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-Party #3-
September 6, 2011

Missed interviews 1 & 2? Check them out here: Party #1 & Party #2

Andrew W.K.: What would you like to talk about this time?  I’m always curious.

AWKMusic: I would like to get into your past discography again… if that’s alright?

Andrew W.K.: Sure, the site is looking really amazing by the way, it always does. I just can’t thank you enough for how good it is.

AWKMusic: Thanks! I’ve never been able to confirm if there was a single released in Japan for “Long Live The Party”, do you know if there is any substance to that?

Andrew W.K.: I don’t know if it came out as a separate release. I mean digitally it may have, although digital at that point in 2003… hmm. I mean, there was a song I did called “Long Live The Zippy” is that what you’re talking about? It was a special version of Long Live The Party that I believe was shortened slightly from the album version where I said “I want to be a zippy, I want to be a zippy” and other lyrics were changed to pay tribute to the radio station “Zip FM”. It’s just a long standing and popular station that’s also been very supportive of us in Japan. I think they did release it on an annual compilation CD they put out every year. It has different artists with songs and with funny messages and different things. So that did happen, maybe that’s what people have been confused about. There is a video for it we filmed and I vaguely remember seeing it or seeing clips from it at some point.

AWKMusic: People have thought in addition to that there was a single, but it sounds like that’s not the case. I’m also aware that on The Wolf’s U.S. version of Long Live That Party is slightly shorter.

Andrew W.K.: Yea, on that song [LLTP] it’s the way it starts. On the Japanese version there’s a longer intro. For some reason we had that ability, I don’t remember why it was such a subtle change though. I actually liked it both ways, I guess I couldn’t decide whether I liked it slightly longer at the beginning or slightly shorter. Or someone was maybe giving me their advice or their opinion that shorter was better. So anyway, I did the U.S. version one way and was also satisfied that I could do the Japanese version and do the longer way. I think we did release it as a single but it never came out as a separate packaged release, does that make sense?

AWKMusic: Right, so it was just for the radio stations or something.

Andrew W.K.: Yea and we filmed a video for it where we used live footage. We just re-edited live footage that we also used from Furnace Fest [2003 concert] and we also used the “Your Rules” video from the US. It was just that in Japan they wanted to release a party song first instead of Never Let Down as the first single. So they choose that song and we sent it to them. But yea we never released it as a packaged release.

AWKMusic: OK great! That’s been out there for years so it’s great to know what happened.

Andrew W.K.: Yea unless it’s out there somewhere and someone can find it, but I’m not aware of it.

AWKMusic: Actually speaking about live stuff, there’s a guy named Dave “Big Shirt” Nichols.

Andrew W.K.: Yea! He was our sound-man from the very beginning, from when we first started up until… boy I’m not sure what was the last show he did with us. Maybe in 2004 or 2005. You know, our whole band and crew was largely assembled by Donald Tardy [1st drummer in A.W.K.] who had worked with Big Shirt in Obituary. Big Shirt went on to work with Slipknot and actually worked with them for several years and he’s just amazing. He was a lot of fun, he was an Englishman and actually our first tour we ever did was in England. So it was very helpful to have an Englishman and have a very big and strong guy. He’s huge, that’s why they call him “Big Shirt” [laughter]. That’s because there’s some kind of tradition in England, like here [U.S.] we might call someone “tiny” if there really big or whatever. So there, this nickname that you do if you’re big, I guess, you call the person a “big shirt”; and that becomes their nickname.

Big Shirt told a story about how during his years of being big and being called “Big Shirt”. One day on tour he met a guy who came up and said “Hey, I heard your name is Big Shirt?” and he was like “Yea, well it’s my nickname”. And then the guys said “Well I got an even bigger shirt and I’m called Big Shirt too and I think I’m the Big Shirt”. The guy was bigger than him, so then that guy became “Bigger Shirt” [laughter]. But yea he’s an amazing guy, I miss him a lot. He also tour managed us very briefly for a moment. He was with us for years and years on that first five year stretch. We were on the road constantly and he was there for more than majority of it.

AWKMusic: I came across a guy who made a documentary on you guys. I guess he joined your crew and filmed for you guys for a little bit.

Andrew W.K.: Is it the Brandons?

AWKMusic: Yea! So I contacted him a while ago and we had some correspondence. But he mentioned that Big Shirt had a lot of the audio from the soundboards from the first five years.

Andrew W.K.: Yea he did, he recorded tons of stuff. In fact in Japan we also released some live tracks on The Wolf. The Japanese version of The Wolf had two bonus tracks that were live versions of “Party Hard” and “She is Beautiful”. Those are board mixes from his recordings on tour, they sound amazing. I think we mixed them though, like he worked on them to get them to sound as good as they do. Yea he does have a ton of other stuff and man, those recordings are so good that we could release that as a live album. They’re even better than some of the sound from the Who Knows? footage. I should try to reach out to him right now, thanks for reminding me about that.

AWKMusic: So did he hand over all that audio to you guys or does he still have it?

Andrew W.K.: I don’t know if he officially did or not, I don’t remember where I would have put it. Because that was before I even had a house, being on tour and everything. It’s very possible… yea! I’m 99% positive that he did give me tons of stuff and it’s probably all in a big plastic box in Michigan or someplace like that. I just accumulated so much stuff on the road and I didn’t keep it as organized as I would have liked. Although I will say I’ve done a pretty good job archiving a large amount of stuff over the years. Although it hasn’t been as detailed as I would have liked. It’s something I learn about all the time. If I was really going to do it right I would have someone filming everything, someone keeping track of everything they film, someone recording everything, someone taking pictures and putting everything in folders. But that’s a huge amount of work. I’ve been trying to do it myself and from time to time I’ve hired people to help with it. That’s what’s so great about your site is that you’re doing it by finding what other people might have already done or organizing it and centralizing it, that’s why your help has been so valuable.

AWKMusic: Right, and I’ve found that it’s pretty much an impossible task because it seems like you’re constantly doing stuff, so it’s really hard to keep up. You do interviews all the time and so it’s hard to say “OK, he was there this day and this day, doing this thing”. It would be very difficult to archive every single thing.

Andrew W.K.: I know, maybe I should set a goal though while we do this next album to take advantage of all the opportunities we’ll have and organize someone who is just dedicated to that. Just to help archive what we’re up to. I also wish I would have kept a journal or a diary even of the most basic day-to-day entries of what I’ve been doing. But the good thing now is that I have Google Calendar, so with that I’m scheduling everything and that automatically keeps a record of what I’ve done. I could go back now for at least a couple of years and see what we’ve done. It’s all things I’m learning about.

