You might not have heard of OK Go, but I can guarantee that if you have an internet connection, chances are you’ve seen them. You and 30-million other people would have downloaded and watched their Here It Goes Again music video in which the four snappily dressed musicians from Chicago danced their way into our hearts on treadmills; or the A Million Different Ways video where they shimmy-shake in a backyard.
These videos won them a Grammy and MTV and VH1 Video Award nominations, and this week they’re shaking their hips in South Africa, playing concerts at Tuks Rag in Pretoria and Emmarentia in Jo’burg.
OK Go are all devoted to Barack Obama; and not just because they played a concert in support of him. Sitting around a table, two days before their concerts in South Africa, I can’t resist the urge to ask these four intelligent Americans who their money’s on in the current United States presidential candidate race.
“Obama,” says lead singer Damian Kulash. “They’re neck and neck now, yes, but I think, if he has more time, Obama will bring the older electorate will round. People are talking about him being as inspiring as Kennedy was, and that kind of emotional response is really amazing, and important.”
But the band’s response to the senator isn’t just emotional. “To have someone who can answer policy questions in a new way is really important too.” So they think a Democratic victory is in the bag? “Unless some kind of miracle happens with the economy or in Iraq, the Republicans are going to lose the election,” says guitarist Andy Ross.
Kulash adds: “The only good thing about George W Bush winning the election twice is that his party now has to suffer the effects and consequences of his behaviour.”
To be fair, musicians aren’t always the best people to comment on politics, but there’s a similarity between the way the band members answer a question (a combination of enthusiastic, emotional response, and considered, thoughtful observation) and their music. It may seem like power pop with cute videos at first glace, but listen a little harder and some of their music is very dark (and some of it very happy).
OK Go started in Chicago in the late 1990s. They did their time on the indie scene, and were the house band on the National Public Radio show This American Life, which has a cult following in the US. Much of the initial buzz around the band was generated by their association with the show, so I asked them how the relationship started.
“I was working at National Public Radio in Chicago, and knew Ira [Glass, the host of This American Life] from the office,” says Kulash. “He heard us, and just really got what we were doing.” What they were doing, exactly, was making music that was an antidote to what they perceived as the superficiality of the American pop-music scene and the pretentiousness of the Chicago alternative scene.
“In pop music it was either Britney Spears or Linkin Park — fake soft or fake hard. The Chicago alternative scene, on the other hand, was self-consciously cerebral: you were considered a sell-out if you had lyrics,” says Kulash. “Yeah,” adds drummer Dan Konopka, “if you weren’t playing a marimba, you didn’t count.”
It was in this space that OK Go’s poppy, fun sound emerged and began to crystallise, with the help of Glass and the legions of This American Life fans. “I think what we make, musically, is kind of what he’s doing in the radio show. You can make it as intellectual as you want, but on a very basic level, it’s emotional — you either laugh or you cry, and that’s what we were doing.”
OK Go are a refreshingly fun band; they make delightful sounds and stick-in-your-head tunes that are fun to hear and innocently witty videos that are fun to watch. Was this a conscious decision on their part, as a way of getting their ideas across?
“In the States it’s been a liability to be considered fun,” says Kulash. “Especially with teenagers, it’s just too dangerous. You have to be dark and angry all the time. I don’t feel like we’ve made a conscious decision; in fact, I feel like we’re always fighting the image that we’re wacky and fun. But it’s who we are to a certain extent.”
Bassist Tim Nordwind (who usually lip-synchs the lyrics in OK Go videos) adds: “I don’t think any of this would be worth it if it wasn’t fun. But at the same time I don’t feel like we’re asking each other every step of the way, ‘Is this fun? Are we having fun?'”
But they do have a message, whether it’s playing concerts urging people to get out and vote (not necessarily for Obama) or reminding America that musicians in New Orleans are still homeless two years after Hurricane Katrina with their latest offering called You’re Not Alone, which was recorded in the Big Easy with local trombone legends Bonerama.
So do a band who have so much to say ever worry that people might be too busy looking at their dancing and thrift-shop-chic suits to listen? “I don’t think we spend a lot of time worrying about people’s perception of us,” says Kulash. “Any time you feel that self-consciousness coming in, you see the vortex of doubt pop up. It’s a terrible way to live life. We try to just worry about what it is we’re making.”
Of course, the band are aware that their videos precede them in many places. They don’t expect the 30-million people who downloaded the video to buy their next record or make it to a concert in the next six months.
“A lot of them are 75-year-old grandmothers in knitting circles and my guess is that they’re not going to jump into the rock scene feet first,” says Kulash. “But the only way you can see those women as a total negative is if you’re busy worrying about controlling your image. The best way to have a good image is to keep making things better. The more you worry about your image, the lamer your material is going to get.”
OK Go perform at the University of Pretoria Rag on February 8 and at the Old Mutual Emmarentia Summer Concert on February 9 as part of TRL Radio on Tour. See www.oppikoppi.co.za for details