And obviously, I end every mix on a depressing note, because you SHOULD BE CRYING WHEN THE MUSIC STOPS BECAUSE IT BRINGS BACK MEMORIES OF THE MUSIC STOPPING DURING THE MUSICAL CHAIRS INCIDENT IN '97 WHEN JANIE FUCKING MILLMAN BROKE YOUR LEFT TOE.

And wha-la! You have the perfect soundtrack to accompany your sticky summer shenanigans.

Enjoy, and remember, stay cool this summer. Heat stroke prevention is as easy as going to the movie theatre.

I hear Terrence Mallick's "Tree of Life" is really thought-provoking.

You'll probably like it.

First question: you really love the feeling of making other people happy and getting them to have fun.  Do you do that everywhere you go? Like, if you go grocery shopping, do you engage people you pass in the aisles?

On a case by case, situation by situation, I do really love grocery shopping, especially with someone else there. Friend, family member, cruising through those aisles to me really is a party of food, of consumable items, and especially if you're deciding creating a feast or even just picking out items to snack on right then, I certainly am in a good mood in that grocery store atmosphere. Any kind of food place. But yeah, it's always case by case, sometimes one of my favorite things is just moving through this world in a quiet way and just watching what's going on, that's what I like about traveling alone is just getting to look out the window and see things, watch people go by, or stand on the street corner and check things out. Sometimes I just observe and that's always nice.

In all of your performances you're always exuding total energy and enthusiasm.  Is that projected enthusiasm always 100% genuine, or do you sometimes have to fake it for the sake of the fun?

Well it's an interesting question, it's like if I was going to headbang, do I have to find the energy to headbang or does it happen naturally? I think that all of life, getting up every day, has some kind of inspiration or motivation behind it, even if it's just to survive, just to eat food and exist. But other than that, I use all kinds of different sources of energy to get that motivation personally. And a huge part of it is music. This music, and I'm sure you can relate to how any music that you love, it gives you a power. Even to think about a song in your head that you really really love, I find that it creates this sense of energy, and it's like electricity, it's like this power source that you can put towards anything, and I look to this music as a huge power source, even if I'm not playing a song, just to keep that music inside of me and close to my soul. It's like a battery that helps give me the strength to do things I might not otherwise be able to do. You always want to have a cause to work towards, and I also can think about something real basic like the fact that someday I'll die, the fact that I've been very blessed to have these opportunities I have, that I want to make the most of them and not blow it, and like you said earlier, that this is opportunity to create this power and this feeling of motivation and inspiration and excitement and energy for other people too, so we're all in it together. And the more that I create it and put it out there, the more that it bounces back to give me further power. It's a bit like a perpetual motion machine. Between the people like you, for example, who receive this, just talking about this is getting me amped up, and giving me power to keep doing it for another day. So it really is like a group effort and we want to harness the power we find in anything around us to keep going and to keep pushing ourselves to do our very best.

So playing off of that, getting energy from others and giving the energy to others, I'd say you're one of the experts on getting people to just let loose and have fun.  How can the rest of us be good instigators of good times?

That's a good question. It's not so much leading by example or trying to muster people up or prod or poke at them to get going. I find that if you yourself locate a source of excitement whether it's a song or going out to a certain place or any activity, going to see a movie, getting together with friends or family, even spending time alone, you can constantly be making choices on how to present your perspective. And if the perspective you're presenting, the way you're looking at the world, is appealing and seems exciting, seems interesting, captures people's imaginations, then you can inspire them purely by the way you look out at the world. I don't think that's the same as leading by example so much, or people just seeing how you do something and then doing it as a form of inspiration, I think it's more reminding people that they have their own version of the same skill and the same power and to tap into it the same way that you are.

Growing up in Ann Arbor did the university and college town atmosphere play a role in how you turned out?

Absolutely, yeah, for sure. Anyplace you go has some kind of effect even if you try to not absorb any of the place you're still reacting to it in some way. There's no way would be here in New York right now if I hadn't grown up in Ann Arbor. There's no way I would have been exposed to really just about 50 to 80 percent of the stuff I've been exposed to in life, which is quite a bit, happened initially in Ann Arbor from the people that I met there and in southeast Michigan in general, and I really had mentors whether they were older kids at my school or full blown adults who were making music and living their life and had access to experiences or books or ideas. They could turn me onto stuff they could introduce me to things that I didn't even know you could be introduced to. And I really got hooked on having my mind blown, being excited and surprised and shocked and amazed by what the world had to offer to any one of us. And I really did rely and benefit from the people in this town who were willing to answer my questions and tell me about things and show me this or that. I can't really imagine what would happen if I hadn't had those people around and those people were in Ann Arbor.

Speaking of Ann Arbor, do you plan on coming to Ann Arbor anytime soon, either for a show or for one of your motivational speeches?

