.
There's something about it that's very unique.
The podcast phenomenon, it's a style and it's a tone unto itself.
Yeah.
I don't know.
I couldn't be an idiot, but I just noticed that.
I find myself becoming more consumed with...
Well, we'll talk more after the break.
So, we first met, I think it was at a Fox News green room.
Oh, yeah.
I think it might have been red-eyed.
Yeah, yeah.
I know I had done things by satellite.
So let me ask you this.
You don't necessarily go out and discuss politics.
So you've had some interesting political insights that I've taken with me that you may not even realize how influential they were.
But do you feel like in the industry where you are, have you had any blowback just for going on Fox News?
Because that's like this dirty word.
Have you felt that at all from people?
Much less than I ever would have imagined.
Okay.
When I first went on TV in general, like MTV, I got to do Saturday Night Live right at the beginning of my first album cycle.
Beginning of my career, we did Conan.
I got general blowback from a lot of my friends who thought just doing anything on TV at all was bad.
That it was evil, corporate, like what you were saying earlier with your ad sponsors.
That it was playing into this machine that I should avoid.
But I... Completely disagreed and I actually was expecting that because a lot of these friends of mine that I've grown up with We're very against the grain.
I mean, really radical in almost off-the-grid type living.
This is in Ann Arbor?
Yeah, this is in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
But I was always very much interested and stimulated by that kind of far-out thinkers.
Sure.
But didn't really relate to it personally, because I like TV. I like Saturday Night Live, and it was like the greatest thrill in my whole life to be able to go and do stuff like that.
It was a great performance, too, not to kiss ass, but...
Thank you for being familiar with it.
Um...
So then over the years, I just always liked television and I always liked being able to have this thing, that my thing could be able to go on those places, go into these other realms where maybe I don't fit in or maybe you wouldn't expect me to go, and actually have it be okay and make sense.
And so by the time things like Fox News came around, I was still wondering, and there were a few people that said, oh, they're evil, don't go on there.
It was much less than I expected.
And I actually more than take credit for that personally.
I think that just shows that maybe I have a really great audience that affords that kind of open-mindedness.
To whatever I'm doing.
Or maybe they just realize it's not really what I'm...
I don't have an agenda beyond really sort of good cheer.
So, I don't know.
They cut me a lot of slack, I guess.
I will say that I noticed there are two places on the internet that aren't horrible.
Your Twitter feed and Art of Manliness is actually a website.
We had the founder on here.
They're very, very positive.
It seems like...
I mean, I'm sure everyone gets people who hate them.
It seems like you don't get a lot of people who live to hate...
I've never run into one like, I just hated your WK. There's a few out there, but I try to take their comments in stride.
Even today, I was thinking about this, and you, I'm sure, deal with this a lot.
Most people hate me.
I expect you to leave here and be like, geez, that guy was a jackass.
At least you have a default mode that you can operate in.
It makes it easier to realize what you're up against at all times.
But it seems like there's sort of, whenever you put yourself out there, when you decide to do something that is a public offering, like entertainment, radio, anything, you're asking someone to consider it, to give their time to it, you're going to get this kind of feedback.
So the question is, it's the comments section of life.
Do you completely avoid the comments section of life and not look at all Look what everyone's saying.
Do you look at it and then really get upset by it?
Right.
Or is there a way to actually look at it and try to extract something from it?
And that's what I, it's very challenging.
It's painful.
That's what I've been trying to do.
Like maybe they're right.
So some of these criticisms, like I went on this show the other day, I'm going back again.
And some of the criticisms that people had about my comments, I agreed with them.
Yeah.
And it didn't feel great to realize that I slightly misspoke or could have said something better and couldn't go back and change it.
Right.
But it felt very good that I could take really what was sort of mean-spirited criticism and say, like, you know what, they have a point there.
And that takes away this whole, this fighting.
It's tough to do that, though, when my YouTube is just littered with people calling me Jewfag.
Like, I don't know what I can point in front of that.
