overtones Partying: the belief that life is good
Andrew W.K. brings his motivational speaking to all 50 states by Mariah Taylor
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n the early 2000s, while Johnny piece of advice you gave and cringed at Knoxville and Bam Margera your statements? where launching themselves out of A: I have doubts pretty consistently catapults, skiing in speedos and about my own efforts and my own doing port-a-potty bike smashes, actions in the world. ... But if the effort Andrew W.K. was scoring the sound was done as a service toward this track to their antics. attempt at truth, I feel like that consisHe did so with songs like “Party tency is all that matters. The advice colHard,” “It’s Time To Party” and “Party umn, speaking, even just how we’re ’Til You Puke.” He gained notoriety for talking right now, they’re all efforts to his anthemic stadium-rock guitar tracks try and get to that place. I do forgive and assertive, unabashedly masculine myself for any failed attempts because I vocals. But Andrew’s life took an unexthink that it’s the attempt that’s more pected turn. In 2005, he began his career meaningful. I think that we can be very as a motivational speaker, accepting invi- forgiving of each other in our very tations to talk at institutions like Yale embarrassing and humiliating attempts and Carnegie Mellon. In 2014, he was to get there if the attempt is noble. asked by the Village Voice to contribute Q: There’s a huge responsibility to a weekly advice column, which he that comes along with giving people advice about life, which seems like it maintained until last December. Last week, he announced he will supCourtesy of Andrew W.K. ply a new weekly advice column for Vice. Currently, he’s ON THE BILL: Andrew traveling around W.K. The Power of Partying 50 State Tour. 7 p.m. the country with a Tuesday, Oct. 11, The 50-state speaking Gothic Theatre, 3263 S. tour, The Power of Broadway, Englewood, 303-789-9206. Partying. Andrew spoke to Boulder Weekly from the road. Q: You’ve been doing motivational speaking for over 10 years now. But this being your first national speaking tour, I’m curious how the format has evolved over the years. How has this become what is now The Power of Partying speaking tour? A: For better or worse it’s not evolved at all. Since I discovered would require a great deal of self partying, my evolution stopped and I assuredness. Has that ever felt dauntonly began to improve my ability to reach this destination. My goal has been ing to you? A: Again, I’m just riddled with the same since day one and I just try to craft it and get better and better. Sort of doubt. I’m self-assured in my doubt. I’m confident that I feel very insecure. I like an archer. You know, they’re trying think the difference is that I feel like to hit the bull’s-eye and they don’t necI’m on a quest. I feel like I’m serving a essarily evolve in their desire to hit that cause, and that cause is not me or the bull’s-eye but they practice and try to promotion of myself. It’s the promotion get more and more proficient and more of this idea, this way of looking at the advanced. My bull’s-eye is this core essential value of pure transcendent pos- world. I’m the first to admit that I’m very ignorant, but I’m aware of my itivity and the method — my bow and arrow so to speak — is partying. Beyond ignorance and [knowing that] does create openness for us to go to these places that it’s just about consistency. a bit more fearlessly and go there Q: Does that mean that in the 10 together and I think that’s one of the years that you’ve been offering your thoughts, you’ve never looked back at a natures of partying. Boulder Weekly
Q: You advocate for partying in such broad terms. As a motivational speaker and role model, do you think it’s dangerous to speak about something like partying without narrowing it to exclude, say, excessive drug use? A: Well, life is dangerous. All these things, in their vastness, in their freedoms, are dangerous, but in a way that we appreciate, in a way that makes us willing to take on the danger. So partying in its most basic sense is a bit hard to define, but that’s just the same as life. Life is this thing that’s the most familiar; it’s the experience of all experiences but it comes with all sorts of pit falls and challenges. And what partying is is trying to take that life force feeling — trying to take the experience called being a person — and making that leap of faith to declare that it is a good thing. Because we have a million reasons to not feel happy, to feel like life is bad and painful and just suffering, but we’re trying to go one step beyond that and look at the whole thing as this adventure full of ups and downs and [understand] that the whole thing must be beautiful because we decide it is. And that’s what partying is, a determination to maintain the belief that life is good in all of its complexity. Q: You’ve made it clear that this is not a political tour. Is that difficult to do at a time when all people seem to want to do is talk about politics? A: Well, maybe because people do want to talk about it so much [it’s] nice to have moments set aside where we talk about everything but that, where we talk about the principles that underlie that. Governmental politics, in particular, do make up a lot of our day-to-day lives and interactions, but they are not life itself. ... Life is a very delicate but also very powerful thing that no one can affect other than the individual. The hardest work that can ever be done must be done by each one of us, one at a time from the inside out. So that’s the kind of stuff I’m trying to focus on in this lecture tour because, to be honest, I don’t hear most politicians discussing these types of principles and probably for good reason. They know that those aren’t the things that government can control.
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