What's Andrew WK really about?
PART ONE: The Language of Steev Mike
The now pop-subculture rumor that there is "more than one Andrew WK" is originated back in December 2004, at a concert in New Jersey where an entire audience witnessed a "different person pretending to be Andrew WK" perform half a concert before being taken off stage and the night abrubtly came to an end. Reports of a short haired man in an oversized coat back stage were accompanied by multiple New Jersey radio reports of the concert admitting that it had not been "the same Andrew WK".
That is just one part of a unfortunately large and puzzling trail of information that eventually traces back to 1997 in New York City, and before that to Los Angeles. The theory that there was a conspiracy designed to fool the public into believing that this one front man of a rock band called, Andrew WK, was actually being portrayed by different people over the years? The theory also has that the original Andrew WK was simply a hired actor that auditioned for a part in a larger scheme playing itself out on the pop-music and pop media marketplace.
What actually happened with Andrew WK was not a case of multiple actors, but one man undergoing extensive mind-control and brainwashing damage when he auditioned and was granted the lead role in an entertainment creation. The people behind this creation were team of record executives working with Andrew's own father, James E. Krier, who in turn were working with higher ranking members of secret society organizations, believed to be either Freemason or Luciferian in nature.
Steev Mike was responsible for the transformations in a very real person, and the changes that Andrew WK underwent were not just to occur at the start of his career when he first signed on in 1997, but again, when he was further brainwashed in 2003, for his second album, The Wolf. I believe at some point during this second heavy dose of brainwashing, Andrew WK turned against his handlers, managers, and Steev Mike in general and a battle began. The war resulted in the 2004 blackmail threats and hacking (see much more below) after when I think Andrew tried to finally break free of his oppressors. The 2004 New Jersey concert was directly after the original Andrew WK quit, BUT IT WAS STILL THE SAME PERSON. This is where understanding brain-washing and mind control can become more complicated, because when someone has been the victim of mind control, they are becoming a different person, and they will look different, act different, and appear different in ways much less subtle then the reported differences in the Andrew WK on stage at the 2004 New Jersey show.
My theory is that it was the real Andrew WK, but that he quit and fled the scene only the be apprehended and brain-washed again. Now at this point, I do consider it possible that all of the preceding was created as an elaborate ritual dislay, for either obvious entertainment or more subversive social programming. But it is because of what happened after 2004, into 2005 and the eventual admission videos in 2008, 2009 and conspiracy confirmation that the Steev Mike theory as a real group or company came to prove that a lot of what Andrew himself had been hinting at was in fact true.
The lyrics in Andrew's own songs, for example, "I Love New York City", make no attempt to veil his references to Babylon, September 11th, and that he himself is "a corporation, a factory". Almost every word of the song ties into one large laundry list of agenda subtle language. This is the language of Steev Mike, and it manifests itself to tell people seemingly to "follow their dreams", but to what end and at what cost?
Take for example, the length of Andrew WK's hair over the period of 1999 to 2005. In 2007 he participated as drummer 57 the Boredoms 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7th, 2007 at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York. His look was drastically different, as he cut his hair short, had no facial hair, and wore very different clothing from his usual attire. However, pictures from Andrew's official site conflict with the fan pictures, as the pictures from Andrew's official site show him with medium, shoulder-length hair. It is suspected that the fan pictures have been edited or doctored to remove some of Andrew's hair.
In 2005, The Fader magazine featured a full-page article on Andrew W.K. which showed a radically different looking individual, with close cropped hair and different clothing, claiming to be Andrew W.K. This set off a subsequent wave of rumors that there were multiple individuals going under the "Andrew W.K." name. The paranoia culminated during Andrew's "High-Way Party Cruiser Tour", during which many audience members were enraged when they claimed "someone else" was posing as Andrew W.K. and playing shows in his place.
It was never confirmed whether there were A.W.K. doppelgangers, or whether it was a case of "double mistaken identity". Andrew has used the words "self impersonation" in recent interviews, causing more speculation. Some fans have even believed that there was a "switch" in 2005, and a "new actor" began playing the role of Andrew W.K. A wave of online photo comparisons only caused further confusion. Andrew himself has not confirmed nor denied any of the related rumors.
On July 28, 2007, Andrew played a solo piano concert in Lansing, Michigan. At the concert, he had short hair covered with a baseball cap. Also, he wore orange sunglasses throughout the entire set. On August 4, 2007, Andrew performed at Highline ballroom in New York City. He was in his normal attire, and had his full length hair, causing some to wonder whether Andrew does really have short hair, or if he's been wearing some kind of wig or hairpiece. At All Tomorrow's Parties ATP vs the Fans in May 2007, Andrew W. K. appeared as the bass player for Current 93. The discovery provoked a petition to plea for a solo performance from Andrew, but sadly, no such event transpired. He was seen in typical apparel, with a full head of long, flowing hair. Andrew, having produced an album for underground cult band, Sightings, called "Through The Panama", and he performed a keyboard set at their album release party at NYC's Cake Shop on November 9, 2007. He had long hair and was reportedly looking different than normal.
Despite all of the claims that Andrew has "flowing" and "natural" long hair, a person appearing as "Andrew" claimed in a 2007 interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette that he has worn a wig. This interview can be found at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20070406-153435-to-20070406-164433.mp3 This sorts of lapses in memory or admissions can be seen as evidence of mind-control.
That is just one part of a unfortunately large and puzzling trail of information that eventually traces back to 1997 in New York City, and before that to Los Angeles. The theory that there was a conspiracy designed to fool the public into believing that this one front man of a rock band called, Andrew WK, was actually being portrayed by different people over the years? The theory also has that the original Andrew WK was simply a hired actor that auditioned for a part in a larger scheme playing itself out on the pop-music and pop media marketplace.
What actually happened with Andrew WK was not a case of multiple actors, but one man undergoing extensive mind-control and brainwashing damage when he auditioned and was granted the lead role in an entertainment creation. The people behind this creation were team of record executives working with Andrew's own father, James E. Krier, who in turn were working with higher ranking members of secret society organizations, believed to be either Freemason or Luciferian in nature.
Steev Mike was responsible for the transformations in a very real person, and the changes that Andrew WK underwent were not just to occur at the start of his career when he first signed on in 1997, but again, when he was further brainwashed in 2003, for his second album, The Wolf. I believe at some point during this second heavy dose of brainwashing, Andrew WK turned against his handlers, managers, and Steev Mike in general and a battle began. The war resulted in the 2004 blackmail threats and hacking (see much more below) after when I think Andrew tried to finally break free of his oppressors. The 2004 New Jersey concert was directly after the original Andrew WK quit, BUT IT WAS STILL THE SAME PERSON. This is where understanding brain-washing and mind control can become more complicated, because when someone has been the victim of mind control, they are becoming a different person, and they will look different, act different, and appear different in ways much less subtle then the reported differences in the Andrew WK on stage at the 2004 New Jersey show.
My theory is that it was the real Andrew WK, but that he quit and fled the scene only the be apprehended and brain-washed again. Now at this point, I do consider it possible that all of the preceding was created as an elaborate ritual dislay, for either obvious entertainment or more subversive social programming. But it is because of what happened after 2004, into 2005 and the eventual admission videos in 2008, 2009 and conspiracy confirmation that the Steev Mike theory as a real group or company came to prove that a lot of what Andrew himself had been hinting at was in fact true.
The lyrics in Andrew's own songs, for example, "I Love New York City", make no attempt to veil his references to Babylon, September 11th, and that he himself is "a corporation, a factory". Almost every word of the song ties into one large laundry list of agenda subtle language. This is the language of Steev Mike, and it manifests itself to tell people seemingly to "follow their dreams", but to what end and at what cost?
Take for example, the length of Andrew WK's hair over the period of 1999 to 2005. In 2007 he participated as drummer 57 the Boredoms 77 Boadrum performance which occurred on July 7th, 2007 at the Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park in Brooklyn, New York. His look was drastically different, as he cut his hair short, had no facial hair, and wore very different clothing from his usual attire. However, pictures from Andrew's official site conflict with the fan pictures, as the pictures from Andrew's official site show him with medium, shoulder-length hair. It is suspected that the fan pictures have been edited or doctored to remove some of Andrew's hair.
In 2005, The Fader magazine featured a full-page article on Andrew W.K. which showed a radically different looking individual, with close cropped hair and different clothing, claiming to be Andrew W.K. This set off a subsequent wave of rumors that there were multiple individuals going under the "Andrew W.K." name. The paranoia culminated during Andrew's "High-Way Party Cruiser Tour", during which many audience members were enraged when they claimed "someone else" was posing as Andrew W.K. and playing shows in his place.
It was never confirmed whether there were A.W.K. doppelgangers, or whether it was a case of "double mistaken identity". Andrew has used the words "self impersonation" in recent interviews, causing more speculation. Some fans have even believed that there was a "switch" in 2005, and a "new actor" began playing the role of Andrew W.K. A wave of online photo comparisons only caused further confusion. Andrew himself has not confirmed nor denied any of the related rumors.
On July 28, 2007, Andrew played a solo piano concert in Lansing, Michigan. At the concert, he had short hair covered with a baseball cap. Also, he wore orange sunglasses throughout the entire set. On August 4, 2007, Andrew performed at Highline ballroom in New York City. He was in his normal attire, and had his full length hair, causing some to wonder whether Andrew does really have short hair, or if he's been wearing some kind of wig or hairpiece. At All Tomorrow's Parties ATP vs the Fans in May 2007, Andrew W. K. appeared as the bass player for Current 93. The discovery provoked a petition to plea for a solo performance from Andrew, but sadly, no such event transpired. He was seen in typical apparel, with a full head of long, flowing hair. Andrew, having produced an album for underground cult band, Sightings, called "Through The Panama", and he performed a keyboard set at their album release party at NYC's Cake Shop on November 9, 2007. He had long hair and was reportedly looking different than normal.
