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Reflecting on Two Decades of OK Go’s Innovative Music Videos
Damian Kulash, the frontman of OK Go, and bassist Tim Nordwind recently joined director Aaron Duffy for a captivating discussion on the band’s remarkable journey in creating intricately choreographed music videos over the past 20 years. This insightful panel was moderated by Tim Grierson, a film critic from Screen Daily, and took place during a screening of “From Treadmills to Industrial Robots: A Retrospective”at the Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills on Wednesday.
During their conversation, the trio previewed the music video for “Love,”a track from their forthcoming fifth studio album, And the Adjacent Possible, which marks the band’s return after a decade away from the recording scene.
Memorable Anecdotes and Unforeseen Pathways
In a humorous recollection, Kulash, who co-directed the Apple TV+ comedy The Beanie Bubble about the 90s craze surrounding Beanie Babies, shared an anecdote about their attempts to work with acclaimed director Michel Gondry in the early 2000s. At that time, Gondry was teaming up with a rising Kanye West.
“Somebody we knew him and we heard that he had this incredible plan — this massive, awesome, elaborate, choreographed video that he was doing for some rapper named Kanye or something,” Kulash noted with a chuckle. “But we’re the dance band. So we made [a video] just to send to him, and it was before YouTube and it went viral on this site called iFilm because people were laughing — because it was ridiculous.”
This humorous approach offered a glimpse into their creative philosophy, which often embraces the absurd. Although Gondry worked with West on the video for “Heard ‘Em Say,” Kulash jokes about not hearing back from Gondry regarding their own project.
OK Go has long been recognized in the music industry for their visually engaging and creative music videos, winning a Grammy for Best Music Video in 2007 for “Here It Goes Again.”The video, depicting a elaborate routine on treadmills, has garnered over 67 million views on YouTube, especially prominent in the platform’s early days.
“At some point, we realized it had been downloaded as many times as we had sold albums and that it was not our rock and roll fans, but it was people who we were directly connected with,” Kulash remarked. “It turned out in that two-year period, YouTube had started and we were one of the first things on it, and it changed everything. But it wasn’t trying to be funny or even make a rock video as much as it was, ‘Awesome, we found our people. They like ridiculous stuff and we like making ridiculous stuff.'”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dTAAsCNK7RA
The iconic “Here It Goes Again”video was creatively filmed at the home of Kulash’s sister, Trish Sie, during a break from touring for their second album, Oh No. Interestingly, this production occurred without the knowledge of their management or Capitol Records.
“We told our management we were going to make something, but if we told them we were going to take 10 days off the tour and spend like $4,000 to do that, they [would say], ‘absolutely not,'” Kulash explained. “It wasn’t until OK Go’s webmaster — Kulash’s best friend from working at NPR — nudged the band to release the video on an ‘up and coming site called YouTube. I remember being mad at him. But he was right.”
In addition to directing “Here It Goes Again,”Duffy also helmed the band’s most recent music video, “The Writing’s On the Wall.”The newly released video for “Love”was filmed at a historic train station in Budapest, with the album And the Adjacent Possible set for release on April 11.
The Evolution of Their Creative Process
Reflecting on their artistic evolution, Kulash noted the band’s gradual mastery of integrating their unique performances with visual storytelling. He expressed how their early instinct was to merely position a camera to capture their live performance, often leading to less cohesive visual narratives.
“One thing that struck me watching in order this is that it’s clear that we were a rock band that didn’t know what to do with the camera,” Kulash articulated. “The idea [was], we’ll stick the camera over there and we’ll do the stuff. What you do on stage is what you do as a rock band… It’s not been really about the filmmaking part of it as much as can we make an event that people want to witness and be in the room for.”
OK Go’s remarkable journey showcases not only their musical talent but also their commitment to creative innovation in the world of music videos, redefining the way artists connect with their audiences.