Hey! Here’s something that would be cool if you want to help me track down this. The first interview I ever did was in a magazine called “Oui”. I think it’s still around, it’s a pretty classic adult magazine like Hustler or something. But my first friend that I met in New York, worked there and I did an interview with him. I saved that interview along with all my other first press and first photos in this portfolio. That of course went missing during tour somehow, I have no idea. It was a huge thing too so it’s very odd to go missing. It was like this big 2×3 foot folder that had all my press laid out. But that article I’ve been trying to find a copy of because it has my first interview I did as “Andrew W.K.”. in it. It would of been from around 1999 or something like that, but it would be cool if we could track it down.

AWKMusic: Yeah I have read some really early interviews you did.

Andrew W.K.: The two other earliest ones are “Forced Exposure” magazine which is also from around that time, like 1999 or 2000. Then there’s a small, almost all text, kind of literary magazine-book of this interview I did.  That one was really harsh and angry sounding. Someone had found it before, this woman named Dot. You know who might know about that is Holly from dontstopthenoise.com, she may have tracked that down. It’s something like “Drawing… something”. Yea it’s like an artsy kind of magazine, I’ll keep looking for it.

AWKMusic: I’m curious about the history of the Room To Breathe and You Are What You Eat releases and if there are any plans in the future to re-release them?

Andrew W.K.: Yea, I have spoken to Knox Mitchell about re-releasing several of the earlier Andrew W.K. items, which includes You Are What You Eat. I believe he has that and whatever is on the other side [side B]. I think he has a couple of those rare early tapes he found somehow. There’s also that album by AAB called “Bright Dole”. It’s not “Andrew W.K.” or “Andrew Wilkes-Krier” it’s another thing from those earlier days and he recently wrote to me about re-releasing that; I said “yea”. Actually, Fred Thomas who originally released that still has the master. So we’ve been talking about that and it got held up a little bit but it’s definitely a possibility.

During that time I was living on my own for the very first time. I had moved out of my parents house in Ann Arbour and moved to Ypsilanti where I was living in an apartment. I believe I’ve told you about that before, where we recorded Artist Against Apartheid. It was when I really, really got into recording in earnest. I was finding out how to record better and in higher quality, or at least learning more about the techniques. I was also going into recording studios with bands I was playing with or on my own, which I had never really done before. So it was a really productive time and also a very exciting time just to be independent and live in my own house.

One night I recorded You Are What You Eat, I was in the mindset that I wanted to put out a lot of stuff because I was recording a lot of stuff. I liked the idea at that point of being prolific. I’m not exactly sure what I was thinking, but there was definitely some kind of creative surge to want to put out a bunch of stuff. Unfortunately I didn’t end up putting out a lot of it because either they were sort of harebrained ideas or they were just ideas on there way to growing into something better. But a few things I did actually finish, Aaron Dilloway was kind enough to release on cassette, about ten copies or something. One of those was You Are What You Eat. That music, I just had this idea in mind for this sound, this distinct feeling of what this kind of music would sound like. It was supposed to kinda sound like a fever [SIC], just sort of discombobulating and disorienting. You don’t really know what part of the song you’re in exactly, or what is being said, or what’s going to happen next. It was the kind of music I would imagine if you were on another planet and who had never heard music before. Maybe what they would think of music in general, it’s hard to explain. It was high-context in that way. The way it ended up sounding… have you heard it?

AWKMusic: No I haven’t.

Andrew W.K.: You should ask Knox, you have my permission to put it out if he cares to share it. I know I have a copy of it somewhere around here as well, everything needs to be organized [talking to himself], it’s not that bad. I have so much stuff, it’s just not organized. But the music was [starts singing] “You Are As You Go! Go! [makes sound effect]“. There would be crashing and then sort of some rhythm and then “You Are As You Gooooo!”. It was as disorienting as I could make it, that is the best way to describe it. It was also quite short, I think there was maybe two or three songs on the tape. So each side of the tape was probably ten or fifteen minutes long.

AWKMusic: Wow, it sounds amazing!

Andrew W.K.: Well, I don’t know if it was really amazing but it’s amazing to me that it happened at all and that it’s still around in some form at all.

AWKMusic: So it’s not “Party Rock”, it’s more of an extension of your “Noise” roots.

Andrew W.K.: Well it sounded like a band playing but it wasn’t really harsh like [makes static noise], or anything like that. All those things at that time, I had spent so much time playing piano and regular music, I was just interested in anything that didn’t sound like sitting down at a piano. So yea that was definitely an extension of that same motivation. Just trying to avoid hearing the same things I had already heard at that point. I wanted to make something new or hear something that sounded new.

AWKMusic: You did a jingle for a Kit Kat commercial. Also there are some BMI tracks listed under your name. So my question is, are there other “jingles” that you’ve done?

Andrew W.K.: No, that one came out specifically for that. We did have other songs used in ads from the versions on my albums. However, the first ad we ever did was an Expedia ad. They used a really early version of “It’s Time To Party” that came out on “We Want Fun” — the supposed album. They used that version instead of the version that came out on I Get Wet because I Get Wet wasn’t even done or had come out yet.

Other than that, we had a lot of other commercials and movies that just used the regular I Get Wet or The Wolf recordings. But Kit Kat, they had been looking and wanting to use Party Hard. But one of the creative directors at the advertising company really liked the idea of making a new song. So he asked me rather than just using Party Hard, if I would be willing to write a new song just for the ad that he could have input into; but was still the same style. That to me was really, really exciting because I loved Kit Kats for a long time, I think it’s my mom’s favorite candy bar. So it was kind of a personal connection because I was already a fan. Also just getting to write music for a candy commercial in general was really exciting. These are things that I have always dreamed of being able to do. I did “Andrew W.K.” so I could get to make a Kit Kat ad. It was just one of the great things that happened as a life experience. Not to mention making money from it, I would have done that for free! That’s what it’s all about to me and the ads turned out so great. They are really high production, they are really beautifully shot, they’re the really classic Kit-Kat vibe, but really funny. Then Dee Snyder, I don’t know if most people know this, is the voice-over guy who does the announcement like [changes voice] “break into a chewy, crunchy, crisp-ity, Kit-Kat bar” – that’s Dee Snyder! When he did that, I just thought “well, that just confirms that dreams really do come true”. I got to meet him several times and I mentioned that to him.

