OkGo’s lead vocalist, Damian Kulash recently joined my partner in crime, Sarai, and I ,for a quaint little lunch in Philadelphia, before opening for Phantom Planet and Superdrag. He answered some questions for Defy Unlearn, talked some shit on his fellow band members’ ping-pong egos, and demonstrated his skills in the art of boy band dancing. It was a good time had by all! Read on…….

”We wanted balls to the wall boy band dancing…all the way up.” Damian Kulash

(After walking from the venue to the restaurant, ordering some good vegetarian food, and getting settled, it was time to get down to business.)

Melissa: When being interviewed, what’s the one question you hate being asked?

Damian: Usually its just really reasonable questions that we answer all time, but “Where did your name come from?” That one is a good question, but I don’t have a good answer. It was an inside joke between me and Tim when we were 12 years old and it sorta developed into this long standing thing that makes no sense to anyone else and is not funny at all. And it’s the obvious question that everyone asks…so..

Melissa: So, my next question is, where did your name come from….

Damian: My name came from my father. He’s also named Damian Kulash, so he named me after him.

Melissa:What’s the one question you wish someone would ask?

(Silence…forks scraping against plates…laughter)


Damian: I don’t know…I’m sorry. I haven’t formulated one yet. Do you have any suggestions for me?


Melissa: Well…I’ll ask you what I have here and maybe I’ll have a question that you wanted to be asked and just didn’t know it yet?


Damian: There ya go!

Melissa: If you could interview any musician who would it be?

Damian: I’d really like to interview Freddy Mercury, I think. I’d really like to interview Andrew W.K. because I've read his responses.


Melissa: Yay!


Damian: Have you ever gotten to interview Andrew W.K.?


Melissa: I am trying to for that Skatefest.
(Note: A Defy Unlearn Andrew W.K. interview is currently in the works!!)

Damian: You should. Is he playing that day?


Melissa: Yup. He’s headlining!!


Damian: Yeah, we’ll probably have to leave by then though. We’re playing somewhere else that afternoon.


Melissa: I think you guys are playing that Saturday and he’s playing on Sunday.


Damian: Aww! That sucks! Um, I’ve heard that his responses are unbelievable. I love to read the things he says. I would just love to listen to him talk. I would like to interview…..Brian Wilson before he went crazy..


Melissa: Me too.


Damian: Cause now it would just be so sad. I think I would like to interview Donovan. I cant really figure out if Donovan…Whether or not to believe his arty thing, or if its just a weird put on because he happened to be in the 60’s. There ya go. I would like to interview them.

Melissa: If you could have someone cover one of your songs, what song would it be and who would you have do it?

Damian: I would like to hear Shudder to Think cover our song “There’s a Fire.” Or, I would like to hear The Pixies cover “The Fix Is In.” I would be embarrassed to hear either of them do it, because both of them would shred us.

Melissa: You probably get this question a lot, so sorry. But, how did you guys start out?

Damian: Tim and I have been friends since we were 12 years old. We met at summer camp. We had a band there called “The Greased Ferrets.”


Melissa: (laughs) The Greased Ferrets?


Damian: We really wanted to be like “The Dead Milkman.”


Melissa: Wait..I was reading about that. Didn’t you guys use chairs for drums?


Damian: Yeah. We had metal folding chairs for drums because we couldn’t get real drums. We borrowed a guitar from somebody, and an amplifier from the same somebody and that was the entire deal of our instrumentation. Oh, there was a guy who could play flute also and tried to learn how to play saxophone.


Melissa: Aww, that’s so cute!


Damian: Yeah…And then I met Andy in high school and then the two of them, Andy and Tim, both moved to Chicago to go to college, and I introduced them before they went to college together, and they had a college band with Dan, our current drummer.

Melissa: How different are your musical backgrounds?

Damian: We all like mostly the same music because we were influencing each other most of the time. Tim and I used to send each other mix tapes, and Andy and I were in a high school band together and went to shows when we were teenagers.


Melissa: What was the name of that band?


Damian: (Bows head in shame)(sighs) It was called Load.


(Laughter)


Partner in Crime: Ha ha…Grunge.


Damian: It was around that time, although, it was not a grunge band. It was somewhere between a wanna be Pixies band and a wanna be DC punk rock band. A lot of Fugazi rip-offs in it.


