Live, they cover the likes of Elvis Costello, Whitesnake (not a typo), Toto
(also not a typo), and The Smiths.  On record, they uncover their own
unique brand of power pop that's quite familiar, yet also somehow utterly
new.

OK Go singer Damian Kulash recently talked with musician and writer Kristi
Kates about playing live, the return of melody, and those damned catchy
N'Sync songs.

 - Robert E. Martin

Chicago band OK Go - collectively, Brown University semiotics major Damian
Kulash (vocals), Andy Duncan (keyboards and guitar), Tim Nordwind (bass) and
Dan Konopka (drums) - have already had their story typed up dozens of times.
The facts: Kulash and Nordwind met at "dorky summer band camp" - that being
Michigan's own Interlochen Arts Academy - when they were 12 (Nordwind being
from Kalamazoo).

They ran into Duncan and Konopka at college in Chicago, and took them along
for the ride as OK Go's new wave-influenced pop songcraft - including
insanely catchy tracks like "Hello, My Treacherous Friends," "Don't
Ask Me," "1,000 Miles Per Hour," and the band's first single, "Get Over It"
- caught on.

Soon, they were opening for likes of Elliott Smith and The Promise Ring,
selling out their own shows, and snagging They Might Be Giants' John
Flansbergh as their manager.
A deal with Capitol Records wasn't far behind, and now, after being written
up glowingly in the likes of Alternative Press, Blender, CMJ, the L.A.
Times, Entertainment Weekly, Elle, and YM, they're gearing up for what's
looking to be an extensive round of touring in the U.S. and in England.

As a warm-up, they recently wrapped a live performance at the Sundance Film
Festival, which singer Kulash found both fun and somewhat contradictory to
the spirit of OK Go.
"It was kind of... Hollywoody," he carefully explains, "we went over well,
and it was fun, but there's this predatory, weird thing about Sundance that
seems to counter the spirit of people getting together to watch each
other's stuff."

Indeed - that's what Sundance was conceived for in the first place.  But
since it's degenerated into a power-playing, cell-phone overrun trend event
("I can't say much about the cell phones, since I'm on mine all the time
now, but you know what I mean," the singer chuckles), Kulash, although
appreciative of the opportunity to play there, has better things to do.

"You know how it is - there are good venues and bad venues," he explains,
"but it's more about the crowd, don't you think?  What I really want is to
keep playing at places that are small and excitable.  I like being able to
see everyone in the room, I like being able to see that the people in the
back are dancing, you know?"

Dancing being a familiar sight at OK Go shows, it's understandable that
Kulash would want to keep that connection going.  U.S. audiences are
getting hooked on the fact that the band makes pop music that is, more than
anything, fun - a fizzy combination of sing-along, witty lyrics,
synth-laden choruses, and sharp instrumentation.

So their current U.S. tour schedule should be nothing less than a success.
But will England feel the same way when OK Go hits Brit shores in March?

"The scene is kind of strange over there," Kulash ponders, "it's weird how
small the scene is, and how fast things get absorbed.  Two or three
influential people will say that something's awesome, and suddenly it's the
big thing, then, a month later, it's not.  Having made a record in the
States, it seemed normal to watch people's reactions at our label when the
album came out - but now, even though the album's been out for a while,
we're going to have to go through those same convolutions over in England,
from people that are kind of out of time with it.  It's crazy how these
things work."

If OK Go just keeps doing what they're doing, though, British audiences
might just be drawn in as much as U.S. audiences have been so far.  Even
Kulash's influences-slash-contemporaries have been intrigued enough to pop
in at some of the band's appearances.

"We played a Cheap Trick song for Cheap Trick in the studio once - they
were a huge influence on me when I was 18 or 19.  We were playing in D.C.
once, and I looked down and saw Henry Rollins and Ian MacKaye  (Fugazi)
standing shoulder to shoulder in the front row.  It's amazing, but
terrifying, having someone whose work you admire standing right there."
So, who do the guys of OK Go have influencing them from their respective CD
players?

"As for me, I got an ipod - I'm a complete yuppie now," Kulash jokes, "Have
you seen those things?  They're amazing.  I've got, like, 500 albums in
there.  What I'm listening to the most right now, though, is the Navy Blues
record by Sloan, and I can't get over this collection I have of the best of
Bill Withers, it's unbelievable.  As far as the band goes, we all listen to
similarly various things, if that makes sense," he laughs, "we usually
agree on what's good - no one really has a style that they don't like.
Sometimes we disagree about which hip-hop group is the best, or modern
country versus older country.  Tim likes Kiss a little more than I do, I
like Cheap Trick more than he does.  And we can have a healthy argument
about whether Justin Timberlake is channeling that whole Michael Jackson
thing too much or not."

Justin Timberlake?  "I'm unashamed to say that some of the best pop music
I've ever heard is N'Sync songs," Kulash explains, "I mean, they get the
best people to write for them.  It's hard to listen to them in their
current state and hear anything but the shininess of the promotion, but if
you heard, say, the Rolling Stones do "Bye Bye Bye," it'd be a different
story."

If they're lucky, fans might just get to hear OK Go themselves doing a
cover of "Bye Bye Bye" - well, okay, maybe not that song, particularly, but
perhaps a few tunes by the likes of The Cure, The Breeders, or The
Specials.

"We just had a week off recently, and we spent it in the studio, recording
versions of cover songs," Kulash enthuses, "it was fun for us to record and
have it not really matter how it turned out. One day it may get released,
or it may not - it was just kind of a present to ourselves."

Pop music being in the strange state it's in today, winding down from the
last phase of teen-pop and rap-metal, OK Go is hitting the scene at a great
time - right as real melody is returning to songs, from the White Stripes
to Coldplay.

"It's interesting that you mention those two bands," Kulash muses, "one's
really raw, and the other's not."  Well, although the two bands' styles are
vastly different, they're still based on melodic songwriting - much as OK
Go's tunes are.

"True," Kulash agrees, "Yeah.  That's exactly how I feel about it.  It is a
super good time for rock - there isn't this monolithic thing we're all
'supposed' to sound like.  From a purely distanced view, it's actually a
good thing that none of those bands have bashed through the American
consciousness and made everyone buy it, like a Creed or a Britney Spears
record - this way, labels still have to take risks and make choices.

And it's not like everyone likes the exact same new band - there's so much
going on that you have to form your own opinions.  I'm as much a fan as
anybody else of the Stripes, the Strokes, the Hives - but I'm also a huge
fan of the new Spoon record - and although a lot of it's been called retro,
it's really all just good pop songs."

And from what's been heard of OK Go so far, Damian Kulash definitely knows
what good pop songs are all about.