Despite all of the claims that Andrew has "flowing" and "natural" long hair, a person appearing as "Andrew" claimed in a 2007 interview with Nardwuar the Human Serviette that he has worn a wig. This interview can be found at http://playlist.citr.ca/podcasting/audio/20070406-153435-to-20070406-164433.mp3 This sorts of lapses in memory or admissions can be seen as evidence of mind-control.
PART TWO: Andrew WK authentic?
The question of mind-control relates mostly to who is doing the thinking, Andrew WK or Steev Mike. And that comes down to who is the authentic person. Perhaps Andrew WK or Steev Mike or whoever is behind whatever this is, is trying to look at identity through this as some sort of stunt, to make us consider these ideas that are obviously so thrilling. That, or there really is a subversive and potentially dark message to Andrew WK and other mainstream artists saying to the youth of the world they should "party hard" and "just dance". But if it is really the artists who are behind their own words, then what are they trying to accomplish? Why would Andrew WK want to make it look like he was the victim of a conspiracy and fraud himself? It's a hard question to answer, but it may be related more deeply to the subconcious message of "just do what you want and have fun", that Andrew WK promotes in music, TV, and self-help speeches. If this whole thing is his or someone's idea of art, then I suppose they would be playing with the idea of an artist intentionally calling themselves "non-real" or the opposite of the authenticity artists normally striv so hard to cultivate.
"Steev Mike" has been outed a few times by people calling themselves "close friends" of Andrew WK, or people that worked with Steev Mike, The Louise Harland Corporation, or Andrew himself. Several of those who claim to be closest to him have stated that Andrew is Steev Mike and designed the entire concept from the beginning. Andrew's own brother, professional golfer Patrick Wilkes-Krier, wrote a letter to fans in early 2005, when the Steev Mike blackmail story had first unfolded in a major public fashion:
Hello, this is Andrews brother, Patrick Wilkes-Krier (as known from professional golf and the Hooters Tour). I have read over some of the accusations people had said and that is all a load of junk! Do not believe it! However I have some valuable information..the truth! Because me and Andrew talked over this and I promised to never tell this, but I am favoring you, the fans! The plan was for Andrew to cut a new style, yes, he has indeed got a haircut! But the pictures you've seen were taken back in February, 2002 and 1999, some time before his first album. So that was a working way to grab attention which was successful. Then to get people (hackers) to post lies about how this whole messy situation started (which wa spart of the plan and were nothing but lies to grab attention and create confusion to promote the album) and then for Andrews made up character Kristine Williams to come clean. However, that was another part of the lies. So the truth you wonder? Well the plan was for my Dad to be the guy behind it all. To be behind the lies, hackers and Steev Mike person. Now, Steev Mike you wonder is he 'real' or 'made up', simple answer is he is REAL. Steev Mike is my Dad, James E. Krier, but Andrew did not get along with his business partners and the plan they agreed to. In the future things were tense between everyone as they picked arguements out and always disagreed with each other. Andrew eventually said to them: "Thank you, you have just created a character which can bring excitement, happyness and confusion as a part of a role to help build my ego while at the same time totally destroying myself." (ed- This concept of building himself up and cutting himself down would become a major theme in all the stuff he did. You can see it on his kids game show called "Destroy Build Destroy", on Cartoon Network.) Andrew walked off with a smile that day (August 9th 2000). And until now, thats what Andrew has been hiding. It is not something bad, and as he said he wanted to build up his ego with this Steev Mike thing, then reveal it to destroy his ego. I guess its working, we've been seeing it play out over the past 10 years now and it just keeps getting more layered. But Andrew promised to never tell the truth about Steev Mike to anyone else because he was afraid someone would steal his idea and get recognition for a publicity stunt never done before. Andrew will hate me for this, but we've had our ups and downs, and at this time we are on the down side. However, he can hate me but it is for everyones own good because Andrew doesnt realise it hurts you people, but I think he now would realise it and once he released his new album he would come clean.
"Steev Mike" has been outed a few times by people calling themselves "close friends" of Andrew WK, or people that worked with Steev Mike, The Louise Harland Corporation, or Andrew himself. Several of those who claim to be closest to him have stated that Andrew is Steev Mike and designed the entire concept from the beginning. Andrew's own brother, professional golfer Patrick Wilkes-Krier, wrote a letter to fans in early 2005, when the Steev Mike blackmail story had first unfolded in a major public fashion:
Hello, this is Andrews brother, Patrick Wilkes-Krier (as known from professional golf and the Hooters Tour). I have read over some of the accusations people had said and that is all a load of junk! Do not believe it! However I have some valuable information..the truth! Because me and Andrew talked over this and I promised to never tell this, but I am favoring you, the fans! The plan was for Andrew to cut a new style, yes, he has indeed got a haircut! But the pictures you've seen were taken back in February, 2002 and 1999, some time before his first album. So that was a working way to grab attention which was successful. Then to get people (hackers) to post lies about how this whole messy situation started (which wa spart of the plan and were nothing but lies to grab attention and create confusion to promote the album) and then for Andrews made up character Kristine Williams to come clean. However, that was another part of the lies. So the truth you wonder? Well the plan was for my Dad to be the guy behind it all. To be behind the lies, hackers and Steev Mike person. Now, Steev Mike you wonder is he 'real' or 'made up', simple answer is he is REAL. Steev Mike is my Dad, James E. Krier, but Andrew did not get along with his business partners and the plan they agreed to. In the future things were tense between everyone as they picked arguements out and always disagreed with each other. Andrew eventually said to them: "Thank you, you have just created a character which can bring excitement, happyness and confusion as a part of a role to help build my ego while at the same time totally destroying myself." (ed- This concept of building himself up and cutting himself down would become a major theme in all the stuff he did. You can see it on his kids game show called "Destroy Build Destroy", on Cartoon Network.) Andrew walked off with a smile that day (August 9th 2000). And until now, thats what Andrew has been hiding. It is not something bad, and as he said he wanted to build up his ego with this Steev Mike thing, then reveal it to destroy his ego. I guess its working, we've been seeing it play out over the past 10 years now and it just keeps getting more layered. But Andrew promised to never tell the truth about Steev Mike to anyone else because he was afraid someone would steal his idea and get recognition for a publicity stunt never done before. Andrew will hate me for this, but we've had our ups and downs, and at this time we are on the down side. However, he can hate me but it is for everyones own good because Andrew doesnt realise it hurts you people, but I think he now would realise it and once he released his new album he would come clean.
PART THREE: Who is Steev Mike really?
Here's my most "down to earth" take on what went on: In November 2004 some nutcase fan or nutcase friend of Andrew WK decided to try and mess with everyone's head. (I wouldn't be surprised if they were schizophrenic or something.) They spent a lot of time creating threats and rumors in an attempt to blackmail Andrew WK. When Andrew didn't respond and the rift deepend, the nutcase went and hacked into the official Andrew WK page, pasting undecipherable "secret codes" everywhere. Andrew probably knew the person and if they were a little deranged he probably didn't want to make things worse for either of them, as far as what the nutcase would expose, or what Andrew would have to expose in the process, about his own real life. Since then a lot of idiots have put up their own "fan pages" or just plain hate rants "explaining" the mystery (ie. writing loads and loads of bullshit). I don't think it's a big deal, just an odd anomaly, but definitely worth mentioning considering how much confusion arouse from the pure speculation, rumors, and down right mean spirited accusations.
For anyone interested, it seems possible that the original 2004 threat letters and hacking was done by someone who spoke Dutch. They signed off "vijand", which is Dutch for "enemy". It seems like it might have all been a publicity stunt/piece of "art", or perhaps a deeper coded message, presented as advanced advertising. The message its sending is clear and multi layered at the same time. The idea that Andrew WK was an overnight sensation created by the record execs was old news by 2004. The cat was out of the bag by 2005 that Andrew WK had an evil alter-ego that he was battling with. Clearly, if this wasn't the message, the rest was lost in translation.
Back in 2001, when Andrew WK first appeared out of nowhere, he was instantly accused of being a fake and a corporate music fabrication. The truth behind this has turned out to be darker and with much larger ramifications than even the harshest critics had realized. Since then, I think this phenomenon is sweeping pop music and we're seeing further proof of the same tactics being used to create mainstream culture with subversive agendas. Clearly, I'm not the only one picking up on this, as very recently, people have noticed that the pop-artist, Lady Gaga, could very well be the female version of the same master plan. Check this out: ANDREW W.K. AND LADY GAGA ILLUMINATI CONNECTIONS - it's a mess, but there's a lot to ponder when looking around and finding this shit, and the implications are huge.
Look, everyone knows that Lady Gaga is a musically talented Italian-American kid from a fancy Manhattan private high school, not an Illuminati mind slave or omni-sexual alien. However, anyone who wears a gyroscope and pyramids as an outfit is totally cool with me. I suppose it seems a bit sketchy that Andrew WK isn't really a person who launched his musical career because he wanted to promote his philosophy of partying, but, by the same token, if we believe that he has people behind the curtain, even if by design of the concept, Steev Mike and those very controlers could be deliberating promoting a message involving mind-control, and hedonistic agendas with subversive alternative motives. Whether the male Andrew WK, or the female Lady Gaga, these could both be working to distract people through a socially acceptable mode of entertainment - artists who promotes a feel-good partying message because it's fun and successful can be perfectly cool with lots of people.
The original 2004 Andrew WK blackmail threats and codes also contained information related to Mountain Dew, leading many, including this site, to believe that the entire Steev Mike concept was created as a promotional mind-control advertisement for both Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist. It is also tied into a larger "Coke Wars" cola conspiracy that has Scientology and Tom Cruise himself in partnership with MTV (proven Illuminati), NBC (all seeing eye), Playboy (Scientology), and both Pepsi-Co and Coca-Cola (both Freemason corporation and political partners of the New World Order). Andrew WK was and still is part of a larger effort of these combined mega-corporations, but he's just one of many, as the Lady Gaga example illustrates.