EDITORS NOTE: There are at least two other versions of this video, if you have a copy of it please upload it here. Find the high quality MP3 version of the song here. Andrew once played this song live at the Zepp Tokyo concert.

I’ve produced music that’s been used commercially for various things where they requested certain mixes or certain kinds of songs for certain things. The only other jingle similar to that, I did some stuff for VH1. I did a show, an episode where they approached me about doing the music and again it was such a fun thing. I learn so much from these projects, that’s why I do them. It makes better at recording, it makes me better at figuring out music and they’re just really fun. These are the things I dreamed of doing before I ever really got into the music business. I was just always fascinated by commercial music and so I did the music for a TV special episode called “40 Hottest Hotties of the 90′s” on VH1. It required like 45 different pieces of music, or 45 recordings, or 45 short songs ranging from five seconds to fifteen seconds. There’s the main theme [sings] “40 Hottest Hotties of the 90′s”. Then there was a song recorded for every single person they talk about, I think they used it. That was a huge amount of work, but again the most valuable kind of experience. At least for me in terms of recording it takes me to the highest level and I guess through all those sound effects like the wipes and sparkles and  bings and just every kind of thing when you watch TV. Because it’s just non-stop sound effects [makes a bunch of sound effects].

EDITORS NOTE: What the… ? Has anybody even heard about this before?! You can definitely hear Andrew’s influence and even vocals throughout the entire show. Checkout parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 of the show. In another post I’ll have to cut all of these together.

That’s what’s so great about Destroy Build Destroy too, the sound effects and the sound design. Like when the screen wipes from one shot to another shot it goes like [more sound effects]. It’s just like the radio [changes voice] “You tuned into [FX] 99-5 [FX]” and all that stuff. Obviously I’ve included as much as possible into my music but it’s not as upfront as it is on TV or in movies. That’s why I love commercial recordings so much, I’ve always been really into sound FX and sound design and the way ad sounds. I mean, how did they get that thing to sound like that? Those things have to sound as exciting or particular as possible, you’re using sound in those situations to make an impression on people that goes beyond entertainment. You’re trying to make them feel a certain way to accomplish a certain goal or sell them a certain product or make them feel a certain way about a certain person or place or whatever. I’ve always loved the way that sound can be that powerful and you can manipulate it and manipulate the listener with how you present it. It can be done in pop music or recorded music of any kind.

That’s why I like TV so much, it fuses these creative tools and art with commercialism. It’s just really appealing to me, it’s kind of like a carnival. A carnival is a better example then an amusement park because it’s trying to lure you in through excitement and sound and also by the way things look and how things sparkle and the lights and the paintings. Just like at a haunted house or fun house at a carnival, there’s all these crazy paintings on the front of it and all this stuff and it looks really huge and maybe it even goes three stories up and when you go inside you realize, oh that was all to lure me in. It’s not even that big in here, there’s not much stuff, some of the displays in the haunted house aren’t even that scary but that’s the whole thing, that’s the trick. So I love that old dialogue that happens. It’s entertainment but it’s entertainment where you’re trying to snare the person and excite them, maybe in a way they don’t even realize you’re doing. It’s sort of that “step right up, step right up” approach to presentation. You can go and see all kinds of different shows or entertainment but there is this certain brand of entertainment that’s reaching out to you like that. That’s the stuff I’m usually attracted to, the stuff that’s really aggressive I guess. Meaning, it’s not some dude singing by himself playing guitar in his bedroom (although there’s nothing wrong with that, I’ve done that plenty of times myself). But my music or entertainment is not made for that audience, it’s not made by the person who’s making it just for their own sake or for their own fun of it, it’s made to try to get into someone’s head. It’s trying to get to that person in a very aggressive way and get their attention and to jar them or make some kind of impact.

AWKMusic: Right! Well I don’t know how you do it but you’re a master at manipulating excitement through music. A lot of your releases are different sounding yet each one somehow has this same vibe of excitement whether it’s Party Til You Puke’s dance beat/techno-y sound or the Wolf’s triumphant sound.

Andrew W.K.: Thank you, they all have different motives which are intentional. I guess I’m always trying to make them sound the best way I can. I have different ideas of what that is or how I get there. It also doesn’t seem entirely necessary re-create the exact sound. That’s what I’ve always liked when I’ve liked an artist, it’s like “ok what’s this album going to sound like?”. That was always one of the most exciting parts of discovering some group or band or musician or whatever. It was “wow ok I just found out about this person and they have four albums out already, I’m going to get all of them”. Then it’s “wow what’s this one going to be like and what happened at this point and what’s the artwork in this one?”. I liked it when there was always consistency but there also was this thing where it was as if they were in a different room or they used a different amp or something. You can tell it’s the same person it’s that same sound, just slightly shifted in some way which gives it color.

AWKMusic: I read a long, long time ago about “The Mechanical Eyes” can you give me some background behind that?

Andrew W.K.: That was the first recording I ever did with the intent of playing it for other people and had copies of it at the time to sell. That was in 6th grade… I’m trying to think if that was before or after I had a four-track or after. That had to have been way before… so I just had a boom box but I noticed it did have stereo recording which was pretty remarkable. I remember when I figured out that when I spoke into one side of the speaker where the mic was the sound would be in that ear and then if I spoke into the other side of the speaker where the other mic was then the sound goes to that ear. I just couldn’t believe that because I heard that on certain recordings and thought it was the most insane and amazing thing to have a voice behind me or in front of me or in the middle and now it’s over here. It was a very early process learning about stereo sound. I had a keyboard that had a broken drum machine which had a lot of good sounds. I used it for years and years including when I moved to New York and first started doing Andrew W.K. that’s the same keyboard I had since I was 11 or 12 years old and used it all the way through.

