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Fresh Beginnings With DAMIAN KULASH From OK GO · HEAVY Music Interviews

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Hi. I'm Damien from the band okay Go. A new
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: album and The Adjacent Possible has just come out and
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: I'm so excited to be on the show.
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Hi, Chris, fantastic, Damian, thanks for joining us today.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Thanks for having me pleasure.
• 0:13
  Speaker 2: So as you say, okay Go release your fifth studio
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: album and The Adjacent Possible back on.
• 0:17
  Speaker 3: Night for the eleven. So it's not only being awake Mite,
• 0:20
  Speaker 3: but how's the early reception.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Pain, It's been fantastic. It's been so wonderful to get
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: the music into people's brains be like, you know it
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: it's swimming around there in the ether somewhere and we
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: have to sort of like pull it out. You know.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: It's like you don't write the songs. You sort of
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: find them, you know, you divine them from you know
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: the world, and then works so hard to get them
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: into the shape that like you can share them with people.
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: And then there's this arduous period where you have to
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: like do the business stuff before it can come out.
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: And I'm just so happy that it's finally out and
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: people can like listen to it and feel the emotion.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: The only point of music is that sense of human connection,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: and it's it's so wonderful to be getting real reactions
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: from real humans.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: Now, So can you dive into the album a bit,
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: David from a musical point of view for us, since
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: that's what you've gone focused on, ram.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I hope this isn't dodging the question, but it
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: feels like this is the first time that we weren't
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: going for anything that were like we were. We actually
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: felt comfortable enough in what we what and who we
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: are that we just sort of like, well, these are
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: the things we like. And that was in part because
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: but since the last album, our guitars said kids. I
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: had kids. Then there was the pandemic. Then I directed
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a film called The Beanie Bubble for Apple, and and
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: that put like several years between the records, and before
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we knew it had been so like even though we
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: had never officially shut down the band or gone on
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: hiatus or anything, we had taken enough of a step
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: back that instead of feeling like our pedal like our
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: foot had to be on the pedal going like what
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: are we gonna do? What's the next sound going to be?
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: You know, we could just come back to it and
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: just make and sort of recognize, oh yeah, we know
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: who we are. We are our flag was planted a
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: long time ago. We don't have to plant a flag,
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, your release of singles take Me with You, this
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: is how it ends.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Stininy Rolls Downhill, going home and a good good day
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: at Last. So just say someone's just heard those songs
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: on the radio. Is that a good sonic representation of
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: the album of Role?
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: It's pretty close, I'd say that. I mean the look,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: we're one of those kind of mixtape bands like we don't.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: I have been jealous of other bands who always like man,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: one of my favorite bands in all of history is
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: is Pixies, And as soon as you hear a pixie song,
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: you know it's a Pixie song, right, It's just like
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: there it's Screams, Pixies Nest. Whereas our our recent album,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: it's like there's songs that sound like they could have
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: been Phil Spector circa nineteen sixty two, and there's songs
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: that could have been Nile Rodgers and David Bowie in
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: the late eighties. And then there's songs that couldn't have
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: been made until this year because of the sort of
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like insane electronic production in them. And hopefully what holds
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: it all together is a particular type of a sort
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: of a relationship to melody and of course my voice.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: And there's like a I think it all sounds like
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: it comes from one brain, but it doesn't have one.
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: It's like it feels more like this is the type
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: of music we love than it does like this is
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: here's the statement we have to make.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, now I want to talk about a stein on
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: He Rolls Downhill, most specifically the music video for that
• 3:35
  Speaker 2: one light. It features sixty four videos on sixty four
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: phones laid out on a movie mosaic, like it sounds
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: like a lot of work, but it's worth it bright,
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Like what was that thought pricess coming into that one?
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: Well?
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: The song Stone Only Rolls Downhill is about how look
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: I grew up with the feeling that the good guy
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: always wins in the end. Right, there's a Martin Luther
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: King quote that the arc of the moral universe is long,
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: but it bends towards justice like that, Yes, things are crappy,
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: but but we are getting slowly better, and I'm just
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: not sure I believe that anymore. Like it's it's pretty
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: hard to believe that things are getting better, right, now,
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: and as a father I had this I have to face,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: like how to how to give my kids the gift
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: of hope but also the gift of clear vision right,
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: like that they can't be delusional. So this song is
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: about that split screen of like how important hope is
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: right now and also how hopeless things seem at the
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: same time. So we made the video by shooting sixty
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: four single take films on sixty four phones so that
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: it would literally be a split screen right. It's like
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: the image is actually made up of sixty four different
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: videos and took a lot of planning and was a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: lot of fun in the end. I think it's like
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: it's a lot more joyful than the negative thing I
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: just said.
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm stubjecting music videos by life. I go a
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: well nine fie clip slot. Over the years, I go
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: from dancing on treadmill, dancing with dollars, time laps to
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: slow motion, zero gravity, anything.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: You can think of. You guys are pretty much try
• 5:17
  Speaker 3: to mate.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: So how much time thought and planning those into new
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: music videos a ton?
