Andrew W.K. sequestered himself in a confidential New York location last week to begin recording the follow-up to his critically lauded debut I Get Wet. What's the big secret? Nothing, W.K. says. He just wants some privacy.

"If we were in a studio there'd be people coming in and out," the Michigan-born rocker explains, "and we don't want that. We want to spend as much time on the detail stuff as possible. There could be as many as a hundred tracks on each song, all kinds of keyboards, but we can just do it in a hotel room."

That many tracks will help dance metal's twenty-three-year-old emissary further sculpt grooves like he showed off on Wet -- with "Party Til You Puke," "Party Hard" and "It's Time to Party," arguably 2001's hookiest and most hedonistic release. "You know when you get one of those weird things underneath your armpit?" he asks. "That's what this album is -- a growth. It's branching off, it's growing off, but it's not abandoning or turning its head to what it is."

Even though I Get Wet's sales figures didn't match its early hype, W.K. still says he wouldn't change anything about his year in the buzz bin. He prefers to view the whole process as a continuing lovefest, with his music as the soundtrack. "There are a lot of people who have discovered my music," he says, "and it's changed their lives. We strive to create the best song you ever heard . . . over and over again."

AUGUSTIN SEDGEWICK
(January 30, 2003)