OK Go
is a rock band originally from Chicago, now residing in Los Angeles. The band is composed of Damian Kulash (lead vocals and guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass guitar and backing vocalist), Dan Konopka (drums and percussion) and Andy Ross (keyboards, guitar and backing vocals), who joined them in 2005 in replacement of Andy Duncan.
The original members formed as OK Go in 1998 and released two studio albums before Duncan's departure. The band is notable for their unusual fashion sense and their energetic music videos — in particular, those for their two most successful singles, "A Million Ways" and "Here It Goes Again". The latter won a Grammy Award for "Best Short-Form Music Video" in 2007.
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History
Formation
The band's singer,
Damian Kulash, met bassist
Tim Nordwind at
Interlochen Arts Camp when they were 11. Damian was in for graphic design, Tim for music. They met over a game of Ping Pong in which Damian won. The band name comes from their art teacher, saying "OK...Go!" while they were drawing. They kept in touch after camp, often exchanging mixtapes which influenced each other's musical taste and their future sound. They met the band's former guitarist and keyboardist
Andy Duncan in high school, and drummer
Dan Konopka in college. OK Go was formed in 1998.
OK Go's most frequently cited musical influences are
Pixies,
The Cars,
Cheap Trick,
T.Rex,
Queen,
Prince,
The Zombies, and bands from the
Washington, D.C. punk rock scene, especially
Fugazi and
Shudder to Think. They share management with
They Might Be Giants, with whom they toured before signing to
Capitol Records in 2001.
The band's unique part-
glam, part-
geek rock fashion sense has also gotten a lot of attention. They are known for combining loud, clashing patterns and wearing
waistcoats,
sweater vests,
ties, dress shirts, suspenders, dress pants, and an unusual amount of jewelry, particularly
brooches. Some have noted similarities between their style and that of
Weezer,
They Might Be Giants, but the band have said in interviews that their influences were
Oscar Wilde,
David Bowie, "Republican assholes", and "other people too wealthy to know how crazy they look".
The band also served as the house band for
public radio program
This American Life
on the show's fifth anniversary tour. The band performed an early predecessor to their wildly successful music videos-- a choreographed dance to the song "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips" created for the cable access show
Chic-a-Go-Go
.
Ira Glass, the show's host, wrote their first official bio, calling them "living catnip" and describing their songs as "part
indie rock, part stadium rock, part straight up pop with the occasional whiff of
Weezer or
The Cars or
Elliott Smith".
Breakthrough
After OK Go's exposure on
This American Life
and their relationship with
They Might Be Giants, the band released its self-titled
debut album in
2002. In the
United Kingdom, "Get Over It" debuted at No. 21
[1], in the
singles chart on
March 16,
2003, and the band performed it on that week's edition of
Top of the Pops
. Also that week, the single's
video was named video of the week by
Q magazine
. The single was featured in the
EA Sports video games
Triple Play 2003
and
Madden NFL 2003
. Also, their song "Do What You Want" was featured in the video games
EA Sports NHL 06,
Guitar Hero On Tour, and
Burnout Revenge, while their song "Here It Goes Again" was featured in
Rock Band.
The band contributed a
cover of "This Will Be Our Year"
the Zombies classic, as the lead track of
Future Soundtrack for America
, a political benefit album put out by
Barsuk Records in the fall of 2004. Lead singer Damian Kulash also became somewhat politically active during that election cycle, writing a heavily downloaded how-to-guide entitled "How Your Band Can Fire Bush" for bands hoping to help unseat President
George W. Bush.
In 2007, OK Go wrote the fight song for the Chicago Soccer Team,
Chicago Fire S.C.. The song was offered on the team's official website as a free download. Also in 2007, OK Go covered the
Pixies "Gigantic" for
American Laundromat Records "Dig For Fire - a tribute to PIXIES" CD.
Music video fame
The band's second album,
Oh No
, was recorded in
Malmö,
Sweden, and produced by
Tore Johansson (
The Cardigans,
Franz Ferdinand) in the fall of 2004. After recording, in 2005, Andy Duncan left the band and was replaced by
Andy Ross, who auditioned for them in
Los Angeles. The album was released in August 2005.