In the 2008 Andrew WK admission videos, Andrew briefly touches on Steev Mike in one of the many hard-to-follow and deeply coded examples of extreme mind-control. Based on the associated interview transcripts, it agrees with his admission that in 1997, when he moved to New York City, he had a meeting with record label executives who had been approached by the Illuminati or the Church of Scientology, working as The Louise Harland Corporation, which had itself been founded by Andrew WK's father, James E. Krier. The Louise Harland Corporation was working on behalf of the entertainment arm of the occult conspiracy, to fill the role of an idealized super-human rock star. The Louise Harland Corporation is, in all practical purposes, Steev Mike. They had long wanted to design and control a single person's career in order to promote the philosophy of their own, involving hedonistic encouragement through role model music icons. After a breif meeting with New York Scientology, the contract with Louise Harland and Steev Mike was signed and Andrew's life was in the hands of these new "creative managers", as he would then refer to them.
Steev Mike began by indoctrinating Andrew in the ways of promoting their agenda through mind-control. As a result, he is himself brain-washed and has a reshaping of his personality to fit the ideals they wished express with his music. After months of isolation, Andrew re-emerged a new man. This time of transformation has been discussed again and again in Andrew's interviews and it is one of the elemental messages he conveys in a both subconcious and more blatant regard. Andrew says he went from being, "Angry" to "Happy", and that he went from "Negative" to "Positive", and that is a thinly veiled artifact left from brain-washing and mind control - the same mind control Andrew is now promoting. Once the transformation was complete, the image was in place. White priest, christ like clothing - everyman t-shirt and jeans - traditional scruffy long-haired rocker - the list goes on.
For anyone interested, it seems possible that the original 2004 threat letters and hacking was done by someone who spoke Dutch. They signed off "vijand", which is Dutch for "enemy". It seems like it might have all been a publicity stunt/piece of "art", or perhaps a deeper coded message, presented as advanced advertising. The message its sending is clear and multi layered at the same time. The idea that Andrew WK was an overnight sensation created by the record execs was old news by 2004. The cat was out of the bag by 2005 that Andrew WK had an evil alter-ego that he was battling with. Clearly, if this wasn't the message, the rest was lost in translation.
Back in 2001, when Andrew WK first appeared out of nowhere, he was instantly accused of being a fake and a corporate music fabrication. The truth behind this has turned out to be darker and with much larger ramifications than even the harshest critics had realized. Since then, I think this phenomenon is sweeping pop music and we're seeing further proof of the same tactics being used to create mainstream culture with subversive agendas. Clearly, I'm not the only one picking up on this, as very recently, people have noticed that the pop-artist, Lady Gaga, could very well be the female version of the same master plan. Check this out: ANDREW W.K. AND LADY GAGA ILLUMINATI CONNECTIONS - it's a mess, but there's a lot to ponder when looking around and finding this shit, and the implications are huge.
Look, everyone knows that Lady Gaga is a musically talented Italian-American kid from a fancy Manhattan private high school, not an Illuminati mind slave or omni-sexual alien. However, anyone who wears a gyroscope and pyramids as an outfit is totally cool with me. I suppose it seems a bit sketchy that Andrew WK isn't really a person who launched his musical career because he wanted to promote his philosophy of partying, but, by the same token, if we believe that he has people behind the curtain, even if by design of the concept, Steev Mike and those very controlers could be deliberating promoting a message involving mind-control, and hedonistic agendas with subversive alternative motives. Whether the male Andrew WK, or the female Lady Gaga, these could both be working to distract people through a socially acceptable mode of entertainment - artists who promotes a feel-good partying message because it's fun and successful can be perfectly cool with lots of people.
The original 2004 Andrew WK blackmail threats and codes also contained information related to Mountain Dew, leading many, including this site, to believe that the entire Steev Mike concept was created as a promotional mind-control advertisement for both Mountain Dew and Sierra Mist. It is also tied into a larger "Coke Wars" cola conspiracy that has Scientology and Tom Cruise himself in partnership with MTV (proven Illuminati), NBC (all seeing eye), Playboy (Scientology), and both Pepsi-Co and Coca-Cola (both Freemason corporation and political partners of the New World Order). Andrew WK was and still is part of a larger effort of these combined mega-corporations, but he's just one of many, as the Lady Gaga example illustrates.
In the 2008 Andrew WK admission videos, Andrew briefly touches on Steev Mike in one of the many hard-to-follow and deeply coded examples of extreme mind-control. Based on the associated interview transcripts, it agrees with his admission that in 1997, when he moved to New York City, he had a meeting with record label executives who had been approached by the Illuminati or the Church of Scientology, working as The Louise Harland Corporation, which had itself been founded by Andrew WK's father, James E. Krier. The Louise Harland Corporation was working on behalf of the entertainment arm of the occult conspiracy, to fill the role of an idealized super-human rock star. The Louise Harland Corporation is, in all practical purposes, Steev Mike. They had long wanted to design and control a single person's career in order to promote the philosophy of their own, involving hedonistic encouragement through role model music icons. After a breif meeting with New York Scientology, the contract with Louise Harland and Steev Mike was signed and Andrew's life was in the hands of these new "creative managers", as he would then refer to them.
Steev Mike began by indoctrinating Andrew in the ways of promoting their agenda through mind-control. As a result, he is himself brain-washed and has a reshaping of his personality to fit the ideals they wished express with his music. After months of isolation, Andrew re-emerged a new man. This time of transformation has been discussed again and again in Andrew's interviews and it is one of the elemental messages he conveys in a both subconcious and more blatant regard. Andrew says he went from being, "Angry" to "Happy", and that he went from "Negative" to "Positive", and that is a thinly veiled artifact left from brain-washing and mind control - the same mind control Andrew is now promoting. Once the transformation was complete, the image was in place. White priest, christ like clothing - everyman t-shirt and jeans - traditional scruffy long-haired rocker - the list goes on.
Another theory? Andrew WK is really his dad. Time travel might be involved.
If it isn't a cospiracy involving occult direction and management, there is a serious theory involving certain politicians, entertainers and other media personalities are really Time Travelers who have leaped back into the bodies of people from the past. Lady Gaga and Andrew WK were two people that we agreed were Time Travelers. When we saw Andrew WK at a Sound of Young America radio show taping in NYC several months ago and heard him expound on his philosophy of life (yes, he told the Airplane story), we looked at each other and simultaneously said "Time Traveler." This has only been furthered confirmed by the recent events, which now I see trace all the way back to the 2001 origin of this whole invention. If what's behind it is ever revealed, time travel could be revealed in a way much different than most would anticipate.
If it isn't a cospiracy involving occult direction and management, there is a serious theory involving certain politicians, entertainers and other media personalities are really Time Travelers who have leaped back into the bodies of people from the past. Lady Gaga and Andrew WK were two people that we agreed were Time Travelers. When we saw Andrew WK at a Sound of Young America radio show taping in NYC several months ago and heard him expound on his philosophy of life (yes, he told the Airplane story), we looked at each other and simultaneously said "Time Traveler." This has only been furthered confirmed by the recent events, which now I see trace all the way back to the 2001 origin of this whole invention. If what's behind it is ever revealed, time travel could be revealed in a way much different than most would anticipate.
It's Time To "Party"
November 13, 2001:
Musical unknown Andrew WK (Previously 1, 2) releases his debut album "I Get Wet." It is a simple rock record of power chords and unabashed, un-ironic party music -- exemplified perfectly both by its first song, "It's Time To Party," or its lead single, "Party Hard" -- released during a month of American depression, paranoia, and insincerity that borders on nihilism. The album finds mainstream success, selling over 30K copies in its first three weeks, with songs from the record appearing in commercials, movies, and television shows, not to mention heavy rotation on MTV and awesome appearances on Conan and Saturday Night Live.
While Pitchfork gives the album a 0.6 out of 10 (in a review written by its founder, Ryan Schreiber), most of the music press gives the album warm reviews - with Rolling Stone (4 out of 5 stars) saying that "To experience "Party Hard" is to refuse to believe your ears" and even the notoriously dismissive Robert Christgau gave the album an A-, saying "It's simple enough once you accept it for what it is." Possibly The Onion's A.V. Club said it best in an interview preamble: "...he's clearly dead serious about his music and its potential to inspire a world in need of passion and commitment." [In fact, the Onion's interview with AWK is one of his most candid and fascinating, with Andrew touching on his childhood ("Very good. Very Solitary."), his personal philosophy ("This is about working hard and inviting everybody into an unending, inexhaustible source of strength and energy."), and his resistance to change his music for corporate forces ("People give them too much credit—these corporations, or whoever is ruining people. Well, you may allow them to ruin you, but they don't touch me").]
Buoyed by the critical reaction, Andrew W.K. tours. And tours and tours, not stopping partying for anything, even performing in a wheel chair due to a broken foot. His high-energy shows, goofy behavior, and seeming limitless devotion to his fans -- mixed with mid-set speeches that border on motivational speaker territory -- help him build an underground following to supplement his mainstream appeal. The album eventually sells over 250K, and, of course, he gets huge in Japan.
Over the course of the decade, Andrew's quirky, sincere dedication to his fans finds a seemingly unlikely companion in MTV when they produce the series Your Friend, Andrew W.K., where fans would write him letters, and he'd fly to their homes to help them with their problems. Additionally, he continues to perform and record new material, ranging from similar up-tempo party anthems, to piano pieces, to covers of music from an anime series.
December 15, 2009:
In a hybrid interview/lecture video released by RockFeedback, Andrew W.K. admits that "Andrew W.K." is a construct, played by several different auditioned actors/musicians and created in secret by different groups working "in the spirit of commerce" to devise the ultimate popular/underground musical frontman. (Parts 2, 3, related).