Melissa: At least you were ripping off good people


Damian: We were very lucky. DC in the early 90’s was like an awesome place to listen to music. Everything was all ages when you were 14 years old going to see shows by some of the greatest bands that ever were.


(Food comes)


Damian: Andy was kinda a metal head before he met any of us.


Partner in Crime: Rock!


Melissa: Nice!


Damian: This is why he can shred so hot on guitar because he could play any Metallica solo before he met us.


Melissa: That’s so awesome!


Damian: I kinda introduced him to the whole Punky Rocky thing. Tim has always lead us in the Rip Hop consumption. I am also a big fan of the Rip Hop, but he used to send me a lot stuff in high school. The trade was that I would send him DC punk rock stuff and he would send me Manchester stuff, Stone Roses, stuff like that. All of us were kind of hip hop fans. As a ten years old I was really, really into Run DMC and Kool Moe Dee and stuff and that kinda lasted a while.


Melissa: Run DMC is one of my favorites.


Damian: We were just listening to Raising Hell in the car.


Melissa: I like King Of Rock better. But Raising Hell is great too.



Damian: King of Rock is pretty good. I think they are sort of equal value. The awesome tracks on King Of Rock are better. But, the bad tracks on King of Rock are kinda embarrassing.


Melissa: Yeah…Filler tracks.


Damian: Yeah. The filler is not as good. On Raising Hell, everything is good. Although it doesn’t have the song “King of Rock.” Which makes the entire album.

Melissa: How would you describe the sound of OkGo?

Damian: (Thinks for a minute) I would describe it as….Do you know..Did you even play on a trampoline and you are jumping around and stuff and its fun and everything, and you start going too high, and you’re kinda excited by it and its kinda fun, and you say “Fuck it. I’m just gonna jump off this trampoline. I’m gonna jump as far as I can off this trampoline.” And you rocket up into the sky and then you get this feeling like “Holy shit. I’m going to actually fall off into the ground.” And its extremely exhilarating, but its also kind of anxiety producing. That’s what OKGo sounds like.

Melissa: So the new album is coming out September 17th….

Damian: That’s one week from today!


Melissa: So what can we expect?


Damian: There are 12 songs on it. You can expect to hear all 12 of them. You can expect to purchase it, I presume, right?


Melissa: I was just going to download it off Kazaa, but…


Damian: There ya go. You can do that as well. But then you won’t get the HOOTTT album art. And its only 7 bucks, cause they want people to buy it.

Partner in Crime: Do you guys do your own art?

Damian: No. this guy Stephan did our art. I did some of it with him. I used to be a graphic designer as my job, and he was always my idol. So, the fact that we could get him to do our thing was pretty hot.


Partner in Crime: Yeah. I bet it gave ya a boner…


Damian: I had a boner for a while. I walked into his office and I put together a website of all my graphic influences kind of, to pass around to people at our label. Including much of my own design. I had been making posters for us for years, so I wanted them to see what our look and feel was…and he got a copy of this thing. And his first question was “Why don’t you design your own record? This is really great stuff.” And I was like “Oh my god!”


Melissa: Yaaaaayyyy!


Damian: Woooooo!


Partner in Crime: You fainted….


Damian: And I was like, “Because you're better. How about that?”

Melissa: Actually, I went on your website, and went to the message board, to get a feel of what the fans wanted to know. I was looking though, and every single thread for some reason was “Who’s the new guy playing keyboard?”

Damian: We had a keyboardist on or last tour that was announced. Why its so confusing is that there’s a new keyboardist whose not that guy now, so no one knows where he’s come from.


Melissa: Yeah, he is this big myth or legend. Like “Maybe he’s Damian’s friend, I don’t know…”


Damian: Maybe we should leave it that way. Maybe we should start making him wear a cowboy hat on stage. He wanted to be the keyboard cowboy and he was going to put steer horns on the front of his keyboard and stuff.


Melissa: They just seem so intrigued. Now the rumors are really flying.


Damian: He can levitate.


Partner in Crime: Do you have a really young fan base?


