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Cult of Personality

"Andrew was born in between the moments of 12:01 and 34:89. The time would not stop until baby breathed. Time would stand still until baby lived."
— www.andrewwk.com

Whatever it is that makes a successful cult, Andrew W.K., leader of the soon to be infamous metal band with the same name, seems to have it. The bizarre cultism of Charles Manson, David Koresh, Jonestown, the Symbionese Liberation Army, Heaven's Gate, and the latest addition, The Family, continues to horrify, infatuate, and puzzle many of us. In that sense, it is no surprise that the cult-mystique surrounding and complicating Andrew W.K. fascinates as well.

For each of the aforementioned cults, its "success" depended upon the common presence of a dominant, charismatic patriarch; Andrew W.K. is just that. He's not only a force, but also a face to be reckoned with. His new music video, entitled "Party Hard," begins with a sinister-looking Andrew W.K. staring at his scarred face in the mirror, getting ready to go out somewhere to do something to somebody. He has a serial killer aesthetic, complete with dripping hair and cracked, scabbed forehead. Clearly, there's something going on with this guy.

Just what is going on with a metalhead whose biography once claimed he was "Born: 1959-1979, California, USA, Raised: 1939-1949, Michigan, USA," and "Lives: 1993-1999, Florida, USA"? Posted online at the old version of his website (www.andrewwk.com), the biography, or rather, the manifesto, went on to explain that "The letter 'W' was, is, and always will be the world of strength and unity -- the shape of 2 arms locked in unyielding power. Like a steel cabled bridge that remains sturdy even in the strongest winds but has the ability to snap, break, blind, and crumble into the black boiling ice-cold sea waters -- at will. All of the machines rebuild the steel stronger than before -- and it will never go away." Furthermore, he described the letter "K" as "the consumption of the universe. The continuous symbol of greater than, less than, always level."

It seemed then that the combination of "W" and "K" in his name suggested a consistent, impenetrable strength. Along with his semiotic interpretation of physicality, Andrew W.K.'s understanding of mentality was also evident in his manifesto: "We possess a brain -- huge amounts of power -- untapped. Let it black out. Let go into the void. Reach into it. A true superstructure. A condominium." A kind of New Age, "Karl Marx meets Jim Morrison and Keanu Reeves" rhetorical sermon, its working-class transcendentalism was sure to draw fanatics, and it did.

To build on his ever-growing popularity, Island Records recently designed a newer, flashier, more complete website (www.awkworld.com), not unlike those of most current popstars. The problem with his new site is that it has been depersonalized and sanitized: his almost fascist red and black look is replaced with hot pink and neon green, and his odd, intriguing manifesto with "cool stuff" and "merchandise."

Rhetoric and aesthetics aside, it is Andrew W.K.'s music that best explains his ideology and translates his persona. The music video for "Party Hard" is a refreshing sight and sound in the midst of the whiney, "mad at Dad" rap-metal-boy-band movement. The members of Andrew W.K.'s band look like a cross between Ugly Kid Joe and Biohazard, yet perform with ferocity reminiscent of early heavy metal. Boasting Donald "D.T." Tardy, a former member of Obituary on drums, they are clearly not part of that tattooed-cute expansion of pop called "heavy music" -- they are old-school-ugly, sweating and bleeding as hard as they can, producing testosterone-driven anthemic metal. Yet, un-trendy as it is, the beauty of "Party Hard" is its unavoidable crossover appeal; the local union, Johnny Football Hero, and the trench coat mafia will all be thrashing along.

Feverishly singing, screaming, slamming piano keys, dancing, and headbanging his way through the video, Andrew W.K. passionately leads his bandmates on stage in a huge warehouse, beneath an enormous billboard of his own face, bleeding from the nose. This graphic is the artwork for the cover of his new album, I Get Wet, but its magnitude and placement make it a kind of iconographic shrine, a symbol to be worshipped, feared, and obeyed.

Creative use of icons is nothing new and similarities can be drawn to Marilyn Manson's exhausting explorations of this terrain. But while Manson's mix of Satanic, totalitarian, and gothic imagery offended the Christian Right with his sexually ambiguous, Anti-Christ dictator's performance, it seemed to most of us a calculated attempt at shock-based provocation. In contrast, W.K. comes off as a genuinely strange guy who takes his music and its performance really, really seriously.

Much of what Manson was doing stemmed from one of the most uncomfortably prime examples of this iconographic manipulation: Hitler and his Nazi following. Their appropriation of the Indian swastika turned a symbol of peace into a symbol of death, hatred, and inhumanity. Today, while U.S. flags have always been considered by Americans to be a sign of patriotism, and now one of compassion for and solidarity with the victims of 9-11, in many regions outside of the first world it is a symbol of transnational, imperialist empire. Such icons are repeatedly used to sell ideas and ideals: see also, Nike and MacDonalds dropping their band-names for "simple" logos. Different but similar, these are examples of iconographic identification and representation for various purposes. For Andrew W.K., his bloody face signifies what he is about: living hard.

Let's not forget promoting hard. Like Nike and MacDonalds, Andrew W.K. has been using his self-iconography to push his product. But this year's bloody nose poster campaign elicited complaints in the U.K., due to its implied violence (and cocaine use)? Andrew W.K. explained in response that a person would have to do a huge amount of cocaine to get such an effect, but that he doesn't mind that assumption being drawn from his album's art. In any case, the complaints and the subsequent ruling of the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA), led the label to abort the ad campaign.

But unlike Marilyn Manson, W.K. is still W.K. without the shock value and dialogue created by that imagery, because it is his charisma that makes him so oddly compelling. The censorship translated into free publicity and credibility among his global group of organized disciples: the "AWK Slammers" is growing even more rapidly as a result. And so, his website is not only an online promotional tool, but also a cultist recruitment center, drafting cyber-members to promote him and proliferate. While his old manifesto admitted, "The bravest people do have fear, it is the courage to slam that fear which makes them brave," it seems that for now, slamming that fear means promoting Andrew W.K., which is, in essence, what the Slammers do.

Subsequently, he has grown in popularity not only as a musician but also as an enigmatician, expanding beyond a "band with a following" into a cult devoted to its ideology, subculture, lifestyle, iconography, and of course, Patriarch. Still, leaders can be misleading. Where Winnfred Everett Wright, leader of "The Family," once promised peace and love, that dynamic eventually deteriorated to intimidation and manipulation. In the worst cases, as with Heaven's Gate cult leader Marshall Applewhite, the leader convinces his followers to commit mass suicide.

Andrew W.K. attracted many followers with the convoluted ideas posted on his website and the images in his ad campaign, but "Party Hard," with its performative spasms and atypical sound, demonstrates the uncompromising passion and vitality of his music, which makes him accessible and seem sincere. Ultimately, his music will prove to be the basis of his magnetism, which is enough to make me want to believe his manifesto, or at least understand it.

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