Author Archive
Friday. 3:30 PM. May. REO Speedwagon in the air.
I was standing in the parking lot. Looking for the source. A six-pack in each hand.
I was thirteen once. Young. Impressionable. Figuring out my expectations of love.
Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb sang REO Speedwagon’s “Keep on Lovin’ You’’ on Hardrock live. They were in love. “When I said that I love you, I meant that I love you forever.” Heavy sidelong glances exchanged. Dweezil made his way to Lisa during a guitar solo. A long march across the stage. As if a magnet. As if a fish on the line. As if possessed. He sang the final chorus over her shoulder. Quietly. Into her ear. They laughed and giggled, incapable of hiding their love for more than three minutes.
I had forgotten about the concert. Almost. Then you pulled up.
Hippie, white-man dreads in a jeep. The radio blasting. You sang with red-faced enthusiasm. Your neck strained. Your lungs taxed. Stuck at the red-light in front of Paris on Ponce.
Love has been real. Love was most real at that moment. In the middle of Atlanta. In a parking lot where homeless men sleep. In front of a grocery store whose name is prefaced with the word murder.
“Cause it was us baby, way before them, and we’re still together.”
A hand reached out the jeep window. My staring had not been discrete enough. You reached out to me. I was the only person in the Greens parking lot. Miraculous at three-thirty on a Friday. This was a miracle, undoubtedly.
I wanted to reach out too, but didn’t. There were the six-packs to consider. The light turned green. You were still reaching, singing. Someone honked.
You drove forward, you drove away.
Those who have had the privilege to attend an Andrew W.K. performance since his release of I Get Wet in 2001 are undoubtedly familiar with his gleeful, fist-pumping, raucous anthems such as “Party Hard,” “She Is Beautiful,” and “Party til You Puke,” as well as the hog-wild, enthusiastic behavior that accompanies the ballads both in the audience and on-stage. These aren’t your average mosh pits; Andrew W.K.’s performances are celebrations beyond Bacchus’s wildest dreams. We’re talking about rafter-swinging, stage-diving bonanzas! We’re talking an evening full of thrills and joy! The last time I saw Andrew W.K. perform, he had a circle-pit that encompassed the entirety of the Verizon Amphitheater’s parking lot.
For those who haven’t partied with Andrew W.K.– there’s no time like the present. The riotous party-prince is on tour celebrating the 10th Anniversary of I Get Wet, and will be in Atlanta this Thursday, April 5th at the Masquerade. I recently had the chance to talk to Andrew on the phone to discuss his current tour, his past decade of performances and his hopes for the future. His enthusiasm for his fans and his work is as boundless as it is contagious. We’ve got a lot to look forward to, and the party starts this Thursday night.
You’re on tour right now to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of I Get Wet, How has it been so far?
It’s been the best tour I’ve ever done of my whole life so far. Which wasn’t necessarily what we expected. We were very excited, of course, but we’ve had more fun playing these shows than we ever have before, and we are more excited, grateful, appreciative, and amazed. If we had been doing this for one year, it would be amazing, but that we’ve been doing it for ten years. We’ve hit some kind of milestone, and it encourages us to do it for another ten, and then another ten, and then another ten after that. It’s a real privilege to be able to do something that you enjoy, but it really goes over the top when that thing you enjoy becomes even more enjoyable the longer that you do it. And that’s something we’re experiencing with this party.
Is it emotional at all playing the entire album in different cities every night? What’s the nostalgia like?
It’s been emotional. I mean, the show is a joy. Even though it’s extremely physically demanding and sweaty, it’s a really great experience. It ultimately is energizing, and that hour and a half or two hours that we play gives us the energy to do everything else involved with touring and traveling around. The shows actually heal us and bring us back to life every night.
It has been very emotional in a good way, [like] the feeling of butterflies breaching out of a new cocoon. There have been many cocoons before, but this one’s really special. This one is its own kind of metamorphosis. It’s a moment in life that’s really a touchstone moment, you can really feel yourself crashing from one realm into another. It’s intense — sometimes it can be beautiful and sometimes it’s a very strange feeling. I mean, you’re going out of your comfort zone and becoming something new inside of yourself and there’s definitely been that feeling in the air surrounding all of this… It’s a point in life where you cross a line, and you know you can never go back and never be the same again.
