An interview with Nardwuar and Andrew W.K.
June 24th, 2009
Two of rock’n’roll’s most inimitable identities, the greatest living music journalist Nardwuar the Human Serviette and the world’s hardest partier Andrew W.K., are musical soul mates just destined to work together. Having built a friendship after first meeting back in 2002 for an interview, the two have previously paired up for live shows, which is now resulting in the release of a split 7” for Mint Records titled A Wild Pear. Featuring two songs by both Andrew W.K. and Nardwuar’s garage band The Evaporators, a snippet of the inaugural interview is also included on the B-side. Both Andrew and Nardwuar took time out of their always busy schedules to answer some questions for The New Music.
How did you two first meet?
Andrew W.K.: Yeah it was the Scratch Records interview. It was conducted at the Scratch Records store and it was a very significant day for me because I had already been a fan of his for years; probably since ’99 or ’00 when a good friend of mine named Sue, lent me a video cassette of probably every interview he had done. It was one of those 6-hour VHS cassettes, ha ha.
Nardwuar: I was totally surprised to learn that he had heard of me way earlier, as a friend of his, Sue, had lent him a VHS tape of my interviews I had dubbed for her. These were not recent interviews either, but stuff I dubbed for her in 1992! Somehow she had kept the tape and passed it onto Andrew! I was honoured that he cared!
Andrew W.K.: Before I even met him, before I even was aware of his work as a musician or a performer, watching him do those interviews had a deep and lasting impact on me that I guess even affects me to this very moment when I do any interview. I feel like all the most important lessons about being interviewed and interviewing people can be learned from watching Nardwuar. His skill as an interviewer is one of his many talents but I think it’s coming from the same place that all of his other abilities come from, which is from an extremely passionate and good will spirit. He’s completely singular, he’s completely self-made and self-invented, and he naturally inhabits so gracefully and easily and even with all the intense energy he really beautifully inhabits his personality or concept of himself. It’s not even really a concept, it’s just him existing.
Getting underground punk illustrator Mitch Clem to do the artwork was a neat idea. How did you get him involved?
Nardwuar: Razorcake Fanzine hooked me up with Mitch a few years ago to illustrate the transcribed interviews I contribute to them. He is always up for doing posters, record covers, etc, so it was natural he would help make the Wild Pear concept a reality. You can see the incredible job Mitch did by comparing the Evaporators/Andrew W.K.’s A Wild Pear to the record we paid homage to, which was the Guess Who?/Staccatos’ A Wild Pair!
Andrew W.K.: Oh the amazing Mitch Clem. He even drew a poster for the Mint Records Christmas party. Nardwuar invited me to perform there and that was the first place I got to see his work. Mitch Clem is just incredible.
How did the collaboration for the 7” come to be?
Nardwuar: I am always thinkin’ about records, and when I thought of the idea of doing a split 7” that might somehow pay tribute to Canadian punkness, I immediately remembered how he loved Toronto’s Leather Uppers! So I had to ask him to cover them!
Andrew W.K.: In response to the record, I kept thinking it was after the Christmas show, but I had actually recorded my songs well before that. Playing together at the Christmas party was a celebration of us having completed the recording for split 7”. Some of the songs we played from the release like [the Subhumans’] “Oh Canaduh,” I think we only played “Oh Canaduh” but we also played a couple of my songs, Nardwuar and his Evaporators group had backed me up on a couple of my tunes with Nardwuar playing keyboard really well. So yeah with the split 7” coming out, we’ll be playing together again.
Nardwuar: We are having an all-ages record release at 4 p.m. on Tuesday June 23rd at Neptoon Records (3561 Main, Vancouver) and then a few hours later there will be a bar show at the Biltmore (396 Kingsway, Vancouver). Plus we are also doing a show together in Edmonton.
Andrew, congratulations on your new series, Destroy Build Destroy. In it you show younger people how to destroy various things and then recreate something with the mess?
Andrew W.K.: Oh thank you! That was an incredible experience. It really, really exceeded all my expectations as far as how much I would enjoy the process, how intense it would be, how big the explosions would be, how amazing it would be working with the contestants. The young people on the show were incredible. Perhaps the most exciting part for me was being in the atmosphere of television which I’ve always loved, with everything I’ve done on TV, whether it is SNL, or Conan O’Brien or to more scripted shows or even filming music videos, when you’re in that atmosphere, I guess with TV especially, you’re making something where hundreds of people, like just a hundred-person crew on set just to film a few episodes, and everyone is working so hard to make something that is essentially completely disposal. Something that is shown once, not an object, it all gets destroyed in the end. It’s not as if we’re all getting together to build some kind of building or sculpture or something like that, this is to create an experience for the viewers. And that is it with television that I just can’t get enough of. The adrenaline is so high because what we’re trying to pull off just to film these episodes is so complicated and intense that everyone has to be at the top of their game and the height of their abilities using all their resources and all their talent. Just being around that all day making these shows was incredible. I’m most grateful for that than anything else – just getting to be around people. I have no idea what 90 percent of people are even doing running around, trying to make this show exist. I’m extremely thankful to be able to do this show.
Well, it looks amazing. How awesome was it to see kids react to bazookas and tanks?
Andrew W.K.: They were freaking out the whole time. The contestants are anywhere between 12 and 16 and there’s this natural phenomenon at that age where you don’t have to be enthusiastic in order to have that [natural] high… The prime of being a child is probably around 10 and 15 to 16, where you’re able to take advantage of all the best things of being a young person which is really finding out all the things in the world that you love, and just really being into what you like doing. After that you go through a stage where you start to identify things that you don’t like and push them away and start to understand the world in another way which often causes a lot of doubt. For me, the feelings I’m into like having fun and just letting yourself go, that really relates to someone of 14 to 15 years old who is really interested in having that kinda fun too.
These young people were the best of the best. You’ll see on the show that they’re just growing and they’re angels and it really reminds me that everybody is a young person. I realized that I’m one of them that’s been around longer.
Andrew, you also have a new album coming out called 55 Cadillac.
Andrew W.K.: That’s the solo piano album that will be coming out in September, the 6th or 7th depending where you live. It’s 99 percent spontaneous, meaning I didn’t have any plans of what to play, I just sat down and played and made stuff up along the way and just chose the best ones from that to make up the album.
And what else does Nardwuar have going on?Nardwuar: A couple years ago I put out a Punk Rock Calendar featuring the pics of Vancouver photographer Bev Davies. If all goes to plan, there will be another Punk Rock Calendar in 2010 with more of Bev’s pointed portraits with bands such as Black Flag, 45 Grave, Subhumans and even The Cure!
Posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 12:31 pm by Cam and is filed under The New Music.