I would love to, yeah.  Ann Arbor, as you're aware, has a strange situation because despite the fact that it's a very major, especially cultural area, in the Midwest in general, it still seems like most events concerts or otherwise happen in Detroit, or certainly a lot of them. And I've only played with Andrew W.K. and my full band one show in Ann Arbor at the Michigan Theater years and years ago and it was amazing, it was so over the top significant, the first concert I ever saw of any band at all, which was Blues Traveler, was at the Michigan Theater. And it was completely mind blowing to go back there and play. So I would love to play many more shows in Ann Arbor at any number of venues and would certainly love to do lectures or anything else. But lectures I could set it up on my own in a regular venue where you would go see a band play or even an unusual venue but one that is open to the public or oftentimes -- the last lecture I just did last week in Montreal Canada was in a university, so you can always try to invite me. I would love that.

So what do you love about your show, Destroy Bill Destroy? [editor's note: Andrew W.K. is the host of Destroy Build Destroy, a show in which two teams of teenagers watch as something is destroyed (like a trailer or a boat or something), build something using the scraps from the wreckage, pit their creation against the other team's creation, and the winning team gets to destroy the losing team's creation in awesome ways]

So many things about it. There's so many things about it I mean if I had to make up a basic list.  One: I love the atmosphere of making TV at all. Just working with this team of people, the cameras, the lights, the sets, the script, the whole idea of making this series of visuals and sounds to be played on a television set, and all this energy, and manpower, and money, and focus, and time, and effort is going into just creating this experience, just something that you absorb as a viewer as a consumer of this type of entertainment like TV. It's all that work like a movie but you're not working to build a house or working to build a boat or working to do anything that lasts outside of that experience. I mean you can go and watch the TV show again but it's still just an experience, it's not a physical object that you can pick up and walk away with. So I really love that aspect of television, how disposable it is and how fleeting it is.  It reminds me of how life is in general and that it's sort of ridiculous -- you're here on this earth and you do all this stuff but what does it add up to at the end of the day? And it's not permanent and no matter how much we want to things they always just pass by and I feel like TV really acknowledges the absurdity of life and presents that basically in everything it does, it's all a big fake out. But in addition to that, because those are all good things for me, I love the show itself I mean I get to be around dynamite, and these massive explosions, and these incredible builders and destroyers that we have, engineers and carpenters, incredible guys -- and a woman as well -- and the contestants, the kids who come on the show are amazing people. They're handpicked for being the smartest best applicants and the most unique minds and you have to be pretty smart to work on these teams to build what they are asked to build and to destroy what they're asked to destroy. And it's quite amazing to be at the center of this circus, really, of monster trucks flying over jumps, huge mushroom cloud explosions going off, military tanks with me riding in it screaming through a megaphone. It really is an opportunity to create the fantasy of a young person, like a rock n roll guy going crazy or you and your friends build this car that explodes, and you win money and go home!  I mean it's just a kind of very pure fun that I really feel honored to get to participate in. I think it uses a lot of the skill I've been able to develop over the years in a new way.

A lot of the time, when other rock stars talk about partying hard, it focuses on a lot of sex and drugs, but when you encourage people to party hard, you focus on the passion and positive energy of just having fun in general.

 Everybody has their own way of having fun. There's a lot of things that people are going to agree upon, of course for example music, that's why when you go see someone perform live there's usually more than one person there watching cause other people agree that this is a fun way to celebrate life. It's a good thing to do while you are alive. And there's a lot of different choices when it comes to that and I just have always wanted to leave it very open. Never tell anyone how to party or what the right way is or what the wrong way is, I can give suggestions and give ideas. It's always changing for me too, things I find fun now, I didn't find fun when I was first born and vice versa. And that's the beauty of life is you're always expanding and shifting and unfolding. And what you enjoy doing is your own. That's part of what you own as yourself. If you want to give yourself that freedom to indulge in your own joy and let everybody else do the same. To me partying in that very basic way that I think about it, is just celebrating not being dead. And we understand partying to be a moment of festivity that we usually reserve for some special event like your birthday, or the weekend, or spring break, or New Years Eve. We celebrate those moments. But a great event is also just waking up and not being dead. And that's reason to celebrate every day. And that to me is the party hard attitude. To be basically aware of the fact that we have this chance to enjoy ourselves before we die and do that every day, party our life away, in a celebratory, glorious explosion.

One of my all-time favorite videos of you is your performance at the Spike TV video game awards. The one where you're in a wheelchair and you still manage to rock out even harder than usual. What would it take to actually stop you from partying?

Wow, probably just death.  But even then I've been working on a way to continue to party even after that. I haven't perfected it yet. I'll have to hopefully test it many many years from now. But I'm determined.

What's been the most fun experience of your life?

Just being alive in general. It's too difficult, I'm sure you could agree. So many situations to just pick one thing in life, like one greatest moment, one favorite song, one best friend, one favorite food. It's possible but it often seems to change and it often seems to be more fun to have a whole bunch of stuff that you can like, like 30 favorites, 30 best songs, and just look at the world as a treasure trove. Like a funhouse buffet of excitement we just get to pick and choose from whenever we feel like it.

What would you say to someone who is introverted and has trouble at parties?

