An Interview with Andy Williams of Every Time I Die [07/2007]

I met Andy Williams, king of the campfire stories, at the Philadelphia stop of the Sounds of the Underground tour. We

talked about the band’s upcoming new album, touring, but more than anything, about fighting, sex, Rob from Chimaira’s secret powers, and how awesome Sharon Osbourne really is.

Oh, and I got him to explain just what in the hell is going on in their new album cover, though truthfully? You don’t really want to know.

pixie: You guys are from Buffalo, so let’s start with that. Two words: Mighty Taco.

Andy: What? How do you know about that?

pixie: I know someone from Buffalo, and he told me to ask you about it.

Andy: Mighty Taco is the best fucking burrito place on earth.

pixie: Do you miss it when you’re on the road?

Andy: Of course. Of course. Keith’s girlfriend flew in and we had her bring Jim’s Steakhouse, but I almost had her make a Mighty Taco order. They just came out with a three-cheese nacho burrito, and it’s the greatest thing ever. But it’s one of those things that makes you feel just horrible after you eat it. You eat it and you just know you didn’t do anything good for your body. It’s just nacho cheese, pepper jack, and… I think cheddar… melted in there. And they crumble up taco shells – in the burrito – and then they put the taco meat and the salsa… it’s awesome.

pixie: That’s intense.

Andy: They’re great.

pixie: My friend said if you were from Buffalo, you would have an opinion on Mighty Taco, and you would like talking about Mighty Taco.

Andy: Of course. Everyone on the bus thinks highly of Mighty Taco. If they didn’t, they’d be kicked off the bus.

pixie: So, you want to talk about the new album a bit? We linked to the new song, and comments were along the lines of “how do you get a picture of my face melting off?” People have been really psyched – have you been getting that feedback?

Andy: Yeah, we didn’t get that on the last record. We put out a song and it was like “eh, I was hoping it would be better….” But that’s fine. I’m just glad people are reacting to this well, it’s not even one of the strongest songs on the CD. We just picked a song at random, almost, and said
that would be fine to put up.

pixie: I remember reading an interview when you were in the studio and you said the album was “being torn from your guts like the monster in Alien”….

Andy: Yeah, yeah, yeah… on the last record, we were affected by a lot of outside influence. Every single person that had anything to do with it would tell us “this is gonna be it, this is gonna be the big record, things are changing in music right now, you guys are on the cusp….” So we’d write a
song and the song would be awesome, and the next thing you know, we’d be thinking, “let’s work on this one part…” and five months later, we’re still working on the same song. And you can’t
over-think songs. Usually, your first reaction is the right reaction.

pixie: I always say that as a writer, in general. I tend to just put my pieces together. If I plan too much or think too much, it’s not good. It sounds fake. You gut usually knows.

Andy: On this one, we put our pride on the line… and said “fuck it, let’s do it the way we used to do it,” and wrote a song. I think we had something like five songs written in four days. And not very much changed when we went in to record it. Usually, you’ll hear something different as soon as it is put down on tape, but nothing happened. We just thought they were great.

pixie: So it wasn’t a painful album?

Andy: “Imitation is the Sincerest Form of Battery” is the song that had the most changes, because no one was really feeling it. And then there was a really “do me” part in the middle and we recorded everything up to that point, and everything after that point – and then just left that chunk, with just the drums and then me and Jordan were like, “fuck, we have to write something,” so we did, and it ended up being really good. That’s now one of my favorite riffs on the whole record.

pixie: Sometimes, things just come together. But here’s a question: what’s the cover image? What is
that?

Andy: Okay… These people in Switzerland who did the artwork, they held a 20-person orgy… and literally took pictures of it. So all the other pictures we were getting were fucking ridiculous. We’d see a dude’s balls in a shot, a dude getting head from a chick… And actually, on that cover picture? It cuts off about here [motions to cut off point]? There’s a chick going down on that dude, but he was holding the thing while she was doing it and they took a picture.

pixie: What is the thing? Is it a deer head?

