Home > Indianapolis Music > Story >

Who is Andy D?

Jeff Vrabel

Special to Metromix
March 30, 2011

This shirtless man rapping in the white cutoffs and Viking helmet has thought very seriously about everything he’s doing. (Credit: Michelle Pemberton / Metromix)

In an online video for “Ragnarock (Viking Lover),” Andy D is shirtless, wearing a vest, plastic Viking headgear and a fanny pack. He’s rapping, dancing, singing and jumping. Mostly, he’s sweating.

Around him are two men who have given greater attention to their abdominal area than he. Without too much effort, it’s also possible to find photos of Andy D wielding a sword and riding a horse that’s wearing a party hat. There are also a lot of jorts.

“The white cutoffs have been with me since day one,” he said.

Further investigation reveals that in songs like “Party Nite,” “2 Inches from Crazytown” and “Dirty Boyfriend,” Andy D — real name Andy Duncan — is concerned with the following things, in order: party-starting, love-making, party-maintaining, and then, farther on down the line, eating, sleeping and respiration. A typical line: “I like my movies like I like my women / short, low-budget and independent.”

His best-known track is called “God Loves Drunk Chicks.”

But there’s one final thing about Andy D that seems to keep coming up over and over again: Not everyone is into Andy D, but those who are go all in.

“Onstage, he’s out of control — sweat, craziness, rudeness — but funny at the same time,” said Craig “Dodge” Lile, founder of My Old Kentucky Blog and a Sirius/XM DJ. “Offstage he’s soft-spoken, smart and professional. That’s what attracted me to him. I thought, ‘He’s not that fame-seeking, needy kind of guy.’”

“In a lot of ways, being Andy’s fan is the same as being his friend,” said Victoria Johnson, who is both, as well as Andy’s fiancee and backup singer (as her stage alter ego, Anna Vision). “Andy really does buy into all the stuff about believing in people, and when you meet someone who can give you a pep talk and you know it is completely earnest, it really is life-changing. That guy doesn’t have a cynical bone in his body.”

Allison Hazel, bassist for Indianapolis band Beta Male, 8reports that she needed all of one show to become a fan for life. “It’s difficult to explain Andy D to someone who hasn’t seen him,” she said. “Is it ironic? Is he screwing with us, kinda like a Joaquin Phoenix kind of thing? The magic of Andy is that he is 100 percent authentic.”

But there’s that rattail
There are two major ways to consider someone like Andy D.

The first is that he’s the kind of huge novelty goof that can generate occasional heat but rarely lasts; for proof, see if you can find out how much a used Bloodhound Gang CD will set you back these days. The second is that he’s an outside-art hipster playing an ironic riff on the huge novelty goof. It’d be an easy choice to make, if either option was remotely close to correct. “I actually question whether you can have a rattail for six years ironically,” Andy said.

The tale of the oft-topless man probably begins at New York University, where he double-majored in anthropology and religious studies.

“Folklore, mythology, biblical stories, world religions, language,” Andy said. “I’ve been a big nerd for words as long as I can remember.”

He was in a metal band in high school; in college, he fell into a “weird” noise-rock project. After it fizzled, he found himself drawn to the exact opposite sound. “I wanted to go more pop, get into the electroclash scene,” he said.

The initial step on that glittery path was his first song, “Rockslow.” A friend of Andy’s was toiling away on a college marketing project, but found he needed something to market.

“He came over and did a guitar riff, and I came up with the words, basically on the spot,” Andy said. “First time I ever rapped.”

Fueled by a single and some contacts, Andy knocked around Brooklyn trying out his growing act, until Johnson got into a master’s program at IU and the pair relocated to Bloomington, where they’ve lived since 2008. The move proved crucial.

“I’ve gotten more done here and more recognition in 2 1/2 years than I did in New York,” he said. “Brookyln’s so saturated with people doing shows and music and art. It’s really hard to get people out to your shows because everyone’s got something going on. The Indy scene has been really supportive of me. That’s where I met Dodge.”

Dodge, aside from maintaining MOKB, is a booker and promoter. He took an instant shine to Andy. “I was doing a show with Ssion, sort of this glam, gay, disco trash band, and I put Andy on. It wasn’t that well-! attended — maybe 100 people, but those people went nuts for Andy. He brought everybody: his parents, his fiancee, his friends. He was so excited, and he just brings that enthusiasm to every show.”

Andrew W.K. is basically Andy D’s muse, and it makes sense: W.K., who blew up in the early 2000s with his shockingly self-conscious-free blend of giddy hair metal and huge power chords, hit with unabashed positivity.

“His music and energy and philosophy of life inspired me to actually do this,” Andy said. “I saw in him someone who may have been one way or another, decided to become a better, more awesome person and did it one step at a time, systematically weeding out all sense of embarrassment.”

‘In the thick of it’
Beta Male’s Hazel said she told Andy once that she didn’t feel very cool.

“He told me, ‘Don’t be cool — that implies distance and aloofness. Be hot! Be awesome! Be right in the thick of it!’” she said. “And I get the sense that that’s what Andy’s doing.

