OK Go is an alternative band based in Los Angeles known for their popular music and creative, viral music videos. The Chronicle chatted with Tim Nordwind, bassist and vocalist of OK Go, in anticipation of their concert at Cat's Cradle on Sept. 25, 2014.
The Chronicle: A lot of people might look at the things OK Go has done, and is doing now, and say that you are a quintessential “millennial rock band.” Would you agree?
Tim Nordwind: Yeah, I mean we started out at the end of the 20th century, early 21st century, and we’re doing a lot of stuff now, so timeline wise, I would definitely say so. But beyond that, we kind of, creatively, really grew up on the Internet, and I think that’s extremely important to being a creative person now and being a millennial. And this idea of open access, of free information and sharing, we’ve also really taken advantage of. And, also just as creative people, we just like to make stuff. Like, that’s why we’re in a band. we want to make stuff.
TC: What would you say are some of the challenges for artists working in the digital age?
TN: I think one of the biggest challenges is just sort of knowing, because you’re so primed to share, knowing what your best stuff is and sharing that and keeping the things that aren’t quite as good off. Or figuring out ways to share. There’s a little bit of over-sharing that I think sometimes happens. And I wouldn’t necessarily call that a challenge per se, but I think sometimes people oversaturate online, and you don’t know what to focus on sometimes. To me, that seems like one of the biggest things to try to navigate around. But, other than that, I think that there are so many little things you can find, like knowing what time to Twitter. Just things like that, where you wouldn’t necessarily think about it until you start wondering, “how come I posted something at 2am on Sunday night and how come nobody likes it?” Sort of understanding how the Internet and social networking culture works I think can be challenging.
TC: About over-saturation, with all this stuff and all this media that everyone has to be keeping up with, it must be hard to be noticed among all of it?
TN: I think it’s not only being noticed, but also even if you do get noticed, the length of time people care has shortened greatly. Even if you are the big news item for like half a week, it just stops. Just stops dead in its tracks. When I get super into something that has to be online, it’s baffling to me how quickly the next thing comes and takes it place. Things don’t have the type of longevity that they once did. Even since the early days of YouTube, it’s a much different game now. Even if you do get what you want online, the length of time that you get it seems to be shorter.
TC: It’s like the “Harlem Shake” phenomenon or something.
TN: Yea, I think that’s a really good example. Or um…what was that guys name from Korea…
TC: Gangnam Style?
TN: Yea, I mean all of that stuff was just so huge, for like, seven days, and then it was just gone. I’m used to like, not so much on the Internet, when things hit big, that’s what you’ll remember from the year, you know what I mean? And now it’s like, maybe you remember it from the month, or something like that. It’s hard to actually make a long impact.
TC: Is that something that’s frustrating for you guys as a band?
TN: I think we’ve experienced it a little bit. I don’t find it so frustrating for us because, like, we tend to make things at a pretty fast rate. We’re usually good to go with the next thing pretty quickly. It’s more of just an observation than a frustration, I think. At the end of the day I still find that each thing that we put out there to the world leads to new opportunities. So, I don’t know if it’s a frustration as much as an observation of our times. But, like I said, luckily for us, we’re always trying to be working on a few different things at a time, and so the pace of things is fine by us just because we’re usually good to go on the next thing pretty soon anyway.
TC: You guys obviously make music and obviously make music videos, what are some of the other things that you like to make?
TN: We’re actually developing a TV show right now. I think it’s kind of going to be like a game show. So, we’re working on that right now. We actually have this kind of…I can’t say much about it right now, but I can say that it’s this really crazy science project that we’re hoping to release later on. Hopefully maybe in October or November. So I’m pretty excited about that. We’re also slowly but surely trying to develop a live show that maybe could have a home in one place. Something that people kind of like travel to it, a little bit more of an extravaganza experience, you know? What we’re doing right now with our live show is sort of like the beginnings of that, but we have a lot more planned as time goes on. And there’s an idea for maybe a festival that we’re kind of kicking around that we’d like to start sometime in the future. There’s a bunch of things we’re kicking around at the moment. So we’ll see what works and what doesn’t.
TC: Awesome, we’ll be on the lookout for that stuff in the near future.
TN: Yep, we’re trying. We’re trying.
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