 Ok Go | When last we heard from synth-pop's best kept secret, OK Go, they were planning a fast and furious recording strike, hoping to get in and out of the studio in a couple of months with a follow-up to 2002's self-titled debut firmly in hand. A year later they've arrived back on store shelves with Oh No, a disc devoid of keys, instead beating down any sophomore worries with some punchy guitar rock. Buh? . |
"The actual recording of the record took about two months," frontman Damian Kulash explains. "But writing the record, which we thought would be like, just come off the tour, guns a-blazing, ready to go — you know, after you've been on tour for two years you think that you're going to have all these bottled up ideas
Because every time you get over-caffeinated on an airplane somewhere you're like 'I've got the best idea for a song!' and so you think these things have all built up inside of you. And then you stop, you get off tour, and you're like 'OK! Open the floodgates! Here comes my masterpiece!' And instead it's this tiny trickle of, like, atrophied mess. It was really bad, for a few months it was really depressing trying to write. So it took about six months to get to the point where we actually liked what were writing."
"We ended up writing something like 60 to 100 songs, in about six months," bassist Tim Nordwind interjects.
"Most of which I never want to hear again," Kulash laughs. "Some of it was so bad; it was awful. I mean there's a song on our new record called 'It's A Disaster.' That was the turning point. And you can see exactly how we were feeling at that point, all the lyrics are like, 'Everything fucking sucks! It's a fucking disaster! I hate it! G'night!'"
Once the grueling writing sessions were behind them, OK Go's four members went to the city of Malmo, Sweden, to record with Tore Johansson, an understandably popular producer since sitting at the dials for Franz Ferdinand's influential debut LP. Following that success, Johansson's been hard to get, but the relatively unknown band had no problem fitting into his schedule.
"He really liked our demos, so I don't know. I don't know how many other people approached him," Kulash says. "His rules were pretty specific — he was only going to record in Malmo, because he has a four-year-old daughter and he didn't feel like not being around and he really only wants to work on things that are artistically interesting to him.
And I mean, every producer always kinda says that — everybody in the whole music industry always claims, 'Hey I only work on things I really like' and every publicist you ever meet is like, 'Luckily, I love every band that gets assigned to me,' you know?"
"But he seems to be pretty choosy," Nordwind agrees.
"He actually turned down Depeche Mode while we were there, he turned down a bunch of shit that I can't imagine other producers turning down," Kulash says.
OK Go are more than happy with Johansson's work and their new rock edge, and while Oh No may have tossed aside the synth-pop, it still overflows with catchy hooks and fun, smart-ass lyrics.
Fans in the Toronto area can catch the band when they make a lone Canadian detour to the Horseshoe Tavern on November 7.
source: chartattack—David McDougall
No comments:
Post a Comment