Andy: Yep. It’s a deer head.

pixie: Why was the deer head at the orgy?

Andy: I have no idea. I think they just said, “here, here are some props!” and it ended up… we saw the picture. Originally, the cover was supposed to just be words, without all the other stuff. We just wanted it to look like an old record. We kicked around a bunch of shit, but kept going back to that picture. The rest of the layout is awesome. There’s one of a dude holding an eagle in one… it’s rad. There’s not a theme to it, we just wanted something really dirty and gross and disturbing….

pixie: In 2005, Revolver gave you the honor of album of the year. What are they going to say this year?

Andy: Hopefully album of the year. Again. It would be awesome if we could do that. I think Hot Damn was in contention for that. Really, though… I just hope people like the record. I don’t care if it

sells, I don’t care if people come see us live, I just want people to like it.

pixie: Well, the place is packed. This show… it shows there’s a good metal scene in America. We came from New York, and when we were waiting, there were license plates from as far as Texas out there… which is kind of ridiculous actually.

Andy: I was gonna say. We were just in Texas.

pixie: You’re dedicated to your label, too. A lot of bands who have had your success go off to bigger labels or major labels – is it because they support you?

Andy: They’re just our best friends. This made me really sad, actually. A whole bunch of people
from Atlantic came out to see us yesterday – and we’re not under contract right now – after this record, we’re done with our commitment to Ferret. So I was waiting to take a shower, and Carl, the label owner came up to me and said, “yeah, so… I guess Atlantic thinks you guys were awesome, and want to get involved” and he was super bummed out. It hurt my feelings. It was like when you bum your mom or dad out and it’s the worst feeling ever? That’s what our relationship with Ferret is like. I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong, but I still felt bad. It’s not like we called those dudes and said “hey, come check our band out.”

pixie: So many bands end up going to majors and then going back to indie labels, anyway. I have
done countless articles in the past few months about this – I mean, Thursday is even working with Victory again… The majors expect instant, huge sales or you get dropped.

Andy: That’s why it’s perfect with Ferret. If you sell a good amount of records, it’s awesome for them. If you sell our kind of “good amount of records” on a major label? You’re gone.

pixie: Ferret definitely seems to stand behind all their bands, though. They were great with hooking us up with you guys and were in all of your corners. So… let’s see. You’ve done Warped Tour – how does this sort of show [Sounds of the Underground] compare?

Andy: Well, it’s a bit smaller… and it’s not as long and drawn out with a million things going on. I loved Warped Tour. We’ve done every major metal tour – Ozzfest, Warped Tour, Sounds of the Underground…. And out of all of them, Warped did the best. But this one is great because we have a headlining spot, and it’s awesome because we finally have the opportunity to show people that we’re a real band…

pixie: [laughs]

Andy: Well, not like that, but it really does matter in people’s eyes. They get really excited for the headlining bands. Which sucks for the opening bands, but the biggest names on the posters? I feel like, “Finally! We made it! We’re next to other bands.

pixie: So how has it been going?

Andy: Awesome. I’ll tell you what… I didn’t expect it to be this good because last year’s numbers weren’t as big and it didn’t do as well. We were trying to decide if this was the right tour. But as soon as they said it was going to be indoors? We knew it was going to be awesome.

pixie: That’s why I’m here and didn’t go last year. I can’t do the outdoors.

Andy: Yeah, a lot of people say that. So I was stoked it was indoors. When they said that, I figured, 2,000 people outdoors looks bad, when you can fit 6,000 or 7,000, but 2,000 people indoors.

pixie: I don’t really know that tattooed, pale, metal, goth, punk people are really all that outdoors in the sun types at all…

Andy: Exactly. I mean, it’s cool that people try to make them be like that, because almost all the summer tours make them but it doesn’t always work.

pixie: By the way, I have to ask you about Ozzfest. With all the stories that Sharon Osbourne is such a horrible bitch to the bands, are they true?

