While election day happens November 8th, the politicking will be far from over for legendary party god Andrew WK when he comes to Capital Ale House the following day.
While election day happens November 8th, the politicking will be far from over for legendary party god Andrew WK when he comes to Capital Ale House the following day.
W.K., who broke into stardom in 2001 with the hand banger “Partyhard,” has lived life as a truly unique rock’n’roller with six albums under his belt alongside a mess of collabs with everyone from the famous Ramones drummer Marky Ramone to the infamous Wolf Eyes.
While music made him famous, his work on Cartoon Network’s “Destroy, Build, Destroy” helped solidify the artist as something much much weirder. The show, hosted by WK, pitted teams of kids together to blow stuff up and turn the rubble into a vehicle and then have them battle. It was part Myth Busters and part destruction derby and also gave WK the chance to shoot a rocket launcher surrounded by children.
While the kids show ended in 2011, WK has continued to tour with and without a full band, spreading his heavy hitting, loud and high energy songs for writhing piles of people.
But when WK returns to Richmond, his first time since a 2013 gig at the now-defunct Kingdom, he won’t be playing music, but he’ll still be trying to spread his party message.
The king of party is trying something new – a concept he pioneered 10 years ago at New York University – where he preached about the power of positive partying and how his political manifestation of this idea, the Party party, can heal our country.
He’s even made an entirely believable political campaign ad:
“It’s everything and nothing,” said WK in an interview with RVAMag. He describe the new political venture as a way to put politics aside and embrace the “party” side of the party-system. “It’s a chance and attempt to party together and fuel our spirits by generating some shared enthusiasm that we exist at all. Rather than having our existence be a source of stress and despair and confusion, we can remember that getting to exist can be a really wonderful thing.”
It’s pretty high-level stuff that could be considered cult-like if it was coming from someone who hadn’t spent the last 20-or-so years perfecting the art of partying.
As our conversation delved deeper into party-fueled madness, the reality of WK’s plan began to take shape in the most contrived way imaginable – I’m not sure if he’s actually thought this through or if he’s just really good on the fly. It’s probably a combo of the two, cause there’s a sharp-philosophy to his party mantra, and there’s no doubt he believes what he says.
“Truth is the most elusive quality of all things,” he opined, explaining the end goal of both partying and life as a kind of paradox that “disintegrates into some sort of perpetual motion machine of thought.”
“It’s this desire that human beings need to have more than any other creature – to want to understand, to want to know, to grasp, to cling to one thing and reach out into the void on the other side,” he said. “Even knowing that we’ll never know everything. That’s the one thing we know, we know very little.”
Man, yea, it’s pretty whacky.
I ask him if there are any problems that can’t be solved by partying and he said no – rather, from that chaos, with bodies moving and music blasting, we can find our own truths which will help us relate to one another and approach our individual and collective problems in a different way.
“We can use that party-feeling to repair things, or at least maintain a good mood and integrity to remind us what make humanity so great,” he said. “These dilemmas can bring out our worst or motivate us to access levels of quality we didn’t even know we were capable of.”
There’s some logic in there, but its all fueled by party, so who knows, but that’s the point too. “I don’t understand [what I do] either,” he said. “Which is why ‘partying’ is the only word that kind of conveys the spirit.”
I play along with the party god by asking him if any moment in history could have been improved, or a crisis avoided, by partying. He said if that happened he might not even exist.
“If Adam and Eve hadn’t partied in their own special way… if the big bang, the first party of all time, or a non-party, it’s hard to know when the party starts and the non-party ends,” he said. “I wouldn’t change anything, that’s a scary thing to think about… all I know is more partying across the board can only help to celebrate we’re all here together whether we like it or not.”
WK’s stop here in Richmond on Nov. 9th is part of a massive, every-state tour. The end goal here is a bit vague and broad, to spread the positive power of partying, but no matter what the event is, it is sure to offer a unique insight into a man who’s lived a most-party life.
“I look forward to being in the room with people to conjure up party excitement,” he said, explaining what he hopes to get out of the event, even if the rest of us are a bit confused. “Make the world a partier place. It’s a pep rally for the human spirit.”
You chance to catch Andrew WK in Richmond happens at Capital Ale House Downtown on Nov. 9th, you can scoop tickets here.