I don’t remember how many songs are on there, I would do anything to have a copy of it, that is one that I do not have. It’s hopeful that there is some copy that’s in Michigan at my parents house or a few old school-friends from that era. I’ve heard through the grapevine, they many still have a copy of it. So hopefully one will turn up but I don’t remember much about how that stuff sounded. That song “Mr. Surprise” would be very similar to that, it’s from that same era. I believe it was recorded the same way. That song might even be from that tape of Mechanical Eyes. I made a cardboard sleeve of some type that may have even folded out a little bit from the cassette box. My mom took me to Kinko’s when they had the first versions of color copiers, they were terrible. It was unbelievable how bad these color copiers were back then. But I was always extremely excited just about getting color copies made at all. But it looked so bad [laughs], I wonder if it was even worth getting colored copies?! It was very bizarre to even bother offering people their service of color copying and have it look that way, but you have to start somewhere. They were all messed up looking. Anyway, we made about ten copies and I tried to sell them at school. I probably just gave most of them away to my friends but I know some people bought them and I think they liked them. Yea, you know what actually, nobody said anything bad about it which was pretty amazing. I never really thought about that. People were just very encouraging. All the kids in my school, many of which I wasn’t particularly friends with or anything. I had friends at that point for sure but I wasn’t like a popular kid so much. Thinking back on that, it was definitely really nice. I do appreciate that so much that the kids were very encouraging and very positive and saying “oh yea this is awesome, it sounds so good”. You know, it was similar to being a really good athlete in your class or maybe being really good at drawing or maybe really good at doing magic tricks or something. There were kids who would have those skills, but I was the kind of kid who was showing that he was making these recordings. There was a lot of kids who played instruments and played piano very well, there was actually another couple kids who played specifically at my school that were very, very good piano players that were as good or better than me. But it was more that they were encouraging me to be the recording guy. Which was nice!

AWKMusic: Yea I’m sure when you’re that young and you’re putting out recordings, you’re kinda like “the cool kid”.

Andrew W.K.: Yea it was a very small school and they were supportive of me doing anything, which was nice. It was a great, great school and had a huge impact on me. It was called “Green Hills”.

AWKMusic: So I’m a fan of classical music and sometimes I feel like I can sense the classical influence even if it’s not piano, how do you put that into this “Party” music?

Andrew W.K.: Genre names are useful when you’re trying to easily describe something to someone. So if I hear the word classical I think it’s going to be an orchestra with maybe violins and french horns and things like that. Just like if I hear the word Jazz I’m going to think about saxophones and a lot of ride cymbal and an upright bass. But after a certain point I also find those kinds of head-spaces to be a bit distracting and also unnecessary when ultimately at the end of the day we just want to focus on the music, just the music. At least for me, I don’t want to focus on what it means or what it’s about or what they’re trying to say or who made it really; that’s all just icing on the cake. But when it gets down to it I also want to be able to appreciate any instruments that could be playing this [his] music, meaning you could have jazz instruments playing rock songs you could have rock instruments playing classical songs, you could have classical musicians playing pop songs, you know whatever! It should still hold up.

That comes down to rhythm and melody so I just really like melody and if you listen to classical music there’s incredible melody. This music could be rock songs, or jazz songs, or techno songs, or any other style of music. Techno is a great genre to do classical instrumentation because it’s so dramatic, it’s so clear and hard hitting. It’s a lot of huge sounds that sounds like an orchestra with massive keyboards that sounds like string sections. So I just really like melody and the intensity of the feeling that comes from melodies and the certain way you feel without needing lyrics, without needing to know what the song is about or anything. It’s not even about an idea, at least for me. It doesn’t make me think about “oh this is a happy feeling or this is sadness” it’s just feeling. I mean, it feels good so I guess it’s happy in that way but it’s just raw feelings and sensation and that’s all I take away from anything, classical music or otherwise. It’s just like “ok here’s a moment in a song, it could be a classical song, it could be whatever. This makes me feel really good here, what’s going on here? What is it about this melody that does it? Oh I see, it’s these notes, at these intervals with this kind of timing, with this and this approach.” It’s about trying to learn all of it and knowing what it does. Like knowing that this creates thatexciting feeling as well and then I just incorporate all of that into my music. I don’t really want it to be and I don’t really think it sounds like classical music, I hope it doesn’t. I mean even though I use a lot of orchestra sounds I just want it to sound and have that feeling. I use to not like to call it “rap” music or anything at all because what I wanted was for people to not be distracted by anything and just be able to feel that physical sensation, that energy. But now I don’t care because “rock music” is an easy way to describe its instrumentation that people understand. With guitar and loud drums and loud singing and everything is really intense and once they understand that, than I just hope they able to focus again on that sensation.

AWKMusic: Oh ok, so it sounds like you’re more focused on the melody and maybe that is what I was thinking in terms of.

Andrew W.K.: Yea! There’s no approach of “OK how can I make this sound like a classical song?”. I don’t even really consider myself classically trained, I was just very traditionally trained and one could have learned what I learned on any instrument. It was just a very basic understandings of music. It was just like if you have very traditional training on how to draw the human body and then you go on to do an abstract sculpture or something, but still that training allows you to incorporate aspects of that. It helps you get to the feeling you’re trying to get to by whatever means necessary. That just happens to be one of the things that I’ve learned and can draw from, traditional music playing. But there’s a lot of things that they didn’t teach us, like all kinds of things about sound, about performance and about energy. They really just taught us about melody. Even though it might not sound like there is a lot of melody in some of my music to some listeners, that’s good too because they might be distracted by it. But it’s all in there, they don’t even need to hear it, I try to blend it all together so it’s not real clear what’s going on.

AWKMusic: Thanks again Andrew I appreciate it. I’m looking forward to next time.

Andrew W.K.: Excellent, thank you… always!

End of Part 3

Stay tuned for part 4 of 4 – coming soon!

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Party #2
June 10, 2011

Missed the first interview? Check it out here: Party #1 – April 12, 2011

AWKMusic: This time I would like to just run through previous bands that you were in. You were in a band called “Ancient Art of Boar” right?

Andrew W.K.: Yes, and one of my good friends that was in the band “Lab Labotomy” was also in that group with me. He wasn’t always, but at the beginning he especially was. His name is Jaime Morales. Yea so it was “Ancient Art of Boar”, he came up with that name and then I changed it later when it became more of a solo project, to “AAB”. But also there was a time when Aaron Dilloway [owner of Hanson Records] was in the band as well. We recorded a cassette tape together called “She’s a Professional” [SIC, it’s actually called “She’s A Perfectionist”]. He released that, I think it was on Hanson Records. It was on cassette only. Pretty much after that I decided just to do it solo. That lasted for another six months to a year or so.

The first band in high school I was in was called “Lab Lobotomy”, or at least it was the first band that played shows and tried to do whatever we could do. But originally it was supposed to be called “Lobotomy”, but I spelled it wrong with an “a”, “La-botomy” instead of “Lo-botomy”. Of course I probably made t-shirts and a whole bunch of stuff before I noticed it was misspelled, which is just amazing. So I think the way we as a band kind of covered that, was deciding to embrace it and call it “Lab” and then spell it correctly after that. That’s how that band got named that ridiculous name. Lab Labotomy had Jaime Morales in it playing guitar and a man named Alex Goldman played trumpet, guitar, and sang as well. Also, a man named Allan Hazlett who is a philosophy professor now at NYU I think, was in the band. I got in touch with him not so long ago through email but I haven’t seen him… [looks him up online]. OK, this is saying he’s in the UK now, it’s gotta be the same guy. So now it’s saying [the internet] that he lives in England, I wonder if he’s teaching… he’s really fascinating. After High school I really lost touch with all of those friends to a small degree and then I was blown away when I heard that he decided to go and become a philosopher. He’s at the university of Edinburgh. That’s pretty amazing. So anyway that was Lab Lobotomy.