Andy: I have only good stories about that woman. I can’t say anything bad about her. They were doing the Battle for Ozzfest thing when we were on the tour, and A Dozen Furies won it… and I became really good friends with their guitar player. We weren’t supposed to be friends. Actually, any time we – this sounds so bad – the “real bands” went by the Battle for Ozzfest bands, we’d get yelled at. We weren’t allowed to talk to them because it was basically a boot camp for them. But for some reason, I became good friends with that Danny kid, and every time I saw him, I would throw him
food or something. And we kidnapped him one night. We hid in a bush and literally just grabbed him and took him and made him party and got him wasted.

But anyway, on the last day of the whole thing, that’s when their bands could actually perform. And I was on the side of the stage and someone comes up and holds my hand. I look down like, what the fuck? And it’s Sharon Osbiurne. And she’s holding my hand, so I said, “hey, I’m Andy from Every Time I Die,” and she says, “I know exactly who you are. I need someone to escort me today and I want you to be the escort.” So I escorted her to all these press conferences and stuff. It was awesome.

pixie: Do you have a reputation for being a bodyguard?

Andy: No, I just have a reputation for being… I tell you,you won’t find a person who has a bad thing to say about me, and I try to keep it like that. I guess my reputation of being a nice guy got back to her. It was pretty weird, though.

pixie: I’m going to walk around and ask if anyone has anything bad to say about you.

Andy: Well, there might be a person here who has something bad to say, which sucks. Just one,

though. I don’t think you’d find her. She’s an ex-girlfriend. But she probably has some bad shit to say.

pixie: So, GWAR. I have to ask about them, because when I interviewed Oderus, he said he was going to kill you all. How do you avoid that?

Andy: I don’t know. I went out to dinner with him the other day, and he had his chance….he took me to his favorite Italian place in Richmond, VA and we had calamari and stuff like that. And he didn’t kill me that day. He’s a pretty rad dude. I watch them every night. I’m like, “Dude, I don’t want to watch them…” and then I watch them every night anyway. It’s just so… Gor Gor is fucking awesome. It’s so fucking rad. I want to be in Gor Gor so bad. They just hang him all day and then they take him down for his part. Why can’t I walk around all day as Gor Gor? I want to do that.

pixie: I don’t see why you shouldn’t be allowed, but I don’t really know how to help you with this problem….

Andy: It’s fucking whack.

pixie: So, I read an interview that you had a project called “The Wild Dogs” – AC/DC with balls? Is that still happening?

Andy: Yeah… kind of. It’s in the works. I went back and wrote a few songs and now it’s just basically going to be a solo record called Andy Fucking Williams. It has changed to that. Dallas Green of Alexisonfire is going to play piano and I’m going to play guitar and bass and Rat is probably going to play drums. It’s going to be like AC/DC and Elton John mixed. Early Elton John. With me singing. It’s going to be awesome.

pixie: I am not sure there are many bands that can claim AC/DC and Elton John as influences.

Andy: It’s going to be awesome. It’s going to be rad. When Dallas is singing? I mean, my voice sucks, but Dallas’ voice is fucking awesome.

pixie: He’s regarded as a virtuoso, almost, isn’t he?

Andy: He’s fucking ridiculous. He sang on our new record, and the place we recorded, there were pianos everywhere… they just kept them in the hallways. And he’d sit down and start playing piano and singing and everyone would just congregate around him because he’s that good.

pixie: With tears in your eyes? Because you look like you’re having a misty-eyed memory right now.

Andy: Seriously, he’s so good. He’s the most talented dude I have ever been near.

pixie: I was going to ask your favorite bands to tour with, but I think I have my answer.

Andy: Definitely Alexisonfire. Dillinger Escape Plan.

pixie: Their new album sounds sick – anything they have leaked so far.

Andy: They’re using one of my amps for the record, actually. I’m fucking bummed because I want it.
But they’re on of my favorites. Chimaira is a good one because they’re just really chill dudes.

pixie: I just talked to Rob, actually. He was very chill.

