In a post-MTV world, going viral is more powerful than topping the charts. Few bands have rocked this new paradigm like OK Go. While they have released four albums of acclaimed indie-rock, their eye-popping music videos have more than 100 million YouTube views. Big brands like Chevy have tapped into their online popularity for quirky ad campaigns, allowing the independent group to chase their creative whims unfettered.
There are no real lines between formats in how creativity bubbles out of you,” frontman Damian Kulash explains. “We chase music, we chase videos, we chase the live shows. It feels all the same to us.”
Forged in the fertile Chicago underground of the late 1990s, OK Go always stood out. While tipping his hat to artier peers like The Sea and the Cake and Lonesome Organist, Kulash admits, “our stuff was always much poppier than that. All the nerdy rock boys would roll their eyes at us and all their girlfriends would really love it. We were a bit more of Cheap Trick’s version of Chicago.”
Adding to their mystique was their commitment to visuals. Although they made USD60 for early gigs, they spent USD300 creating four-color silk-screened posters to decorate the stage.
“People started to recognize our name from that,” Kulash notes. “You realize these art projects are fun and good because a band needs to have its whole other universe. You might as well chase any creative ideas you have, even if some of them aren’t strictly music.”
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Several years into their career, the band’s break came by accident. A homemade video of the quartet performing a choreographed dance in their backyard to ‘A Million Ways’ became an online hit, despite being only e-mailed to their friends. The follow-up, ‘Here It Goes Again,’ saw the group do another intricate routine while riding treadmills. The Grammy Award-winning music video catapulted the group to fame, with more than 20 million YouTube views to date.
“The initial feeling was, ‘wow, it’s finally happening,’” Kulash recalls. “Then we realized people will know us as those treadmill guys for the rest of time. We had to make a pretty quick decision. Do you run from it or embrace it as something we do? We doubled down on it.”
Imaginative music videos have since been the group’s calling card. They constructed a Rube Goldberg machine for ‘This Too Shall Pass,’ danced with dogs in ‘White Knuckles’ and created a colorful smorgasbord literally smeared on the screen for ‘WTF.’
Brands have noticed, including domestic furniture chain Red Star Macalline. The group sent three weeks in Shanghai filming a commercial set to ‘I Won’t Let You Down’ that had them literally walking on the ceiling.
“Pretty much everyone’s goal is to have creative autonomy, but it’s challenging,” Kulash admits. “I don’t really want to be running a business, but this way, it’s all clear from the get go. You guys want to get a million eyeballs and we want to have complete creative control.”
That free spirit has seeped into their music. Last year’s Hungry Ghost saw the group moving towards a more electronic direction, which Kulash admits was a surprise.
“The last two albums have been more about chasing the feeling within you and seeing if you can get to it,” he explains, noting he writes as many songs on synthesizers as he does on guitar.
Their Mainland fans will get to enjoy the group in the flesh when they bring their inaugural China tour to A8 Live on July 28. Always innovative, the group has begun to introduce Q&A sessions with the audiences from the stage during shows.
“We get a lot of Star Wars questions,” Kulash admits. “We have very nerdy fans.”
// July 28, 8.30-10pm, RMB300-360. A8 Live.
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