You probably know OK Go as the band from the treadmill video, or the Rube Goldberg machine video, or the anamorphic video.
Thanks to the group's tendency to make amazing music videos, they've racked up hundreds of millions of YouTube hits in the past decade. But how do they make sure to give that same attention their actual songs? And what's the trick to surviving on their own independent label?
Between touring and promotion for the group's new album — Hungry Ghosts, out today (Oct. 14) — bassist Tim Nordwind took time out to answer those questions and several others.
Music Times: The new record has been billed as going in a more electronic direction. Is that a message that you guys have been trying to get across?
Tim Nordwind: I think it is a lot more electronic. If you listen through our discography, every album is different from the one before it. You know, there are some consistencies there, but we try to get adventurous with our production and our arrangements.
But this one is a lot more electronic than the ones in the past, and it's a lot more sort of like... this may be the most pop record we've ever made. The songs are very immediate and focused and direct. We tried to make songs where, in the first five seconds, you understand exactly what it is you're getting into. We try to hook you in the first five seconds. That hasn't always been the goal. But with this one, we tried to make it very emotional and very immediate.
MT: So what electronic elements did you incorporate? Are we talking about layering programmed sound over your usual instrumental parts, or are we talking about cutting out instruments you've used throughout the years and adding something different in there?
TN: Well it's a little bit of both. In the case of this record specifically, a lot of writing and demoing for this record was done touring on our third record and being away from home. What we had to work with as far as writing tools was basically our computers, so there was a lot of programming involved when we were doing the demos.
We would program the synth, bass and the synth sound that supposed to stand in for the real guitar sounds once we got into the studio. But I think because we've all gotten better at programming, when we got into the studio and put these songs up on the speakers, all of a sudden the sound that we had programmed to be the guitar seemed much more interesting than a real guitar.
We started making decisions to keep some of these production choices that we kind of did out of necessity because it's what we had to work with on the road. Like, "This actually seems like an interesting direction and it sounds a lot more unique in the context of OK Go."
In a lot of cases, where we might have considered a real guitar, we have a synth sound that's sort of representing that in a way that doesn't really sound like a guitar, actually. It sounds like it's own kind of unique thing. So a lot of the songs were written very much in that style. Not all of them, but a lot of them.
MT: The way you're describing the writing process, this sounds like one of those projects where you end up with a ton of excess material. Is that the case?
TN: I think because of the fact that we weren't spending a lot of time tracking parts — it wasn't like, "Oh man, we did 30 takes of this one song" — it opened up a lot more time and space to make a lot more songs this time. We finished 21 songs, I think. We're releasing 12 of them, but we basically have a whole second record. And it's all really good.
It was actually very hard to pick what would go on Hungry Ghosts. I think at the end of the day, we picked a group of songs that sounded like they were telling some type of a story. But it was hard. A lot of really good songs get left off the record. So I'd imagine at sometime we'll probably be releasing another EP, if not... I hesitate to call them B-sides, because I think they're better than what people normally think of as a B-side. So either a whole other record of stuff, or at least an EP of the stronger stuff that was left off.
MT: Watching "The Writing's on the Wall," one can't help but get the feeling that your videos are becoming more and more complicated. Have you thought about your next video project yet?
TN: Yeah, actually, we've already finished another one that we shot in Japan. It utilizes a very unique piece of technology, and it's coming out in the next couple of weeks. We just finalized it in the last couple days.
It's gonna be for a song called "I Won't Let You Down," which is the last song we wrote for the record. Once we had the record done and we had a group of songs picked for Hungry Ghosts, we realized we were missing one more upbeat-sounding kind of song that we didn't have in the material we left off. So, we went and made one more song, and it's kind of like a very upbeat, disco-inspired song. So that's gonna be the next video we release.
MT: What's the gist?
TN: I can't actually tell you too much. We shot it in Japan. It has a very kind of Japanese flair to it. We're using a fairly interesting piece of technology, and at times it feels very much like the choreographer Busby Berkeley. He did a lot in the 30s and 40s for musical theater that was on film. It's very fun. It has a lot of heart.
MT: OK Go's dynamic seems a bit complicated. I assume when you're making music, you're not thinking of a video, but at the same time, the videos rely so much on the rhythm of particular songs. How does that process work?
TN: It always starts with the music first, and when we're in the studio... we took roughly a year to make Hungry Ghosts, sort of on and off over the course of last year. When we're in the studio, we're really only thinking about the music. Once it's done and mixed and we've got it, then we start to think about visual concepts.
But typically, we don't think of the music when we're thinking of the visual concepts, either. We're just sort of thinking, "What would be the most fun idea to chase?" And then we'll figure out what song goes best with it. A lot of times, when you put music to the visual idea, you get something else completely. Sometimes you think a song is going to make an idea feel grand and huge, when in fact it just makes it feel goofy and weird.
I remember for our video "Here It Goes Again" — the treadmill video — we went down there thinking we were going to do it for a song called "Good Idea at the Time," which is on our second record. And when we started trying to move to it, we realized, 'Oh, on these treadmills, it makes the song kind of feel slow.'
We went back to the reps and were like, 'Okay, let's find something that just works better with the pacing of the treadmills,' and "Here It Goes Again" ended up being that song.
We try to — if we can — do what's best for the overall thing, and try not to think about it in terms of, "Okay, what's the single going to be?" I think a lot of times to get the best outcome, you need to keep a slightly more open mind because sometimes the song you think could go best with the visual idea, doesn't.
Luckily, we have the freedom to make those changes if we want to, because we're also our own label. So we can kind of do whatever we want.
"Writing's on the Wall" — the anamorphic video we did — there were a couple othe contenders we were thinking about at the time from the new record. We were thinking of the song "Upside Down Inside Out," which I think also probably would've worked pretty well with it, and another song called "Turn Up the Radio."
"Writing's on the Wall" just felt right. Sometimes we just find clips on YouTube of things that are kind of like things we're trying to do and just play the music and see how it feels. That song is just emotional in a good way for us.
MT: Going back to the point about being your own label. Do you ever come across any bands that are jealous of the setup you've created for yourselves?
Yes and no. I think you come across bands who don't always think about how we got there and what it actually, truly is like to have your own label. Because that means you are not funded by anyone else.
But on the flipside of that, we have total creative control to distribute the things that we make, however we see fit. It's really nice not to have to run those ideas up a bunch of flagpoles. We've managed to find sponsors who help us to pay for videos and tour and all of that. We've made it work for ourselves, but I think people often forget that we were supported by a major label for 10 years before that.
Not every band can just start with their own indie label. We had 10 years of funding before we were able to build a big enough audience where we actually could go out on our own.
For young bands, I think it's incredibly difficult to try it on your own unless you figure out a good way to get financing for yourself. It's very hard to find that start-up capital.
MT: Any last thoughts on Hungry Ghosts?
We very purposefully made songs that you would be able to get in the first five seconds of hearing them. It's very immediate and hooky in that way. As far as our records go, it's probably the most unique of the bunch, and it was made for people to get on the first listen. I think it's fun because of that. Some of our other records, we've been a bit more exploratory - they require a little more patience on the listeners' part. But this one was made to get on the first listen.
For more information on OK Go, head to their website. You can purchase Hungry Ghosts here.
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