Well, that's okay. It's okay to be shy if that's the way it feels to you. It's a tricky thing because if you can embrace however you happen to feel at the moment, being comfortable in that way would usually stop you from being shy so it's an interesting way of resolving itself. The more paranoid, the more freaked you are about being shy (and I have a lot of experience with being shy), that seems to have made it worse. I think its realizing just how silly everything is and just how awkward everyone feels all the time and that it's completely hilarious. Just existence in general and participating in these events of life whether they're social situations or certain kinds of communication or relationships that you're in, it's all just completely insane. The whole thing. And that's something that should take the pressure off rather than put more pressure on. The absurdity of existence is like a big relief. It doesn't need to be a crushing kind of depressing fact that in the grand scheme of the universe you just are very small and insignificant, it's a very liberating fact. It's a very freeing way of looking at life. And also despite how insignificant or small each one of us may be, we also do have these undeniable powers that can get results in our lives. So it's a chance to make the best of it while we're here.

When did you discover this philosophy of yours, where just realizing the absurdity of everything really takes the pressure off? Do you think that's integral to who you are and what you've become?

I've been trying like anybody else over all these years to find different ways to think about the world and to look out at life that feel good. Just different ways that make it feel even better to be alive. And doing Andrew W.K. has been a way to find these methods to come up with ideas, to learn a lot of ideas, and to get exposed to the kind of joyful state that I just want to be in as much as possible just like anybody else. And the great thing is that it ends up being, like I said before, a group effort where we're all together in it psyching each other up. And anybody who participates in what this is has a chance to add to it and to receive some great support back. I think of it like that, like a pep rally. We're just there to psyche each other up and to generate that kind of motivation and inspiration and feeling of "Okay yeah, let's go, let's go, one more day, let's go, let's do it, what are we going to make of this day?" And realize you have this team this support team with you who's psyched and pumped up and wants to party. So whether you're there with me in person or just an idea that we keep in our heads I feel like I'm always very close to this sense of this circle of friends who want to be liked.

If someone's partying is getting in the way of other people having a good time, what should be done?

That's an interesting thing, it's hard for anybody or anything to get in your way unless you keep walking in that direction. There's a lot of ways to go, the roads are usually pretty wide in life. You don't have to keep bumping into this person on this huge open sidewalk when there's plenty of space to go any number of other directions. You could just go around the person. So don't let other peoples' stuff interfere with you by simply side stepping it. We don't have to confront every single person or experience or thing that doesn't fit what we're into at that moment. Just let it pass. I think it's very hard to stop someone from having fun, and to blame it on someone else is a little silly because we have the power to interpret the situation any way we want, we have the power to react to it, and we certainly have the power 90% of the time, even 99% of the time, to go somewhere else.

Does it ever bum you out that there are people who aren't living their lives to the fullest?

No.

Do your own thing. Who am I to say that they are or are not living their lives to the fullest, or who am I to say that even living your life to the fullest is such a great thing? It just happens to be what I've been into. And my version of living life to the fullest could seem like nothing to someone else. The astronaut in outer space, working on science projects, climbing Mount Everest, doing all kinds of stuff they might think, like, charitable work, work that changes the world in various physical ways like building houses for people, helping people, they might think I'm not living my life to the fullest.  It's best just to not judge.

Your first two albums, I Get Wet and The Wolf, were these big party anthem albums, and then we got a more melodic but still energized album with Close Calls With Brick Walls, and then 55 Cadillac was a collection of improvised piano sessions.  Were CCWBW and 55 Cadillac the albums you'd always wanted to make but couldn't until you had the commercial success of your first two albums, or has every album been exactly what you wanted to make at the time?

Well I certainly wanted to try to make it yeah, and the results are what they are and you try again. Make another album. And you realize that this attempt or this try is what it was, and that success is any attempt at all in a way. So that's what's motivating about it. I'm trying to make the most exciting feeling I can every time, every song even, song by song. Of course I try to think about the album as a whole but the album is sort of like one long song as well, and you sort of want to get to that place of joyful excitement somehow or another, and all the work I do is to get to that place. Each time.

Speaking of the huge diversity of your work, do you ever worry that your incredible persona and your first hits from I Get Wet [Party Hard and She Is Beautiful] overshadow your other, more subtle art?

No, they're meant to. I'm not here to prove anything to anybody one way or another, other than try to, as I said, generate this feeling, stir up some emotions like anybody else. And beyond that it's just some people notice certain things and other people notice other things. It's like yelling out to the world but within that one yell there's also whispers. And those whispers are only meant for certain people, or they're only able to be heard by certain people. And pretty much anybody can hear the yelling, this big shout, but within that there's hidden voices that communicate to certain people and they pick up on it. And as long as there's those few that are meant to get it -- it's not meant for everybody, some of these things -- so I'm happy to offer enough that people can take and enjoy any one of the number of offerings I am offering, meaning that I want to provide different kinds of fun for all kinds of people, and there are different kinds of ideas that appeal to different kinds of people, and I would ideally like to represent them all. I want this to be about being a human being and there's a lot that goes with that. There's everything. But you can't say everything at once to everybody at once, so you do these special shouts and whispers. And those that are meant to hear the part that appeals to them hopefully will.                