Damian: Not especially. There are some youngsters. Its kinda weird. Most of our fans outside Chicago are from one of several tours we’ve done, so its very demographically based. We toured with “This American Life” for a while. It’s a public radio program. So its all sort of like a vaguely lefty, semi-affluent 25-40 years in that category. But then there's They Might Be Giants fans who are either like in junior high, or remembering fondly when they were in junior high. So, they are either 14 or 34. And then we toured with The Vines, so that’s all like 18-25 year old hipsters.


Melissa: Actually, we had someone photograph the Vines for us out in California. And she saw you guys open, and she came back and was so impressed. She never heard you guys before. She didn’t end up getting pictures of you guys though.


Damian: That awesome! Take some pictures!


Melissa: We have some good Vines one though. I’ll take pictures of you guys tonight though!


Damian: We’re ROCKIN the world! One photographer at a time!

Melissa: On my visit you’re your site, I was reading about the cable access show in Chicago?… That it made you want to retire from television appearances? What was the deal with that? What was so bad about it?

Damian: No! It was awesome! What could we possibly do to top that! Jorge was lying when he said we wanted to retire. We’ve given him license to lie about whatever he wants. So, it could be complete lies on our website. I have no idea.


Melissa: I was just reading it and laughing. I love the “Other News” section. Like, 7th Heaven is proclaimed to be the “greatest show in the world.”


Damian: Its up there, yeah. We really like 7th Heaven.


Partner In Crime: That’s irony!


Damian: It healthy irony. If it is irony at all. There is Jessica Biel.


Partner In Crime: You don’t think its offensive?


Damian: What do you think is offensive? The prevalence of God and white people? Lets put it this way. Its totally appalling in its own way. And its hilarious to me. I find it endlessly amusing. Much more so than Jenny Jones. Except, of course, when Jude is on.


(**note…Earlier in the meal there was a deep rooted conversation concerning Jerry Springer, Jenny Jones, and the man, Rude Jude.)


Damian: What was the question I was answering again?


Melissa: Uh…The cable access show…


Damian: Yeah! We did this choreographed dance! You should get our merch guy to give you a copy of the video. We choreographed what we thought was going to be a boy band dance, it turned out that, after doing a lot of research into how boy bands dance, we got a bunch of TRL tapes, they really just move their hands in these perfectly synchronized little circles and stuff like that, but they don’t really dance. I think in their videos they have more aggressive dancing, but we couldn’t get a copy of videos, and none of us have cable, so we were kinda fucked. And, the only thing you could really rent is TRL performances, and they really weren’t swinging for the fences.


Melissa: That is too funny!


Damian: It’s just these little movements well executed. But, first of all, we weren’t going to execute them that way. We wanted balls to the wall boy band dancing…all the way up. And it turns out what that really is, is cheerleading. So, we watched the cheerleading semi-finals. We can’t throw people up in the air quite as well. But we did practice that. At the time I was living in a store front that we could make basically into a dance studio. So for a week we practiced several hours a day this dance routine. And its something hot. Its really awesome.


Melissa: You guys really did all this research and did the dance?


Damian: What happened was on this TV show you have to lip sync on it, because they didn’t have the proper facilities for people to play their music. So people go on there, and sometimes they make these jokes…they’ll play a broom instead of a guitar. But its like, if you are going to go that route, let’s put the pedal to the metal here. So, we had all these MPR celebrities be our backing band, so they played out instruments while we did this boy band dance. It was really awesome. Then we got to do it on tour with Ira, from “This American Life.” He was one of the public radio celebrities. He was a good friend to us. So, he requested we do this in his live show. So we got to do it to a sold out house on a Broadway theater. They gave us a standing ovation for our boy band dance. It was so awesome. On that performance, I burned a hole in my pants.


Melissa: How did you burn a hole in your pants?!


Damian: I was wearing polyester pants. And my knee slide through Tim’s legs towards the end of the performance, was so shreddin’ that I actually burned a hole in my pants. Melted it basically.


Melissa: Are you guys going to change into a boy band now?


Damian: No. This was 2 and a half years ago. We don’t play stages today that are big enough to do it on . But right now..it's just,..ya know…


Partner in Crime: Well, if you sleep with the right people.


Damian: Right, well we’ve been sticking certain members on that. Certain people have dead quotas that they’ve gotta fill. I think we need big stages and small clubs. We need everyone to be part of the dance.