Maybe I am Jewish, perhaps gay.
So maybe, well, what you could glean from it would be that you're not blocking out the world just because it's threatening.
And I think it goes back to kind of what we were talking about, rhythms and margins.
Like, there are times where I can go on YouTube.
I mean, because that's my world, right?
People going with the Fox News and...
People there didn't really like it.
It's an extreme liability.
There's no worse place than the YouTube section.
It's worse than Twitter.
And there are times where I can look at it and get inspired and say, okay, I can, you know, Bruce Lee absorb the good, discard the bad.
And then there are times where I just know mentally I'm not in a place where I can handle it.
So don't go.
You just have to avoid it.
Well, that's like, you know, if you're home alone and you're feeling on edge and it's a dark, stormy night, maybe it's not the best choice to watch a horror movie that night.
Or for some people it is.
Maybe it's the best.
That's what I was going to say.
Meaning, pick and choose your moments when you have that kind of internal strength to face things that are designed to be challenging.
These people are trying to challenge you.
I mean, a lot of times they're just, you know, trolling as they say, trying to rile you up, trying to get under your skin.
But even that, I want to be strong enough to let people get under my skin and see what that's like.
So it's a pretty far out place.
I don't know if I'll ever become that enlightened where I can actually go through life with that kind of...
Impenetrable vulnerability.
Yeah.
It's a strange combination.
It's going to be hard for you, you know, and I'm not saying this to sound like authoritative, but as an artist, as someone who's obviously very creative, same thing as a comedian, you know, you can't be thick-skinned in the sense that what makes you able to create something...
Makes you inherently thin-skinned.
It makes you sensitive to pick up on things and create something out of that.
That's very well said.
That's a good observation.
I think, yeah, you want to be weak enough to be...
You want to be strong enough to be weak enough.
You know what I mean?
A really strong person isn't strong just in this way to barricade themselves from the world.
They're strong enough to actually be vulnerable.
It's this very strange paradox.
We talked about that, too, with another guest.
I talk about this sort of...
I guess vilifying of masculinity nowadays.
And I'm not talking about some false sense of machismo in hunting and fishing, but I think boys are very confused.
And I think a big part of that, too, is also you have people saying that, you know, men are inherently, you know, your male privilege is showing, and they make them feel guilty.
But then you have people acting like, well, you're either the jock or you're the book nerd.
When if you look at people even like Patton, you look at people like Churchill, you look at great men, they all were very, very layered people.
You know, back then, you were only considered a complete man if you were intelligent, if you were creative, if you were well-spoken, and if you had the physical.
Whereas now you tell people like, it's one or the other.
Right, you're a type of person.
Right.
That's a really great observation.
I like that idea.
You're trying to assemble many types of people into one layered, as you said, and synchronized whole, where all those things actually...
It's not like you're this way, one minute you're this way.
They're all working in tandem to sort of Bring out the best that you can achieve as a human.
A complete man.
Yeah.
Well, that's a great...
That's someone to aspire to.
Oh, well, thank you.
See, you're making me feel smart.
A great human.
Yeah.
Well, I guess I was talking more so about men because we've had feminists on the show who just, you know, your patriarchy's showing.
Like, oh, damn it.
They just had the...
What was it?
They just had the...
I don't even know if I can say...
They had the slut walk just yesterday.
Wait, what's that?
That's where you walk around naked and call men rapists.
Wow.
That's what it is.
That's like the feminist thing.
They do it across many cities.
Okay.
So anyway, that's why my mind was there.
And then Jeremy Renner got a bunch of flack, I'm sure you heard, for the Black Widow comment.
No, I didn't.
It was really funny.
He said, well, Black Widow in the comics doesn't sleep with Captain America and doesn't quite sleep with...
Hawkeye.
Is that Scarlett Johansson's character?
Yeah, yeah.
And he said, yeah, he said, Black Widow, a fictional character.
She's just a total slut.
And now feminists are furious.
It's a fictional character.
Yeah, you know.