All that I'm concerned with with this work is to create this kind of feeling and I hope that everybody has a chance to get that in their own way. It's a dangerous game to get caught up in trying to impress people.

I Get Wet, The Wolf, and CCWBW - those albums all had many of layers to the music.  Then on 55 Cadillac, it was just a very simple setup - just you and a piano.  What was that like, transitioning from being able to change every detail and layer of the music versus the "just go with your feeling" that was on 55 Cadillac?

I just try to do the most extreme opposite things as I could.  Despite how scared I may have been to do that.  I thought it would be a pretty bad idea to record an album like that but that sort of appealed to me, was that everything about the approach was different in that there was no way to change what I did or improve upon it, it just was what it was and it might not even be good. And to realize that it doesn't need to be, or, that's not what it's about. It was about trying to make an album with that headspace and having the guts to do it. I really like humiliation, that's a big part of being a performer cause you're putting yourself out there on the stage. Anytime you go up there in front of people its automatically embarrassing by its very nature, it's meant to be. And that's where a lot of excitement and energy comes from its just seeing "who the heck does this person think they are to get up and offer me anything, take my time as an audience member, what are they going to give me?" And that record was definitely the most exposed and vulnerable thing I had ever done and I think that was pretty much what it meant to me. The best thing that happened from that record so far, and I feel like it was destiny, giving a reason for it to exist, was ah... here's a situation where I will pick a favorite. My favorite visual artist is a man named Lucas Samaras, he was in New York and it's a long story but basically he heard that record and wanted to meet me. And that just came out of nowhere but also had this very nice roundabout way of getting introduced to him, and I thought well if he liked that album then it was worth me doing. I don't think I would have met him otherwise.

Also, with just a piano, there's nothing but what it is.  In addition to that, it's the first instrument I've ever learned. It's the one I've been playing the longest. So it's the closest to me and my most elemental in my whole musical understanding, my whole experience with music started with piano so of course it was very personal as well. But I remember being very concerned, like people aren't going to think that I'm playing piano very well here, and then learning to be okay with that. That's not what I'm here to do. If I wanted to be a concert pianist there would have been a very different direction I would have taken. A big part of the work I want to do is to provide questions and I felt like that record was a pretty good question. I don't think that you can tell whether this person can play piano particularly well or not, and I think that's the best success, that's the best thing about the record.

You said one of the thrills of performing is the possibility of humiliation. I'm actually an amateur standup comedian, and when I'm performing, I feel nervous, but as soon as I start getting laughs I get really energized and pumped up and the show gets better, it's like a feedback loop.

It is, it's just the most extreme situation, the dynamics of contrast between total humiliation and ego crushing feelings, and then total elation and ego boosting super human powerful feelings because you do have everyone's attention, you are up on the stage, there is have a light on you, you are creating this thing that is getting reactions. So it's like the biggest ego boost and the biggest ego crusher, but that's the thrill, that's what's so fantastic about it. You get addicted to that combination.

If you have a bad show, how do you cope with that?  Do you feel bummed out afterwards, or do you see it as another absurd thing about life?

There's a trick there because despite the fact that life is absurd and there's no reason to worry about anything, we choose within this life, this game, to play. And if you're going to play you might as well play as great as you can. And there are all kinds of earthly rewards for doing so.  It's to be aware that it's still this ridiculous game and nothing is worth a certain level of stress and nothing is meant to be taken too seriously. But we do have a choice with what to do with our time here in this system that we've created. People, and things to do, and so as this person you have the choice of what you're going to do so you might as well do it well. So in that way I don't take anything seriously but I take this very seriously. I take having fun very seriously within this idea that nothing is serious at all because it couldn't possibly be serious. But we can still pretend that certain things are and then act that way so you end up caring about things. Even though no matter how many times we mull over the ideas about death, and about losing people, and we really don't know where they go after they die, we understand that everything is impermanent yet we really cling to things. It doesn't change the fact that it's very intense and painful when someone dies no matter how much we think about these undeniable facts of existence. And I think that goes with any kind of pursuit or any kind of effort, so yeah, I've gotten, and I imagine I will again, very depressed all the time because you care about what you're doing and you want it to be good. But I've also learned that a lot of things that I've thought were the worst things that ever happened to me, the worst I've ever done, turned out to be some the greatest things that ever happened, or led to opportunities that never would have happened before so I also try not to pretend like I know too much about what's going on even in my own life. You make these plans and have ideas of what you want to do, but thank God most of them don't go like you think they will. They take their own route. Your fate is unfolding itself to you and you're definitely collaborating with that. You have some control over where you go, but it seems like if you have a path that's meant for you, you will go there almost no matter what you do. That allows you to concern yourself with the quality of your efforts, but also to understand that your road will continue to lead you and the best thing you can do is put that energy into continuing to move forward, and that's the problem about getting too depressed or too upset or being too hard on yourself is cause it starts to take away your ability to do well right now. Cause you're so caught up in what happened before. So at some point you just have to release yourself and use it as inspiration, like "Well fine, fuck it. This time I'm going to totally make up for that. I'm going to do it better than ever. I learned my lesson." This is how you learn stuff, is to see a video or performance to see things that you could do better, to see things you thought looked bad turned out they looked amazing, things that you thought were so awesome turned out they don't even work. You don't even know. So I don't have as much of an idea of what I'm doing as I think I do all the time and I try to just trust some inner instinct or gut rather than be too hard on any of it. I really care about this as much as anyone could care about anything so it gets intense for sure, but there's nothing wrong with being upset or discouraged as long as you can still move forward.  You have to use those feelings as inspiration as power unto themselves. All feelings and emotions, all situations can be directed in a way I think can benefit you. You can harness some kind of energy out of anything. Someone being mean to you, there's a way to twist it and use it to empower you. That certainly seems like a fun way to approach situations. Even if it doesn't work all the time it works a lot of the time.  You just got to get power from everything you can. Like Kobe Bryant, great basketball player, he does best under pressure. The more people are looking at him with criticism or judgment the better he seems to do. The more negative feedback he got the more fired up it made him to show everybody. There are all kinds of ways to use discouragement or to use opposition or to use adversity to bring you up to higher levels than you'd otherwise need to go. That's how you bring out the best in yourself and if everything is easy all the time, what's the adventure in this?  We want to have a journey. Some kind of excitement with the highs and lows, and ups and downs, and the hard parts and easy parts, and rewards and struggles and just let it be a movie.