Any tour highlights?
The way that I personally felt on the very first show of the tour in Vancouver, British Columbia. It was it was the best I’ve ever felt on stage. That feeling has carried over into just about every single show. We’ve had technical problems at certain shows, with my microphone not working or with me hurting my knee or something like that, but when the conditions have been right there is this different kind of power that I’m feeling. I don’t know if I can take credit for it. The whole thing is amazing. When we first were playing these songs ten years, or in some places twelve years, ago there weren’t really that many people that liked them, at least in the way they do now. It’s really incredible to feel like it’s still building, and there’s still people finding out that they like it or figuring out something that they like about it. To be doing something for a long time but still feeling like it’s just only begun, and it’s still just at the tip of its potential – it’s really just amazing… And I’ve seen many familiar faces which is just tremendous to have some person take what you do and be in the picture for all of those years. It’s really rewarding to me to see someone who is young enough and who has told me that this was their first chance to ever see us play, and they’ve just been discovering it. It keeps us feeling very vital and relevant. And that’s been a real privilege.
Sounds like a really great tour so far. So, you’ve been partying hard since 1993 when you joined SLAM, right?
Wow! Uh, hmmm… that would be… hmm. My first band was with my friend Toby and that was actually possibly even earlier than that. I was about ten or eleven years old when I did that so that would be ‘90…’91. Right around then, yes.
That’s over two decades of party. I’m curious where you get that kind of stamina and what keeps you going?
Well you know it wouldn’t have been until I really moved to New York and signed up to do Andrew W.K. that the level of energy required to do the work went through the roof. Before that it was mostly just sitting in my bedroom and working on things very quietly and in a very solitary, focused way. When I went to New York, [and] I met those folks who could make my dreams come true. It went from zero to 93 miles per hour in really one day, and we didn’t really turn back. Once we made the agreement and met these people, we just went. We signed up and went with a really strong sense of destiny and of purpose and of this being the right move. Even though I had really no experience, and it was also very possible that I could have been making a lot of mistakes… Even though it seems like you might be going into something much deeper or really crazy, it will start you on the road with a lot of momentum and that never stopped.
Was there a defining moment in your life where you decided that non-stop partying was your career choice?
Yeah. When I signed up to do Andrew W.K. that was definitely the mission. I wanted to feel as good as possible all the time and didn’t think that was an unreasonable goal to have or a bad mission to focus on. I wasn’t sure if it was possible, but I was at least trying. And if I could make a goal of feeling good all the time work for me, maybe there would be other people out there that also wanted to share in that same feeling and could help me get to that and that became this world-wide, non-stop, professional partying that we’ve been doing.
What would you say is the biggest difference between your audiences today and those of 10 years ago?
There doesn’t really seem to be that much of a difference except there seems to be more people. We’ve been playing now to bigger audiences than we ever have on any tour before. It seems more people are coming to the party, and that’s just amazing, and mind blowing and a real joy. They’re just pure people. I’m sure that everyone always says that people who are liking what they are doing are the best, but the nature of this whole adventure, this music, the feeling that we’re trying to get out there, it attracts the people that want to be in a good mood, it attracts people that are happy and excited. And for us to be around people that all the time, playing for people like that, playing with people like that, and partying with people like that, it really is amazing because we really could easily be working on a project that wasn’t focused on those feelings of joy. When you work on that feeling yourself and are surrounded by people who are also working on that feeling… it really gets over the top, and you feel like you’re surrounded by the best people on earth. I absolutely think that’s the case.
I’ve wanted to ask you this for a long time: You were injured on your tour for The Wolf, and you finished the tour in a wheelchair rather than disappoint your fans by canceling. How long did it take you to get acclimated to keeping the party going on your new wheels? How did you adapt your usual performance?