Oh No
gained popularity for its first single, "A Million Ways", thanks to its , which proved to be a viral
Internet phenomenon in the fall of 2005. The ultra-low budget,
long take video featured the band in their back yard performing a dance choreographed by lead singer Kulash's sister,
Trish Sie. Using a camera borrowed from a friend, the video was produced for under ten dollars, and was apparently released without the knowledge or consent of their label,
Capitol Records. By August 2006, the video had become the most downloaded music video ever with over 9 million downloads.
[2] The band performed the dance live on British TV show
Soccer AM.
The nontraditional video for "A Million Ways" is not without precedent for the band. Previous oddball video efforts featuring OK Go include their and the . They also performed a choreographed dance for the song "C-C-C-Cinamon Lips" at shows after the release of their first album. It was based on
N'SYNC dance routines, which they had developed for the cable access show
Chic-a-Go-Go, which required bands to lip-sync their songs.
[3]
On
July 31,
2006, the band released a video in a similar vein for "
Here It Goes Again" featuring an elaborately choreographed dance on
treadmills, also directed and choreographed by
Trish Sie. This video was viewed by over one million people on the media site
YouTube in the first six days. As of July 2009, the original video upload for "Here It Goes Again" has been viewed over 47 million times, putting it in 42nd place for the most views of any video and 29th place for most viewed music video as well as the 7th most favorited video and the top favorited music video of all time on
YouTube. If the statistics for all copies of the video on YouTube are tallied together, the video has been viewed many more times. The band has worked with both world-renowned and relatively unknown directors including
Francis Lawrence, Olivier Gondry (brother of
Michel Gondry), , Scott Keiner, and Todd Sullivan. On
August 23 2006, Damian Kulash appeared on
The Colbert Report
to talk about the unconventional popularity achieved with "A Million Ways" and "Here It Goes Again". The latter video won 2006 YouTube Award in the Most Creative category.
[4] Emcee
Common references the video in his song "Drivin' Me Wild" ("She was the type to watch Oprah and the Today Show, be on the treadmill, uh, like 'OK Go'").
In OK Go's choreographed videos, their bassist
Tim Nordwind lip-syncs instead of their lead singer,
Damian Kulash, following the format from the dance choreographed for the song "C-C-C-Cinnamon Lips", which Tim sings. On
August 31, OK Go appeared live at the
2006 MTV Video Music Awards performing their treadmill routine for "Here It Goes Again". Since the VMA performance, sales of the album & single have increased, especially on the
iTunes Music Store where, as of September 5, 2006, the single has reached #11 and the album #2. On November 7, 2006, OK Go released a deluxe limited edition CD/DVD of the album
Oh No
. The DVD contains their music videos (dancing and playing instruments), a video of 180 fans performing the "A Million Ways" dance for a YouTube contest, previously unseen footage, and a behind-the-scenes look at their treadmill rehearsals for the "Here It Goes Again" video and for the MTV VMAs.
In May 2006, they toured with
Panic at the Disco; in September they were in the U.K. supporting
Motion City Soundtrack, and continued their U.S. tour supporting
Snow Patrol into Spring 2007.
On
January 12,
2006, OK Go made a guest appearance on the NBC show,
Las Vegas
. The episode, entitled "
Fleeting Cheating Meeting," incorporated many songs from their
Oh No
album. The music video for "Here It Goes Again" was also parodied in a Simpsons episode aired later that year.
On
February 11,
2006, OK Go and Trish Sie took home a Grammy award for "Best Short-Form Music Video" for their viral music video, "Here It Goes Again". This video has around 47 million hits on
YouTube, making it one of the most viewed.
In
2008, Damian Kulash said that the band hadn't produced the YouTube videos as part of any overt, "
Machiavellian" marketing campaign. "In neither case did we think, 'A-ha, this will get people to buy our records.' It has always been our position that the reason you wind up in a rock band is you want to make stuff. You want to do creative things for a living."
[5]
After visiting
New Orleans in 2006, the band recorded an
EP with New Orleans
funk rock band
Bonerama, to raise money for musicians who were still displaced by the 2005
Hurricane Katrina. The EP, entitled
You're Not Alone
, was released on
February 5,
2008.