Musical unknown Andrew WK (Previously 1, 2) releases his debut album "I Get Wet." It is a simple rock record of power chords and unabashed, un-ironic party music -- exemplified perfectly both by its first song, "It's Time To Party," or its lead single, "Party Hard" -- released during a month of American depression, paranoia, and insincerity that borders on nihilism. The album finds mainstream success, selling over 30K copies in its first three weeks, with songs from the record appearing in commercials, movies, and television shows, not to mention heavy rotation on MTV and awesome appearances on Conan and Saturday Night Live.
While Pitchfork gives the album a 0.6 out of 10 (in a review written by its founder, Ryan Schreiber), most of the music press gives the album warm reviews - with Rolling Stone (4 out of 5 stars) saying that "To experience "Party Hard" is to refuse to believe your ears" and even the notoriously dismissive Robert Christgau gave the album an A-, saying "It's simple enough once you accept it for what it is." Possibly The Onion's A.V. Club said it best in an interview preamble: "...he's clearly dead serious about his music and its potential to inspire a world in need of passion and commitment." [In fact, the Onion's interview with AWK is one of his most candid and fascinating, with Andrew touching on his childhood ("Very good. Very Solitary."), his personal philosophy ("This is about working hard and inviting everybody into an unending, inexhaustible source of strength and energy."), and his resistance to change his music for corporate forces ("People give them too much credit—these corporations, or whoever is ruining people. Well, you may allow them to ruin you, but they don't touch me").]
Buoyed by the critical reaction, Andrew W.K. tours. And tours and tours, not stopping partying for anything, even performing in a wheel chair due to a broken foot. His high-energy shows, goofy behavior, and seeming limitless devotion to his fans -- mixed with mid-set speeches that border on motivational speaker territory -- help him build an underground following to supplement his mainstream appeal. The album eventually sells over 250K, and, of course, he gets huge in Japan.
Over the course of the decade, Andrew's quirky, sincere dedication to his fans finds a seemingly unlikely companion in MTV when they produce the series Your Friend, Andrew W.K., where fans would write him letters, and he'd fly to their homes to help them with their problems. Additionally, he continues to perform and record new material, ranging from similar up-tempo party anthems, to piano pieces, to covers of music from an anime series.
December 15, 2009:
In a hybrid interview/lecture video released by RockFeedback, Andrew W.K. admits that "Andrew W.K." is a construct, played by several different auditioned actors/musicians and created in secret by different groups working "in the spirit of commerce" to devise the ultimate popular/underground musical frontman. (Parts 2, 3, related).
Is Andrew WK A Real Person?
A friend had made a comment to me a few days ago about Andrew W.K. being played by several different people, but I had brushed it off as a re-hashing of the Steev Mike talks that had been going around a few years ago. I've been a huge fan of A.W.K. for a long time, in part because I had always felt that his gleeful outlook on life was genuine; that he was just a guy trying to spread good energy around to the masses. I guess I was fooled by the equivalent of a highly skilled marketing group. I could not be more heartbroken. Long live the party, and all that jazz. But then I think there could be something more to this, and I begin to question not just the original dissapointment, but the very idea of dissapointment. Is that the point? Maybe the same people behind Andrew WK created Lady Gaga too? Another empty-headed scam. This
I don't want to believe this because Andrew WK is like the Anti-Snark, with his unfashionably open-faced sincere approach to music and life and people. If he turns out to be a completely fabricated bullshit thing, then fuck it--game over man. The "meh" crowd wins. Every thread reading like the initial comment in this one, forever. If it's just AWK having fun with the old "Steev Mike" rumors that have been around since he first came out, then maybe that's his way of trying to distract from a larger truth, or in fact, make the truth seem like a lie, when it is in fact true. In any case, the Big Reveal of whatever the hell is going on will probably be at this event... If this is all in fact going back to the Madame Jojo's videos, then I'm confused about three things...
Questions:
1. Why are the RockFeedback articles dated December 2009, when the opening titles of the first video show a date of September 2008? The Andrew WK appearance at Madame Jojo's did, by all accounts, occur in 2008. That's fifteen months ago. Why is RockFeedback posting this now with people acting as though it's brand new? It is nearly 2 years old!
2. In the Madame Jojo appearance, he claims that he auditioned for the role of Andrew WK. This implies that someone else is in charge -- namely, the people holding the audition. Why would the people in charge let this hired hand destroy all the artifice that they've so carefully constructed? What's going on here? Has the Sept. 2008 Andrew WK already been replaced?
3. Also, what is more likely? That this hoax* really was perpetrated over the course of seven or eight years? Or that he's yanking our chain now?
* "Hoax" may be a little too strong or loaded a term, but it'll do for now.
If you thought the rest of the Madame Jojo's videos would make things clearer, think again. It's not necessarily a "confession", and if it is a genuine reveal, it reveals less than I've ever seen. Hell, it's more like an anti-confession--he may or may not have been able to talk about the truth before, but he's definitely not telling the whole story now. Unless the whole thing was some kind of forced response or something that the he public has failed to get. I highly doubt this is a bizarre performance-art piece. It could be a media hoax, but it doesn't smell like one. What would be
the point of saying you're not authentic? In addition to the Wikipedia link to Steev Mike, the "Multiple Andrews" section of the discussion page has more rumor mongering and such. It seems that tales of multiple/replacement/impostor Andrew WKs have been in the lore since at least 2004, possibly coming to a head in 2007.
The thing is: authenticity doesn't mean anything if it comes easy; trusting another human being has absolutely no significance if the only reason you have to trust someone is a giddy sense of enjoyment and a few empty lyrics that express nothing. I'm not saying that lyrics have to be deep or that music has to be complex - but any real good music says more in six words than Andrew W. K. has done over the last ten years. It's unlayered, simplistic tripe. It's a motivational speaker given a microphone and very boring synthesizers and mixing them together in the most compressed, pop-friendly way possible. That to me proves more than anything that Andrew WK wasn't forced to do anything by his controlers or anyone else. What people seemed to latch onto was the illusion of genuine connection with Andrew WK. That's such a weird philosophy to me, such a strange assumption. It's like the opposite of whatever Zen is supposed to be. But it's also just a weird conflation to make: only that which you had to labor to discover is that which has authenticity and value. To me, one thing has nothing to do with the other. Some things are just enjoyable, and each person is different in what those things are. I don't have to shatter my pelvis and legs and spend painstaking months learning to walk again to take delight in the simple, vital pleasure of going for a run, to take an extreme example. And that's essentially what I get with this particular aspect of Andrew WK.
I don't want to believe this because Andrew WK is like the Anti-Snark, with his unfashionably open-faced sincere approach to music and life and people. If he turns out to be a completely fabricated bullshit thing, then fuck it--game over man. The "meh" crowd wins. Every thread reading like the initial comment in this one, forever. If it's just AWK having fun with the old "Steev Mike" rumors that have been around since he first came out, then maybe that's his way of trying to distract from a larger truth, or in fact, make the truth seem like a lie, when it is in fact true. In any case, the Big Reveal of whatever the hell is going on will probably be at this event... If this is all in fact going back to the Madame Jojo's videos, then I'm confused about three things...
Questions:
1. Why are the RockFeedback articles dated December 2009, when the opening titles of the first video show a date of September 2008? The Andrew WK appearance at Madame Jojo's did, by all accounts, occur in 2008. That's fifteen months ago. Why is RockFeedback posting this now with people acting as though it's brand new? It is nearly 2 years old!
2. In the Madame Jojo appearance, he claims that he auditioned for the role of Andrew WK. This implies that someone else is in charge -- namely, the people holding the audition. Why would the people in charge let this hired hand destroy all the artifice that they've so carefully constructed? What's going on here? Has the Sept. 2008 Andrew WK already been replaced?
3. Also, what is more likely? That this hoax* really was perpetrated over the course of seven or eight years? Or that he's yanking our chain now?
* "Hoax" may be a little too strong or loaded a term, but it'll do for now.
If you thought the rest of the Madame Jojo's videos would make things clearer, think again. It's not necessarily a "confession", and if it is a genuine reveal, it reveals less than I've ever seen. Hell, it's more like an anti-confession--he may or may not have been able to talk about the truth before, but he's definitely not telling the whole story now. Unless the whole thing was some kind of forced response or something that the he public has failed to get. I highly doubt this is a bizarre performance-art piece. It could be a media hoax, but it doesn't smell like one. What would be
the point of saying you're not authentic? In addition to the Wikipedia link to Steev Mike, the "Multiple Andrews" section of the discussion page has more rumor mongering and such. It seems that tales of multiple/replacement/impostor Andrew WKs have been in the lore since at least 2004, possibly coming to a head in 2007.
The thing is: authenticity doesn't mean anything if it comes easy; trusting another human being has absolutely no significance if the only reason you have to trust someone is a giddy sense of enjoyment and a few empty lyrics that express nothing. I'm not saying that lyrics have to be deep or that music has to be complex - but any real good music says more in six words than Andrew W. K. has done over the last ten years. It's unlayered, simplistic tripe. It's a motivational speaker given a microphone and very boring synthesizers and mixing them together in the most compressed, pop-friendly way possible. That to me proves more than anything that Andrew WK wasn't forced to do anything by his controlers or anyone else. What people seemed to latch onto was the illusion of genuine connection with Andrew WK. That's such a weird philosophy to me, such a strange assumption. It's like the opposite of whatever Zen is supposed to be. But it's also just a weird conflation to make: only that which you had to labor to discover is that which has authenticity and value. To me, one thing has nothing to do with the other. Some things are just enjoyable, and each person is different in what those things are. I don't have to shatter my pelvis and legs and spend painstaking months learning to walk again to take delight in the simple, vital pleasure of going for a run, to take an extreme example. And that's essentially what I get with this particular aspect of Andrew WK.