I think the people who just know you as the guy who made Party Hard will be really interested to see how much more there is to Andrew W.K.

There's nothing more that I would ever have to offer than that. I fully embrace that, or the bloody nose guy or whoever, none of that matters as long as someone out there gets some kind of jolt.

When you performed at the Gathering of the Juggalos, the audience treated you terribly, booing the entire time and throwing garbage and bottles at you, but you stayed positive and were incredibly kind to them the whole time. Were you actually really feeling that kindness and positivity that you were giving off then, or were you just doing it to keep everyone else having a good time? Looking back on the gathering of the Juggalos, how do you feel about it?

I feel great about it and really glad that I did it and I'm very thankful to have been invited. The performance itself, I just approached it like I would any other show except I was just that much more excited about being out in the middle of that park, that cave-in rock park, I was just amazed by the whole event, the whole organization of the entire festival. It was very inspiring and very exciting and meaningful to me as well because I grew up in Michigan and watched Insane Clown Posse do what they've done against all odds. It's been one of the great stories, in my opinion, in the music business and entertainment, they've done it not only against all odds, but with active opposition and adversity against them. Not only did they not have the support of the traditional music industry, it's been opposition from those things like magazines and TV, and all kinds of people. So to me, here's this amazing achievement that all these people have done together, and I got to see it happen from ground zero in southeast Michigan and then to see and meet them and get to play together was just all these incredible circles connecting and reconnecting. I get really psyched on those kinds of things when you can extract meaning or somehow experiences trace back to earlier parts of your life and you can see this thread of events adding up. It's just wild to me, I love that, it's just so entertaining. And then the show itself is kind of a blur, most shows are because they're so intense, but I think a lot of the audience maybe thought I was either making fun of them or trying to be overly nice or something, but I actually was just approaching it in a very straightforward way. I was just trying to explain how unbelievably psyched I was to be there just telling them the same stuff I just told you about how my life led to this amazing opportunity to play there. But one technical problem was that I didn't have my keyboard. I was supposed to have a keyboard which was a huge part of my set, certainly changed things. I don't know how much different anything would have gone but it was quite a rush. [something got cut off] ...what really helped organize it with the ICP guys and Psychopathic Records is this guy Kevin Gill who has been friends with me for years now and invited me to do a Backyard Wrestling event with Violent J and Shaggy in San Francisco and that's when I first met him and we hit it off we were backstage and I was blown away by their performance that night the songs and the energy they had on stage and this amazing 500 person club, it was a private event, and I was just hooked and convinced forever on that this was a good vibe that I wanted to be part of and I've been very grateful for any opportunity that I've had to participate in it and especially to Kevin Gill for helping facilitate this. Kevin Gill, after that gathering performance said that it's the most positive energy show that he'd seen at the festival all day so I figured well, if he thought it was a great vibe then it must have been. That sure was intense.

You talked about how you find it inspiring that ICP built up this empire by themselves.  What are some other artists or other people you see as an inspiration to yourself?

Lucas Samaras I mentioned for sure, for all kinds of reasons, mainly just the boldness and fearlessness with which he approaches his work and life. The amount of work he does and how hard he works, and the staggering individual nature of his work that is so particular to him... it's just so rare when you see artwork where, to me, the art itself is as unique as the person who made it and its just all one big expression and he really does achieve that. There are all kinds of people, my wife, Cherie Lily, she's a huge inspiration to me and a huge motivation and a huge source of joy. My parents, my dad, my mom, every day all my day is made up of is them. Everything that's ever happened to me started with them, every idea I've ever had somehow began there and I'm happy with that. There's been great advice and great ideas that I still am able to ponder and understand more and more. And then my close friends, my old friends here in New York, my old friends back in Michigan, it's all the people that are usually somehow closer to my life that are the most inspiring, and then of course like anybody great artists and great performers are always very inspiring even if you don't do what they're doing. Just to see the passion with which they approach their work is a great thing.

