A few years ago, I was at a metal concert when the guitar player for the Dillinger Escape Plan did an awesome rock-and-roll move. He jumped off the stage and into the crowd, brandishing his axe like a -- well, like an axe -- and swung it down hard. On my head.

I put my hand to the spot where it hit and it came back pretty bloody. Disappointed -- up until the moment they inflicted head trauma upon me, I had loved the band, and I still didn't want to miss the show -- I reluctantly turned to get out of the crowd so that I could ensure I didn't need to go to the emergency room or anything.

But as I turned to go I saw, standing about five feet to my left, Andrew WK -- the man famous for writing "Ready to Die" and "Party Hard," the guy whose first album cover photo was taken after he smashed himself in the face with a brick so there'd be enough blood coming from his nose to look really cool. He was there, and he was having the time of his life. This was probably the only guy in the world with the experience and the advice I needed at that moment.

I had an imaginary conversation with him in my head, in which he stopped me as I was leaving to ask if I was having a good time, to which I'd have replied, "Yeah, but my head hurts." It sounded about as un-metal as possible, and I didn't want to have to say that to Andrew WK. So I stayed for the whole show, then stopped the bleeding, went home, and slept for 14 hours.

Since that day, I've nervously avoided asking myself an important question: Was that really, really stupid of me?

But when I learned that Andrew WK and I would both be in Austin for South by Southwest, and that he'd be playing over a half-dozen times, I decided that the time had finally come to get an answer -- directly from the source.

My friend who's a doctor insisted that this was unnecessary, and the Internet agrees: "Any type of head wound should be considered an emergency," says the person who wrote eHow's page on head trauma, but that person didn't write "Party Till You Puke," so what does he really know?

After stalking Andrew WK through four different performances, only to watch him rock the crowd and then vanish as though he'd never been there at all -- ostensibly as he prepared to take on his next gig -- I finally managed to corner him at the most un-metal of all locations: a table at a Starbucks.

Explaining the situation, I asked him for his take. "If I got hit with the guitar, I would have been out of there in five seconds," he told me. "I would want to get to a safe place where I could take care of that. It could get infected!"

I was kind of crushed, so I kept pushing. "But ... but you're the guy with the bloody nose," I insisted. "You wrote 'Tear It Up' and 'Don't Stop Living in the Red'! You'd just leave?"

He nodded, then took sympathy on the idiot man-child sitting before him desperately clutching a Frappuccino. "If you're playing the show, or if you were performing, then I'd say yeah -- keep going. But you're just an audience member ..."

My face was a mask of embarrassment -- even Andrew WK thinks I'm stupid! -- and he softened. "Unless, like, were you dying to see that show? And it was the only opportunity you had?"

I nodded weakly. It wasn't exactly the only chance I had to see them -- they toured regularly and everything -- but I could tell that Andrew WK was offering my dignity a life preserver, so I took it. "I'd never seen them before," I said. "And I loved the band."

"I could understand that," he said. "But generally, with an injury like that, if it's not a matter of life or death, I'd get it checked out."

So if you've been wondering where Andrew WK draws the line on "partying hard," just remember: It's cool to party till you puke, but unless you've got a really, really good excuse, it's probably not a good idea to party till you risk a fully infected massive head wound.


Dan Solomon is Asylum's metal correspondent and currently possesses the maturity of a 12-year-old (but one who's, like, really grown-up for his age).