OK Go
Here It Goes Again

OK Go returns with the much-anticipated Of the Blue Colour of the Sky

By Andy Argyrakis

Though OK Go will be forever known as the band that made a music video on treadmills, it’s much more than just a YouTube phenomenon that’s since attracted an astounding 49 million viewers. For starters, the Chicago-bred band is amongst the key players in today’s power pop revival, accompanied by a tenacious touring schedule that literally started upon the release of 2005’s Oh No and didn’t let up until the studio sessions for the brand new Of the Blue Colour of the Sky. Front man Damian Kulash checked in from his current home in California to chat about the effects felt from the internet sensation, followed by some personal readjustments due to the ensuing schedule.

Why does it always take the band so long to release records?

Sadly, it’s not that unusual. We’re only on our third record, and there’s always been a huge gap between them. This time out is basically the same story twice amplified. We toured like dogs on the last record for a sort of insane 31 months without stopping. We played with Cheap Trick not that long ago, groveling at their feet because they are gods, and asking about their first three records, which we found out were written in the back of a van. That was the reason they were able to put them out so fast, but I don’t know how people do that, especially since their records were so perfect! I sort of understand [writing on the road] in first six months, but by month 29, there’s very little creative blood left in me and I’m hanging on for dear life!

How were you finally able to settle into the groove of songwriting again?

After coming back home, we had to learn how to write again because we were so out of practice. [At the beginning of that process], every time we wrote a song it sounded like OK Go covering ourselves. It took a full year to actually get into the music and record something interesting we really believed in. Recording it took awhile and we wanted to get enough label attention, instead of just dribbling it out onto the internet.

How did becoming a web sensation help expand the band’s fan base?

Just numbers wise, we started as a band basically playing to indie rockers and people who were engaged enough to pay attention even though we weren’t on the radio. But then it becomes open to everybody with an Internet connection and the 65-year-old walking through Times Square knows you as the treadmill boy. The footprints [behind the video “Here It Goes Again”] have been astonishing and sort of describes the ark of how that got into world and what happens to band in this day and age when the primary distribution is the internet and not radio or MTV. But from our perspective, we don’t think in terms of looking backwards at what happened where. It’s more like we get to chase our crazy ideas without having to fight people on our own team to do it.

What’s the plan for music videos alongside the current collection?

We’re doing a lot of videos right now. We just did one for “WTF?” and we’re really proud of it. It hearkens back to videos we’ve done in the past, but takes it in a new direction. We just finished “This Too Shall Pass” with the Notre Dame marching band, which was crazy because the video and recording sessions were one in the same. In February, we’re starting on a video with 18 engineers from NASA and jet propulsion labs where we’re taking a two story warehouse in downtown L.A. and transforming it into a giant, crazy video space. And we’re also working with my sister who choreographed the treadmill video. We have a cast of extremely talented characters and are hoping to do things involving automobiles.

How would you describe the sound of the new album?
After touring two and a half years, it kind of felt dead just turning the amp up to 11 and blowing out a power chord. When you’ve done that for 700 nights in a row, you have to sort of re-think how to make music, which led to a lot of heads banging against walls. But we wound up playing with raw musical elements - just a beat, just a bass line, just a keyboard sound - and played around or mixed and matched to find a weird alchemy happening. All these songs started feeling or grooving and that turned into 106 songs. It sounds more to me like what’s running around in the back of your head instead of the more in your face, architectural pop/rock.

What did spending 700 days away from home do to your personal life?

It pretty much destroyed a lot in my life. I don’t feel like I need to say a hell of a lot more than I did on the record, but it was basically a lot of heartache and disillusionment. Don’t get me wrong; I’m not trying to say I live the tortured life of a rock musician. I love chasing down those dreams and have been extremely fortunate. But I did put myself into a situation that the human psyche isn’t well equipped to handle and I found my dishes in the same pile I left nearly three years ago - literally and metaphorically. It’s like going from Ground Hog’s Day where you travel 6 or 8 hours to a club for a show, hang around with 100 grumpy people trying to get it all set up, bust your ass on stage and then do it all over again. Then you find yourself sitting in the backyard trying to figure out “what does music mean to me?” You go from tiny little logistical concerns to reassessing your whole life. Everything is three years older and different and it feels like you’ve woken up from a crazy dream.

Any new year’s resolutions for the band?

What I hope personally is that we can engage with this record. Now that the record is made, it looks different and it’s time to be in the world. I’d love to spend the next year and a half enjoying it creatively and enjoying the way we get into the world. The shows are so much fun to play and I want to share in the experience rather than always rush, rush, rushing and promote, promote, promoting. They could be one in same, but it’s all about the perspective. If we do it in a human way, touring, art projects and life in general become an arc of growth and change you can enjoy, rather than the mania and business. If it’s an all-consuming race to some undefined finish line, then it gets to be a job. It’s always more fun when it’s about art and loving the entire process.