AWKMusic: So what can you tell me about “Artists Against Apartheid“?

Andrew W.K.: That was recorded in 1997 or so in my apartment. The first time I lived on my own was when I moved to Ypsilanti, Michigan. Which is about 10 or 15 minutes from Ann Arbor, they’re right next to each other. But it’s a very different vibe and it’s an amazing town.  Most of my friends throughout these years we are talking about lived in Ypsilanti. They had already graduated high school and some of them were going to college at Eastern Michigan University which is in Ypsilanti. It’s a much smaller city and very, very, very strange and I just loved it. We all loved it, I still love it. I would still in some ways rather live there than Ann Arbor, just because it has such a strange tone to it. So it’s one of my favorite towns and I just can’t get over it, it’s a very bizarre place. There is a band called “Harry Pussy“, have you ever heard of them?

AWKMusic: Nope.

Andrew W.K.: You should look them up, it’s worth it. We were all blown away by them and they had been around for a few years at that point. There was a connection between them and my friends in Michigan through Tom Smith, the guy from To Live and Shave in L.A.. He recorded with them and was friends with them in Miami, where they are from. They came to play a show in Ypsilanti, it was a really big deal. I was so excited, I was just beside myself. The show was absolutely incredible, it was one of the greatest shows I’ve ever seen. It was an unbelievable performance and had great sound. Then the guys in the band turned out to be really nice. Of course I was shy and you’re always curious about the people you look up to if they’re going to be nice. They were very, very nice and so nice that they came over to my house with all my other friends.  That was because I lived right down the street from where they played, I think we just walked over there probably. Then we recorded. Twig Harper–who is amazing was there, Aaron Dilloway was there, and a man named Andy Roach who is an old friend of all of ours (who is also from Michigan) was there. There could of been someone else but I think that might have been it. It’s very possible there could of been a few other people, but those are the ones I clearly remember.

We just started recording, I actually had a pretty good recording system setup in that house and was able to just start recording quickly. I had tons of stuff [recording equipment]. I haven’t listened to that recording in years and years and years, I have no idea what it sounds like. Adris Hoyos is the drummer and singer from Harry Pussy and she was definitely there playing stuff. She kept saying “give me something to ride on man, give me something to ride on”. I think we had a full drum set setup and all kinds of stuff, we definitely had a guitar and bass. So it was all recorded live and then released sometime later as “Artists Against Apartheid”.

AWKMusic: So obviously you didn’t have a band name picked out while you were doing it, since it was a spontaneous thing.

Andrew W.K.: Yea, we never even really told them we were going to record. It was just real spur of the moment. I think Aaron was like “dude we should just start recording”. So it was one of those instances where the way that apartment was, being set up very well because it was a huge room, you could just play and record easily. I remember the spirit that night, everyone was really excited and wound up after the show. Whatever that scene was, the setting was natural and it was an obvious thing to record and I’m so glad we did.

AWKMusic: So the album is called “Unit + Peace = Strength”?

Andrew W.K.: Yea, I guess that’s the album title, it was just more of a way to get that out as easily as possible. I don’t know if I even have a copy of that. I hope I have a copy of that someplace. Was in it in a hard-shell case or was it in a paper sleeve? I’m sure Aaron has it.

AWKMusic: I only have a digital copy of it, I think Knox [long time noise & Andrew W.K. fan] has it.

Andrew W.K.: Oh yea, yea, yea—-Knox is good at keeping that stuff. Aaron Dilloway definitely would know and probably remember even more about the recording than I do.

AWKMusic: OK, it says it’s a CD-R. I have it up on the site if you can’t find it for some reason.

Andrew W.K.: Yea, yea that makes sense. OK cool, great, thank you.

AWKMusic: Alright, so how about “The Beast People“, this one can be confusing to me.

Andrew W.K.: Yea there’s a whole bunch of recordings that band has done and I was included in some of them. There’s a lot of stuff. I was in it at a certain time. There were shows of them in Detroit, Michigan and there is footage of that somewhere… it may be on youtube. But there is a couple shows I was a part of. Some of the shows were very strange because it wasn’t really evident it was a show at times. There would be a house party going on and Aaron would say “let’s do the Beast People”, so there wouldn’t be a formal plan. But we wouldn’t really perform necessarily where the bands were playing. We might just be walking around the house doing stuff and performing all over the place.

It was a very confrontational group, they would grab people and it was meant to be very frightening. Aaron was a very aggressive performer, I learned a lot from him. He’s very confrontational and he would get right up in peoples faces and then encourage that. The same goes for Twig Harper who has also been in that band a lot more than I have. He’s also extremely advanced when it comes to that style of performing. Nate Young of course, who also would get aggressive but not quite as intense, but in a good way. Everyone sort of had a different character and attitude when they would be a beast person. I never even dressed up as a beast really, I would always be a human, but I would sometimes where a mask or something like that.

There’s one recording that I worked on really hard with Aaron. It was during that brief time when Aaron and Nate Young moved to New York and we all lived in my apartment. So that was in ’97 or ’98 or whenever I had first moved out. It was probably right around the time of the second year or at least year and a half of moving there. For those months they lived here, we did so much work, we did tons and tons of stuff. We recorded that Wolf Eyes 12″ that I did with them for that split on Bulb. I also recorded a Beast People song which I believe was released as a 10″, yea I think it came out on vinyl as a 10″. It’s probably on the Hanson site somewhere. It was very limited though, I don’t even know if I have a copy. I probably have one copy somewhere. But anyway, that was a recording we worked on really, really hard. I think it was called “The Beast People Opera” or that’s how Aaron would refer to it. I don’t know if that was actually the title, it might not even have a title. But it was a multi-track recording that we worked on very, very hard with keyboards and percussion and many, many overdubs. We recorded it all in one night. It was probably 90 degrees on a really hot and humid summer night in New York. You know how hot and humid it gets at night?! I was living in Brooklyn at this point where we were all living together. I don’t remember Nate being there, so he might have been out that night or something whenever we recorded this. It was just me and Aaron and I had built this vocal booth in my closet, that was actually extremely effective. The apartment building I lived in had paper-thin walls so that even me playing the keyboard with headphones on, the tapping on the keys would make people knock on my door and be like “ANDY WHAT IS ALL THIS TAPPING, WHY ARE YOU TAPPING?”. So somehow it was a miracle that we soundproofed this tiny little closet well enough. We had all these layers of blankets and foam and it had to be rubber and all this stuff. It really did work, you couldn’t hear it in the hallway at all and Aaron would just sing and scream his heart out for about five hours all night long. He was just dripping sweat. All he was wearing was his underwear–it was so hot. There was no air conditioning in this house and not only that, but he was in like a box, insulated with tons and tons of blankets with a hot light on inside. Which eventually he turned off, it was just too ridiculous. It was probably like 130 degrees in that room. He was completely delirious.