People get excited.
I won't bring you to that one.
Okay, so you've been on Fox News.
You appear on the Glenn Beck stuff, right?
And I'm sure you get people who think, you know, would you appear on Hitler's show?
Now, you've never really been open about your politics as far as, like, saying I'm a conservative or putting a label on it.
But I would have to imagine, just in being accepting of the invitations to those programs, that you're not a far lefty.
I don't feel like I'm anything.
I was thinking about this earlier today, maybe in anticipation of coming on the show.
I don't think there was a time when I ever identified as anything.
Right.
Largely because I was extremely uneducated, still am, just sort of ignorant, not proud of it either, on a lot of the issues.
So I didn't feel prepared or even capable of picking a position all the time.
And two, I just wasn't interested in it.
I just really wasn't interested.
If I had to label myself, I would want to have been labeled as a musician or as a painter or as...
You know, a person.
So I just didn't find that kind of engaging with the world through a political point of view.
Did you feel like you had to become more aware, though, because you had people going like, why would you go on Glenn Beck?
Did that make you go like, well, why am I going on Glenn Beck?
Is this really bad?
No, because he asked me.
Yeah, exactly.
That's how I've gone through life is...
More and more a sense of there's something pulling me along and I can fight it or I can show up and do it.
And the more I've shown up and done it, sometimes against my instincts, sometimes against the advice of people I really trust and respect, but gave into a deeper, more subtle I've just followed it and things have worked out.
I really would like to be able to take things case by case as much as possible in life.
And while that might not always be possible, we do need to sort of have preset ways of looking at the world in order just to move through it.
Right.
I try to stay focused on open-mindedness as the default mode.
Right.
And even question that.
You know, question everything, even including questioning everything.
So it can get exhausting not resting on a certain point of view.
But it's been, for me, it's been more, I've learned a lot more than I think I would have if I had just stayed with one point of view and then worked to defend it.
But you've got to recognize that that's different from a lot of...
Because every rock star considers themselves open-minded.
But most of them would never even think of doing a show that has someone labeled as a conservative attached to it.
So do you think it's maybe they're fooling themselves into thinking they're open-minded?
Because it seems like you're very sincere.
That's the one thing I think why no one really hates you is because it's contagious, your authenticity.
You're very nice.
I don't know what to say to that.
I just...
I'm trying to have an adventure in life, and I feel as an entertainer, because that's what I do, if I'm not entertained by my own life, how would I be able to entertain other people?
That's a good point.
So I don't know why other people don't do what I do, or why I don't do what other people do.
I'm doing what I'm supposed to do.
That's not even what I want to do sometimes, but what I'm meant to do.
It's been hard to figure that out, but I'm getting better at following it.
Gosh, that leaves it open to so many questions.
When you say meant to do, what do you feel is drawing you?
Do you call it the universe, God?
All of that.
A force, maybe your own internal instincts again.
But I've noticed when I feel like I'm being useful, that I'm adding something rather than just taking away Or taking to make my life better.
When I feel like someone else can relate to something that I've offered and it's made them feel good or it's allowed them to tap into the part of themselves that already did feel good and they didn't realize it.
Anything that sort of did make me feel like I was making, I was contributing.
That was the thing.
Because there was things I wanted to do because I liked it or I wanted to make money because of this so I could buy this or live in a certain way.
There was always a slight flatness, like striving for the achievement was satisfying.
But the kind of end result, when there wasn't another person involved, it wasn't as rewarding.
So I started thinking that maybe I could try to Not just cheer myself up, but cheer other people up.
That's a great point.
Well, we'll keep you on for one more segment if you can.
Yeah, of course.
Because that leaves me with something to bring up a lot of with Crowder after the break.
So we're back with NUWK. And you were talking about that, talking about creating and how, if you're not entertaining yourself.
You know, it's funny because, and I've never talked about this, but when I first met you, I don't...
When I started at Fox News, I was 21.
Wow.
It's not about Fox News, but New York.
You love New York.
