Alison Stewart: This is All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. OK Go is back with a new album, a new tour, and, yes, a few new music videos. It was almost 20 years ago, OK Go revolutionized videos for their song Here It Goes Again. I mean, who couldn't stop watching four band members dancing and gliding and gliding under treadmills all in one take? In the pre TikTok era, their videos feel prescient. Last month, OK Go released its fifth album called And the Adjacent Possible. It's great, by the way, and we're going to hear some songs from it. Hello to Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka, and Andy Ross. Hey, guys.

Damian Kulash: Hi. Thanks so much for having us.

Alison Stewart: What are we going to hear?

Damian Kulash: We're going to start with a song called A Stone Only Rolls Downhill.

Alison Stewart: And you have some guests in the back.

Damian Kulash: Yes, we have New York City's own-- WNYC's very own professional clapsters. I should say they wanted to be called the Clap, but I'm not sure they want to stick with that name. Shall we do it?

Alison Stewart: Yes, let's do it.

Damian Kulash: 1, 2, 3.

[MUSIC - OK Go: A Stone Only Rolls Downhill]

OK Go: I wish I could say it would all be alright

(It'll all be alright)

I wish I could tell you it would all be fine

(It'll all be just fine)

But a stone only rolls downhill

And these things

They'll be what they will

What they will

Someday soon, you'll look out from your hilltop perch

Your heart worn out from trying to make sense of the arc

Which only bends one way

And you rightly afraid

It don't seem to be the way that we thought

And I wish I could say it would all be alright

(It'll all be alright)

I wish I could tell you it would all be fine

(It'll all be just fine)

But a stone only rolls downhill (ooh)

And these things (ooh)

They'll be what they will

What they will

And, oh, the inertia

Of our ravenous brand of avarice

Of our selfishness

It was just too much

To overcome

Now we're overrun

And I wish I could say it would all be alright

(It'll all be all right)

I wish I could tell you it would all be fine

(It'll all be just fine)

Oh, how I wish that I (and I wish I could say)

Could tell you it would be alright (it would all be alright)

Could tell you it'll all be fine, it'll work out

(I wish I could tell you)

Oh, how I wish I could tell you it'll all be fine (it would all be fine)

(It'll all be just fine)

Oh, how I wish that I (and I wish I could say)

Could tell you it would be alright (it would all be alright)

Could tell you it'll all be fine, it'll work out

(I wish I could tell you)

Oh, how I wish I could tell you it'll all be fine (it would all be fine)

(It'll all be just fine)

It'll all be just fine

Alison Stewart: My guests are OK Go. That was great.

Damian Kulash: Thanks.

Alison Stewart: When did you start to make this album, Damian?

Damian Kulash: We started writing these songs, believe it or not, about six, seven years ago.

Alison Stewart: Wow.

Damian Kulash: Yes, it's been a long time because we toured a lot on our last record, we made a lot of very elaborate, time-consuming videos. Then, we stopped for Andy to have kids, and then I had kids, or actually, our wives had kids, and we wanted to stay home for a lot of that. Then, there was the pandemic. My wife and I directed a film together for Apple, and so that took up two years. The next thing you know, it had been almost 10 years since we released a record, but we'd been writing and recording the whole time. It really gave the song a lot of time to grow and change and be revised. It was great.

Alison Stewart: Tim, what was it like to go back and to hear the songs after they had been worked on for so many years?

Tim Nordwind: I mean, it was great to just be able to have some perspective. This is the most time we've ever had really to just incubate the songs, and I don't know, as musicians, as songwriters, that's a total gift.

Alison Stewart: All right, who had kids? You had kids, and--

Andy Ross: I also had kids.

Damian Kulash: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Come a little closer to the microphone, friend. [laughs] Being a parent, how did that change the way you thought about the music, the way you thought about the band?

Andy Ross: I mean, it certainly changed the way we thought about touring and being out of town, and just being away from them. Our touring schedule is a little bit lighter, but I think some of the songs are definitely about this experience, and Damian can speak more to that, but I think some of the songs are pointing to that, and they came out really great.

Alison Stewart: That's Andy, by the way.

Damian Kulash: Yes. Having kids made life fresh again all over the place. I'm sure you've heard a million parents say this, but it's like you're told that you will see the world again through your kids' eyes. I guess I wasn't prepared for the feeling that emotions I knew so well would be reborn and rediscovered that-- I mean the song Love, which we'll play soon, is about that. It's about holding my three-year-old's hand and feeling an emotion that I have had so many times, but having it so fresh and so--

It's like that childhood dream where you're in your-- I'm sorry, that dream where you're in your childhood home and then there's a new door that opens up to an airplane hangar or a museum or some huge place. It felt like that, and it's made me appreciate art and music and everything in life in a whole new way again.