Talking about inspiration, what were your favorite bands when you were growing up, and do you think they affected the music that you produce?

 Definitely. Most of my favorite bands were from my school, my high school. That was when I really started getting into music in a way that started taking over my life. I'd always been into music since I started playing piano at age 5 or so, and it became kind of second nature like reading or drawing for fun, it was just something that I really enjoyed but I never thought about it as a career. In high school that's when I got more serious and put even more time into doing it and formed bands that actually played real shows out around the town and recorded and released recordings from studios so it's just stepping up our efforts. And the bands in my school, the people I could go and see and talk to and look at in the hallway, how does this person live, how do they do this? I went to a very inspiring school too because, are you familiar with Community High School?

That school was just a massive massive massive part of my whole life. Everything that I got exposed to really came through that school one way or another.  I made friends with a lot of kids who were already out of high school, but it's because that school was downtown I could walk downtown and hang out with these people that worked in the record stores or lived in houses around there that were, you know 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, just out of high school, older, but not quite going to college necessarily, all kinds of wild people. There was just this scene, playing music, tons and tons and tons of shows in all these basement houses and just a very vibrant scene. And I imagine it's probably still going on just as intensely although it always comes and goes, in certain ways there's changes in style. But it was a great era when I was there just like it was so many years before. There's just a history of awesome vibes in this town, there really is, I can't deny it. I've gotten to travel quite a bit now and go all over the world and there is something unique about Ann Arbor and about southeast Michigan in general especially when it comes to intensity and rocking out and going for it, it's a great vibe, it's just the best, I'm so glad. I wasn't born there, I was born in California, but my dad got that job at U of M so he moved there and I'm so grateful every day. At the same time, I don't live there now, and I wanted to move away from there at 18, I just really hated living there, but the more I lived the more I realized how instrumental the time I spent there has been.

When did you know that you wanted to become Andrew W.K.?  Before then, was there anything else when you were younger that you thought you might have wanted to be?

The main thing I was going to do was go to art school for visual art. That's what I thought I was going to do for most of my high school life and even before that, like junior high school, middle school. I even was going to do fashion design and worked for some fashion companies in New York, like this one called Comme Des Garçons. I worked there and became very disillusioned with all these ideas of what I wanted to do, like go to art school in Chicago or move to New York and work in fashion or do photography. I worked as a fashion photographer taking pictures of models, which was an amazing job. Young girls would get sent over to my house and I would get to take pictures of them, it was just unbelievable, I can't believe some of the stuff that I got to do. Different jobs, in different lines of work, all different interests but in the end I realized that entertainment specifically, if you want to call it show business, you can do all of that stuff in this one field, it includes everything. You want to make a painting and put it on an album cover or t-shirt or hang it up in a music video, you want to make a movie of something you can make a movie, if you want to make music well you're making music, if you want to build a sculpture you can put it on stage with you on your show. I mean everything, performing, acting, music, singing, writing, it all can be done in this field. Everything creative that I could ever imagine wanting to do, including clothing, you get to design what you want to wear, and people see it. The stage is like a catwalk in its own way. The style of music, of entertainment, there's so much style and image involved, you get to play with all that. So to me it just came to me, it just dawned on me that all the stuff I had ever been interested in I could basically do in this one field of the entertainment industry. After about a year, I moved here when I was 18 so about 19 I decided to start working on Andrew W.K.

Did you always have this freedom to do whatever you wanted, or did you have to build yourself up first to get the record companies to trust you?

Well, I don't know if they trust me or not but they always let me do what I wanted to do and I'm incredibly grateful for that. Really crazy stuff too, I was fortunate enough to take advantage of, and experience the golden age of the music industry before the internet changed it, and there was a lot of money to be spent and you had a lot of flexibility because of it. One of the things that's changed for certain with people is that it's more restrictive, in some ways because they're less willing to take risks. But at the same time there's so much more freedom of expression and so much more opportunity to get your stuff out and do what you want to do easily that now I think it's more open and you have more flexibility to do exactly what you wanted than ever. I think things have never been better as far as being a creative person. I don't know about being a business person. If you're making the stuff this is a great, great time. And I just had the best team of people, I really did, amazing people. Even people that didn't agree with what I wanted to do or we didn't get along, they were all incredible people who really believed in what this is and continue to believe in it in very loyal ways that I just am very thankful for and am blessed to have benefited from all these peoples beliefs. You can't do this stuff by yourself, no matter how much you would like to you really can't. And I don't know everything in the world so it was great to have teachers and people that have done things to teach you and to help you. My goal is to get this feeling across and if other people have ideas on how to get that feeling across, I'd be a fool, I'd be doing a disservice to this whole mission to not listen to what they're saying.

Musician, TV host, motivational speaker, award-winning nightclub owner -- how do you get involved in so many different things?  Does the process go like, you have an idea for something cool, and you have the freedom and the energy to just go "yeah sure, I'm going to do that"?

