I’ve had my pants bust a lot,” says OK Go front man Damian Kulash in a casual tone. “I’ve had three pairs of pants bust in one night.”
It’s not totally unusual for the lead singer of the Chicago power-pop quartet -which also includes bassist Tim Nordwind, guitarist/ keyboardist Andy “Rusty” Ross and drummer Dan Konopka – to split his pants during a show. After all, if you looked at the members of OK Go a year ago, you would see them clad in standard struggling rock-star swag: torn jeans, ragged T-shirts and duct-taped Converse sneakers. Now, the guys have found an odd appreciation for a more indulgent wardrobe – think broaches, ascots and boots.
“We’re obsessed with patterns right now. Jeans and T’s started to feel like a uniform,” Kulash says. “I just like it more. It’s a fairly simple answer. It’s a lot more fun to look into a closet of red and pink suits than jeans.”
OK Go has gone through some intense changes this past year. Besides making a collective decision to dress like dandies a la Oscar Wilde, and acquiring a new blog-crazed guitarist, the band released its 2005 sophomore album Oh No with a fairly new sound – trading in their quirky keyboards for fuzzy guitars.
“We headed in a much more honest direction. The first album sounded like we were kids in a candy store – we wanted to go all out, but we got in too deep,” Kulash says of the band’s 2002 self-titled debut album. “Our last CD was the greatest hits of the 20 years before the album. This one is by the band, for the band. It has a much more consistent, much more focused kind of tone.”
Oh No not only spawned a more rugged sound for the band but also birthed a more unconventional asset to OK Go’s live shows: a new dance routine to the playfully sultry song “A Million Ways,” which the band usually performs as an encore. Catch the dance live this Friday, Nov. 18 when OK Go performs at Metro, 3730 N. Clark St.
“It took us four days to learn the dance,” Kulash says. “It’s an exuberant boy-band homage.”
Videotaped for the band’s amusement in Kulash’s back yard, the dance routine – now available to view on the Internet – has been downloaded more thank 500,000 times. Though the dance’s popularity has surprised Kulash, he says he’s confident in the band’s skills.
“We could challenge the Backstreet Boys to a dance off, but we’d waste them,” Kulash says. “We’d trounce those motherfuckers.”
Kicking ass on the dance floor isn’t a new thing for OK Go. The guys have been showing off their Paula Abdul-like moves since 2000, when the band performed on Chic-A-Go-Go, Chicago cable access’s quirky version of Soul Train meets American Bandstand.
“The studio wasn’t set up for live music, so bands had to lip-sync and mime performances, like substitute a baseball bat for a guitar,” Kulash says. “So if we couldn’t really sing, we thought we should dance.”
OK Go also encourages fans to dance along. Kulash says he loves when fans send the band tapes of the dance routine and covers of songs.
“We’re just as curious about (our fans) as they are curious about us,” Kulash says.
After an OK Go show, the band almost always lingers in the vestibule holding Sharpies and notebooks waiting for new fans to sign up for their e-mail list and old fans to say hi.
“It’s highly uncool to not be aloof,” Kulash says. “Hipsters come to our show and are like, ‘What are you doing?’ I know it’s what rock ‘n’ roll was built off of, but it’s lame.”
This year, the band has been able to expand its relationship with fans thanks to guitarist Ross’s Web blog. Ross frequently updates his tour journal while Nordwind and Konopka leave audio messages for fans in different cities, asking concert-goers to bring the band obscure items after the show. From a pair of socks to secret notes, fans usually address these requests head on, according to Kulash.
“Tim asked for a ridiculous thing once, like sculptures of candy, and you really wind up with sculptures made of candy,” Kulash says.
Even after assigning art projects, dressing in clashing paisley patterns, and dancing quasi-disco-pop moves, Kulash says he’s confident that the band’s efforts to reach out to fans won’t prevent people from listening to the music.
“I don’t think it’s overshadowing, especially our dancing,” Kulash says. “The most common reaction we get to that is, ‘That fucking dance is incredible. I love that song.'”
But Kulash’s pants may be a different story.
“I wore this pair of pink and brown stripped pants out for dinner, and in one and a half hours, three separate groups of people verbally showed disarray to such stripped pants,” Kulash says.4
Medill sophomore Kate Puhala is the PLAY music editor. She can be reached at [email protected].