Partiers always have the deepest of souls. TRUTH!

He’s a man impossible to overlook, even amidst the black hole of turnover artists and overcooked personalities — a standout personality. His iconic album cover — a longhaired rocker (himself) drenched in jellied-up blood, offering a reflective tale of a night gone wrong, or completely right, you choose — is an image not easily forgotten. It's one that’s traveled along with the party-rock mainstay through years of performances, releases and now guiding through an advice column and his radio show, America W.K.

Through it all, Andrew W.K. claims he's simply obeyed “the party gods, and they often times do not reveal to me what’s going to happen until I’m in the midst of it.” It’s his mantra. It’s his lifestyle. Party is this. Party is that. He is the party, and the party is him.

He’s Andrew W.K. — and he’ll be in Denver this weekend at the annual Riot Fest (and “rodeo”) in hopes of bringing down the house in the only way he knows how. Before he gets here, we got deep with the philosophical rock-god on the meaning of his idiosyncratic method, his new media adventures, and even gardening tips on how to manage the tree of life.

We didn’t realize you were involved with so much right now in life. What’s up with that?

It’s all related to partying, so that’s the good thing. That’s the trunk of the tree, is the party tree, and it branches off, and blossoms, and offers different fruits, and different little twigs, and stems. There are even sometimes birdies and enterprising squirrels, in a little vest, doing their own thing — but I just focus on growing and nurturing the roots of this endeavor, which is the party philosophy, the party mindset of celebrating life.

Diversify, diversify, diversify ….

I mean, it wasn’t an idea I had — I like trunks, tree trunks are great, they’re solid, you can carve into them, chop them down and use them for firewood, use it as a stool to sit upon, like a throne, but trees have a way of doing their own thing. This is not my choice, it kind of just grew. I’m just a gardener who tends to the tree and it does what it wants to do. I did not ever imagine — I don’t think I would have the nerve, for better or worse, to say I want to write an advice column, or that I want to host a weekly radio show. These were presented to me, and I was so humbled and so moved by the offer it didn’t ever occur to me to not do them.

I focus on the partying thing and then other people come up with my orders. I feel like I get assignments, I just show up everyday and try to do my best. It works so much better for me if I’m told what to do versus me trying to decide, I really don’t have any idea what I’m doing.

We relate, wholly. But is it safe to say then that the word ‘party’ for you is expanding past just turning up all the time?

It’s a big word and it’s a very small word. It’s what I’ve always liked about it. It can be used as a verb, a noun, I’ve used it as an adjective — it’s quite expansive but again very pure. If you say the word ‘party,’ I don’t think there is anyone out there — that I’ve ever met — that doesn’t have some kind of idea of what it means to them. Usually it’s something fun. Even if they claim they don’t like it, they still understand the intent is to be enjoyable. A celebration of something that is worth celebrating.

The beauty is, it doesn’t have to really be any one thing in particular as long as it’s emerging from that place of formalized gratitude — taking action about something you’re happy about. You can party about it being Friday, or New Years or a birthday, or you can party about even existing at all in the first place. Interpreting almost everything in life to this chance we have, this chance to exist and be glad about it.

It can also very easy to say it’s very hard and painful — you know it’s not easy to be alive. But we’re going to choose within the options we have, to look at it, even when it’s hard, as something good and to celebrate it. It seems that the more we celebrate it the better it gets anyways.

You’re right. Most of us woke up today, most of us will wake up tomorrow … and the next day … and that’s as good a reason to party as any in our book …

That’s a very good way of putting it, I like that.

So as an act that’s been in the industry for enough time, you’ve seen things. You’ve seen it change. What’s your perspective on how it’s doing now?

It seems like it’s good as far as I can tell! There’s more music than ever! There’s more people making it and excited about it. I’m excited and happy about how the idea  of music is getting quite broad.

In the past, certain people would adhere to certain styles as though that’s the type of person they were and that only a certain kind of music would fit into their lifestyle and their worldview. More and more now people like music in general. That they see music as communicating some kind of essential truth in whatever sound or structure or genre it may fall into. You find more people that are just  music fans. I think because of the way it’s available now.

We’re much less now — and again maybe it’s for better or maybe it’s for worse — but we’re less a type of person even. We’re more just people. As a person we can be quite broad, we don’t have to limit ourselves really in any way. I see music going hand in hand with that, and even encouraging it.

As you run through years, do you see your crowd changing at all, or does it tend to be the same people who gravitate towards an Andrew W.K. show?

Many times I’ve been quite torn with it, we haven’t generally been able to fit in — sometimes I think for the worse — with other styles or scenes that would have helped us in ways. We were never heavy enough to be considered heavy metal, we were never really pop enough or gentle enough to be considered, you know pop, or light rock. And we’re certainly not dance music — but we have keyboards and four-on-the-floor beats, but we were just this thing.

That’s what’s really great now, because in the past it was a struggle for us. Festivals were all one type of music. But now you go to a festival, and Riot Fest is a perfect example, and has every type of music within reason — a huge swath of very different people fit there — and what’s in common is music.

Our crowd, audience has always been pure people. They may identify themselves as a certain way, or not, but even if they do they’re open-minded. People have to be open-minded to be into us. I try to make things very straightforward, but I ask a lot of people, people had to put a lot of faith in us, and a lot of trust, and I hope I’ve been able to give them something in return for that risk.

This will be the third year Riot Fest comes to the Denver area, we think you’re definitely going to see that great mix of the party vibe for your set.

We’re really excited to do it, we’ve done Riot Fest in Chicago for four years now, or five, they’ve been extremely generous to us and they’ve been kind. It means a lot they brought us to Denver, a town that’s always been great to us when we’ve done our own tours.

But like you said, an impact that the festival can have, can truly represent the best that a city has to offer in itself. It can bring out the best in the people that can go. It can be more than just celebrating the music and the event; it can be a festival of the place itself. I feel like that’s definitely going to be the feeling in the air.