AWKMusic: [Laughter] That’s hilarious! So this is all different from “The Birthing”?

Andrew W.K.: Well, “The Birthing” was the name of one of the moments during that Beast People recording but he might have also used that title for another release. That might be the Birthing, it’s possible.

AWKMusic: But it could also be some type of “opera”?

Andrew W.K.: It had all these parts and all these different sections and movements. It did tell a bit of a story in a very abstract way, but it created this arc at different moments that made it very cinematic or a theatrical listening experience. Which is why we referred to it as that, but it might not of ever been released with that title. Neither of us had ever really recorded anything like that. Where we mapped out this whole drama where it starts with one thing, we set the scene and it rises up and then there’s a conflict and then there’s a resolution and then it moves on its way. It’s a slightly more conceptual Beast People recording.

HANSON RECORDS Promo Video 1998 from Hanson Records on Vimeo.
(Contains some footage of The Beast People)

AWKMusic: There’s a band called “Free Jumps” which is obviously a song of yours too.

Andrew W.K.: Yea, first it was the name of a song by a band I was in called “Kangoo”. The members of that band had a lot of people coming and going but those sessions I remember very well. People that were there (and I apologize to anyone I’m not remembering who was there) were Steve Kenny. He was the original drummer of the “Pterodactyls” and he was also in the band “Isis and Werewolves” and also played in a bunch of other bands. He is amazing, he’s one of my friends and favorite people in the whole world. He was definitely in “Kangoo” and playing on those recordings we made. I think that the song was called “Freejumps” at that point. But it may have broken off into a band, a lot of times we would come up with a band name that we would end up turning into a song title or the opposite where we would have a song title or an idea for a lyric that we then used for a band name. That’s because we liked it so much.

AWKMusic: So there wasn’t any actual releases under this band name?

Andrew W.K.: Not that I can remember, no. The thing that I remember the most was that it was definitely related to Kangoo and it was probably a song that we had.

AWKMusic: Were you ever in “Galen”?

Andrew W.K.: I was never in Galen, that was Aaron Dilloway’s band. It was probably his first really successful band. I mean, he had done a lot of bands before and projects that he had released. However, Galen was a real big step in terms of everything; quality, how often they played shows, they were a real performing band and made releases that looked really good. I was just so impressed by how good everything looked that they did. Not to mention the music, which was just incredible. Just the artwork and the packaging and the design, I was very impressed. I was like “who the hell is this guy? who are these people?”. Because it’s a smaller town and just when you see someone who can make a good flyer, it really catches your eye because most of the flyers look like shit. He lived in Brighton, Michigan which is quite a ways away. It’s still southeast Michigan, it’s like an hour or 45 minute drive, in an even smaller town than Ann Arbor. So it was so amazing that I didn’t already know this guy and that I hadn’t met him, it was all really exciting. Then he ended up moving to Ann Arbor and that’s when it all unfolded over the course of a couple days. I got to finally meet him and then go over to his house and become friends and then the next thing I realized, I was playing in bands with him. It was like meeting my idol, it was really exciting. So Galen had a huge impact on me and that was all Aaron Dilloway–of course other people were in the band. Also, there were other versions of the band, I played in a version called “Galen Via Hercules” and than that turned into a band called “The Hercules“. I played drums in that.

AWKMusic: So “Galen Via Hercules” wasn’t a split, it was its own band.

Andrew W.K.: Yes exactly, that was the title that they used for a short time. They had other names, like there was a time when I think the band was called “Galen Via Remember I Was Vapor”. Aaron is very advanced and brilliant man. The thinking he would put into band names or the idea of what a band name is. I mean, I was very confused by it too but those were the band names. They would split them off and then one would turn into the other. He kept changing his own band name all the time and constantly formed new ones and sometimes he would join them together and stuff like that.

AWKMusic: It’s really hard to find information on some of this stuff, especially for a person like me who is unfamiliar with this scene. I’m sure though Aaron and few others know about it and own it.

Andrew W.K.: Aaron and Knox are the best people to go to for all of this stuff. Aaron, on top of all his other talents and gifts is also an extremely, extremely gifted archivist. The nature of his personality makes it so that he keeps track of everything. He has doodles we did on napkins at restaurants from fifteen years ago and has saved, filed and organized them. Not to mention transferring every video of every show onto DVD, he is a real master-archivist. Again, his personality lends itself to doing that, I think he gets a lot of personal pleasure, even like a good feeling of security from it. I certainly have been grateful for it and benefited from all the stuff he’s been able to keep track of and remind me of. These are things I would have never have been able to remember, he’s influenced me hugely. I try my very best to save almost everything now, but I’m not nearly as good as him. That’s with all the stuff I have, I don’t really buy a lot of things. I have stuff from what I accumulate from doing what I do and what I make; and that’s enough stuff as it is. He’s definitely inspired me to be more responsible by trying to keep track of everything. The things that I have lost, like I had the entire “I Get Wet” album documented on video for the “Making of” stolen. There was a video camera and all the tapes were in that bag. So that was painful and it really means that much more to me that Aaron puts the time and energy into ensuring that kind of stuff doesn’t happen.

AWKMusic: I was curious about the “Blow Your Bone” and “The Wolf” album. If they’re different or is it just a switched album title?

AWKMusic: So there wasn’t any different tracks, it was just a switched title and that’s all?

AndrewW.K.: Yea, I mean there were songs that weren’t on that album that were recorded for that album.  But no, it was just a switched title.

AWKMusic: OK, so “62nd Sex Change” is a unique track that appears on a compilation. Can you tell me more about how it came about?

