OK Go gear up for Tulip Fest

   OK Go’s Damian Kulash spoke on the phone to the Albany Student Press about their upcoming show at the Albany Tulip Fest. See them May 8th at 3:45pm in Washington Park.

   Albany Student Press: Have you played in Albany before?

   Damian Kulash: Yes, many times. We’ve been at the Tulip Fest twice before, so those were both outdoors. We played a show at some other club, the name I can’t remember.

   ASP: OK Go is probably one of the most creative, artistic bands around today – between music videos, even band photos, website – how does that creativity translate into a live show?

   DK: We see our shows as most successful when we can get everybody on the same emotional rollercoaster, and so we try to break the barrier between audience and the stage a lot. Music has gotten so much about recorded tracks that people go to shows to see someone playing a CD, and we try as much as we can to make the experience not just a representation of us playing but a communal experience, a unique experience of its own.

   ASP: At Tulip Fest, can we expect to hear most of new album or older songs?

   DK: Recently on tour we’ve been doing sort of half and half. We have a lot of fun playing the new stuff, and obviously we know there’s a lot of people who haven’t even heard the new record yet, so we try to just have something for everybody.

   ASP: People like to throw around the term “indie” rock a lot when referring to a musical genre — and your band has been labeled “indie” rock often. Would you consider OK Go to be indie rock in a musical sense, especially now that you’ve left your major record company?

   DK: Obviously the musical sense doesn’t change depending on the label. I don’t think our music has changed since we left the label. I’m not particularly good at the taxonomy of rock ‘n’ roll. Everybody draws distinctions at different places. Once upon a time the territory of rock ‘n’ roll was pretty sparsely occupied, and on one side you had punk, and on the other you had disco or something. Now there is punk-disco and disco-punk, and
every possible combination of every sort of style and music you can think of. So the label starts to mean very little to me. What’s funny about the term indie rock is that it refers to a mode of distribution not a mode of guitar playing and it’s been translated into a style associated with “indie.”

   ASP: Can you give any advice in students in college now who are starting bands and hope to be successful on some level after college?

   DK: I think this will sound very obvious but it’s much more complicated than it sounds: my advice is just make great stuff. People tend to think and it is true that lots of great music never makes it anywhere and lots of crappy music is successful but it’s not purely marketing strategy that makes a difference. Who would want to spend their life
promoting something they’re not proud of? You really have to make shit that is fantastic. Especially in this new digital universe we live in, there are plenty of opportunities for art and interesting things to happen. Now more than ever you don’t need the help of giant companies behind you. What you need are great ideas.

   ASP: How did you come up with the idea to have fans on Twitter use hash tags to tag the shows they attend?

DK: All the stuff that happens digitally we discuss ourselves. It’s not so much a scheme
of marketing for us, but that’s how we want to connect with people. When I was 18 and
going to rock shows every night, I was always looking for a way to be more connected
and sink my teeth deeper into that world. We try to make our world as teeth-sinking
friendly as possible by connecting as much as we can with our fans and making it a really
direct relationship.

ASP: For your last music video, with the Rube Goldberg-like contraption, is it true that it
took 82 tries to get that right?

DK: I think it was 85.

ASP: How many days did that take to work on?

DK: The time we had actual cameras rolling was two days, but the entire process was
about six months.

ASP: During those 85 tries, how frustrating was that? Was there ever a point when you
thought it just wasn’t going to happen?

DK: Yeah I mean we were trying to do it in one day and by the end of the first day we
had nothing, yeah there were some very frustrating moments. Having a film crew there
for another day was extremely expensive so we had to figure out what we were going to
do after another day we didn’t get it. But luckily it all came together.