The 2008 Madame Jojo's Videos - COMPLETE BREAKDOWN:
The entire controversy surrounding the lecture video footage isn't based on Andrew WK admitting that he was actually a hired actor - the controversy is whether or not he actually admitted anything, and if not, why would it surface almost 2 years after the fact? I personally think it has to do with his management getting a new deal in place, where they no longer had to pull off the trick of having many people play him, even if he is the last in a long line to play the character. I don't say this because I dislike his music, and to be honest the final feelings he always leaves me with aren't feelings of strong dislike or of hatred - only of emptiness. And again, not even emptiness in a "god, this stuff is so vapid!" sort of way - it's an interesting emptiness. An emptiness that I imagine people are going for in transcendental meditation.
“If you give it some thought, there's really no way to believe in Andrew WK as a person. He's a totally blank slate. He doesn't talk about anything except being positive and partying.”
It was just astounding to see him work, because he could always turn things back upon themselves to bring the focus back to the central positivity of the character. No details, no names, no attributions, no heros, just positivity. People talk about the philosophy behind Andrew WK, but... well, it's hard to see anything beyond sheer, adamant refusal to meet the world with any outlook beyond a positive one. Of course, that is the philosophy, right? - and a lot of people saw something interesting and even inspiring in that, that one man could steadfastly be happy and keep partying. And I have to say that, for those who see something in that, this revelation shouldn't kill it for you; as he pointed out in that interesting interview linked at the top, his happiness and positivity, no matter how much it was part of the character he was consciously creating, was never fake. Regardless of the circumstance, at the center of it was the same thing, no matter how you look at it: one guy steadfastly refusing to be negative about anyone or anything.
Anyway, thinking about it now, it seems like the "multiple actors" thing is really sort of a doublespeak joke, not so much a metaphor as a way of testing the waters to see the reaction and trying to move on with the character. If some people claim that he's speaking literally here, that he's quite literally must have had different people playing him, and that he quite literally isn't the same guy as the original Andrew WK - but I think if you pay closer attention to his speech during that show in the RockFeedback 2008 video interview you posted, you'll see that he's using the phrase "literally" in a way that isn't quite, well, literal.
OFFICIAL TRANSCRPIT OF THE SO-CALLED "ADMISSION:
The following is taken word-for-word from the Madame Jojo's lecture videos, London, UK 2008...
This is my dad's suit - it belongs to my father. You can actually see his name here: James E. Krier. James E. Krier. And when I think of my dad, it gives me a moment of pause, and it makes me want to confess something to all of you.
I - I'm actually not Andrew WK.
I'm not. I'm not the same guy that you may have seen from the I Get Wet album, where I actually spent a lot of time here, we launched the album from London and England through the, ah, incredible support of publications like the NME and Keraang, I'm not that same person. - ah - And I don't just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way - it's not the same person at all. Do - do I look the same - as that person? (guy in crowd: "similar.") Oh - I - similar. Huh. Uh... Well, moving on -
What I mean is that since that time, I have changed, and for any of you that happened to be there during that time, perhaps you have changed as well. And I would like to think that we're not the same people at all - and again, not just conceptually, but very literally, we're not the same - people, that I'm a completely different entity. Not to discredit what I've done before, or what Andrew WK has done before, whoever that person was. We want to be able to give ourselves the freedom to change, and I come here in the spirit of that freedom. Which is not to deny the importance of whatever we've done before, or the value of whatever we've done before, or the - the quality of whatever we've done before, or whatever we experienced before - I'm just here in the spirit of freedom. And to me, humans, human beings, have a capacity to indulge in all the freedom that the concept of freedom gives us. And so I'm here in that spirit, and I think that freedom is sort of hand in hand with idea of joy, and songs like "Party Hard" that Andrew WK has done, songs like "I Get Wet" or "Party 'Til You Puke" or "Totally Stupid" or whatever songs, that have appealed to you, that Andrew WK has presented - I'm here in the name of that joy, but I'm not Andrew WK as far as that goes.
So he comes out and says he's not *literally* Andrew WK, but then he explains this by saying "I have changed... and perhaps you have changed as well." I know that there's a lot more stuff in the video (which is exceedingly interesting, by the way) but it's generally very vague - he doesn't even say "it was a focus group" or "it was corporate," he uses vague synonyms like "it was done in the spirit of commerce" and "it was done by a large group of people."
The most interesting thing in the entire video, in my mind, is what comes right after the "reveal" speech in that first video - a real, personal explanation, I think, of what the character originated in and means to him:
What appealed to me a lot about the very abrasive music that I got into in high school was: on one hand, there was this group of people that all liked it, so I felt like I could be part of this thing, and I liked that it separated me from people who I thought - "oh, they'll never understand this music," so I liked that, but I also kind of said "you're stupid because you don't understand it" - but I never really wanted other people to understand it. But eventually again that started to feel kind of boring and closed, it wasn't challenging me anymore; and what became reallly exciting to me was this idea: what if I could make a music that I really liked that people that I didn't like (or didn't think I would liike) would also like? And then we would realize that we both had this common interest or this common love for this exciting feeling that this music was giving us, and maybe then I would find this common ground and be able to love them or like them or be friends with them. And that became more exciting to me than the idea of being separate from people.
So he kind of created a character behind that - a character that doesn't dislike anyone, that doesn't criticize anything, that wants to stay positive and never be negative. And I think that must have been a very interesting character to play, because it really pushed him to accept things that are aggravating or annoying and not let it show at all. At one point during the video, an audience member asks him how he deals with annoying people, and he says that he pictures them as tiny babies. An interesting exercise - a sort of coping mechanism for dealing with the difficulty of playing this person.
Actors are artists as much as musicians or writers, anyway.
And ending AWK this way makes a lot of sense in a certain way. It's as though he sat down and thought to himself: "what would kill this character - what would kill Andrew WK?" Not because he necessarily hates it, but because it's more interesting to keep it moving and let it change. The interesting thing about the character of pure positivity that he created was that so many people had the same reaction; many, many people said of him what he never implied of himself, that Andrew WK is the last authentic man alive. That was the life the character took on that I think he didn't foresee. So the best way he could come up with to "kill" the character, or to force it to grow beyond itself, was to announce: "Andrew WK is not authentic."
It's also possible that he started this process himself before by intentionally spreading a rumor that many different people were playing him. At this point, I wouldn't put it past him to have been wholly responsible for that notion that's been kicking around for years; it would have been an interesting thing to try, a sort of foil of inauthenticity to stand against what people perceived as his innate genuineness.
Even so, he seems pretty attached to Andrew WK and to being Andrew WK. It's become a bit of a spiritual practice for him, and I think it's hard to let go. That's what's suggested by the Twitter mentioned above, but it's also suggested by the whole way he goes about it in the show where he makes the announcement; he takes great pains not to invalidate the way anybody felt about AWK, and he still ends the thing the way any AWK show might end (the whole audience on stage, singing with him) - saying to everyone that this is "a preview of the future." If he were really detached from AWK as a character (the way some actors can be, I guess) he would be able to walk in and just slaughter him: "I am not Andrew WK, and I hate the music he makes, but I wanted to make money."
“If you give it some thought, there's really no way to believe in Andrew WK as a person. He's a totally blank slate. He doesn't talk about anything except being positive and partying.”
It was just astounding to see him work, because he could always turn things back upon themselves to bring the focus back to the central positivity of the character. No details, no names, no attributions, no heros, just positivity. People talk about the philosophy behind Andrew WK, but... well, it's hard to see anything beyond sheer, adamant refusal to meet the world with any outlook beyond a positive one. Of course, that is the philosophy, right? - and a lot of people saw something interesting and even inspiring in that, that one man could steadfastly be happy and keep partying. And I have to say that, for those who see something in that, this revelation shouldn't kill it for you; as he pointed out in that interesting interview linked at the top, his happiness and positivity, no matter how much it was part of the character he was consciously creating, was never fake. Regardless of the circumstance, at the center of it was the same thing, no matter how you look at it: one guy steadfastly refusing to be negative about anyone or anything.
Anyway, thinking about it now, it seems like the "multiple actors" thing is really sort of a doublespeak joke, not so much a metaphor as a way of testing the waters to see the reaction and trying to move on with the character. If some people claim that he's speaking literally here, that he's quite literally must have had different people playing him, and that he quite literally isn't the same guy as the original Andrew WK - but I think if you pay closer attention to his speech during that show in the RockFeedback 2008 video interview you posted, you'll see that he's using the phrase "literally" in a way that isn't quite, well, literal.
OFFICIAL TRANSCRPIT OF THE SO-CALLED "ADMISSION:
The following is taken word-for-word from the Madame Jojo's lecture videos, London, UK 2008...
This is my dad's suit - it belongs to my father. You can actually see his name here: James E. Krier. James E. Krier. And when I think of my dad, it gives me a moment of pause, and it makes me want to confess something to all of you.
I - I'm actually not Andrew WK.
I'm not. I'm not the same guy that you may have seen from the I Get Wet album, where I actually spent a lot of time here, we launched the album from London and England through the, ah, incredible support of publications like the NME and Keraang, I'm not that same person. - ah - And I don't just mean that in a philosophical or conceptual way - it's not the same person at all. Do - do I look the same - as that person? (guy in crowd: "similar.") Oh - I - similar. Huh. Uh... Well, moving on -
What I mean is that since that time, I have changed, and for any of you that happened to be there during that time, perhaps you have changed as well. And I would like to think that we're not the same people at all - and again, not just conceptually, but very literally, we're not the same - people, that I'm a completely different entity. Not to discredit what I've done before, or what Andrew WK has done before, whoever that person was. We want to be able to give ourselves the freedom to change, and I come here in the spirit of that freedom. Which is not to deny the importance of whatever we've done before, or the value of whatever we've done before, or the - the quality of whatever we've done before, or whatever we experienced before - I'm just here in the spirit of freedom. And to me, humans, human beings, have a capacity to indulge in all the freedom that the concept of freedom gives us. And so I'm here in that spirit, and I think that freedom is sort of hand in hand with idea of joy, and songs like "Party Hard" that Andrew WK has done, songs like "I Get Wet" or "Party 'Til You Puke" or "Totally Stupid" or whatever songs, that have appealed to you, that Andrew WK has presented - I'm here in the name of that joy, but I'm not Andrew WK as far as that goes.
