steering clear of the mainstream
since 2001

june 2010

interview
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andrew w.k. and andrew k.m. have a conversation

ON CRITICS AND MUSIC WRITERS (US!) - "IT'S JUST IDEAS"

 

AKM: It's interesting comparing those two different worlds. The way I see it, at least, there are critics and artists: people who dissect art and explain what it means, and then there are people who just make it, and don't really think about what it really means as they're making it. They just make it, and the meaning comes out of it afterwards and is put into words by the critics.

I'm interested in getting your perspective on critics and that 'other side' of the whole musical world. What do you think about critics, reviews, and people trying to explain and justify your work?

AWK: I used to be a lot more affected by things that people said about me, and what I'd done. But then I realized they weren't talking about me and what I'd done; they were talking about themselves and what they had done. Well now, I don't really think about them at all. It's just one person's point of view on one particular experience they had.

From my own experience, most music that I love the most, I didn't much like at first. Sometimes I hated it at first. So it's hard to take any opinion, even from someone who's supposedly an expert or a critic - and that's of no disrespect to any of them - it's just hard to take it for anything more than a thought they had at that moment that they wrote down.

But that's the great thing. All our thoughts are valuable. Everyone's opinions are valuable. But unfortunately, no-one's opinion is really more valuable than anyone else's. They're just different. And we can decide which ones are more important to us, but they still all exist in the realm of opinion. Talking about something has nothing to do with the actual experience of listening to it, or reading it, or seeing it, or feeling it yourself.

So just remember that when reading anything - including what I'm saying - this has nothing to do with anything either. It's not that one's more important than the other. It's just that they are separate. And I think that out of respect, we should remember that. But it's powerful. Some people have a lot of power in their words. And I would just ask and try my best to use them to create good feelings rather than bad feelings.

I think bad reviews are just as good as good reviews. As long as people are reviewing it, that's really all that matters. You don't really learn anything about the item being reviewed. All you learn about is that reviewer: how they look at the world, how they think about music, how they look at this movie, how they think about reading... how they think about anything. Trying to think that they are a definite source of anything is crazy. Because there's no definitive authority anywhere - let alone of one person. But we can decide who we want to listen to and whose opinions we value. But I think it's so important to remember that it just has nothing to do with anything. It's just ideas.

other topics:

HIS UPCOMING INSTRUMENTAL PIANO ALBUM, '55 CADILLAC

FINDING NEW SENSATIONS IN DESOLATE PARTS OF CANADA

GHOSTS N' STUFF

"GETTING A BIG FEELING OUT" - MORE THAN MUSIC

"SOME OF THE GREATEST PEOPLE THAT EXIST"

COVERS, AND "SOME ESSENTIAL ALBUMS"

"WHERE YOU FROM"

 

interview conducted by Andrew Kai-Yin MacKenzie
June 2009
published July 11, 2009

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