Melissa: Well, if you do it at every show, all the kids will come out and know the dance, They’ll practice it even.


Damian: We sell the video tape of this on our website. Here’s where you put the link. (go to www.okgo.net)
Click here to go to visit the site


Melissa: Do it tonight!


Damian: I don’t think we can do it tonight. But we should get it ready. Cause there might be some opportunities soon. We only get to play for a half hour, I think. So it will be a short set list.


Melissa: That sucks!


Partner in Crime: Well, at least you don’t have to work as much.


Damian: I think 45 minutes to an hour is pretty good. I think after an hour becomes pretty tedious. If you headline, you have to be more than an hour. Because people feel like they paid for it and everything. At the same time, its like you never want to over stay your welcome. I think 45 minutes is just about right for us right now, but a half hour is too short. It’s alright though. We’ll have fun.

Melissa: So that was a lot different from your appearance on Conan O’Brien, I take it.

Damian: True. We did not do any boy band dances on Conan O’Brien, although I would’ve liked to. When is the Jerry Lewis telethon? I’ve been trying to get us on that.


Melissa: It was on the other day.


Damian: It already passed! Aww man! That sucks! Don’t you think if we did the dance on the Jerry Lewis telethon, that would be awesome?


Melissa: That would raise so much money!!!


Partner in Crime: I don’t know about that. Lets not get carried away.


Melissa: No way…that would rock!


Damian: You haven’t seen the dance yet dude. Keep your skepticism away from my interview. Fucker!


Partner in Crime: See, Melissa! I told you I shouldn’t have come!


Damian: I know man. Who is your sidekick here. Why are you insulting my dancing!


Partner in Crime: I wasn’t insulting it ! I was in awe!


Damian: That’s it! We WILL rake in money for the kids. Now that’s a challenge! We will dance for charity.


Melissa: Instead of “Jerry’s kids” they’ll have shirts on that say “OkGo’s Kids.”


Damian: That would be awesome.


(Side conversations go on here…about Dude’s of Plenty…Jerry conspiracies and so on..cell phone calls…frantically trying to finish meals)

Melissa: Did you guys come up with the concept for the “Get Over It” video?

Damian: Yeah. In conjunction with the guy who made it, obviously.


Melissa: Who made it?


Damian: Francis Lawrence. We gave general guidelines of what we wanted, and requested submissions from 10 different directors we were thinking about. And then, worked out the specifics with them after that. It was his idea to do it in the Elk’s Lodge, but a lot of the imagery in there was us. It’s a pretty simple video. So there wasn’t much to see.


Melissa: I just loved it. It was really clever. It was just so literal how a picture would depict a word. Like, you would say “Hey” and it would cut to a barrel of hay. And how at the beginning it would cut so fast.


Damian: I’m really happy with the way it came out. It came out well. We had a bunch of guidelines, but one of them was no fish eye lenses. I mean, we didn’t want to be intentionally Lo-Fi like, like “aren’t we punk.” We just wanted be just totally .. Rock! We wanted to be as flat and as honest as possible. But kind of have a winking sense of humor about it.


Melissa: It was really, really funny. I find a new thing to laugh at each time I see it.


Damian: Thanks! Yeah, you could watch it 15 times and you’ll still be noticing things. There’s things that you literally have to have a VCR to find them. Ridiculous little tiny things.


Partner in Crime: Are there any directors you are dying to have?


Damian: Michel Gondry. The French director who did that White Stripes Lego video….. Almost everything in that room that we’re are playing in, are literal or misunderstood lines from that video. That shot that goes the from the bugs to the newspaper, that’s supposed to be “but complain” and its “bug complain.”


Melissa: Wow! I didn’t even notice that.


Damian: There’s a ton of em. Here’s one that no one would ever find. I think there’s only one shot in which you could see it. Over my right shoulder, so to the left for the viewer, there’s a little tiny room in the back which is a kitchen, and inside the kitchen there is, well to see this you’d have to have a really nice VCR and go frame by frame this, there's a suit of armor, so the kitchen then becomes “a room for the knight” and there's a line in the song “a room for the night.” In the beginning what we were gonna do is have the space actually break down, so that you could figure out at the end that the entire thing is made up of lyrics, but there was no visual to do it, so we made the entire space made out of lyrics.