Andy: But he’s a weirdo.

pixie: Really? He didn’t seem weird.

Andy: No, he can guess shit. Like, one time we were sitting in a room and he kept smoking weed and then looked up and started guessing everyone’s car at the table. And he got every one right. It was fucking ridiculous. Our bass player at the time was this dude named Steve and he had a purple Cavalier, and you can’t just look at a dude and go, “hey man, you probably have a purple Cavalier…”

pixie: Unless he’s a pimp…

Andy: Well, yeah. But Rob was like, “you probably drive…” and he was naming the years and everything. It was fucking sick.

pixie: Is that it, though? Can he predict other things?

Andy: No, I think it’s just limited to cars.

pixie: So, back to the album. How do you deal with the wait? It’s still not out for quite some time….

Andy: I hate it. I don’t know.

pixie: Well, people want it now. Are you worried about it leaking or getting out?

Andy: Ummm… I fucking hope not. But the thing is, every album leaks nowadays because labels have to send out promo copies to radio stations and shit and even though the kids aren’t supposed to do it, they send it to other people. It’s going to happen, I’m just hoping later than sooner.

pixie: I’m afraid of our promo copies – I’m like, thank you, okay, I’ll listen to this and I’ll write a review and put it safely on the shelf.

Andy: It’s scary though, some people don’t think like that. They just start throwing it out there.

pixie: So what’s after this? A tour with underOATH, no?

Andy: I think we’re doing a quick two-week thing with Modern Life is War and Handshake Murders – just a little secondary market on the way to underOATH, Posion The Well, and Maylene and the Sons of Disaster which is going to be fucking rad. That’s going to be a dude tour. All the dudes. They’re all good to tour with. I’ll probably get arrested on that tour.

pixie: Have you been arrested on tour before?

Andy: Ummm… I got handcuffed once. There’s a bar in New York called Lit?

pixie: Oh, God. That place.

Andy: I beat up every dude that worked there.

pixie: That should happen more often.

Andy: And the little old lady that owns it? I threw her in the street. It was bad.

pixie: You guys are legends with tour pranks and fights.

Andy: We’ve done some stupid shit on tour. Our manager always says, Andy Williams… there isn’t a country that Andy Williams hasn’t fought in. I have gotten into a fight in every country I have ever been in.

pixie: Are you banned from any countries?

Andy: No. No. That would be awful. Almost. Wait? I’m banned from a city. I can’t remember the name. There was this club – I don’t remember its name, but it was in England, somewhere, and it wasn’t even us. We played a show, and every club in Europe, the show goes on, and the second you are done playing, nightclub music comes on and it’s a dance club. And people start dancing. It happens at every show. So in this place, the dressing room was right by the stage. We got off
stage, went in there, literally took showers, got dressed, and went out. But people from the nightclub snuck into the dressing room and destroyed it. We were not even in the club, we went to get something to eat, and came back to bouncers saying they were going to beat our asses. And we went in the room, and it was just smashed up. We weren’t even there, but they said it was bullshit,
blah blah, blah.

pixie: You like to fight, not destroy. That’s what you’re saying. So do you win all your fights?

Andy: I’ve lost a few. I’m not a proud dude. I have maimed body parts [shows me a strange bent finger]

pixie: How did THAT happen?

Andy: We had a party at Keith’s house and this dude was pissing on his floor. And we threw him out, and his roommate started fighting. And this big dude he was friends with ran past me and I saw him running, so I hit him the only way I could hit him…. But my pinky got caught and it snapped the tendons in the top of it.

pixie: See, that sucks… I mean… he’s pissing on the floor of the house. You should not get injured when stopping floor pissing.

Andy: And he ripped my new jacket. I bought a new jacket that day and it ripped in that fight because me and him started going at it. He ripped my jacket and I got bummed out.

pixie: You are one of the best storytellers I have ever interviewed. I feel like I’m sitting around a campfire with you.

