E-Mail This Article to a Friend ‘Never’ land The Wolf finds AWK still hungry BY SEAN RICHARDSON

Last year, synth-metal party animal Andrew W.K. emerged as one of rock’s most colorful new cult heroes with his major-label debut, I Get Wet. Now he’s back with The Wolf (both Island), which keeps the good times coming and plays up the sensitive side he hinted at on I Get Wet’s "She Is Beautiful." Next weekend, he’s at the Paradise with platinum-selling labelmates Hoobastank, whose new The Reason comes out next month. For W.K., the tour follows in the wake of triumphant appearances at the Warped Tour and the CMJ Music Marathon, where he recently shared a bill with none other than Joan Jett & the Blackhearts.

At a Warped Tour stop in Brockton a few months back, fans got a special treat when W.K. joined Dropkick Murphys on stage for the latter’s "Worker’s Song." W.K. had been meaning to check out the Dropkicks for years, and he says he was blown away when he finally heard them for the first time at the beginning of the tour. "I was out in the audience talking to people, and I heard this amazing music start kicking in. It was really melodic, really powerful, there were bagpipes — I was like, ‘That has got to be Dropkick Murphys.’ They proceeded to play ‘For Boston,’ which I thought was one of the best songs I had ever heard. They became one of the bands I was most excited about, and luck would have it that they ended up liking me a lot too."

The current single from The Wolf is "Never Let Down," a supercharged piano ballad that opens with a trademark W.K. pledge: "Never want to break your heart/Never want to make you cry/Never want to give up and die." The good vibes extend to the track’s video, a stylish performance clip of W.K. alone at the ivories. Along with the like-minded anthems "The Song" and "Really in Love," "Never Let Down" shows there’s more to the longhaired maniac than just the party.

New-found penchant for slow dances aside, W.K. hasn’t sacrificed anything in the way of intensity. "This music is not based on a combination of my favorite bands or a certain attitude or a certain message — it’s based on notes. It’s about saying, ‘I’m going to take this melody that I wrote on piano and build it to be as huge as it can be, because that’s how that melody made me feel.’ The music that I always loved the most was music that tried as hard as it could to build something that was spectacular, whether it was a symphony orchestra or a rock band."

W.K. plays all the instruments on his albums, but in concert he fronts a dynamic six-piece band anchored by drummer Donald Tardy of Florida death-metal faves Obituary. "It’s crazy how he got into this band," says the long-time extreme-metal fiend. "I had never met him, but I sent him a CD and wrote him a letter that said, ‘I know this music is a lot different from what you make, but maybe by some chance you would want to play drums in this band.’ About a week later, he called me back and said he wanted to. I couldn’t believe it. I said to myself, ‘I’ll never have any friends in the hardcore or metal scene again after I make this music.’ It’s been very moving and very exciting to me that I’ve been able to retain that."

Andrew W.K. performs next Sunday, November 30, at the Paradise, 967 Commonwealth Avenue; call (617) 562-8800.