I hated it.
I did it when I first got there, too.
Did you?
Yeah.
I did it two different stints, and it just wasn't me.
And you could sense that.
Like, if you go back and you watch the hits I was doing on television, if you go back, you can just sense that there's...
I mean, if people listen to the show or people watch the videos, they're like, I think Stephen's a bit of...
I think he's a bit of a jerk in his point of view, but he seems like a happy guy.
You could sense that I wasn't happy.
And I know with comedy, it's...
Because there's no, there really is no, unless you're like, gosh, I'm trying to think, like a character, like a Pee Wee Herman or something, you know, you're doing a character, it's just you, and that really is reflected in comedy.
It comes out.
Do you feel like that's the same thing with your music, where if you're in a state where not only are you not entertaining yourself, but you don't feel like you're really pursuing or fulfilling what you're meant to do, that it can pick up on?
Yeah, you're destroying your soul.
Yeah.
And that's painful.
It could be cathartic for other people to see someone going through that in a...
In a dramatic way, but ultimately you want to see people that are feeling inspired.
I do my best work when I'm excited about life, when I feel like I'm Maybe not figuring things out, but at least going towards some kind of purpose or meaning.
I mean, there's times when I've thought that everything was meaningless.
I went through all kinds of complete ambivalence and sort of tore away everything about life and then built it back up again.
And now I'm in a building back up again phase, which I hope never stops.
I don't want to tear it down again.
Right.
You know, you can die when you do things like that.
But if you feel like you have to, then sometimes you're like, crap, I've got to do this again.
You go through ordeals in life and you hope that you come out of them stronger.
And at the time, it can seem like, how could this ever be valuable?
But those dark moments, I feel like especially, and I'm not sure what your childhood was like, I had a very, very privileged upbringing.
You know, just a good family, endless support, great surroundings with friends and mentors everywhere.
And things were so good, I think that I almost had to create bad experiences so I could have a fuller version of life.
I mean, your parents, of course, they want you to have this perfect existence, but you don't get to know yourself or even the world unless, for better or worse, you go through some bad stuff.
And even if you have to make it happen on your own.
Right.
At the end of the day, you have to look yourself in the mirror and say, I mean, have I done everything that I could do?
Did I do everything that was in my power to make sure that I'm prepared for whatever it is, you know, whether it's a show or whether it's, you know, the next stage of life?
And that's a scary moment, I feel like, because if you can say yes, you go to work and you're willing to accept the result.
For me, I don't know about you, like, as far as a tearing down phase, This is kind of the question for me, and it has nothing to do with politics.
I know people on the AM dial might be shutting this off, but you never know.
That's what I'm saying.
It depends on who's listening.
What are the harder failures to handle for you?
The ones where you've made a mistake and you're going like, oh, I know I made a mistake, or the ones where you feel like you did everything right, everything you could, and it just still didn't work?
That's such a fantastic question.
Well, hopefully both of those types of experiences could again provide insight, education, self-knowledge, and some type of strengthening in the end.
But I feel like the first one is more painful because all you'd ever want is to feel like you gave everything you had to this chance to be alive.
Whatever happens, you have to then just take in stride as that it was meant to happen.
If you truly felt like you hesitated, didn't trust that instinct, didn't follow this purpose or this call, and basically wasted your life, that to me would be much harder.
Even if it was just a day of your life or 10 years or the whole thing.
I thought you were going to go with the Oprah answer, where I hope I would learn either way, and then you gave an actual definitive answer.
Well, I threw that in too.
No, it was good, but it was good though.
You know, yeah, I would say for me, it's one of those things where, yeah, the mistakes are like, you know, those are what keep me up at night.
When I'm facing it, though, and it's like I've done everything because, you know, I didn't really...
I wouldn't say I have a privileged childhood.
I'm very privileged that I have a great family.
You know, I grew up in a socialist province where they thought I was basically learning disabled because I had to go to French schools and it wasn't my first language and it was the language laws.
