UTG INTERVIEW: Andrew W.K. Continues To Spread Party Philosophy

For Andrew W.K., partying isn’t just a weekend pastime. It isn’t the thing he looks forward to during the day or the thing he regrets doing the next morning. For Andrew W.K., partying is life — and life is partying. The two go hand-in-hand, but also, for Andrew, partying means more than getting together with friends and having fun. Partying means embracing the positive aspects of life, even on the darkest days. Andrew has taken the idea of the party and turned it into a lifestyle — a bona fide movement fueling good nature, good thoughts, and good actions amongst those it affects.

Andrew W.K. has spread his party philosophy worldwide through live shows, lectures, social media, and even a weekly column in The Village Voice. He is a man with a message: party hard. A message so pure and so energetic, Andrew plans to continue to party and spread his word everywhere he goes.

Are you ready to party hard? Under The Gun Review had the chance to briefly interview Andrew, discuss his philosophy and talk about his future plans. Read the interview after the jump.

UTG: Hi, Andrew. One of my favorite things that you do is your Village Voice column. I try to read it every week. How do you go about choosing what to write about for the column?

Andrew W.K.: Well, it started in January, just after New Year’s. First of all, I never knew what to expect. You never know what people are going to have the willingness to ask about. But I had done this column every month for about 10 years in Japan and that did give experience with not just answering questions but with the format; with this whole concept of this exchange. It really does come down to people’s questions. If you’re not getting very good questions it can be tricky. The good thing, being the person who gets to answer, you can have some flexibility on how you answer it. Someone could ask, “What’s your favorite flavor of gum?” and you could just talk about chewing in general. I do have the freedom to interpret questions the way I like. The longer the column’s gone and the more people see the topics that have been covered, it’s really encouraged people to send in what I consider more intense questions. That’s what I like because that’s what stimulates me. Especially the things I don’t necessarily have a lot of experience with personally or relate to — that’s when I get to learn something, too. I try to pick the most intense one I can get. We get a lot of questions about dating. We get a lot of questions about jobs — situations at people’s work or situations about employment. Every now and then you’ll get some questions that are just out of left field. And sometimes I’ll do a lecture event and we’ll do Q&A and I’ll get amazing questions there and I’ll say, “Please send that question in!” I’m very thankful that people are that open and willing to confront their own situation enough to write it down — that’s very courageous.

That’s great. To move into another media question, you’ve been on air with Glen Beck recently. What was that like? How did that relationship come about?

Somehow he saw one of these writings and he said he really liked it. Who knows how it affected him. He said what he said to me and he’s a grown, adult man so I take it in a humble way. He just said he was able to learn something from the ideas presented there — which blew my mind because he’s older than me and very experienced and an extremely well-read guy, so for him to read my stuff and take anything away from it is huge. He was very nice to me. He had me on and I beamed in from New York and then he flew me to Texas to his studio. He was very nice to me and I never imagined I’d get invited to go on his show. It was very surprising to me. Pretty crazy, really.

Another great experience, huh?

It’s an adventure, for sure.

How do you think your party philosophy has evolved over the years?

That’s a great question. In the most fundamental way, it hasn’t evolved at all. Which is probably the result of a lot of effort to retain the core principles of having fun. Maybe at times doubt them or question them to get different perspectives on them, but to cling to the very root of the whole feeling — which is joy. That hasn’t evolved at all. I don’t know that joy can evolve any bigger than it already is. It sort of fills up all this space anyway. If something is infinitely big, how can it grow any bigger? I think its intensity can grow, but its meaning is just full. Personally, I try to keep finding more ways to manifest that feeling — to make it happen, to feel it myself and to make other people feel it. Just to keep expanding it, letting it fill up as much room as possible.

What’s the future look like for you, Andrew?

Lots and lots and lots of partying. Writing my book, which is about partying.

You’re writing a book?

Yes, yes. It’s called The Party Bible. It’s non-fiction. It’s non-autobiographical, non-anecdotal. It’s writing about life, really. Being alive. Not my life, our life. It’s my first book so I’m trying to make it as good as I can, which is a lot. It’s gonna be a big project but I’m in the midst of it and I’m very excited. Other than that it’s just partying. I’m seeing where the adventure takes me next.


Interview written and conducted by Matthew Leimkuehler (@callinghomematt)

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