It was very frustrating and initially very painful, of course. We had so much scheduled and planned and [were] looking forward to the full six months of touring that we’d just set off. We had been on at that point for at least two years, so it didn’t even seem like quitting was an option. I mean of course I wouldn’t be physically capable of running around on the stage, but my hands and fingers were still working fine for the keyboard. My voice? I could sing just fine. So it just didn’t seem justified to stop. I figured that if all of these people could see that I was giving everything I had, with everything that I had to work with that the shows wouldn’t suffer either. At first some people were skeptical and thought that we should just cancel the shows if I couldn’t be standing up.
I actually was really excited about sitting in the wheelchair because there was a change of pace, and there was something new and refreshing. Also because there was all of this energy that was usually spent by using your legs, it’s such a huge muscle group, and it does take up a lot of physical energy just to walk or stand – not to mention run or kick – I was excited to have all that energy to put into my arms and into the singing, and playing and into wheeling around. I just tried to reinterpret what it was to spin around and do those party moves but just without performing without the legs. It really didn’t take long at all – I think by the second or third show I was completely into it and I think those were some of the best shows we ever played.
Do you have a favorite song to perform from I Get Wet?
It’s been incredible playing the entire album in order at these shows. We had never done that before this tour. I had only done it once myself at a solo show where I was just on keyboard. What’s really cool about it for us, for anyone who is familiar with the album and has listened to the album on their own, playing the album straight through – this can happen with any album – the whole album starts to turn into sort of one long song and it’s hard to even separate that. You have this experience listening to an album where you really, really, really memorize and spent all that time with [it]. By the time one song ends you can already hear the beginning of the next one in your head, and you already know how it goes, and it all keeps rolling into one big piece of music.
Live, normally at the concert, you’re usually waiting to find out what the next song will be. It’s a surprise, what the group is going to play: This one? Or one from that album? What is it going to be? So to know exactly what’s coming next is really a different sensation than when there’s all sorts of different song orders. On the album the second song is party hard and we normally play that song towards the end of our show but when we’re playing the album in order it comes so early on. It gets the audience pumped. It gets the audience to that high-level of energy we usually save for the end of the show, it gets them there right off of the bat. It’s totally new and very fun feeling on the stage.
There’s not any one song I enjoy playing more, the ones where I play more keyboard are really fun. I love them all. It’s hard to just pick one or another. It’s just like pizza toppings: as long as there’s a cheese pizza as a basic starting point all of the toppings have their place, and you can’t really pick a favorite one. I feel like all of the songs are just all different, great styles of pizza.
What was it like to have Time magazine refer to you as cute?
I thought it was a very cute thing for them to say. I think they’re a really cute magazine.
Where do you see yourself ten years from now?
Doing this. Hopefully better and bigger than ever before. Continuing to find as many ways and the best ways, the most powerful ways to get to that feeling of physical joy, of euphoric excitement. To gain a deeper ability to bring it about.
Has being a happily married man changed the way you tour?
No. It’s just made it better. Just to have that kind of comfort and love with you all of the time is a blessing. A lot of people don’t get to be with their loved one everyday or even at all if they don’t have one so it’s just… it really gives me a lot more power and energy. That’s for sure, the healing, rejuvenating experience to be around that. It’s nice to touch Cheri – be around her. Any kind of physical contact with her makes me physically feel better. It’s a really amazing thing when someone’s skin is able to instantly change the way you feel, it’s magic. It’s a real kind of magic.
The lyrics of the song “The Party God” states, “This is love, and this is music. This is what you want. The party God.” Would you say that love and music are sacrifices that are pleasing to The Party God?
Yeah, I wouldn’t even think of them as sacrifices because they’re such pleasures. Getting to present those things from yourself to the world. I’m always trying to figure out different ways to make it undeniably clear what this feeling is we’re trying to talk about, trying to make music about, trying to dance about, perform about, or whatever the work is we’re trying to get to this feeling which really is indescribable. It’s always worth trying to figure out a way to express it. These songs aren’t really so much about stories or personal experiences, they’re more trying to conjure up this attitude in yourself, in the listener, in me. Whoever is engaging in it we are trying to manifest a state of being. Manifest a way that your body could feel. That song’s just trying to get to the same place like the rest of them.