Andrew W.K.: Visonaire is a long running and hugely influential fashion publication and organization. It’s not really like a magazine, I mean it is but they do these very, very complex concept-based packages. They’ll do an issue called “Stars”, an issue called “Modern”, an issue called “Love” and then this was this issue called “Sound”. I was blown away that they asked me to be on this because there is a really, really, really pompous fashion world that’s very high-end. I have never really been embraced by that world because they thought my clothes were dirty, just ridiculous stuff.  Even though I came from fashion and worked and studied in high-fashion, but I actually got out of it because I couldn’t stand how snobby the people were. It’s some of the most ridiculous people you can’t even believe, it’s just like the movies. So I couldn’t interact with the people because they were just being idiots. But anyway, there was still stuff I loved and Visionaire was always one of the coolest things that’s ever happened in fashion. It’s a really, really incredible magazine; just turning through it, looking through the pages, and the packaging. The whole thing is completely absurd and over the top and there’s nothing else like it. So when they invited me to do that, it was really exciting. It was because I had been in New York long enough at that point that the guy who curated it was into all kinds of stuff and knows all kinds of things; not just clothes. So anyway, I made that track and I think it had to be 60 seconds. I really wish I put that track on Mother of Mankind. I’ll have to put out some other things and have that as a bonus track. I didn’t want it to [only] be a 60 second song. I really like working with sound and sound FX, it goes back to the music I was making with Beast People or whatever. You don’t have to have a song, you’re just going to make something that when people put it on it’s going to take them to a different place.

AWKMusic: Thank you so much! This stuff is important to me and I like to know and find out how everything connects and then get it documented.

Andrew W.K.: I really appreciate it, it means so much to me too, it really, really does. It’s incredible to me because it helps not just me but all these other people that might have had questions about the same stuff. No one has ever asked about these things. Interviewers just don’t ever ask about this stuff and if they do it’s like one in a million. So this is the stuff that’s more interesting for me to talk about anyway because it’s my life, not just like “ok what’s the new album about, what’s this thing?”. Let’s talk about these amazing people and these crazy things that they’ve done. So it’s really fun to talk about all my friends like this, they’re the best! It makes me appreciate it more too. Also, when you do a great job at this like you do–I’m reading this book right now about KISS called “Behind The Mask”. It’s essentially written by a guy who is doing exactly what you’re doing. He took his enthusiasm and interest in KISS to a point where he was able to interview them and work with them and make this amazing book. It’s one of the best and most detailed and documented books about any musical thing or anything for that matter. Like if you’re a fan of something this book is amazing, and that’s exactly what we’re doing here. Even if there’s just a handful of people who care about it, just getting it down is important. Who knows in ten or twenty years how valuable it will have been to have recorded and organized all of this. So I’m extremely grateful for you doing it, really. Thank you so much!

End of Part 2

Stay tuned for part 3 of 4 – coming later this week!

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Hello AWK fanatics,

I hope you enjoyed this last years worth of Andrew W.K. news, media and archived content. If it’s not obvious already AndrewWKMusic.com is not only FUN for me but it is a labor of love. Looking back, I had very specific things I wanted to accomplish when I set out to create this website 2+ years ago. Those expectations were met quicker than I could have imagined, thanks to you. Your interest fed my enthusiasm. So in 2011 new goals had to be made and the bar had to be raised. To name a few things we’ve accomplished this year…

• Interviewed Andrew W.K. four times
• Interviewed the art designer of I Get Wet
• Archived 99.9% of the content on AWKShare.com
• Archived 16 hours of interviews
• Archived a number of live shows
• Archived a bunch of old bands Andrew W.K. was in
• Released a tribute album
• Compiled a massive discography
• Compiled alternate tracks to CCWBW
• Reviewed albums
• Redesigned the website
• +more

I plan on 2012 being the most exciting year to date. For some that might be hard to believe and one might ask “what else is there?”. I can only respond to that in one way, “EVERYTHING!”. I promise that you and this website has only seen the tip of this iceberg. My vision, goals and expectations are higher than ever. So to ensure you that these are not hollow promises stay tuned in the coming weeks for some surprises that will blow your mind. The easiest way to do that is to subscribe to our email list.

Out of deep gratitude and humility I thank you for your passion towards Andrew W.K. and his fan community. Please help fund this website’s hosting costs, any amount is accepted and appreciated. A total of $120 will take us all the way until this time next year. Thank you!

THIS PARTY NEVER STOPS!
Love,
dickalan

On the one year anniversary of 9-11 Andrew W.K. performed at the 40 Watt in Athens, GA. That night he gave a rousing speech commemorating the event and encouraged the partiers to have a a huge fun night. Ten years later AndrewWKMusic remembers that gem of archived audio and encourages you to check out the entire show. For a quick preview of that night, here is the track I Love NYC.

The designer of Andrew W.K.’s “I Get Wet” is simply credited as “S.S.” but here at Andrew WK Music we’ve come to know him as Scott Sandler of “Mr. Scott Design Inc.”. He was gracious enough to give us some fun bits of info about his experience while working on the said project. Here’s his report.

S.S.: In 2001 I was working in-house at Island/Def Jam Records. The creative director at the time approached me with a new project, an artist that went by the name Andrew W.K.. I listened to the record and was blown away! It was a new sound with no pretension.  It was just fun!

The first time I met Andrew he came to the art department to meet me and go over the artwork. He was very particular and had a clear vision of what he wanted the visuals to look like. He drafted a thick manifesto of rules that would apply to any artwork related to his releases so there would be continuity. In a nutshell, all his records would have a striking cover which would act as the money shot and the rest of the cd package would be simple and not too designed out. It would be laid out very stoic with a white Times New Roman font with a justified center on a black background – ALWAYS! The idea behind this aesthetic was to be reminiscent of classic 12″ LP’s. The cover was the the only visual and the back usually had lyrics and that was it, simple and timeless.

I didn’t agree with how simple he wanted it at the time. I felt he was an artist you could really have fun with going over-the-top on his visuals.  However, it was his record so I wanted him to be happy with it. Keep in mind at the time that this was his first major release. In retrospect, after seeing “The Wolf” and other releases of his since, he really did stick to the script and the payoff came through in having continuity throughout all his releases. So now when a new Andrew W.K. record comes out you know what it is right off the bat, they have a look.

I have to give him a lot of credit, most musicians that I work with aren’t that “hands-on” with the artwork. They are trained musicians and don’t understand or aren’t too interested in the art side of things. Also, before a release happens they have so much going on and so many fronts, that they can’t deal with meeting with the art director too much. Andrew made the time.  It was so important to him.

