World Dominating Robots, Waste Disposal Design, Hipshaking... by Shawna Adams The ever-charming and amusing Damian Kulash, singer of Ok Go, sits down with Cityzen to talk about world domination, getting chicks, the Federal Truth in Music project, and a former stoned art teacher.

Cityzen: How did you guys get the band together?

Damian: Tim and I met at summer camp at age 12 and the two of us hit it off. He lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, and I lived in Washington, DC. We met at summer camp and we became pen pals. We kept going back to the same summer camp over summer to hang out. Then, when he was in college, he wound up in Chicago where my high school best friend Andy was in college as well. They also hit it off and made a band in college together, and when I got done with college, I moved to Chicago and we joined forces to make a giant robot that takes over the world.

Cityzen: How did you come up with the name “Ok Go” for this “giant robot”?

Damian: Oh Ok Go is not the giant robot. Sorry – we made a giant robot that takes over the world, but not all the phases are complete yet. See, the thing is, the robot that takes over the world actually doesn’t look like a robot. That’s what screws with everyone’s head because everyone thinks that a giant robot that’s going to take over the world is going to look like one of those Transformers, but they got it all wrong. Robots are funny, they’re cool, but really, a giant robot that takes over the world takes over on a micro level. Basically what you need is decentralization. I don’t know if you’ve done any computer science work or any sort of network theory, but the reason why the Internet is so powerful is because there’s no computer that you can shut down to shut down the whole thing. All serious modern networks are decentralized. Our network is squirrels. Did you ever see squirrels 15 years ago? Well you didn’t, actually. A lot of people I ask that question say yes they did see squirrels, but the greatest thing about squirrels is that once they get around and plant the chips in the people, the people think they’ve seen squirrels, when in fact squirrels are only 7 years old. They are part of our robotic world domination plan – I don’t tell most people this but you look nice and I don’t think you’ll stop us in our world domination.

Anyway that’s what we’re doing; the band is sort of a side project. It’s fun, it’s cool. I mean, getting world domination and everything, it’s what every evil mastermind wants, but it’s really stressful. Have you ever seen Superman, the movie? Lex Luther is in his subway apartment, he lives in that underground thing with that pool. Well anyway, the point is, Lex Luther is a stressed-out guy. Poor Lex! So we needed a rock band to sort of get our minds off it all. Meet girls…evil masterminds always have girls in the movie but in real life…chicks don’t like mean guys! If you’re an evil mastermind, you need to start a rock band because chicks do like rock bands. People really like the guys in rock bands.

Cityzen: Well it sounds like you guys really have it nailed. How then did you come up with the name for your band?

Damian: Tim and I, when we were twelve, we had this art teacher at this summer camp. Now art teachers, you don’t expect to be of the highest caliber, but this guy was a 19-year-old, stoned, hairy dude – he never showered – he was qualified to do art because he was always in touch with the sublime. So you’d be drawing a still life or something, and he’d lean over you while you were drawing and he’d watch you draw for 3 or 4 minutes, just kind of silent going “ok, alright” sometimes. Then, at some point, he’d be like, “Dude….I want you to like…reach out of you…to where that bottle is…and touch that bottle…and then I want you to reach into you…to where before the paper was…and then you need to draw the difference.” And we’re twelve, so I’m stretching it to not draw an airplane or a girl in a bikini, but I’ll give it a shot, man.

So you’re sitting there, drawing and rolling your eyes at your friend next to you, and he stays over your shoulder for like five more minutes going, “Ok…ok…ok…………..go.” So that’s where “ok go” comes from. But the weirdest thing about this is that you can’t “go” more. When you’re driving and someone yells, “go go go go go,” that means drive faster. You could be driving 60 mph, which is really fast, and “go go go go go” means “let’s try 80 or 90.” But when you’re drawing, you can’t be drawing “more,” it’s kind of a polar thing - you’re either drawing, or not drawing. So when you’re already drawing and someone says, “Ok…go,” referring to the act of you drawing, it’s very confusing, especially if you’re twelve. So it stuck with us and then later we decided it was a good band name.

Cityzen: What do you think is the best part of being in a band?

Damian: Well, it gets you a lot of chicks, and if you’re an evil mastermind, no chicks – see what I’m saying? We already discussed that. But aside from the fact that we can go about world domination without being lonely and celibate, it also means we can play rock shows, which is really fun. I really like playing rock shows. They’re a lot more fun than getting to rock shows, for instance, which is one of the tougher parts of being in a band. It’s also a lot more fun than talking to people on a cell phone, which is one of the things you don’t think of as being connected to being in a band. But if you’re in a band, you talk to everyone you know on a cell phone, all the time. That’s how you have a life. Ten years ago, people didn’t have a life at all. You’d just go on the road and not see your loved ones for weeks and weeks and weeks. So I’m lucky, I guess, that cell phones exist.