So he comes out and says he's not *literally* Andrew WK, but then he explains this by saying "I have changed... and perhaps you have changed as well." I know that there's a lot more stuff in the video (which is exceedingly interesting, by the way) but it's generally very vague - he doesn't even say "it was a focus group" or "it was corporate," he uses vague synonyms like "it was done in the spirit of commerce" and "it was done by a large group of people."
The most interesting thing in the entire video, in my mind, is what comes right after the "reveal" speech in that first video - a real, personal explanation, I think, of what the character originated in and means to him:
What appealed to me a lot about the very abrasive music that I got into in high school was: on one hand, there was this group of people that all liked it, so I felt like I could be part of this thing, and I liked that it separated me from people who I thought - "oh, they'll never understand this music," so I liked that, but I also kind of said "you're stupid because you don't understand it" - but I never really wanted other people to understand it. But eventually again that started to feel kind of boring and closed, it wasn't challenging me anymore; and what became reallly exciting to me was this idea: what if I could make a music that I really liked that people that I didn't like (or didn't think I would liike) would also like? And then we would realize that we both had this common interest or this common love for this exciting feeling that this music was giving us, and maybe then I would find this common ground and be able to love them or like them or be friends with them. And that became more exciting to me than the idea of being separate from people.
So he kind of created a character behind that - a character that doesn't dislike anyone, that doesn't criticize anything, that wants to stay positive and never be negative. And I think that must have been a very interesting character to play, because it really pushed him to accept things that are aggravating or annoying and not let it show at all. At one point during the video, an audience member asks him how he deals with annoying people, and he says that he pictures them as tiny babies. An interesting exercise - a sort of coping mechanism for dealing with the difficulty of playing this person.
Actors are artists as much as musicians or writers, anyway.
And ending AWK this way makes a lot of sense in a certain way. It's as though he sat down and thought to himself: "what would kill this character - what would kill Andrew WK?" Not because he necessarily hates it, but because it's more interesting to keep it moving and let it change. The interesting thing about the character of pure positivity that he created was that so many people had the same reaction; many, many people said of him what he never implied of himself, that Andrew WK is the last authentic man alive. That was the life the character took on that I think he didn't foresee. So the best way he could come up with to "kill" the character, or to force it to grow beyond itself, was to announce: "Andrew WK is not authentic."
It's also possible that he started this process himself before by intentionally spreading a rumor that many different people were playing him. At this point, I wouldn't put it past him to have been wholly responsible for that notion that's been kicking around for years; it would have been an interesting thing to try, a sort of foil of inauthenticity to stand against what people perceived as his innate genuineness.
Even so, he seems pretty attached to Andrew WK and to being Andrew WK. It's become a bit of a spiritual practice for him, and I think it's hard to let go. That's what's suggested by the Twitter mentioned above, but it's also suggested by the whole way he goes about it in the show where he makes the announcement; he takes great pains not to invalidate the way anybody felt about AWK, and he still ends the thing the way any AWK show might end (the whole audience on stage, singing with him) - saying to everyone that this is "a preview of the future." If he were really detached from AWK as a character (the way some actors can be, I guess) he would be able to walk in and just slaughter him: "I am not Andrew WK, and I hate the music he makes, but I wanted to make money."
What Do The 2008 Videos Really Reveal?
If we take a closer look at the Madame Jojo's "2008 reveal" videos, we are presented with the idea that Andrew WK was created for "commerce". Trading cash for the music and the concert experience has been part of the deal from day one. But I find the creation of a sort of identity-nexus based on multiple people to be unsettling in this instance. I think what I find dismaying about this is that it completely upends the idea he had supposedly created -- that a single human could be the full array of joyful tenacity that is Andrew WK. This is basically a tacit admission that no, he could not achieve the fullness of whole-life-based artistic vision he'd claimed to achieve, and it makes all his subsequent proclamations about human potential ring a little hollow.
Whatever the reasons for a multi-person performance of the identity, the performance points to the idea that we as individuals are incapable of living up to the personas we show the world. If the reasons for this multi-person performance are based in the fact that it's simply too much for one individual to handle, that's fine, but I wish he would have admitted that from the get-go. So much of Andrew WK revolves around the idea that "Hey, I am living my life to the fullest -- you can, too!" But if one is only able to live one's life to the fullest because one has the assistance of a Jamie-Madrox-like series of backup bodies, each with fresh neurochemistry when one's worn out, then all of one's proclamations about the great potential for humanity strike me as shallow dismissals of the very real ways in which the world is harsh to us, and our responses to that harshness.
I suppose one could say, "Well that's it now, innit? We none of us are islands, we all need help sometimes." Which is definitely true. But most of us can't afford to audition and hire paid servants to be our help, and this guy -- with the financial backing of profit-seeking capitalists -- can. Bully for him, but encouraging people to believe they can achieve X+Y+Z as individuals while concealing the fact he can only achieve X+Y is not helpful to the development of humanity. It's a bit like the soul's equivalent of young girls who see photoshopped models on the covers of magazines and making their body-based decisions on the basis of a fiction; unhealthy, neurosis-inducing. It's a house built on quicksand -- no matter beautiful the final construction is, it's likely to sink.
I'm certainly opening myself up to an accusation that I'm taking this revelation too seriously, but I guess to that, I say that I take this seriously because I took his persona seriously. Living a life of joyful emotional generosity is an admirable goal, and it's something I -- like many people -- constantly struggle with, given perhaps-less-than-ideal past experiences and neurochemical tendencies. And to be fair, Andrew W. K. asks us to take it seriously -- his job these days is to stand on stage and offer advice that the audience is supposed to assume was forged in the crucible of his living experience, not the experience of a mythical superman-character of whom Andrew Wilkes-Krier is only one component. At the end of the day, the music is still kickass, so there's that. That's good. But now it feels more like noisy bluster than transcendence. I like noisy bluster, so there's that. That's good. But it's unfortunate that the additional philosophical component is gone. Hopefully others who were closer to him early on can shed a little more light than me, but I was around and attending the first Andrew WK shows in the late 90s, an that's when I was first presented with his philosophy.
THE REAL BACKSTORY ON ANDREW:
In 1995, I wouldn't have known AWK by name, but that is when he supposedly first set his mind on doing something big. I did start hearing stories about him in around 1999-2000 when he had already moved to NYC, but he had just put out this EP on Bulb Records (still a local Ann Arbor, Michigan label). Andrew had shifted first from traditonal piano lessons, then to extreme avant-garde noise rock, and then sort of combined them into this sort of self-aware yet non-ironic party metal, and I was hearing stories that he was posting his home phone number on music flyers all around NYC in attempt to become famous. A year later, somehow he totally pulled it off, and the rest is mostly history (with a lot of holes and questions).
People have had this idea that he "appeared out of nowhere", and that is where I think most of the paranoia comes from, as far as whether Andrew WK is a real person with a real background, or someone that was invented and he was hired to act as. From this and everything I've heard from him in interviews, etc. I think his "confession" is a cryptic (like a lot of his comments) and pseudo-intellectual way of saying that he actively pursued fame and made choices about music production to reach that end. Which can really be said about almost every famous or major-label band of recent decades. He probably just feels more guilty about it since he's more of an experimental and avantgarde music lover at heart.
The comments about auditions and conferences are still a little perplexing, and maybe the bigger labels that he switched to had proposed a different frontman or other changes to commercialize his image, etc- but it's ridiculous to take his statement that he was the 2nd AWK at face value since it's basically his birth name; this and the fact that he was already putting his signature sound in motion before meeting up with bigger labels makes me believe that there's a lot to these rumors/confessions. I think maybe what's behind his attempt to discredit himself is part of an elaborate plan - something that could've been in the works since h first signed up as Andrew WK. The idea from the start was to build the ultimate front-man identity, but possibly also it was planned to destroy or throw doubt into the very same entity.
When he was in high school, back when he was just Andrew Fetterly (or some have said, Steven Michaels), he had a habit of trying on new personae. He has admitted to getting in trouble for forging baseball cards and mail fraud schemes. He also has openly discussed stealing money from jobs, working at business scams, and getting involved in complex forgeries. He did this with a great amount of focus and seriousness, and as he told The Onion back in 2002, none of his friends really had any idea what he was up to. He did most of his trouble-making alone. He also admitted to being seen by a child psycholgist, after getting in trouble with the law due arson and mail fraud in Michigan, and he claims that the doctor's final analysis was that Andrew had a "devilish side". According to Andrew, he didn't agree with the doctor, and then choose to do fully dive into music as a way to embrace a positive view of life and cut himself off from the devils inside him. His musical work before he eventually got involed in Andrew WK was pretty all over the place. In 1992 he had an album as The Portly Boys, which was supposed to be a rebellious inner city boys choir that got really into Gregorian chant, and sounded very slow and echo-y call and response. He recorded an album with some friends called The Rusty Bucket Group, who he said were old bluegrass musicians - the voices would hack and snarl between songs. Around 1993 he did an album as Gravediggers, and recorded an album as a group called The Coffins. He also had a really weird sounding group called Ancient Art of Boar (later known as AAB), he played drums for a few months in a rock band called Pterodactyls, and he played drums in psychadelic rock band called Lab Lob Otomy. There was also an acoustic metal band called The Deer Dogs, but the recordings have never surfaced.