AndrewWKMusic: It makes sense to me how involved he was on the project. From what I understand Andrew is quite the artist himself, for example I believe he painted the skull on his first EP “AWKGOJ”.

S.S.: He has a very playful side that comes out in his work, but he has an equally intense side pulling the strings and pushing the machine forward. I have never worked with a musician of his like before or since. He’s truly dynamic and admirable.

The cover was shot was by Roe Ethridge and the idea of Andrew having the bloody nose was their baby. I’d love to take credit for that but unfortunately I can’t. What a striking image. The label got scared that Walmart and chains alike wouldn’t stock it with such a visceral image so we ended up having to put a black sticker on the outside of the shrink wrap to hide it for those stores. That was good thing though because people wanted to know what was going on under the sticker. It built mystery.

All the inside photography was shot by Danny Clinch and I was able to attend that shoot. It was a fun day at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. We had to clip the back of Andrew’s jeans so they would look tight enough, an old rock star trick.

That record was a fun time and was a great window into the life of a unique artist on the rise. I have so much respect for Andrew, he was a delight to work with.

AndrewWKMusic: So why was the actual CD art changed? I noticed on your mock-up that it’s different than what we have now. Were there any “pressed” like that one?

S.S.: Like I said I didn’t agree with all of Andrew’s design choices at the time but felt strongly that he should get the artwork that he wanted, the mock-up I posted is my version. My versions don’t usually veer too far from the published version, but it really is my only venue to show my work as I would’ve liked. The version on my site has never been published.

AndrewWKMusic: Why were you not involved on the next album? Had you left Island at that point?

S.S.: Andrew was nice enough to approach me to join him for “The Wolf”, but at the time I left Island Def Jam to open my own studio and the creative director as I remember wasn’t too interested in sourcing that one out, so it unfortunately ended my reign with Andrew.

AndrewWKMusic: Did you choose to be credited as “S.S.” or was that just applied to you?

S.S.: I didn’t choose the credit “S.S.”. Andrew appointed it to me. I think he thought it would be fun to have folks on his team use a “W.K.” format.

AndrewWKMusic: By the time the album got to you, do you remember if it was the “final” version of “I Get Wet” or were they demo tracks at that point?

S.S.: I believe I only ever heard the record as the published version.

Scott Sandler
Mr. Scott Design Inc.
www.MRSCOTTDESIGN.com

This video was done amazingly well by a fan, so I had to make sure you saw it:

If you’ve visited this site and have been getting a lot of Page Not Found Error 404, than we apologize. Measures have been taken to eliminate this problem. You should now be able to browse easier with minimal issues in that regard.

Blow Your Bone

“Blow Your Bone” was the original title for the album “The Wolf”. The album name became widely known by an advertisement for a telephone company which featured not only the “Blow Your Bone” album name but also the album’s cover art (see pic below). Before Andrew W.K.’s second studio album was released its name was changed. It is only a switched title, contrary to popular belief that it contained a different track listing. However, like many studio albums there were songs that were recorded but never made it onto “The Wolf” album. Again, there is no difference between the track listings of the two different album titles.

The title “Blow Your Bone” clashed with the emotional vibe and personal feeling that came through on the album. Also, the music was too strong and dense to have the intense title of “Blow Your Bone”. Andrew wanted the title to be very different from “I Get Wet”, so it was named “The Wolf”—it had power but was also plain and boring.

While in an airport Andrew had a flashback to the “Wolf Slicer” magazine (issue of 3) he created when he first moved to NYC. The word “Wolf” from the magazine’s title popped into his head and that’s where he got the second album’s final name.

62nd Sex Change

“Visionaire No. 53: Sound” is a fashion publication and organization. He was asked to be a part of the publication, but the track had to be 60 seconds long. He likes to create sounds and sound FX but not necessarily “songs” all of the time (which comes from the previous noise bands he was in). His goal sometimes is to just take people to a different place. He wishes he would have put it on the “Mother of Mankind” album and will perhaps release it on something else in the future.

I Get Wet Documentary

A “making of” type of documentary was being filmed for the album “I Get Wet” when the camera and a bunch of video tapes were stolen.

==Previous AWK Bands==

Ancient Art of Boar / AAB

Jaime Morales came up with the band name and was in the band for its inception. Andrew later changed the name of the band to “AAB” when it became a solo project of his. However, the solo project had the exception of Aaron Dilloway who was also in the band for the release of “She’s a Perfectionist” on a cassette (only) for Hanson Records.  The solo project lasted from about 6 months to a year.

Lab Lobotomy

Lab Lobotomy was the first band Andrew put a lot of effort into and formed while in High School. Originally the band was named “Labotomy” but changed it after realizing it was spelled wrong, even t-shirts with the misprinted name could have been made. Band members included Jaime Morales (guitar), Alex Goldman (trumpet, guitar,vocals) and Allan Hazlett.

Artists Against Apartheid

Artists Against Apartheid’s “Unity + Peace = Strength” was a spontaneous recording session late one night in 1997. It was recorded in the first apartment Andrew lived in on his own in Ypsilanti, MI. After a “Harry Pussy” concert, that band came over to Andrew’s apartment (the connection was through Tom Smith who had previously recorded with the band in Miami) and started jamming. Other people who participated and who were involved in the recording was Twig Harper, Aaron Dilloway and Andy Roach. Aaron Dilloway suggested to Andrew that he start recording what they were doing. With Andrew’s previously setup recording equipment they captured the said album. Adris Hoyos (from Harry Pussy) can be heard throughout saying “give me something to ride on man”.

The Beast People

Members include Aaron Dilloway, James Twig Harper, Nate Young and Andrew Wilkes-Krier on some releases. A 10″ was released on Hanson records that Andrew participated in. That 10″ was recorded mostly by Aaron Dilloway in Andrew’s soundproof closet.

Kangoo

Members include Steve Kenny (drummer) and others. There is one song entitled “Freejumps”, which then turned to into a full fledged band (this was often the case was such bands). No actual releases.

Galen Via Hercules

One release

The Hercules

Andrew plays drums

Isis and Werewolves

Steve Kenny was in this band

Our discography page is undoubtedly the largest Andrew W.K. discography that’s ever appeared on the internet. On top of that we just gave it a major overhaul, check out the updates which includes: pics for releases, detailed updates in every section and entirely new sections added. More detailed, accurate and “official” info will be integrated into the list in the coming weeks. –We’ll let you know when that happens, so stay tuned! In the meantime check out the discography page.