That song’s actually off of the Mother of Mankind bonus disc there, that’s one of my favorite songs I’ve ever made. A lot of my favorite songs I’ve ever recorded are on that bonus disc. Not a lot of people know about it or have that CD.
You have a night club, Santos’ Party House, correct?
Yes, I am one of the partial owners of Santos’ Party House/Concert Hall/Night Club in Manhattan.
Do you have any other entrepreneurial endeavors in the works?
We’ve been talking about different ideas but definitely have our hands more than full right now. Our hands are full, our feet are full, our mouths are full our ears are full. My nose is starting to fill up, my cheeks are filled up. My belly is full and it is starting to pile up into my throat so I need to digest and completely absorb all of this and then I will be able to do even more. Right now all of the focus is on the touring.
What kind of party do you expect from Atlanta?
Well, that has been consistently one of the greatest shows for us. I can think of many, many, many times that we’ve played there, and I can’t think of… I mean there’s been times where we’ve played in Atlanta on tour where that show would consistently be THE craziest show. I don’t mean that to put down any other town, it’s just that there’s this certain kind of enthusiasm in Atlanta that really is unique, especially in the early days. When we first were touring we could count on people in this town delivering a type of energy and craziness that began to set the bar for everywhere else.
I think a lot of the official traditions of the shows, the way that people go crazy at these shows, a lot of them really did start in Atlanta. The first time we ever had people go on the stage, the first time we ever had people crowd surf, the first time people jumped off the speakers or hang from the rafters, it happened in Atlanta. We’ve played there quite a bit, it’s a city that we’ve played more than many others and certainly more than any around the world so we’ve been extremely excited about this upcoming show. Hopefully we see a lot of familiar fans, friends and family. Give people the chance to hear about what’s been happening over these past ten years, and give the people the chance to experience that for the first time as well.
Photo Credit: Tim Song
Jeffrey Shinabarger wants to help you change the world and he’s ready to form a strategy. Shinabarger is the founder of Plywood People, a community organization which aims to rally Atlantan entrepreneurs, social leaders, designers, business-owners and all-around radical thinkers to initiate positive change for our communities’ awareness campaigns.
On Saturday, August 11th Plywood People will be hosting their Plywood Presents: Innovation at the High Museum, which will feature speakers from social campaigns as large as the 2008 Obama Campaign and as grass-roots local as Atlanta Fresh Greek Yogurt. He sees the necessity in every community-building project and is a firm believer that Atlanta is chalk-full of unprecedented talent. We can’t help but agree.
I was lucky to have an opportunity to talk with Jeff before the Innovation series, to learn more about the origins of Plywood People and his history as a social-entrepreneur.
Purge: Let’s start with an easy one: why the name ‘Plywood People?’
Jeff: I took a year and visited places all around the world: New Orleans after Katrina, Guatemala, Cambodia, even south Atlanta. All around the world I witnessed these amazing projects that people were working on to help restore their cities. Very often they invited me to work on the situation with them. Everywhere I went people used plywood as a simple and accessible resource to fix problems. Additionally, there were amazing leaders giving their lives to restoring these places in need. We started calling them Plywood People. We felt a responsibility to share their stories and create a community that cares about bringing innovative solutions to social issues.
Purge: You seem to function like a matchmaking service between entrepreneurs and people with noble causes. At what point did it occur to you that instead of taking on all of these individual missions yourself, you would help mobilize other people who may be even more suited for an individual cause?
Jeff: We started with two other projects, GiftCardGiver which gives gift cards to organizations who can use the gift cards to assist individual families in need. Then there’s also Billboard Bags, in which Guatemalan refugees who make bags out of recycled billboards from Atlanta and Charlotte. We then sell these bags which provides the refugees with a dignified job and an opportunity for a sustainable living situation for themselves.
One thing that stemmed from these two projects is that more and more people get a hold of me to meet over coffee or lunch and discuss a social issue that they would like to get addressed. People come to me with all of these wonderful ideas. But, over time I started realize that not every person I met with will actually make the actually make the idea happen. They
have great passion, but struggle to implement the idea. So I started to think of ways that I could foster and initiate social change on a larger scale over a longer period of time.
Purge: How will you initiate that kind of on-going change?