It's half of that, and half of it is people coming to you. People's opportunities coming your way and people asking "how about doing this?" And that's the biggest difference in my life now than before when I first started and first moved into New York, when I first moved here I couldn't get a show at all. I had to go out and hunt for shows, very hard. I was able to get them and then get more of course but the amazing thing now when you have so many opportunities is that it gets tricky to sometimes be able to do them all but I usually feel pretty strongly that if something comes my way it was meant to come my way. It doesn't mean you have to do it but I'm always interested and take it very seriously because hey, I want to be busy! I want to be full of activity and the more I've done, the less busy I felt, which has been very odd. I think it's because it's been refreshing, instead of overwhelming. Of course there's completely insane moments where I wonder why I take on so much, and think why did I do these things in particular, but it's still not nearly as much work as other people do in their lives, whatever kind of work it may be, and it's all related. So it all kinda feeds off itself in a refreshing way, like getting to go do TV, it's such a great related type of performance to singing on stage but it's very different. Then it makes it exciting to go and play a show because I get to do some move I thought about during the TV filming or apply some move I do on stage to the TV show and it all just sorta bounces back, they all fit under the same umbrella somehow.

You've got so many projects on your plate, it seems like you never take a break.  Do you ever just lounge around on the couch watching TV?

Yeah, I think doing nothing is also very important because a lot of time when you're doing nothing is when you get the ideas for things you do want to do. And some of the best ideas I've had have been when I wasn't doing something else. Cause when you're engaged in some very worthwhile activity, your mind isn't looking for some new idea or some breakthrough to do later, and even if it does come up with something, you're not necessarily able to pursue it right at that moment or think about it much more or even write it down or record it if you have some word idea or song idea or just some concept but if you're just sitting there that's a great moment. You want to be able to sit there and let these things come to you.  It takes quiet time.  I think it's really important to spend time alone every day, and to spend time not actively doing anything other than just thinking. And you can call it meditating, you can watch TV, you can read a book, it's when you're not running around. I think it's good to just sit down.

Most of my ideas for jokes or for this magazine actually come to me while I'm in the shower.

Yeah, showers are great, too.  It's a quiet moment alone, it's definitely a solitary vibe. Unless of course there's someone in the shower with you! But, like driving for example. One of my favorite parts about filming the TV show is driving to the set every day and then driving back every day. Most of the time, I don't own a car, in New York there's no need, and I always loved owning a car when I lived in Michigan. I loved driving around but, it's not that I miss too much, and I certainly rent cars a lot here in New York and get driven around most of the time in taxis or the subway or whatever, like a sedan that you take to the airport or whatever it may be. But to be in control of your own transportation, in those moments when I get to drive to the set, it's like sunrise, 6 AM, driving there and it's this moment of, it's like the best. I don't even listen to the radio a lot of the time. Just complete silence maybe have a window open a little bit, just looking out, it's beautiful, a beautiful land out there in Santa Clarita California, and just be amazed that I get to do this stuff in life and just get psyched up for the day and just have this quiet moment. It's like a decompression time and a preparation time.

Do you have any ideas for things you might want to do in the future that you just don't have time for right now, or can't make happen right now but really are looking forward to doing one day?

Yeah, there's a lot of things, and I don't know that talking about them has always served me well.  Because then people are waiting, and go "Where is it? Where is it? You said you were going to do this thing" but there's tons of stuff I'd love to do, different projects, different types of albums and different types of work. It'll happen at the right time, that I'm very confident of. That allows things to go as they're meant to go.  I don't need to twist the up too much, because I do have plenty of time to do other stuff.

You have the new EP coming out, Party All Goddamn Night.  With a title like that, should we expect a return to the party anthems from I Get Wet and The Wolf?

I don't think of it as a return to anything, as always I'm just trying to get to the place of maximum excitement and party power. That remains my goal. And that's a great goal, at least for me, because there's always some new way to get there. You try to figure out a new route, like what's even a more direct way to get there, whets an even more exciting part to have in a song, what's an even more thrilling melody, like how can we exceed this? It's like a fireworks show, and we're going to blow their minds this year because we've got the smiley face firework, we have a three dimensional cube firework, we have a firework that's so massive that it takes up the entire sky, or whatever.   That's what I'm doing here.  It's like special effects. It's like how can we create this completely euphoric, giddy feeling that it's great to be alive and we're going to go nuts. That's really the goal one way or another, and there really are just many ways to get there. I think that's just where I want to go, it's this feeling of possibility is the best way to sum it up. It doesn't have to be this high manic state, it doesn't have to be all sweaty, it can be however you want it to be, it can be quiet to someone, but it just has to be this sense of possibility. Like the feeling of the first day of summer vacation, just "oh my god life is so fantastic", the feeling when you first get to an amusement park and go down the first hill of the first roller coaster, assuming you like roller coasters. Just that amazing feeling like, could life get any better? No. This is the feeling that I'm trying to create.

Is that the feeling that you have when you're making the music? Or are you more focused on creating the great product?