Alison Stewart: I'm thinking about little kids. Tim, you met Damian when you guys were like 11ish?

Tim Nordwind: Yes, we met [crosstalk]--

Alison Stewart: Interlaken.

Tim Nordwind: We met at a camp called Interlaken. I'm wearing the sweatshirt today.

[laughter]

Tim Nordwind: Yes, we were 11 years old and super into music even at that point.

Damian Kulash: Yes, it's so crazy to think how long it's been going on, and it's crazy to watch our kids near the age when we met.

Alison Stewart: Oh, wow. When you were kids, Tim, did you think, "This is my musical friend, this is my friend who I'm going to share music with," or was it just two guys who hung out at camp?

Damian Kulash: I'm not sure there was much of a distinction at that age. What was so wonderful about that place, it's an arts camp with a focus on music, back then at least, was that it-- For me, it was like taking off the space helmet you wore the rest of the year. It's like you go there for eight weeks in the summer and all the other kids were art nerds like you. Everybody was weird, and everybody was really passionate about the stuff they made. Even at 11, it was like we weren't studied musicians. We were just there because we wanted to be around creativity, and to find other people who felt that way just-- It changed everything.

Tim Nordwind: I think even then, though, we thought we'd probably be doing this as adults. [laughs]

Damian Kulash: Yes, I mean, that's the other thing, is like, to spend your life chasing music, you have to be a little bit deluded in the first place. It's like at age 11, that was certainly like it was a real possibility, of course we'll be in a rock band. We hadn't learned to be realistic yet.

Alison Stewart: Dan, why are you in this rock band?

[laughter]

Dan Konopka: Well, I was told you gotta hang out with the smartest people you know, so I'm stoked that I get to be around these super creative guys. I'm on a great ride with this kind of passion and inspiration, so yes, holding it down.

Alison Stewart: Holding it down. My guests are Damian, Tim, Dan, and Andy. Of course, they make up OK Go. They're performing from their new sort of an acoustic set, shall we say?

Damian Kulash: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Is it difficult to perform it acoustically?

Damian Kulash: The songs are very different acoustic, but it also makes them-- I mean, it's nice to discover them in a different way.

Alison Stewart: All right. After the break, we're going to hear another song from OK Go. This is All Of It.

[music]

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. I'm here in WNYC Studio 5 with OK Go, Damian, Tim, Dan, and Andy. Okay, you're going to play another song. I've got a big note here that says, this is not from the new album. What are we going to listen to?

Damian Kulash: This is called This Too Shall Pass. It's an old-- We figured we should play at least something people have heard before.

Alison Stewart: Let's do it.

[MUSIC - OK Go: This Too Shall Pass]

OK Go: You know you can't keep letting it get you down

And you can't keep dragging that dead weight around

If there ain't all that much to lug around

Better run like hell when you hit the ground

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

You can't stop these kids from dancing. Why would you want to?

'Specially when you are already getting yours

'Cause if your mind don't move and your knees don't bend

Well don't go blaming the kids again

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

When the morning comes

Let it go, this too shall pass

Let it go, this too shall pass

You know you can't keep letting it get you down

No, you can't keep letting it get you down

(Let it go, this too shall pass)

Hey! Is it really all that much to lug around?

Oh, you can't keep letting it get you down

(Let it go, this too shall pass)

When the morning comes

(You can't keep letting it get you down)

(No, you can't keep letting it get you down)

When the morning comes

(You can't keep letting it get you down)

(No, you can't keep letting it get you down)

When the morning comes

(You can't keep letting it get you down)

(No, you can't keep letting it get you down)

When the morning comes

(You can't keep letting it get you down)

(No, you can't keep letting it get you down)

When the morning comes!

Alison Stewart: That'S OK Go performing in WNYC's Studio 5. It's interesting hearing a "old song" performed because I'm wondering, Damian, how much has your songwriting changed from, let's say, your first album to this album?

Damian Kulash: I think the thing that's changed the most is I think we've given over more to the idea that we're not really in control of it. I think we believed 20 years ago that we would think about an idea and then figure out a way to make a song about it, and now it's much more the other way around, that it's sort of like we're playing around with sounds and chords and melodies and beats, textures, and looking for the moments where something is magical, where something is more than the sum of its parts, like suddenly, you're not having sounds, you're having emotions.

