(Photo Credit: Roe Ethridge)

(Apologies if this shows up in your syndicated feed twice because of the date/time edits, but for easy reading, I needed to re-arrange the pieces…)

On September 12th, 2003, I had the privilege of doing one of the most incredible interviews I’ve ever been a part of. Fuck that. It was probably one of the most incredible interviews I’d ever heard, seen, or read. Andrew W.K. took over an hour out of his busy schedule of PARTYING HARD to talk to My Big, Black Cock. This was a HUGE interview, and will be spread out over 5 parts this week as a result. Here’s part one. We begin with Andrew’s and my musings over the loss of two legends…


Andrew W.K.: It’s too bad about Johnny Cash and John Ritter.

Scott Crawford: Yeah, that was a real heck of a thing to wake up to this morning. I mean, with Cash, we’ve all been kind of expecting the worst for a while, but John Ritter, that was out of nowhere.

AWK: Out of nowhere, very young. Yeah, I described that exactly the same way when I was talking about it earlier today, “Well, Johnny Cash, he’s lived a long, and very enormous life, and you knew his time was near, but he had just sort of gone out with a swan song, really great album that was very well received, and his wife had just died, so it was kind of all lining up that way, not to make it sound morbid, but once again, he was in his twilight years. But John Ritter, a man in his prime still, and one of my favorite favorite actors and comedians by far, you know what I mean? Just one of my top favorite dudes, and it really is too bad, but I’ve been reading, and people have a lot of really nice things to say about him, just that he was one of the nicest people they’d ever worked with, and when I thought about it today, I realized, I guess I’d realized this before but I’d never said it to myself…there’s no one else like him at all. There’s not even anyone close.

SC: He’s pretty much in a class by himself.

AWK: His physical comedy, he’s in a league of his own when it comes to that, but just his whole vibe…there’s one John Ritter, there’s one Jack Tripper, there’s one…that kind of guy. That’s very unusual.

SC: He’s a guy that went underappreciated throughout his career, because critically, “Three’s Company” was trivialized.

AWK: That’s definitely one of my favorite television shows of all time, and I would put that up there, pretty much with anything in terms of what I’d like to watch, and he’s the main reason, besides Don Knotts and Norman Fell. Yeah, just watching him on that show, he’s completely charming, and he’s the kind of dude you really wanted to be friends with. He was a good guy, he played an all-around good guy…and just completely hilarious, and there was nothing stereotypical about him. He wasn’t overly macho, there was no act. it seemed like he was just this real kinda quirky, strange dude, you know what I mean? So it was just really funny. I’m glad to talk about him with someone who did like him, because I really, really liked him, and I would laugh very hard when ever I saw that show and “Problem Child” and all that stuff he’s done since has been good. Anyway, onto lighter topics…

SC: Your music, especially that on “The Wolf” is probably the most overwhelmingly upbeat music in rock right now. How did you manage to get to such a positive place, both musically and personally?

AWK: You know, it’s all kinds of stuff. Part of it’s definitely making choices to do things a certain way to make attempts and efforts at living a certain way as anyone does. I guess some people go with the flow. I try to go with the flow, but I try to push the flow into a direction that’s going to be most…good. I want to be good. I want to be good, you know what I mean? I think everybody does, deep down inside. I just wound up with these really incredible opportunities to get there right away, or maybe just to get there now, or get there however, or get there at all. It’s interesting, because I don’t say to myself “I gotta stay positive, I gotta stay positive…” or “I’m going to make really positive music”, or “I’m just going to keep being a positive dude.” I don’t think of it in those kind of terms, really. I mean, maybe I could, but I more or less try to just look at things as they really are. And when I look at my life as it really is, I can’t deny that it’s good. And that’s just the truth, you know what I mean? And it’s not about a certain outlook or philosophy, necessarily, there’s outlooks to incorporate, certainly, but the fact of the matter is, my life is good. I have food, my health is fine, all my limbs and extremities are working OK, my brain seems to be working just fine. I have good friends. I have good family. I was raised in a good environment. And, on top of that, I have one of the most amazing opportunities that anybody could ever ask for to work on every day. So that’s the reality of my life, and to make music that denied that, or to live my life in a way that denied that would just be dishonest. I’m not really trying to represent myself or represent my life but, I just feel that I’ve gotta make the most of what I’ve got here, and I might as well try to spread it around as much as possible. So when I’m talking about these things in songs that might come off as being positive, or as having a positive outlook or a good philosophy or things like that, it’s not so much what I think or my opinion, but just reminding us or pointing out the things that we’ve always known about what’s right and what’s good and what’s true. Now, I know not everybody has grown up with a great family. I’m very lucky for that, because so many of my friends don’t get along with their parents or their brothers or sisters or whatever. So that’s actually the whole foundation of all of this, obviously, is from my parents. I feel for everybody out there that doesn’t get along with their parents for whatever reason. I certainly had times where I didn’t.

*pause for Andrew to talk to some fans*

AWK: So, I was talking about parents and stuff. So to me, the music may have these qualities to it, and if someone says it’s very positive, I take that as a compliment. I’m not trying to deny that at all. But I’m trying to point out the bigger picture…that it’s just a way of looking at the truth, and I think if we all really found the strength to look at things as they really are, or we found the perspective or the clarity to really try to be honest with ourselves, we’d probably realize that most of us have it pretty good, one way or another, and if we don’t have it good, or if we do have reasons to be sad, we still have decisions to make as to how we’re going to deal with it. Sure, we all have bad things happen to us, including me, and you should say “Am I gonna cut my losses and be alright, or am I gonna let it bring me down and take away from the good stuff I’ve got going?” It’s all a matter of what you choose to do, and I’m just choosing to try to be good, and I feel pretty good about it. I dunno, we’ll get back to this again, I’m kind of having trouble…like, for example, the songs on the album, the songs on this album in particular, on “The Wolf”, I didn’t sit down and say “I wanna make a really really positive song”, it wasn’t that simple, it was more “I wanna make a song that just makes people feel FANTASTIC, and opens those doors inside you that might’ve been locked that are still there, that have always been inside you, always waiting to be opened, or maybe have been opened but were shut, or maybe there were cracked open a little bit, or just point out that the doors are there in the first place, but just show people the things they’ve always known, you know what I mean? I’m not pointing these things out that people don’t know, I’m not making it up. Again, I think this stuff is very very very basic, I’m not going to stand here and take credit for this stuff. I’ve learned it from myself, but also parents and friends and family and many life experiences so far, but I’m very very young, and who knows what I’ll learn after this? I just know that I’m determined to make things as good as they can be, and that’s a challenge. I was always around people that were cool, but at the same time there were also people that said “Well, you’re just young and naive, and some day you’ll grow up and realize the world sucks.” And I was like, “You know what? Out of just the challenge that you’ve presented, no! I’m not going to grow up and realize the world sucks. I’m going to grow up and become smarter and stronger and better, and the world is going to get bigger and more fantastic with each passing day.” The whole idea of giving in to some kind of pessimistic, hopeless, doubtful cynicism was just not an option, and I became more and more determined that I’m gonna try to make life good, you know what I mean? As good as I could. You know what I’m saying.

SC: Absolutely.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 27th, 2003 at 5:10 pm and is filed under My Big, Black Cock., The Interviews.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.