Say what you will about his compositions, his technical skill is beyond reproach. He is an incredibly talented pianist, guitarist and drummer. He was also incredibly driven and something of a perfectionist, and says he was never fully satisfied with any of his projects which is why he eventually signed up for the whole Andrew WK adventure. He just wanted to go bigger and bigger. Andrew WK was born out of that desire. I think on a personal level, creating the Andrew WK persona allowed him to be more accepting of his music, because he was forced to be unwaveringly accepting of everything all the time. And, of course, the recognition didn't hurt either. The AWK character also gave him a lot of room to move and try new things. He recorded an album of Gundam songs. He did a piano improvisation album. He did inspirational speaking. He did kids shows and shows on MTV, and he had the opportunity to meet a lot of people that he never would have otherwise. I mean, he produced a Lee fucking Perry album. People really responded to this character, and it appeared to genuinely help people, so he just cranked it up harder and harder.
If you give it some thought, there's really no way to believe in Andrew WK as a person. He's a totally blank slate. He doesn't talk about anything except being positive and partying. As Astro Zombie mentioned upthread, that story he told on The Sound of Young America radio show about struggling to be positive when he sees overweight people at the airport is ridiculous on the face of it - it's also contradictory to his personality as it's otherwise presented. He's experimenting with the big picture and dealing with the fundamentals of identity and doing it in an entertaining and fun way. Even if he has really had come to believe most of the "HAVE FUN PARTY NEVER LET DOWN NEVER LET UP" script, being a guy named Andrew Fetterly and playing a guy named Andrew WK is a strange delineation to make. I wouldn't be surprised if Andrew WK has assimilated parts of this persona into his offstage routine. If anything, I bet it has helped him immensely. Andy Kaufmann worked this angle in some ways.
However, that being said, I don't believe for a second there were fake Andrews, and if there were, I don't think Andrew Fetterly had anything to do with it, or that it was done for subversive reasons. If anyone was involved in contriving this character other than Steev Mike, James E. Krier, or Andrew himself, then that person is probably behind all of this, and has planned it out since the start. He's just having fun with us. He's a great showman, and like it or hate it, he's giving us an interesting show. I think the deliberate concept could be that "Andrew WK" is meant to be everything that's right about people embodied in everything that is "wrong" about music.
Whatever the reasons for a multi-person performance of the identity, the performance points to the idea that we as individuals are incapable of living up to the personas we show the world. If the reasons for this multi-person performance are based in the fact that it's simply too much for one individual to handle, that's fine, but I wish he would have admitted that from the get-go. So much of Andrew WK revolves around the idea that "Hey, I am living my life to the fullest -- you can, too!" But if one is only able to live one's life to the fullest because one has the assistance of a Jamie-Madrox-like series of backup bodies, each with fresh neurochemistry when one's worn out, then all of one's proclamations about the great potential for humanity strike me as shallow dismissals of the very real ways in which the world is harsh to us, and our responses to that harshness.
I suppose one could say, "Well that's it now, innit? We none of us are islands, we all need help sometimes." Which is definitely true. But most of us can't afford to audition and hire paid servants to be our help, and this guy -- with the financial backing of profit-seeking capitalists -- can. Bully for him, but encouraging people to believe they can achieve X+Y+Z as individuals while concealing the fact he can only achieve X+Y is not helpful to the development of humanity. It's a bit like the soul's equivalent of young girls who see photoshopped models on the covers of magazines and making their body-based decisions on the basis of a fiction; unhealthy, neurosis-inducing. It's a house built on quicksand -- no matter beautiful the final construction is, it's likely to sink.
I'm certainly opening myself up to an accusation that I'm taking this revelation too seriously, but I guess to that, I say that I take this seriously because I took his persona seriously. Living a life of joyful emotional generosity is an admirable goal, and it's something I -- like many people -- constantly struggle with, given perhaps-less-than-ideal past experiences and neurochemical tendencies. And to be fair, Andrew W. K. asks us to take it seriously -- his job these days is to stand on stage and offer advice that the audience is supposed to assume was forged in the crucible of his living experience, not the experience of a mythical superman-character of whom Andrew Wilkes-Krier is only one component. At the end of the day, the music is still kickass, so there's that. That's good. But now it feels more like noisy bluster than transcendence. I like noisy bluster, so there's that. That's good. But it's unfortunate that the additional philosophical component is gone. Hopefully others who were closer to him early on can shed a little more light than me, but I was around and attending the first Andrew WK shows in the late 90s, an that's when I was first presented with his philosophy.
THE REAL BACKSTORY ON ANDREW:
In 1995, I wouldn't have known AWK by name, but that is when he supposedly first set his mind on doing something big. I did start hearing stories about him in around 1999-2000 when he had already moved to NYC, but he had just put out this EP on Bulb Records (still a local Ann Arbor, Michigan label). Andrew had shifted first from traditonal piano lessons, then to extreme avant-garde noise rock, and then sort of combined them into this sort of self-aware yet non-ironic party metal, and I was hearing stories that he was posting his home phone number on music flyers all around NYC in attempt to become famous. A year later, somehow he totally pulled it off, and the rest is mostly history (with a lot of holes and questions).
People have had this idea that he "appeared out of nowhere", and that is where I think most of the paranoia comes from, as far as whether Andrew WK is a real person with a real background, or someone that was invented and he was hired to act as. From this and everything I've heard from him in interviews, etc. I think his "confession" is a cryptic (like a lot of his comments) and pseudo-intellectual way of saying that he actively pursued fame and made choices about music production to reach that end. Which can really be said about almost every famous or major-label band of recent decades. He probably just feels more guilty about it since he's more of an experimental and avantgarde music lover at heart.
The comments about auditions and conferences are still a little perplexing, and maybe the bigger labels that he switched to had proposed a different frontman or other changes to commercialize his image, etc- but it's ridiculous to take his statement that he was the 2nd AWK at face value since it's basically his birth name; this and the fact that he was already putting his signature sound in motion before meeting up with bigger labels makes me believe that there's a lot to these rumors/confessions. I think maybe what's behind his attempt to discredit himself is part of an elaborate plan - something that could've been in the works since h first signed up as Andrew WK. The idea from the start was to build the ultimate front-man identity, but possibly also it was planned to destroy or throw doubt into the very same entity.
When he was in high school, back when he was just Andrew Fetterly (or some have said, Steven Michaels), he had a habit of trying on new personae. He has admitted to getting in trouble for forging baseball cards and mail fraud schemes. He also has openly discussed stealing money from jobs, working at business scams, and getting involved in complex forgeries. He did this with a great amount of focus and seriousness, and as he told The Onion back in 2002, none of his friends really had any idea what he was up to. He did most of his trouble-making alone. He also admitted to being seen by a child psycholgist, after getting in trouble with the law due arson and mail fraud in Michigan, and he claims that the doctor's final analysis was that Andrew had a "devilish side". According to Andrew, he didn't agree with the doctor, and then choose to do fully dive into music as a way to embrace a positive view of life and cut himself off from the devils inside him. His musical work before he eventually got involed in Andrew WK was pretty all over the place. In 1992 he had an album as The Portly Boys, which was supposed to be a rebellious inner city boys choir that got really into Gregorian chant, and sounded very slow and echo-y call and response. He recorded an album with some friends called The Rusty Bucket Group, who he said were old bluegrass musicians - the voices would hack and snarl between songs. Around 1993 he did an album as Gravediggers, and recorded an album as a group called The Coffins. He also had a really weird sounding group called Ancient Art of Boar (later known as AAB), he played drums for a few months in a rock band called Pterodactyls, and he played drums in psychadelic rock band called Lab Lob Otomy. There was also an acoustic metal band called The Deer Dogs, but the recordings have never surfaced.
Say what you will about his compositions, his technical skill is beyond reproach. He is an incredibly talented pianist, guitarist and drummer. He was also incredibly driven and something of a perfectionist, and says he was never fully satisfied with any of his projects which is why he eventually signed up for the whole Andrew WK adventure. He just wanted to go bigger and bigger. Andrew WK was born out of that desire. I think on a personal level, creating the Andrew WK persona allowed him to be more accepting of his music, because he was forced to be unwaveringly accepting of everything all the time. And, of course, the recognition didn't hurt either. The AWK character also gave him a lot of room to move and try new things. He recorded an album of Gundam songs. He did a piano improvisation album. He did inspirational speaking. He did kids shows and shows on MTV, and he had the opportunity to meet a lot of people that he never would have otherwise. I mean, he produced a Lee fucking Perry album. People really responded to this character, and it appeared to genuinely help people, so he just cranked it up harder and harder.
If you give it some thought, there's really no way to believe in Andrew WK as a person. He's a totally blank slate. He doesn't talk about anything except being positive and partying. As Astro Zombie mentioned upthread, that story he told on The Sound of Young America radio show about struggling to be positive when he sees overweight people at the airport is ridiculous on the face of it - it's also contradictory to his personality as it's otherwise presented. He's experimenting with the big picture and dealing with the fundamentals of identity and doing it in an entertaining and fun way. Even if he has really had come to believe most of the "HAVE FUN PARTY NEVER LET DOWN NEVER LET UP" script, being a guy named Andrew Fetterly and playing a guy named Andrew WK is a strange delineation to make. I wouldn't be surprised if Andrew WK has assimilated parts of this persona into his offstage routine. If anything, I bet it has helped him immensely. Andy Kaufmann worked this angle in some ways.
However, that being said, I don't believe for a second there were fake Andrews, and if there were, I don't think Andrew Fetterly had anything to do with it, or that it was done for subversive reasons. If anyone was involved in contriving this character other than Steev Mike, James E. Krier, or Andrew himself, then that person is probably behind all of this, and has planned it out since the start. He's just having fun with us. He's a great showman, and like it or hate it, he's giving us an interesting show. I think the deliberate concept could be that "Andrew WK" is meant to be everything that's right about people embodied in everything that is "wrong" about music.
The Master Plan?
One of the more likely possibilities is that the entire Andrew WK story, including the very idea of Andrew not being authentic, could be part of the entire concept. The following quote is from an anonymous high school friend of Andrew's. A lot of people seem to think this is the best explanation and the best perspective to take when looking at the "admission" in the Madame Jojo's videos and the Steev Mike phenomenon in general.