Cityzen: Well Spiraling had a lot of good stuff to say about your fans. What do you think about your fans?

Damian: Oh they’re wonderful. Our fans tend to be a little bit less cliché rock fans. Ok that sounds like an insult to people who love rock n roll, but I mean, we have a lot of fans who don’t go to a ton of shows, and we have a lot of fans who aren’t super “image-y.” I grew up and I was a real rock kid in high school. I just listened to punk rock all the time and spent all of my time at a show. So the people I am most familiar with in the rock world are usually pretty much like I was then, sort of snobby and looking down on everyone else – sort of a “scenester.” I love a good rock scene, and I certainly love the people who are coolest in that rock scene, but there are a lot of people who can be pretty exclusive and pretty catty and bitchy, and our fans don’t tend to be of that type. We tend to have pretty excitable and exuberant people, really buoyant people. It’s nice because I feel like rock n roll so often gets mixed in with complaint and angst and anger, and while those things drive a lot of really, really great rock n roll, there’s also a whole tradition of music you just want to dance to or music that just makes you smile.

Cityzen: What artists do you consider influences? What shows did you go to as a “punk rock scenester”?

Damian: The punk rock scenester stuff I don’t think you hear much in our music, but it affected the way I think about making music or playing guitar a lot. Fugazi was my guiding light as a 15-year-old. I grew up in DC, and DC was pretty much single-handedly run, from a music sense, by Ian MacKaye, the singer from Fugazi. He was also the owner/part owner of the record label Dischord. Pretty much everything he did I worshipped, and everything he put out I worshiped, which included a lot of good bands. Foremost, I think, Shudder to Think. They relocated to NY in the 90s sometime and eventually broke up. The lead singer (Craig Wedren) is opening for us tomorrow, and he is like one of my top five idols of all time, so it’s really embarrassing because he’s going to blow us off the stage (laughs).

Cityzen: That’s quite an honor to have him open for you.

Damian: It’s a huge honor. He’s a pretty close friend; I’ve met him and hung out with him many times since and I still can’t get past the fact that I’m just a mega fan. He’s a friend but he’s like a friend on a different level. I’m glad he’s playing for us but I really think we should be opening for him because he’s like a god. Anyways, there’s a lot of DC scene stuff. I was always a big pop fan too. I listened to a lot of Prince, David Bowie, The Cars, and Cheap Trick, that kind of stuff. I was really into early Depeche Mode when I was a kid in 4th grade. I remember when somebody in my school made fun of me for listening to like “fag” music. I mean in 4th grade, I hadn’t thought of the fact that they were all naked on the cover of the album, and that they were probably homosexual. I was just like “They’re British, man, what are you talking about?!” It really changed my whole opinion of everything. Actually, I continued to love their music and everything, but I just had no idea! (laughs). Then somebody told me about Freddie Mercury…(laughs). Yeah, I love Queen. There are a lot of influences out there.

Cityzen: What do you think is the best and worst part of NYC? The navigation is pretty good here, so I would imagine it isn’t as hard to get to a venue here than in other places – must be sort of a relief?

Damian: Yes, true, but you can still kind of get lost. I’ve been to NYC a lot so I don’t usually get lost here anymore. The only bad thing about NY is the rent, honestly. It’s a really expensive town. But I love NY. I really love NY. I’ll probably wind up living here someday.

Cityzen: You guys all live in Chicago still?

Damian: Yeah, we all live in Chicago mostly. I have been spending a lot of time in LA because I have a lot of really close friends out there, and I really like the weather out there, so I’m not in Chicago as much as I used to be. But the band definitely still Chicago-based; Chicago is definitely still our hometown.

Cityzen: So you guys are working on your 2nd album, are you done with it or are you still recording?

Damian: No, not even close. We haven’t even started the official recordings. We’ve been doing a lot of demos and we’re going to start recording the real thing in a month or two, so it’ll be a little while.

Cityzen: How would you describe the writing – do you think it is moving in a different direction?

Damian: Knowing what direction your music is heading is sort of like trying to figure out which way the earth is spinning by standing on it. If you’re really smart, you’ll look up at the stars and the moon for long enough and figure out what’s going on, but you might get it wrong. We’re working on our record and I think the following is true of it. I think it’s groovier; I think there’s a lot of stuff that’s sort of more about the drums and bass, and a little bit more about a “swagger” or a “hipshake.” I think it’ll probably be a little less “guitar-y,” but a little more heavy. Does that make sense? I think it’ll actually be kind of more rock n roll and less pop than the last one, maybe a little darker. Last time, we really wanted to make a synthetic pop record. We wanted it to be super happy with no shredded angst, maybe a little bit of sarcasm or bitterness at times. We wanted it to be like a Cars record – like a really fun, fist-pumping, pop record.