Melissa: I also liked the part in the video, where you it pauses to you guys playing ping pong. Did you actually finish out that game?


Damian: Uhhh…no. We did play a lot of ping pong that day, but we didn’t play doubles like that. That was just for the cameras. Tim fancies himself a great ping pong player, and he’s always telling everybody in interviews how awesome he is. And, he is decent. He can beat me more times than not. He beats me about 2 out of 3 times, but honestly, no joke, he thinks he’s awesome at it. And he’ll get so mad when he reads this cause he’ll see me talking shit about his playing. He’s good. He’s fine. But he really thinks that if this were all to come crashing down that maybe he could go into pro ping pong. You know what I mean. What’s funny is we made a movie about me as a ping pong star, its actually a promotional video which comes with the “OkGo Ping Pong Fitness Program.”


Partner in crime: What were you wearing? Fila Gear?


Damian: No. I was actually wearing “Members Only.”


Melissa: (Laughs hysterically at the notion of a “Members Only” jacket”


Partner in Crime: Sweeeettt!!!


Damian: I was all in white of course. I’m like an absolutely no charisma celebrity, lo- grade sponsor of this OkGO Fitness Program.


Partner in Crime: Like a poor man’s Tony Little.


Damian: Yeah! It’s really, really bad. Tim is the host of the show. And Dan is my coach. And Anthony is my training partner.


Partner in Crime: Can we see this?!!


Damian: We don’t have a copy of it with us, but it will be on our website eventually. (Go to www.okgo.net kids!) Its going to be the introduction to this new OkGo ping pong game which is going on our website, tomorrow I think. It’s a really awesome little Shockwave game. And usually those games are kinda lame, but this one is totally addictive. Its so fun. Its really good. I’m the hardest one, and Tim’s the easiest one in the game, which is really funny. Cause you play us.


Melissa: You guys are the computer?


Damian: Yeah! You play little versions of us.


Melissa: Is Tim mad that he is the easiest?


Damian: I don’t know that he knows yet. But he might have figured it out.

Melissa: How is the Phantom Planet audience? How do they differ from the Vines audience?

Damian: The Phantom Planet audience is great! Phanet Phanet fans….did I just say that? Phanet Phanet?


Melissa: (sings in a whiny, nagging voice) Phanet Phanet Phanet….


Damian: (sings) Phanet Phanet Phanet……(pause to settle the bill) *This is the part of the interview where they are looking for money, and I am just talking to the tape recorder by myself. Um, I hope you are having a good time trying to transcribe this. Talk to you later.*


Melissa: Hey! I have to transcribe this! Thanks for making it harder!


Damian: Ha ha…..So Phantom Planet…. Phantom Planet fans are generally more happy and a little bit younger than the Vines fans. We had a great time on the Vines tour too. I really just like playing shows. I’m not so good actually at picking out who’s in the audience. If they are having a good time, and were having a good time than that’s all.

Melissa: Who would you like to go on tour with?

Damian: The Flaming Lips. In terms of bands we might actually be able to tour with. I would like to tour with fucking Led Zeppelin, but I don’t see that happening. Prince is my all time favorite, pretty much. I would love to tour with Prince. But, that would just be embarrassing. Prince.. I would just love to have seen. I actually gave up the opportunity to see Prince one night because James Brown was playing the same night, and I figured I’ll get to see Prince again. I should’ve gone to see Prince though. I mean, James Brown had just gotten out of jail, so it was a really big deal, but he was also old and couldn’t do his dance.


(Damian gets up and demonstrates the devastating downfall of James Brown’s dancing abilities)



Melissa: Aww! That’s awful! Poor guy!


Damian: But, he did still do the kick over him thing and a Man’s World and it was pretty awesome.

Are we close to take off? I have to go play now! Follow me!

(For the record, Damian practically ran to the show, and just made it on time. I however, wasn’t as fast of a runner, and had to wait on line for my pass, so I didn’t get there until 2 songs into the set. But…keep updated! There will be plenty of OkGo pictures added after their Halloween show with Ben Kweller!!)

Interview by: Melissa
melissa@defyunlearn.com