"...The other three people that he's always worked with are all adults much older than him (by the way, Andrew's real age isn't 26 or 27). I don't know exactly how he met these other three, but I think it was through his Dad somehow as they were all involved in academics (probably from University of Michigan). One day in the acting class the teacher had us all stand up and talk about what are dreams for the future were. Most of the kids said "To be a famous actor", one other girl said "To be a star on Broadway", and I said "To make movies". Andrew went last and stood up and said, very slowly, "I want to craft my own non-existence." The teacher asked him what he meant and said "Exactly what I said." The teacher was clearly annoyed and the whole class rolled it's eyes because Andrew was always saying weird stuff that made no sense. I thought what he said sounded cool though, so after class, while we were walking to our cars, I asked Andrew how he was going to craft his own non-existence). I don't remember what he said word for word, but essentially he said, "First I'm going to make myself undeniably exist as a recognizable and identifiable form, and then I'm going to spend the rest of my life working to eliminate it and prove that it's existence was an impossible illusion all along, but because people have already seen it they will experience the sensation equal to maximum pleasure." It was something like that, obviously some of what he said was different, but that's essentially what he told me. I remember it well because it made a huge impact on me and I've thought about it a lot since. "
In other words, we could be experiencing several layers of performance here, and these layers could also have many layers within them, or beyond them. For example:
Surface Layer - Andrew WK is a very happy man that likes to party and inspire other people to party. After releasing an album in the early part of this decade, he went on to have trouble with his label, has experimented with other side projects, and recently opened a club in NYC.
Sub Layer - Andrew WK is, in reality, a construct of a corporation designed to sell music. Every step of the way, this persona has been designed by comittee to cultivate a fan-base and, and create good will to sell more records, tickets, and merchandise. Whatever altruistic or philosophical tones this advertising may take it is, at its core, still advertising with profit its ultimate goal. There may also be a conspiracy with multiple look-alike actors.
Reality - Andrew WK is, despite the involvement of any corporation, the project of a single artist to explore the nature of identity. Is Andrew WK a near religious figure of zen-like hedonism and good will? Is Andrew WK the cynical creation of admen, playing with the easily led psyche of the internet age? Does Andrew WK exist at all, and if he doesn't, then isn't the fabrication in many ways realer than anything else? If the commentor above is telling the truth, then Andrew really has created and then destroyed himself. People often talk about being a "self made man", as if anyone could make himself out of whole cloth and determine his future independent of outside of events. But perhaps this is what being a self made man gets you - a construct of indeterminate reality that, when examined closer, is nothing more than a hollow shell.
Sub Reality - Andrew WK is literally living out a life within a life without realizing it. He's presenting these layers as a performance, not realizing that the final layer is a mystery to even himself.
This is why I think discussions of cultural authenticity are so absurd: what we're talking about now is not the music, but the marketing of the music, which to me is far less important. But this case in particular is more absurd than the normal for three reasons:
1) So his goal was to be the Platonic Ideal of a Rocker. Authentic or not, that was clearly the case from day one and no matter how many men are behind the curtain, the giant green head of the Wizard is still as close to our ideal as it ever was. Whether or not it was an authentic gimmick, it was always a gimmick - its just not possible to party 24 hours a day for your entire life. I think everyone here should be mature enough to recognize that art often requires artifice.
2) The goal of being the absolute most at what you do should be supported. The fact that he even tried to be the Platonic Rocker is awesome, and the fact that he came as close as he did is still cool. I suspect that if you sat down and hung out with most performers, they probably wouldn't spend all their time acting "the part".
3) Most importantly: to paraphrase Roger Ebert, its not about what it is, it's about how it goes about being what it is. Andrew WK's idea of what a platonic ideal of a rock star is amazing, fake or not. Because let's face it: he was always pretty fucking weird. Look at songs like "I Want Your Face" or "Let's Go On a Date" (Opening lyrics: "Even Though You Don't Know Me / I Know You Live Alone / Because I Listen To You Cry.")... If that was his idea of how to be universal, than his idea of what universal is impresses / amuses me.
A parrallel: a lot of bands wanted to be the Beatles. Trying to be the Beatles is not so impressive and is often pretty crappy. But Ozzy Ozbourne said he wanted Black Sabbath to be the Beatles - and listening to Sabbath, his idea of what the Beatles were is fucking amazing (if completely inaccurate), because their method of trying to be the Beatles was so awesome.
In conclusion, this reminds me of politician's, and how they assemble their image and are essentially performers. All politicians speak prepared notes; all successful artists are marketed. But politicians still handcraft their own speeches - even if Andrew was using speechwriters for his interviews, having a team of people pick his message, pick his writer, pick the time and place to deliver it, some "real" version of Andrew WK or Andrew Fetterly was still putting his own personal stamp on the end product. Andrew WK may not be who we thought he was, but there's still some guiding force making "his" music what it is. It might be a group of people instead of one guy. It might be one guy whose different than we think he is. But still: his music is distinct. It's still his even if its not made exclusively by him.
"...The other three people that he's always worked with are all adults much older than him (by the way, Andrew's real age isn't 26 or 27). I don't know exactly how he met these other three, but I think it was through his Dad somehow as they were all involved in academics (probably from University of Michigan). One day in the acting class the teacher had us all stand up and talk about what are dreams for the future were. Most of the kids said "To be a famous actor", one other girl said "To be a star on Broadway", and I said "To make movies". Andrew went last and stood up and said, very slowly, "I want to craft my own non-existence." The teacher asked him what he meant and said "Exactly what I said." The teacher was clearly annoyed and the whole class rolled it's eyes because Andrew was always saying weird stuff that made no sense. I thought what he said sounded cool though, so after class, while we were walking to our cars, I asked Andrew how he was going to craft his own non-existence). I don't remember what he said word for word, but essentially he said, "First I'm going to make myself undeniably exist as a recognizable and identifiable form, and then I'm going to spend the rest of my life working to eliminate it and prove that it's existence was an impossible illusion all along, but because people have already seen it they will experience the sensation equal to maximum pleasure." It was something like that, obviously some of what he said was different, but that's essentially what he told me. I remember it well because it made a huge impact on me and I've thought about it a lot since. "
In other words, we could be experiencing several layers of performance here, and these layers could also have many layers within them, or beyond them. For example:
Surface Layer - Andrew WK is a very happy man that likes to party and inspire other people to party. After releasing an album in the early part of this decade, he went on to have trouble with his label, has experimented with other side projects, and recently opened a club in NYC.
Sub Layer - Andrew WK is, in reality, a construct of a corporation designed to sell music. Every step of the way, this persona has been designed by comittee to cultivate a fan-base and, and create good will to sell more records, tickets, and merchandise. Whatever altruistic or philosophical tones this advertising may take it is, at its core, still advertising with profit its ultimate goal. There may also be a conspiracy with multiple look-alike actors.
Reality - Andrew WK is, despite the involvement of any corporation, the project of a single artist to explore the nature of identity. Is Andrew WK a near religious figure of zen-like hedonism and good will? Is Andrew WK the cynical creation of admen, playing with the easily led psyche of the internet age? Does Andrew WK exist at all, and if he doesn't, then isn't the fabrication in many ways realer than anything else? If the commentor above is telling the truth, then Andrew really has created and then destroyed himself. People often talk about being a "self made man", as if anyone could make himself out of whole cloth and determine his future independent of outside of events. But perhaps this is what being a self made man gets you - a construct of indeterminate reality that, when examined closer, is nothing more than a hollow shell.
Sub Reality - Andrew WK is literally living out a life within a life without realizing it. He's presenting these layers as a performance, not realizing that the final layer is a mystery to even himself.
This is why I think discussions of cultural authenticity are so absurd: what we're talking about now is not the music, but the marketing of the music, which to me is far less important. But this case in particular is more absurd than the normal for three reasons:
1) So his goal was to be the Platonic Ideal of a Rocker. Authentic or not, that was clearly the case from day one and no matter how many men are behind the curtain, the giant green head of the Wizard is still as close to our ideal as it ever was. Whether or not it was an authentic gimmick, it was always a gimmick - its just not possible to party 24 hours a day for your entire life. I think everyone here should be mature enough to recognize that art often requires artifice.
2) The goal of being the absolute most at what you do should be supported. The fact that he even tried to be the Platonic Rocker is awesome, and the fact that he came as close as he did is still cool. I suspect that if you sat down and hung out with most performers, they probably wouldn't spend all their time acting "the part".
3) Most importantly: to paraphrase Roger Ebert, its not about what it is, it's about how it goes about being what it is. Andrew WK's idea of what a platonic ideal of a rock star is amazing, fake or not. Because let's face it: he was always pretty fucking weird. Look at songs like "I Want Your Face" or "Let's Go On a Date" (Opening lyrics: "Even Though You Don't Know Me / I Know You Live Alone / Because I Listen To You Cry.")... If that was his idea of how to be universal, than his idea of what universal is impresses / amuses me.
A parrallel: a lot of bands wanted to be the Beatles. Trying to be the Beatles is not so impressive and is often pretty crappy. But Ozzy Ozbourne said he wanted Black Sabbath to be the Beatles - and listening to Sabbath, his idea of what the Beatles were is fucking amazing (if completely inaccurate), because their method of trying to be the Beatles was so awesome.
In conclusion, this reminds me of politician's, and how they assemble their image and are essentially performers. All politicians speak prepared notes; all successful artists are marketed. But politicians still handcraft their own speeches - even if Andrew was using speechwriters for his interviews, having a team of people pick his message, pick his writer, pick the time and place to deliver it, some "real" version of Andrew WK or Andrew Fetterly was still putting his own personal stamp on the end product. Andrew WK may not be who we thought he was, but there's still some guiding force making "his" music what it is. It might be a group of people instead of one guy. It might be one guy whose different than we think he is. But still: his music is distinct. It's still his even if its not made exclusively by him.
Read on to the next page: STEEV MIKE & ANDREW WK'S DARK SECRETS...