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: I mean the most recent one for us is for
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: the song love and it is. It features sixty five
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: mirrors held by twenty nine robots in a train station
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in Budapest, and we just do this very elaborate choreography
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: of the of the robots to make kaleidoscopes and infinity
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: rooms and sort of all these sort of amazing reflection
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: tricks and just planning that out took about four months
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: and then we were in Budapest shooting it for three weeks.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: And I mean we only got it's a single take,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: so they only we only got actual takes from two
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: hours on the very last day. But it's a lot
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of planning. The thing is, the way we
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: think about it is not so much making a film
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: as it is making an art project that can be filmed.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: We want people to be in the room with us,
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: so it's all about making something that people can experience
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: for real. And and I guess that's just pretty different
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: from you know, the standard way of making a music video,
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: which is about filmmaking.
• 6:32
  Speaker 2: You know, well, as long as probably like you, you
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: have an idea for a music video and then write
• 6:37
  Speaker 2: a song based around that idea or is it vist first.
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: Round where the songs are always come first, And and
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I mean there have been times when there's an idea
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: waiting around for a video sort of like one day
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: we want to do something in zero gravity, if anyone
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: will ever give us the plane, you know, But we
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: would have been fools to write a song around it,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: because the chances of anyone giving us that plan are
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: close to zero. And it's amazing that that ever happened.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: And we have found that it tends to be the
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: case that if if you get a really great opportunity
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: to make a great art project, it will line up
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: with one of your songs, like one of the things
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: that you the things that make me excited in the world,
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: they all have a certain flavor to them, and so
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: our songs already sort of reflect the same types of
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: things that make our videos good. I hope that makes
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: sense now.
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: Signing from out myics, respect Brian, But some of your
• 7:34
  Speaker 2: ideas are pretty happening and pretty exigony ideas like you
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: just you just have like parallel meetings and you throw
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: ideas out and to want sticks onto someone. You wake
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: up in the middle of the night and just go, geez,
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: that's good, and I'll write it down. Look, how do
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: you how do you come.
• 7:46
  Speaker 3: Up with them?
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know, you know, the truth is, it's not
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: the ideas themselves aren't that crazy. It's just the follow
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: through that is. It's like everybody has been in a position,
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: like has seen too much mirrors next to each other
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: before you go into a dressing room or something like that,
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: when they have mirrors and you see that infinite hallway
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: and it's amazing. That's just such a beautiful and exciting
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: type of magic. But thinking, Okay, well, how can I
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: choreograph that so that this idea isn't just something I
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: see when I when I, you know, put two mirrors
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: next to each other, but actually becomes part of the
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: movement of a song. That's the tough part, right, It's
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: like is trying to figure out every trick you can
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: do with mirrors and how you can seamlessly get between
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: them in a way that is emotional rather than just technical.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: So so it's the doing, you know. It's like it's
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: the play. I guess that it starts with a really
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: simple idea, let's play with mirrors, and then the playing
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: is what actually develops all the all the ideas you
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: see on screen.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: I want to go back to the new album basically
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: by like you mentioned before, Undy Adjacent possible. It's your
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: first album Seem Sung where I was back in twenty fourteen,
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: So you guys have always been a popular band, but
• 9:04
  Speaker 2: ten years is a long time in the modern Asian music,
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: you know, Like, did you feel any extra pressure coming
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: to this round that you'd have to make up for
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: lost time?
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess a little bit.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: It.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: We just didn't intend to go on hiatus. We just
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: sort of accidentally did because life was just happening. You know.
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: It's like, at first we were on tour. Then we're
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: making you know, a lot of very elaborate videos, and
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: they took a lot of time, and then and then
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: our guitarist had kids, and then I had kids, and
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: then there was the pandemic and I shot this film
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and next thing, you know, it had been a long
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: time and it wasn't our intent to be gone solong.
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: But the interesting thing you asked about whether like whether
• 9:48
  Speaker 1: or not there's any pressure coming back to it. I
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: guess I feel two sides of the coin. One is
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: that like, well, if people don't like this now, then
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: I guess like we're you can you know, we're very
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: sure we're over the hill. Then right on the other hand,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: on the other hand, it's sort of like we're just
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: not We kind of left the rat race a while back,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: and so coming back to it, it's like the only
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: reason to do this is because we love these songs
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: and we love making these songs, and so it's sort
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of like there's a type of freedom to it that
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: is exactly the opposite of pressure, which is sort of like,
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: look this we got, like we don't need people to
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: we don't need to make a point in terms of
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: a success. We just need to make the stuff we love.
• 10:33
  Speaker 3: You know, it's not those lies too.
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: But the biggest thing I've been in my mind anyway,
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: like coming back up to ten years is but you
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: guys use a lot of samples instead of synthesize and
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: stuff like that, Like the industry has moved forward that
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: much in that decade that you were out of it,
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: Like did you find it hard to keep up? I
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: guess sort of sort of come back into a different
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: world of music.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: No, because we're you know, like we recorded the album
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: mostly in this room that you're looking at it right
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: like this is it's a very live, kind of organic record.