Jeff: In organizing Plywood People I aim to do a few things. Our first mission is to connect people from all across Atlanta, who have these great ideas and get them talking. The second is to help educate them in practical ways to get their project off the ground. The third is to spotlight inspirational success stories to help get people motivated in their own projects.
I’m a firm believer that in order to help educate people, especially in this instance, we have to be involved in the projects themselves. We’re not all-knowing authorities on this, we’re wrestling with a lot of the same questions and issues as the people we work with and help. The point is to get people working together to make progress and help change things for the better.
Purge: How is the Billboard Bag project coming along? I saw that your first sale of the bags was a very large order for a conference, so you must be doing well.
Jeff: The Billboard bag project started back in January. So far we have already sold 12,000 bags. Now we are looking at what the next step of manufacturing will be.
We’ve been very fortunate in that most of the orders have come through partnerships through conferences, situations where we have large orders. In a lot of instances our bags have been used as give-aways/registration bags and given out to registrants as a thank you for attending. It’s great, the registrants each get something really hand-made and unique and the proceeds go towards a great cause with a dignified expression.
Purge: I heard something about a Mellow Mushroom bag…
Jeff: Yes, all of the billboards are donated to us from local billboard companies in Charlotte and Atlanta, so a lot of the bags feature small businesses from those cities, like Mellow Mushroom. That was a good one. Like I said, each bag is very unique.
Purge: Could you tell me a bit more about who will be speaking at the Plywood People’s Innovation Conference?
Jeff: We are lucky to have a lot of great people speaking for us. For instance we have Scott Thomas fromChicago, who was the design director of the 2008 Obama for America Campaign. Super talented guy. He’ll be speaking specifically on his approach to designing a social movement and sharing about the design community he is crafting in his city.
There’s also Simon Mainwaring from San Francisco. Simon is the author of ‘We First’ and will be
speaking about how brands are integrating social concern and social media to help build a new
capitalism. Atlanta Fresh Greek Yogurt will be there too. If you haven’t had their yogurt yet, you definitely should. The company owner, Ron Marks has a great story of local and sustainable food practices. Lauri Stallings will also be with us, she’s a choreographer who will be talking about her experiences with gloATL.
Purge: Your website claims that the conference is as dependant on the audience’s participation as it is on the speakers. Could tell me more about that?
Jeff: Our main focus is collaboration. We encourage our attendees to stay for lunch, which is why we arranged to have the food trucks there. It will give everyone a chance to get to know one another and learn about all of the social causes that are floating around.
Also, the few days before the conference I will personally be sending out emails to each of our attendants, introducing them to another attendant whose interests and goals are similar to theirs. That way each registrant goes into the conference knowing at least one other person. Hopefully they meet and talk about the different projects that they are doing.
During every break there is always a great energy in the room. With so many passionate creatives and entrepreneurs in the same room with the same interests, it can actually be a challenge to get them settled and ready for the next speaker.
Every day of the conference we wrap at 4pm and head off to happy hour at Tap down the street. We’ve reserved a private room for our attendants in partnership with Hope International. That way we’re finished early enough for everyone to start the collaboration process and interact in a more private setting.
Purge: You also have a pre-event on the Friday before the conference, correct?
Jeff: Yes, we are putting on a show with the ATLcollective at Eddie’s attic. It’s another opportunity for everyone to meet before the conference starts.
Purge: What’s the most rewarding aspect of planning this event?
Jeff: Knowing that people sitting in the seats are just as incredible as the people making the presentations. Also knowing that even if they don’t make an immediate social connection with every person at the conference, they will certainly be in a position where they are comfortable exchanging cards and getting a hold of the other people that they met afterward.
I truly believe that Atlanta is a city with some of the most creative people in the world. I have a real passion for Atlanta. We could create an amazing group of talented people within Atlanta. Think of everything that we could accomplish if we all work to connect and work together.
Plywood Presents: Social Innovation is Thursday, August 11th at the Hill Auditorium at The High Museum of Art. Enter “purge” as the discount code to receive $10 off event registration. 
Photos Courtesy of Jeffrey Shinabarger