On October 12, 2008, OK Go announced that they had finished writing new songs for their third album and are currently in the studios in upstate New York with producer
Dave Fridmann (
The Flaming Lips,
MGMT).
[6] The band will preview their upcoming album on a short sling of dates on the Eastern Coast of the U.S. this March, starting in
Philadelphia on March 6, 2009 at the TLA Theatre. They have stated that these songs are the "danciest, most anthemic, most heartbroken, and honest songs", of their career, and the album itself takes a much more funky, dancy, yet melancholy sound to it, drawing influence from
Prince. The album is tentatively titled
The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the Sky
and is currently expected for release in September 2009. On May 7, a song from the album, titled "Skyscrapers", was released for streaming online.
[7]
Other media appearances
The band also appeared in the 2009 comedy film
I Love You, Man
. They appear briefly at the end during the credits as the wedding band playing alongside main characters
Paul Rudd and
Jason Segel. The song
"Do What You Want" has also appeared on the game
Guitar Hero: On Tour series
on the
Nintendo DS and in a minigame on the video game
Thrillville: Off the Rails
. The song "A Good Idea at the Time" was also featured in the movie
I Love You, Beth Cooper
.
Other live members
- Burleigh Seaver – keyboard, percussion (2002)
- Ara Anderson – keyboard, percussion, trumpet (2002, 2004)
- Tom Brislin – keyboard, percussion (2004)
Discography
Studio albums
Year
| Album details
| Peak chart positions
|
US
| US Rock
| US Heat
|
2002
| OK Go
| 107
| —
| 1
|
2005
| Oh No
| 69
| 25
| 1
|
2009
| The Influence of the Blue Ray of the Sunlight and of the Blue Color of the Sky
|
|
|
|
EPs
Year
| Album details
|
2000
| Brown EP
|
2001
| Pink EP
|
2005
| Do What You Want
|
2007
| Master the Treadmill with OK Go
|
Live from SoHo
|
2008
| You're Not Alone
(with Bonerama)
|
2009
| Deep Cuts
|
Singles
Year
| Single
| Peak chart positions
| Album
|
US
| US Mod
| US Pop
| UK
| NZ
|
2002
| "Get Over It"
| —
| 20
| —
| 21
| —
| OK Go
|
2003
| "Don't Ask Me"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
2005
| "A Million Ways"
| —
| —
| —
| 43
| —
| Oh No
|
2006
| "Do What You Want"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
"Oh Lately It's So Quiet"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
"Invincible"
| —
| —
| —
| —
| —
|
"Here It Goes Again"
| 38
| 17
| 34
| 36
| 28
|
"—" denotes releases that did not chart
|
Compilations
- 2004 "You're So Damn Hot" off the Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
soundtrack
- 2004 "This Will Be Our Year" off the Future Soundtrack for America
compilation
- 2004 "Get Over It" off The Alternative Album Vol. 2
compilation
- 2006 "Invincible" off the She's the Man
soundtrack compilation
- 2006 "Letterbox" off the Hello Radio: The Songs Of They Might Be Giants
compilation
- 2006 "This Will Be Our Year" off the John Tucker Must Die
soundtrack
- 2006 "Here It Goes Again" off the Now That's What I Call Music! 23
compilation
- 2006 "Father Christmas" off Kevin & Bean's Super Christmas
- 2006 "Don't Ask Me" off Catch That Kid
soundtrack
- 2007 "Gigantic" off Dig For Fire - A Tribute to the Pixies
Awards
- Grammys:
- *Best Short Form Music Video (2007) for "Here It Goes Again" [8]
- YouTube Video Awards
:
- *Most Creative Video (2006) for "Here It Goes Again"
Nominations
- MTV Europe Music Awards:
- *Nominated: Best Video (2006) for "A Million Ways" [9]
References
- OK Go - Get Over It - Music Charts
- YouTube Faves OK Go: The Band Least Likely To Become Famous For Their Dancing
- Blend of old, new media launched OK Go
- YouTube Presents First Awards
- Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age
- The Rock is Cooking
- OK Go's Damian Kulash talks new album, plus exclusive stream of 'Skyscrapers'
- 49th Annual Grammy Awards Winners List
- Nominations for MTV Europe Music Awards announced