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, I'm sure that there's plenty of there's plenty
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: of crazy production on it, but it is I. It
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: doesn't feel to me like there's anything we need to
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: keep up with. And in fact, the world seems sort
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of stopped right now, like everything refers to everything, and
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: even it it gets more so all the time, like
• 11:26
  Speaker 1: AI is now just one giant aggregator for everything that's
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: ever happened before. So you press a button and you
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: get a song that sounds like songs that have happened before.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: It Like it's it's hard to it's hard to pinpoint
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: a style of anything that's happening now. And so if
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: it was easy for us to just be like, oh,
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: this is us, this is what we do.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: A song on the album Hold and the adjacent Possible,
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: which to me suggestion is a much deep mating behind it.
• 11:54
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the adjacent Possible is is it's a con
• 12:00
  Speaker 4: accept that was first sort of named by Stuart Kaufman.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: A evolutionary biologist, and it's about how systems evolve that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: It's like, take ant colonies. Each individual ant is it
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: has very sort of simple sets of instructions. They don't
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: have that they don't have, they just follow a scent, right,
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: but collectively the behavior of that colony does all sorts
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: of insane things, like the abilities of these little ants
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: together open up a world of possibility, the adjacent possible,
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: where they can make incredibly smart decisions that even people
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: can't you know. And I love how music works that way,
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: that when you add a beat to a chord progression,
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: most of the time all you get is a beat
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: with a chord progression, But every once in a while
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: it tips over into the adjacent possible of human emotion,
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: and you feel like those sounds suddenly be come become emotions,
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: And I just it never stops being amazing to me
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: that that's how it works.
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: I got to say, I was spoken to a lot
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: of bands over the years, but I don't think I've
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: ever spoken to one who puts so much thought into
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: everything from the songs, to the music videos to the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: titles made like it's It's refreshing to see these days
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: that people still care.
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that. Man.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: It over right now, before I let you go, I've
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: started a new segment called photo Bomb with Heavy, So
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: basically before we speak, I troll th you social media
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: and I'll find a few photos I want to know
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: some more about I think you sort of touched on
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: this one before, But what's that one there?
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: That's the play i'd be late for.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that this is this is where we're starting to
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: do testing in our in the in the plane that
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: we used for zero gravity of zero graview. Those are
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: my shoes. So obviously I took that picture. I'm guessing
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: we took it. Looks like Andy, Andy is mugging for
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the camera, kind of needs a haircut. It's good And
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: what else, Sally?
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: Was that experience at all? Zero gravity?
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: Well, that would have been mind blowing.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: I loved it. I Tim hated it. He was terrified
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: the whole time. Andy would have loved it. If he
• 14:17
  Speaker 1: had taken the anti nausea medicine on the first flight.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: You have to you really need to be on it
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the whole time, because he was like, no, I'll be fine. No,
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: if you don't take the anti nausea medicine, you will
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: be a mess. Because it's like if you've ever had
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: you know, if you've ever been seasick, it's that times
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: a million. And you know, I was lucky I didn't
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: lose my lunch. Several members of the crew did. And
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: you saw what happens to the paint balloons at the end, right,
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: I mean, like, well that's what happens to vomit too.
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: No, it's not this other fight our family.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Like, I don't even know what to say about this one,
• 14:56
  Speaker 2: so I'll just let you talk about it.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, Yeah, we were. We had just made a
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: video where what we were doing we were trying to
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: catalog every kind of movement we could by having just
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: we just wore these these suits against the backdrop of
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: the exact same type of damask wallpaper so that all
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: you'd see is the movement rather than the people. And
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: this is we happened.
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: To do that.
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: Like I think the same week as this was either
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: the VMA's or the Grammys, I can't remember. And so
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: we were like, we'll just swear our suits to the
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: to the show, and I think we won like every
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: we were on every every words dress list that year.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I I if I wonder if I still have those suits.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: I think there's I mean, it looks like it doesn't
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: look like a kind of torture.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: That looks Also then that was a Grammys because theres
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: a fighter in the back round and speed reduced it
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: says Grammys did you win anything?
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: Did you have to give the spades a nice.
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: We did win a Grammy, but I don't know if
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: it was that year. It is two thousand and se
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: We want to Grammy on two thousand and two thousand
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: and seven, so that might have been this year. Yeah,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: you know what, I remember that like one of the
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: people interviewing us got got given the wrong name and
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: they thought we were Oh man, it was it. They
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: they thought we were like Chumbawamba or something like that.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: Did you did you swing in along how you were
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: or did you certainly like you know that you.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: Know that's not who we were are and they but
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: he thought it was lying and and then he just
• 16:34
  Speaker 1: got so frustrated he gave up in the interview.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: I guess I wouldn't be able to see your face,
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: so I wouldn't be able to tell it you a series.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: It's not hot exactly.
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: We're not joking. We're not joking, oh Dave.
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: You know, thanks very much for your time, bro.
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: And The Adjacent Possible is out now, and she's an
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: absolute pearl of a slave of music made so well.
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: No know that