You know OK Go for their irresistibly fun, laugh-out-loud music videos. “A Million Ways” and “Here It Goes Again” had tongue-in-cheek, elaborately choreographed music videos that exploded on YouTube (with literally over 10 million hits) and spawned hundreds of fan imitations, thanks to their DIY aesthetic and self-effacing charm. Their infamous treadmill-dance video for “Here It Goes Again” even garnered the quartet a Grammy last February.
OK Go, the goofy pop-punk band from Chicago, will play their first concert in Ithaca on Sunday. Bassist and vocalist Tim Nordwind spoke to us about everything from their unlikely rise as a struggling pop band in Chicago to their now ubiquitous fame in their new home, L.A.
Popcorn Youth: What was the music scene like in Chicago when you moved there in the mid 90s?
Tim Nordwind: It was very DIY, kind of punk. But Chicago also had an insanely good indie rock, and amazing blues and jazz scenes. Any kind of music thrives there. It’s pretty incredible. It’s funny, though, because all of our friends were in avant punk scenes and we happened to be the black sheep, a pop-based band. (Laughs) For a very brief second, it was almost as if we were the avant-garde because we weren’t making crazy math rock. (Laughs)
Popcorn Youth: But you were still opening for bands like Don Caballero.
Nordwind: Yes, right. I mean, Ian Williams, who was the guitarist in Don Cab, was my roommate. Also, another roommate of mine was Brian Case of 90 Day Men. There was never a name for it, but I called it avant punk. Those [guys] were who we hung out with and went to bars with. We weren’t musically similar, but we all were trying to do it ourselves.
Popcorn Youth: Do you think you guys still have that DIY approach now?
Nordwind: Yes, I think so. Certainly the videos we’ve made in the last year have sort of a DIY feel to them. And the approach was very, “We don’t care what anyone else wants us to do, this is what we’re going to do.” I think we all felt that even before we all lived in Chicago. We all grew up in music scenes like that.
Popcorn Youth: Are you originally from Chicago?
Nordwind: No. The only member from Chicago is Dan, our drummer. But I’m from Kalamazoo, Michigan, Damian is from Washington D.C., Andy is from Western Mass. I went to college in Chicago, I lived there for about 8 years.
Popcorn Youth: You live in L.A. now. As a musician, what are the major differences between life in L.A. and life in Chicago?
Nordwind: There definitely is a difference. It’s strange, because I can go and see bands in the indie world in L.A. now, but I don’t necessarily feel like I’m a part of it, the way that I felt I was a part of it in Chicago. I’m not going to try to pretend that our band is an LA indie rock band. We’re not. So it does feel different to me. The community feels different to me.
But there actually is a really good local music in L.A. I don’t get to see it much because I’m never there, but when I am there, I have some friends in some really amazing bands that I like to see. They are coming out of L.A. in the same way that we came out of Chicago.
Popcorn Youth: How have you been dealing with the fame? It must be overwhelming.
Nordwind: In 1998, I never would have thought that I would be spending my afternoons talking to reporters. (Laughs) It’s weird that anyone wants to talk to us at all! (Laughs)
Popcorn Youth: OK Go has been around for almost a decade. Why do you think you’ve only found mainstream success in the last few years?
Nordwind: It’s funny. Certainly the videos that we’ve made in the past year have taken our profile to an entirely new level.
Popcorn Youth: Which is ironic, because the videos themselves are so lo-fi.
Nordwind: Yes, it is funny, because that’s what people like about it, I guess. It looks like something even they could do. The cool thing about YouTube and stuff like that is those are communities now, in the same way that I used to go hang out at Reckless Records in Chicago and figure out what music I should listen to.
And now I opt to read blogs and check out things like Pandora, find bands on YouTube and MySpace to try to figure that out. That’s where the community seems to be now. And we’ve been lucky in that the last couple of years, those communities have grown and are more and more interested in finding things from the bottom up, instead of being fed them from the top down.
Popcorn Youth: Do you think that’s changed how people make the music itself?
Nordwind: I hope not. I think that is stupid way to go about to making music. Making music for a medium seems lame to me. That’s the thing, it’s a great tool and it’s there for you and if you have got something good then people can go and find it, but … I get asked similar questions about that a lot. “Do you think the fact that now you can put a video on YouTube and make it for five dollars, that everyone will?” And it’s like, “Yeah, I hope not!” Because I would gues that the majority of those videos are going to be fucking awful. (Laughs) The thing is, you have to have a good idea, and you have to execute it well. And if there’s a forum for it, then great, that’s awesome. And luckily, there is a forum for stuff like that. But if you’re making stuff just to put on YouTube … I’m not saying that it won’t be good, but I don’t think that’s a healthy way to be creative.
Popcorn Youth: It’s definitely a more democratic medium.
Nordwind: I think it’s just easier to find [bands] now. I remember I was pretty up on my indie rock when I was 19, living in Chicago. And it seemed to me, even then reading Maximum Rock ‘n’ Roll and Punk Planet, that there have always been places to go to find these things, [but] they just haven’t been as popular. And I’m not talking about where you go to find Interpol, I mean that’s where you would go to find out about bands that literally just played in people’s basements and had a 7-inch out.