Both. If it's going well then it feels like that the whole time. But it can be very painful as well. It can be extremely frustrating at times. Sometimes it happens where everything comes together very easily, sometimes something that you worked so long on ends up still not being nearly as effective as something that took two seconds to figure out, and that's all part of the joy of it -- that it's not easy, but the rewards are really thrilling. It's still one of the biggest rushes to me to try to crack some code to figure out a new way to hit that jackpot payout of excitement in music or just in entertainment.  Like how can we get to that place of just being so fucking psyched? To me it's just amazing.  Especially being older, being an adult and getting to do this as my life is just incredible. To me, there's so many different things you could work on, and I get to try to psyche people up, it's like my mission and I'm very grateful.

If you hadn't had the fortune you've had being able to live this life that you love, if you had for whatever reason ended up just as someone working in a cubicle farm, how do you think you'd be living and feeling now if you just didn't have this great opportunity?

I don't think people "wind up" working anywhere. You choose to work there. There's very very few situations where people truly have no power and no opportunity, at least in this great country, and many places around the world. You can pretty much do what you want. With that, of course, there's a lot of responsibility. But it's much nicer to blame circumstance or something else when you're not enjoying what you're doing and I am very fortunate and very lucky and very blessed in a humbling way, but I try to really use it for all it's worth and do as much as I can with the opportunities I've been given for everyone out there who doesn't have the same opportunity, in their honor. I know if they had it they would go for it. There also is that personal side to it where if you're working a job you don't like, then quit the goddamn job! Life, you can hold back, but the minute you don't, life will just fly forward. You'll think back to that time like, "I can't believe I didn't quit a year before." Or whatever. "I can't believe I waited to do what I really wanted to do in life for so long." It's just a series of steps to walk from one end of the block to another, it can seem like a very long distance, it can seem really intense but you know what? Just putting one foot in front of the other and taking those steps, you will get there. And it might be tiring but eventually you will get to the other end and you'll look back and say "Wow, okay, now I'm here" and it happened. But you have to take action. And that's that magical element that manifests dreams. You have to do something. And it's best to do it before you even think you can.

Has there ever been something that you were really focused on and excited for, and for whatever reason it just didn't turn out? Did you get bummed out or think it was meant to happen and just move on?

Yes, move on. Just move on. Not to wrestle with it too much because one, there's nothing you can do. And two, I don't know if the point of my work is for me to like it after its done so much as to do it, so it doesn't really matter somehow, I've kinda given up on being my own number one fan. It's still a helpful way to work, to think about, "Would I like this if I discovered it?" of course. If I wasn't me or if I was me but not doing this, but it's impossible to think that because that's not the truth. The truth is I am me and I am doing this so I can never have an objective point of view and look at it from another angle because I'm inside of it. So it's not worth it. I just do the work as best I can. It's a very clear work that's set out in front of me and it's up to me to do it. It's so obvious that this is what I was meant to do, for whatever reason, as ridiculous as it may be. Everybody has their destiny and their true will, what they were born to do in life and this just happens to be the thing that I was born to do, or at least it seems like it. It's very possible that it's not but I think so far it seems like the right direction.

Do you get more pleasure from the experience of creating or from the end product?

Both, fortunately. I think it's good to appreciate both because if you didn't care about the end product, like let's say the finished CD or the finished t-shirt or the finished video or song or show, then it would be hard to muster up the desire to create the thing in the first place. You'd be happy just to play a song for yourself but you want to leave remnants of your efforts here and so I think that it is important and nice to have the desire for a final result. And you hope that the process is fun as well. But the final result is such a short thing. It's like "okay, it's done", it's more just like a relief from the reality of it not being done, which is a very intense state. Once it's done it's just great that it's done and you can just move on.

Is there anything you want to talk about? Anything you want to tell the readers?

I think we've covered a lot, and some things I don't often get to talk about.  This has been very very fun. Excellent questions, thank you for your familiarity and your preparation and just your thoughtfulness.

The world is a very different place now then it was back then, and the same stereotypes no longer apply. To flll the void, I've developed new ones based on my experiences and a very limited unverified data set:

The Portuegese have small nipples. Conversely, the Brazilians have large ones. Use this to differentiate the two.

Never let anyone you know, especially not children, be left alone with a Bulgarian. They'll try to convince you that Star Wars: A New Hope was the best of the original trilogy, when time and fandom has clearly selected Return of the Jedi. Truly a backwards people.

The Chinese have a mutation that has made then genetically immune to Beatlemania.

1 in every 3 Canadians are genetically engineered for extra niceness. Additonally, a maple syrup substitute is secreted instead of sweat. Delicious, delicious, sweat.

Everyone from Iceland is sexy. Even Bjork. Especially Bjork.

Never approach a Kenyan in a swamp, their natural environment.  Here, they gain an additional +3 to attack as well as an additional 1d10 of damage.  

The Swedes are a bunch of pansy-ass spawn campers  

Bolivians can unhinge their jaws to devour any cake with more than two layers

The French don't actually exist. It's been an ongoing joke that got out of hand, and your parents didn't have the heart to tell you.

So go forth, dear reader, and spread frequently inaccurate preconceptions!