I mean, just discriminatory language laws.
In Quebec?
In Quebec, yeah.
But I am very, very grateful and I have the best father and mother and brother you could ask for.
But for me, where it was, you know, if I was like...
I've studied for this test, I've done it, or same thing now, I'm prepared for this show, and I've done everything I can, and then it still doesn't work.
When it happens, it's devastating.
But I feel like it's something where I know I can move past it because I go, well, I just have to correct it and move forward.
Whereas even though you're looking back, something where you made an error, those are things where if I'm alone at night and I'm not sleeping, I'm like, oh, you know, and I just wince.
It is.
And there's still things, there's things that I don't allow myself to think about going back 10 years, 15, 20 years ago because I've closed that chapter.
I said, there's nothing I can do to fix that.
I will never make that mistake again.
Never have.
Right.
And that's the only thing I could take away.
But it doesn't solve that feeling of it being like ding, ding, ding, needling in.
It's bad.
It's nauseating.
Especially if it's in the public eye where something you can just Google and you're like, oh.
I mean, I'll tell you what.
That was with me and Fox News and where I have a rule now where I don't do media unless it's my friend Dana.
And it's because, like, if I put up a video or this show is going to go up, right, people have the full thing.
They can make their judgment.
They could hate you.
They could hate me.
I'm okay with that.
What's really hard is running a search and seeing someone take a clip from a show where I said something because I was asked something by a host.
And even though I said what I meant, it's cut in a way or out of context where people could misconstrue it.
I said, I'm not okay with that.
That I can't handle.
That's hard.
That's like almost getting into injustice territory, which is...
True emotional pain.
Right.
That's anguish.
But better to have that version of injustice than being thrown in prison for life for something you didn't do or something like that.
That's true.
I mean, I've gotten just more and more excited about this idea of trying to truly become, like, the best person.
And it's the hardest thing in the world.
It's harder than anything else that I ever wanted to try to achieve, like putting out an album or getting on TV or making money or being successful, making my dreams come true.
Yeah.
All these very self-involved pursuits.
The entertainment industry.
Yeah, ambition in the traditional sense.
Then there was this idea of, what if I could just be better brother?
What if I could be a better son?
What if I could be a better husband?
What if I could be a better friend?
And those were much like, ah, that's going to really actually take real work.
Like all the work, striving, recording, hours, staying up for three days working, doesn't even come close to 1% of how hard it is to try to face yourself inside out and say maybe that's what real life actually is.
And all the other stuff is to facilitate that pursuit somehow.
Right.
That's a good point.
But you know what?
I would say then it kind of comes in a roundabout way because, I mean, you sold out, we're here in Grand Rapids, you sold out the pyramid scheme.
I mean, very quickly.
That's crazy.
But that's, I got to hand that to them, their promotion.
Well, we'll take you downtown if we have time.
We'll take you and just show you around.
It's right around here.
It's an incredible town.
There's a lot of city pride in Grand Rapids.
A lot of beloved places here.
I can tell that right away.
It's a lot like Ann Arbor or your friend there, Austin.
Yeah.
I think that a big part of it, like I said, it's contagious, is the authenticity.
And when you are really just trying to improve yourself and enjoying what you do, that in itself almost becomes like a gimmick.
Because everyone else is trying to find a gimmick, and they're trying to create this, or this is the marketing tool.
And I will say this, you're performing your first album, right?
Isn't that what you're doing for the hour?
Oh, it's a mix.
Oh, it's a mix, okay.
But you perform a lot of these songs.
Some of them are older.
Some of them are newer.
But there are a lot of artists who would say, I don't want to do that.
I just want to do new stuff.
Paul McCartney goes up and says, Paul, we don't really want to hear your Starbucks album.
We want to hear your classic stuff.
And the fact that you just seem to genuinely enjoy pleasing your audience is almost abnormal now.
As opposed to, my art is for me.
Well, your art is enjoyable for all people.
Well, that's why I made it.
That's what I was interested in trying to get.