Andy: A lot of people come to me for stories. Like the younger dudes are always asking me for stories, and then it will go into another and another and another — just run-on stories. Like that Lit thing, it was so funny. I had a huge curly moustache, and I remember the whole thing was just weird. I just had gotten done kicking the dude and next thing I know, I’m shoved up against a wall. And I turn around with a fist ready and I see it was a cop. I almost hit a cop and was like fuck, and just put my hands behind my back. And he said that was a smart move. He handcuffed me and I was sitting next to the dude I’d just kicked, and I’m sitting on the ground and he’s right there –and I’m like, “you shouldn’t have talked shit.” I’m handcuffed and I’m taking shit to him.

I’m waiting for a fight this year. There has to be something. I’m just the dude who likes to clean up after everyone else. Those dudes will start it, and then I come in and clean it up.

pixie: That’s why they start it. They know they have you. If I had you standing behind me, I’d start fights all the time, and then you’d come out and take care of me.

Andy: Yep. The fight starts and then they’re all just looking at me. Any more questions?

pixie: I like to end all my interviews with the question, “is there anything you wish someone would ask you? What is it?”

Andy: In the course of my time in this band, I have been asked every question imaginable. I once did an interview with this quiet little Korean girl, and I remember her coming in, and no joke, everything was sexually oriented. I was like, holy fuck, really? Every question. Sex. Not one question
band or music related. And then it was over and she didn’t know what to do, so she was just hanging out. I went out for burritos with friends, and she was there. The whole night, she was my shadow. It was really funny, but the most awkward interview ever. I was waiting for broken English about old albums, but instead, it was like… savage, atypical sex questions. We went straight for it,
“your thoughts on anal sex?”

pixie: Is there a porn star with your name by any chance? She thought she was interviewing someone else?

Andy: I don’t know. I did do that, though. I did this thing for this porno called Backstage Sluts, I had to pretend I was eating a girl out and everyone caught me. But it was a porn star. And it was so awkward.

pixie: I have to find that now – what number was it?

Andy: I like how you know that there is more than one. I think it was Backstage Sluts 4. It was seriously awkward.

pixie: How do you pretend to eat someone out, anyway?

Andy: She was like “you can do it if you want” and I was like… are you kidding me? I’ve watched your movies. I was pretending, though. The camera was behind me, but she was unclothed and I had a vagina right there. It was cool, and then she sat on top of me, naked, masturbating, and asking me questions. And that was the interview. I had to tell a story about something that happened on tour and I had to make like half of it up. And then they go back and reenact it. Someone goes and plays me. They probably didn’t even use this. And she wanted to do stuff with me and said, “If you don’t think I’m good at it, just ask the guys from Zeke.”

pixie: Ooh, I bet you’d really like their sloppy seconds, thanks.

Andy: Yeah, she was like “just meet me at the bar” and I just went out with a friend and that was that. I don’t even know if I am in the movie. So questions? I don’t know. I’ve been asked everything. Mostly by that Korean girl. That was weird.

I also have a mom who I never have to hold anything back with, and my mom has asked me every question. I call her on tour and she asks me the most serous questions like, “did you meet any girls?” “have you been eating alright?” And then she starts talking about my intestines and stuff.

pixie: But that’s cute…

Andy: You think of a question that you don’t think I have ever been asked. I’m asking YOU now. I’m asking you questions.

pixie: You can’t do that! This interview is so over!

Andy: I like to talk a lot, I think answer questions that were never even asked….

And with that, the interview ended. I highly recommend, should you ever encounter Andy Fucking Williams that you do not in any way “talk shit” or get into a fight, as he seems quite capable of kicking your ass, but if you get him talking? You’ll have a great time.

[Note 05/2008: After re-reading this one on the migration, I’d just like to say that the crush I developed on Andy Williams during the 45 minutes or so I spent with him still stands and he should look me up next time he is in NY if he is so inclined.]

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