“I really don’t think he’s naturally this party-till-you-puke, wild, outgoing guy. Nor do I think this is all some big joke to him, that one day he thought it would be hilarious to wear a fanny pack and goof on hip-hop stars. He’s just found the best way he knows to get in there and suck out all the marrow of life.”

Andy’s band is called Andy D Presents The Weekend. It co-stars falsetto singer Johnson (“She hits those high notes,” Andy said), and guitarist Lord Sven Midnite. Offstage, Andy bartends in Bloomington and works at a nonprofit biology journal. His parents live in Greenwood, and Johnson works in a rare books and manuscripts library.

“It got out that I performed and people started seeing Andy online,” she said. “Now there are Andy D fans all over the library. If he can melt the hearts of disgruntled catalogers, then he really does have magic in him!”

Andy D’s second album, “Songs in the Key of Magic,” was released locally in November and nationally March 15 on Dodge’s Roaring Colonel Records.

“I told him, ‘What you’re doing doesn’t fit anything with what I’m trying to do with the label, but I want badly to be involved with you,’” Dodge said.

As the Andy D show goes on, Andy sees himself less and less as a guy with two sides than a guy with one really big side.

“I am being a crazy party man, but I’m not being a Neanderthal crazy party man. I think you can have fun and be thoughtful and be informed by an NYU anthropology degree at the same time as you’re dancing and sweating and rapping.”

“Not like a multi-faceted diamond, but a round ball of putty that was formed by mashing amorphous things together into one. It’s splitting hairs, I know, but I get ooky about people thinking I’m this dichotomy or contradiction when I’m really just trying to be a guy actualizing what he determines to be a continually more awesome version of himself.”

It’s at this point that he begins quoting the poet Robert Burns. “As Burns said: ‘O would some power the gift to give us/To see ourselves as others see us!’

“I get so many accusations of being ironic and gimmicky, I’m just so immune to it. I really believe that’s more of a statement about how cynical, skeptical, and jaded people can be today, always trying to figure out what the angle is, when maybe the angle is what one sees, taken at face value. Go for what you want in life, and don’t be inhibited by your own little hater that lives inside your head. That’s been my touchstone.”

Going?

Andy D plays a show headlined by Electric Six, 9 p.m. April 5 at Birdy’s Bar & Grill, 2131 E. 71st St. $12; birdyslive.com. He’ll also appear at White Rabbit Cabaret April 1, but that show is sold out.

Need to know every moment in Andy D's life? Here are some key ones:

Nov. 1, 1981
Andrew Thomas Duncan is born at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis.

July 20, 1984
At the height of the most amazing year in the most awesome decade, the greatest movie ever, “The Neverending Story,” is released. The following year, young Andy sees the movie and has his mind blown. (Upon turning 18, Andy D has the Auryn symbol from the film tattooed on his right arm.)

June 7, 1985
The second-greatest film of all time, “The Goonies,” is released. This is also the first time Andy is visited by Thor, who reveals it to be his birthright to one day wield the mighty warhammer Mjollnir.

Summer 1989
Andy hears “Brass Monkey” by the Beastie Boys in his older cousin’s car, and falls in love with hip-hop. He also has a crush on Punky Brewster.

April 26, 1996
Now in eighth grade, Andy and his friends Greg, Grant and Evan form a band. In high school, this band would become known as Wemmick and begin playing Primus- and Rage-Against-the-Machine-influenced metal.

Aug. 18, 2000
Andy moves to New York City for college and joins an experimental noise band.

Nov. 13, 2001
Andy goes to Andrew W.K.’s “I Get Wet” release show and is immediately inspired by the man who overcame any self-doubt or embarrassment to become who he wanted to be. Andy D has since met AWK on several occasions.

Dec. 5, 2003
Andy Duncan truly becomes Andy D when he writes the song “Rockslow” and records it with friend Calvin Cardioid.
Andy D receives Mjollnir in full that day and creates his first denim vest with the Motorglow symbol emblazoned on the back. He names his then-imaginary band The Weekend.

Oct. 7, 2005
Andy D meets the love of his life and future holographic singer Victoria, aka Anna Vision, at his second show.

May 14, 2006
Andy D meets his future guitarist Lord Sven Midnite while playing hipster kickball in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. Lord Midnite goes on to shred much gnar on Andy D’s second album, “Songs in the Key of Magic.”

June 17, 2006
Andy D writes “God Loves Drunk Chicks” — the one song he knows he can never get away with not playing at a live show.

April 7, 2007
After recording in Toronto with Calvin Cardioid, Andy D’s first album, “Choose Your Perversion,” is unleashed. Thor smiles while Agni and Hermes arm wrestle.

July 1, 2008
Andy D and Victoria move to Bloomington. A year later, Victoria begins singing as part of The Weekend. Andy D plays shows in earnest, gaining the attention of Scot Gallop of Hardlight Studios, where “Songs in the Key of Magic” is recorded in June 2010.

June 2, 2009
Andy D plays his first show promoted by MOKB. Mastermind Craig “Dodge” Lile decides to release Andy’s second album on his label, Roaring Colonel Records.

March 15, 2011
“Songs in the Key of Magic” is released. Odin and Thor reconcile once and for all, a unicorn successfully cross-breeds with a Pegasus, and world peace is declared.