A while back I found this awesome interview with Andrew WK which I can only now find on a cached version on Google. Before it disappears completely, I want to copy down my favorite section from it, because it is just so fucking perfect that it needs to be perpetuated.

You know when you really like something, and you know that that thing you really love loves itself and loves you? It’s a total bummer when you love something and go up to the person who’s working on it, and you say, “God! This is so great! I love this so much!” And they’re like, “Eh. Thanks, but it’s no big deal.” When someone comes up and tells me that they love the music, I yell, “Me, too!” And we just hug.

That’s really the best part of the whole thing, but if you feel so inclined after reading that magnificent passage, here is another one.

It’s very interesting, because I know a lot of people who feel left out, so the first chance they get, they want to leave someone else out and perpetuate that feeling. The people who didn’t like me or didn’t want me around, I always wanted to bring those people in. I wanted to make something that they would want to be part of. I wanted to make something that would make them happy about me and themselves and us.

That’s one of the most important things here: that nobody is turned away and nobody is left out and nobody is judged based on how they look or what they like or what they don’t like or even why they like it. There’s no wrong reason to like my music. There’s no wrong reason to like anything. This music is freedom. It allows anyone else the freedom to do whatever they want, and it accepts that unconditionally. And it continues to just want to make you happy.

All you need to know is, “Do I feel this in my stomach? Is this running through my veins? Does this go up my spine? Does this blow my mind to pieces? Does this affect me?” That is real. That is physical evidence, and you don’t need to even question it, or even understand. That’s why I would never question why someone liked this or why someone’s smiling or why someone is happy. It could be for one of a million reasons, some that people think I would think are bad or against me.

Life’s just way too short for me to qualify and quantify how this can make someone feel. Music, above all, is huge and magnificent and so much bigger than me or any one person. Someone says, “What if someone thinks you’re just some kind of stupid joke?” And I say, “I don’t care. I want to make them happy. If that makes them happy, if that’s what puts a smile on their face, so be it.” It’s for everybody, for every reason.

Great stuff and a fantastic antidote to the sort of absolute bitchy cooler-than-thou shit that gets tossed around by musicians, artists and assholes of all stripes and colors.