And Finally Artist News

Andrew WK offers to pay fan’s speeding fine

By Andy Malt | Published on Wednesday 17 January 2018

Andrew WK offered to pay a fan’s speeding fine after he was caught driving too fast while listening to the musician’s new single.

“Casually driving down the M4 and [Andrew WK’s] new single comes on [The Radio 1 Rock Show] and now I have a speeding ticket”, tweeted Luke Mitchell. “Totally worth it”.

Responding, Andrew WK initially called it “the price of partying”, but then offered to pay the £100 fine, saying: “I would like to pay this speeding ticket for you. I was responsible for the sonic party power that caused you to speed”.

In fact, lots of offers started to roll in. A ticketing company got in touch to offer free tickets to an Andrew WK show, and his record label Music For Nations invited the speedy driver to come and have a pre-release listen to the new album. All of which I’m not sure sets the best example when it comes road safety.

Luckily the rozzers were watching, with Thames Valley Police interjecting: “You may ‘Want Fun’ and to ‘Party Hard’ but we want you to be safe. Drive safely dudes and party on (responsibly)”.

That might come across a bit “how do you do, fellow kids”, but it does get across the point that speeding fines are there for a reason. No, not that reason, Clarkson. Until we’re all in self-driving cars, there needs to be some deterrent against us all launching ourselves at each other like falling elevators.

Seemingly recognising this, Mitchell said that he had “asked Andrew WK to donate the money to a far more worthy cause than myself”. Though he also noted that Andrew WK had already offered him free tickets to a show instead. So I’m not sure anyone really learned anything. I wonder if the effect will be the same if I’m caught trying to speed away from another car playing a Liam Payne single.