Cityzen: And you definitely did that.

Damian: Thank you. All that stuff is probably going to be there (in the next album), but I think it’ll be a little less “anthemic” and a little more rock n roll.

Cityzen: Do you know when we’ll be able to hear this album?

Damian: Probably as early as the summer or as late as the fall.

Cityzen: What is the Federal Truth in Music project?

Damian: Oh wow you’ve done your research!

Cityzen: I tried understanding exactly what it was and I watched some of the films, but could you explain what the project is basically?

Damian: There was this crazy guy in the 70s who somehow got through the Carter administration to start a media campaign in which culture and cultural products were manufactured to reflect real life, as opposed to be fantastic. It was sort of in the earliest phases of arguments of “television rotting people’s brains with violence and sex,” that kind of stuff. Mostly in the 50s, but before the big 80s and 90s sweep of media censorship, this was happening. This guy decided that, as a preemptive strike against those who would shut down culture outlets, he wanted to make culture that was based on firm reality. It’s a completely ludicrous idea. It never happened in the 70s, but a bunch of artists recently resurrected the project and are making things that come off as comedy because they’re just so funny and so ridiculous. So what we did with that is we made 12 short films. The first half of each film is where we act out scenes of “real life,” and the second half is a rock video and a song written for that scene based on really pedestrian stupid stuff. (for more information check out http://www.truthinmusic.net)

Cityzen: You said other artists are doing the same thing too?

Damian: The group of artists who started the project is trying to contact other people. We were really excited about it because I really like how totally absurd it is, and the fact that it was actually somebody’s governmental project.

Cityzen: I read the letter on the site and thought it was just a spoof! I didn’t realize it was official. Will you be adding more videos to the site?

Damian: We have a bunch of them scripted but we haven’t had time to write the music or record them. Eventually we’ll add more; the project is definitely not dead yet. It could take a year or it could take two. What we want to do is maybe try to release a DVD of that stuff, but it’s hard because while our label will look the other way and not care too much about us doing little projects with people, as soon as you start selling your music, they want to be part of it.

Cityzen: What’s your opinion on the reality show craze?

Damian: Not too fond of it. I don’t watch too much TV, but I’ll sometimes watch it when we’re on tour at the hotels. I’m not one of those snotty people who’s like, “I don’t watch TV,” but my TV hasn’t had reception for a few years, which is kind of great because I could watch movies when I want to, but I’m not tempted to turn the TV on. But reality TV, it’s not like the Truth in Music project. I like the manufacturing of culture.

Cityzen: How do you feel about being listed as one of Elle Girl’s “hottest rockers”?

Damian: I’m very flattered. It’s somewhat less flattering, though, when you know most of the people in the top 10 and you’re like, “yeah you’re right, Alex is really hot…” (laughs). A lot of bands we’ve toured with are higher on the list than I am.

Cityzen: So, are you jealous of them?

Damian: No (laughs), I mean it’s like any shot of overconfidence that you could have by being listed as one of the top 50 hottest rockers gets quickly swept off by the fact that several of your close friends are a lot hotter than you (laughs).

Cityzen: What was your worst job?

Damian: I had to design the cover for a waste disposal company’s quarterly report. It’s really hard to make shit look good.

Cityzen: Were you a graphic designer?

Damian: Yeah, I started doing graphic design when I was really young. At the time, I was really into art. This was in the 90s so no one really knew how to use their computers yet, so because I knew a lot about Photoshop and Illustrator, I would get hired as a 15-year-old to design things simply because I knew how to use the equipment. It was a shitty day job trying to design graphic covers for a crappy company – trying to make literally shit look good.

Cityzen: What CDs are currently in your CD player?

Damian: Well, we don’t have a CD player anymore. We’ve “iPoded” it – we’re nerds. I’ll tell you what we listened to in the van yesterday and you can decide. In the van on the way from Cleveland to Boston yesterday, we listened to Spoon, The Starlight Mints, a bunch of Steely Dan, Bill Withers, and a band our keyboard player right now (Ara Anderson) is in called Boostamonte. They’re a brass funk band from San Francisco; he calls it “elephant funk.” They’re great – an incredible band. He’s also a virtuoso trumpet player; he played on a couple of Tom Waits records so we listened to a bunch of his albums. And I think that’s about it.