Popcorn Youth: In that way, did the situation at the time make a regional scene more important to you? Whether it was Chicago, or Kalamazoo, or the Midwest in general?
Nordwind: Yes, yes. Definitely. When I was going to shows as a teenager, and in college and stuff, every indie rock band was like, “Hi, we’re The Delta 72 from Philadelphia!” or, “We’re Brainiac from Ohio!” You knew that if they came out of D.C. it was a Dischord Records or Simple Machines Records type of sound.That was super important, to know where they were from. It helped you to understand where they were coming from, musically. It helped you to put the band in context. And when you’re into music, that’s the stuff that’s really interesting!
Popcorn Youth: Were those bands called “indie rock” then?
Nordwind: It wasn’t. It’s just that it’s what people consider it to be now. I mean, a band like Brainiac was punk. Indie rock in the 90s was considered to be Pavement or Dinosaur Jr. There was indie rock, but I remember it being used for bands that made messed-up pop music or something like that. Everything else had a very specific name to it. There was emo, and then there was punk and then there was post-rock, or there was alternative. And alternative was the biggest of the big at that point, Smashing Pumpkins and Nirvana, stuff like that, obviously. But now it’s sort of all just lumped together as indie rock.
Popcorn Youth: So what are some of the most exciting possibilities for music in 2007?
Nordwind: As far as something that is not creatively based, it really is exciting to think that you don’t have to be a signed major label band to get a decent following.
Popcorn Youth: You’ve released two records with Capitol, including your debut. What was the impetus to go with a major right at the beginning?
Nordwind: Well, it wasn’t always like that. At first, we were just looking for an indie label, and then we decided to entertain the idea of looking at majors too. And when majors did become interested, it was explained to us, like, “If the majors come crawling, well, you really only have one chance at that. If they are interested in you, you should just go for it and you should see what happens.” In the end, it’s not going to be a major label that brings the band down. It’s going to be the band itself.
And the major label sometimes makes it very difficult for the band, but if the label drops you, it’s still not impossible to exist as a band without it. So we figured we would just go for it. And we didn’t have a great experience the first time around, so luckily, they left us alone the second time around and we were able to do more what we wanted to do. It’s a bit of a learning process, you know? I don’t pretend that we have it all figured out now, but we’re more confident about what we do creatively now.
Popcorn Youth: OK Go seemed to gain momentum slowly, with a grassroots approach at first.
Nordwind: I think the best thing that could’ve happened with us and our first record was that our single “Get Over It” wasn’t a smash hit. It was respectable but it didn’t blow the fuck up. I think that this was the best thing to happen to us, because not only did we not have to make a career of “Get Over It’s,” but also the label backed off a little bit because they were like, “Okay, make a second record, we’ll see what happens.”
Everyone was so convincd that the second record was going to be this huge hit and when it wasn’t, it was kind of, “Hmm, why don’t you guys do what you do and we’ll try again.” So it was nice because we got to make the record that we wanted to make and work with a producer that we really wanted to work with. We got a second chance, in a way. We were really able to reinvent and rebuild everything again. To be honest, a lot of people forgot about the first record, because there was so much time between the first and second record. We got a redo. (Laughs)
Popcorn Youth: Do you worry that people love your videos so much that they forget about the actual music?
Nordwind: First and foremost, one of the most important things is that people do hear about the music. I don’t really care about how they get to it as long as they get to it. We’re all aware of the power of the video, and we’re not dumb enough to think that everyone is going to watch it, bond with the band, and love the music. But there is going to be a percentage of people that do like the music and this will be their entry point to OK Go. The most that you can hope for is that those people will stick around for what we do next, and enjoy what we do next.
Popcorn Youth: So who’s the best dancer in OK Go?
Nordwind: (Laughs) I think I internalize the moves the best. I’m not necessarily the quickest learner or the best dancer, but I think I really feel the moves.
Popcorn Youth: Who are the musicians that inspire you?
Nordwind: Carol Kaye, in the 60s and 70s was the #1 session bassist in L.A. She played on 85% of the great pop hits in the 60s — she did the Beach Boys’ “Pet Sounds” and The Monkees. She’s an amazing musician. I took lessons from her in L.A. for about six months. And James Jameson, the great Motown bassist. They have made me think about bass in a different way
Popcorn Youth: What are your favorite records of 2006 and 2007 thus far?
Nordwind: My favorite record of 2006 was “Show Your Bones” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Both the production and songwriting I think is amazing. And then my friend Becky Stark, she’s in the band Lavender Diamond and they have a record coming out very soon. I think it is genuis — she has an amazing voice, and they’re a great band. And the band The Ponys from Chicago. My former roommate and good friend Brian Case is in The Ponys now, so I look forward to their records.
OK Go will play with the All-American Rejects and The Whigs at Cornell’s Barton Hall Sunday, April 22, at 7pm.