But also, I like those songs.
There's nothing grueling about me playing Party Hard.
I explained this to a very close friend of mine the other day who asked if I was sick of doing that song yet.
And even I am surprised at the fact that I enjoy playing it now even more than when it was first written.
I don't know why.
I don't question it, though.
I just am thankful that this thing is revealing itself to me.
What I told him is that song, I don't even feel like I created that song.
That song created me.
That song created, you know, whatever I've gotten to do that's led me here, I sort of worship that because I wouldn't be here without it.
So to be resentful of it or to turn away, I don't get a creative charge or inspiration from sort of trashing everything I've already done.
I do realize some people work like that.
That's a lot of people.
Yeah, I never watched.
That happened when they showed up for a band.
I don't know if I want to name it, because you're probably friends with them.
I don't name them, don't name them.
But they showed up and they did something, and they didn't play any of the songs that people wanted them to play.
It was this whole concept album, Bull Crap.
It was just really tough, you know, because these people had paid for a ticket.
it.
So I think Billy Joel is one, I know, but Billy Joel, I have this opinion that if you're, for example, in this pub, and a Billy Joel song comes on, you're immediately going to, oh wait, there's something going that makes me want to tap my foot.
I love Billy Joel.
Okay, there you go.
I've seen him live, and I agree, he played, you know, all the songs everybody wanted to hear, and then even deep ones that weren't his choice, maybe, you know.
Right.
And I've had experiences where I've done shows, Where I did what I felt like doing, and people were disappointed, and I didn't feel good.
And I didn't want to push against that.
I mean, I learned from experience, too, where I have use, where I'm valuable, where I can offer something that actually is appreciated.
I can play that stuff at home, I can do that at other shows, make it clear that this show I'm not going to be playing my songs, and I've done that, but I would never abandon...
It's like a tree.
I don't want to cut down this whole tree just because I want to build a new nest in one area of it.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
This thing is growing and it kind of takes on a life of its own after you plant the seed.
And you've got to then tend to the tree.
I'm there to protect it and help it and feed it and grow it and be part of it.
And I don't want to have to cut it down just because I feel like, you know, Making a new offshoot or something.
Right.
Yeah, and some artists feel that way.
Billy Joel, I think he said, he said, I'm never going to write better songs than I did in my 30s.
They're incredible.
Because I'm just, I became rich and fat.
You know, like, it's kind of like the fighter George St.
Pierre's trainer said, you know, it's very hard to get out of the bed at 5 a.m.
to train to defend your title when you're sleeping in silk sheets.
That's a very good point.
It's true.
So it's like, just embrace it, you know?
And I think it's very noble, and also I understand artists that don't do that, but you just got to do what feels right to you.
Great.
Well, you do seem like you're in a good place.
I feel like there's things happening, and I'm thankful.
Certain things that we can't talk about, but big projects that may be in the works for you.
Yes, exciting stuff coming up.
As always, very surprising things I never would have expected in a million years.
I've turned myself over to whatever this thing is, this force, this destiny, and it is pulling me along.
I'm just doing the best I can to make the most of it as it happens.
Well, okay, where can people best find you?
Inderwk.com.
Okay.
All one word, two W's.
And then every other website with Inderwk at the end.
Twitter.com slash Inderwk.
All the social media's mentioned.
YouTube.com slash Inderwk.
Do you do YouTube?
Are you on YouTube?
Yeah, I don't update it as much as some do with videos every day.
I would like to.
It takes a lot of discipline.
I stick with Twitter.
That became my...
Your thing.
I just loved how one-dimensional and pure and short and like...
So it felt like you were hanging out at a party, actually, with all these people chattering back and forth.
We didn't even talk about partying.
I'm so sorry.
I got it in there.
I got it in there.
Thanks, man.
Thank you very much.
Hey, if you like this video, subscribe by clicking my face or watch this video next to me playing in a box.
Not Andrew WK. He's here, but there's another box next to him that you can click.
Maybe we should put him in a box.
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