Those sparks are few and far between, and getting them to glow into the ember of a whole part and then the big fire of a whole song is hard. Only then are we able to pull out what it might mean. It's like it's much more about chasing this feeling than it is about trying to say something.

Alison Stewart: So many times writers will tell me that they kind of give up to the voice, give up to the vibe coming to them. Does that happen to you when you write?

Damian Kulash: Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think the flip side of the, it's all been done before, I mean, there's only 12 notes kind of thing, is that it really is all out there. These are all geometric physical relationships of waves in air. The ways that they combine to make reverberations that cause you to have emotions, it just never stops being crazy and magical to me. That's why we named our album the Adjacent Possible, was that the feeling that you could have these basic physical things that turn into emotions, that they cause the adjacent possible of human emotion. It just never stops being magical to me.

Alison Stewart: Tim, can you tell the difference in either the songwriting or the sound from the first album to this album?

Tim Nordwind: I definitely can tell a difference. Yes. I mean, I think we were working in a much more traditional, like, we have a guitar, we're going to try to write a song on the guitar. I remember when I was little, my sister gave me an acoustic guitar with a broken bridge, and you couldn't tune it. That was the first time I ever tried to write a song, and I would just kind of bang on it, and it was so fun. That's so much more what it's like to write songs nowadays.

It's just like playing with sounds and rhythms and beats and sonics until you've got something that just makes you feel like, "Yes, that sounds awesome." Yes, I think we've gotten much further away from traditional songwriting and much more into an experimentation place that's super fun.

Alison Stewart: Damian. That sounds like fun. [unintelligible 00:16:12] [laughs]

Damian Kulash: It is. It's kind of like, if it's not fun, why would you be doing it? In fact, those balls of emotion that I keep talking about, they're completely subjective. They don't happen as a matter of course. One song can mean the world to me and mean nothing to you, and so if these little universes that we're creating aren't actually fun and compelling and exciting for us, then what would be the point?

I do think that learning music theory and learning how to play your instrument and everything, that feels like the path when you're young, and it is an important path, but it's also like, the same three chords have been in all the best songs and all the worst songs. Figuring out how they relate to each other will only get you so far. You have to discover it like a little child again.

Alison Stewart: It's funny because I was writing this sentence, OK Go, visual sensibility is-- and I was supposed to put important, essential, and I said, "Well, I don't want to assume that." Is it important? Is it essential? Your visual component, the videos, et cetera?

Damian Kulash: It is a gift that we get to do that. I mean, it depends. If you ask business people, yes, it's essential. It's like an essential part of the band's identity and therefore, brand, and all that kind of-- but for us, it's just back to play again. It's that most of creativity is enabled by logistics and hard work and all the rote stuff you have to do all the time.

Those little moments when you get to really play and discover and find something that makes you feel like it's worth being alive in this world, and it's all bigger than we are, and it's magical and wonderful, those are just as easily found in science projects and in weird contraptions that you can film, and in film in general. When we hopped into this place where us doing ridiculous dances went viral, we realized that we're now that video band, and that means we get to just make films the way we make music. It has been nothing but a gift.

Alison Stewart: Is anybody a film major, a semiotics major, any of that stuff?

Damian Kulash: I was, in fact, a semiotics major. I remember [crosstalk]--

Alison Stewart: Everybody's hands pointed at you.

Damian Kulash: Yes, yes, yes. I was a semiotics major. I remember for the first 5 or 10 years out of school, interviews would be like-- because the band had just started, and people would be like, "What is semiotics?" And I would just be like, "It's basically like the best way to not have a job."

[laughter]

Damian Kulash: The funniest thing is that now I realize, "Wait, I'm actually basically doing what I studied." Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols and meaning. While that's not writing pop songs, pulling them apart and going like, "Do we get to make a video for this too? Can we be the people who build the robots and mirrors Gauntlet in Budapest for our music videos?" That comes directly from that tradition of just loving why it's made and where it's come from.

Alison Stewart: Is there anything that's on your video, your semiotic list that you want to include that you haven't been able to yet? Anybody?

Damian Kulash: You know what? The-- Oh boy, boy. David Holzman's Diary. It's a great experimental film from I'm guessing late '60s, early '70s. It's like this filmmaker tries to find truth by filming himself, and it all goes horribly awry. It's like a mockumentary. It's really great. It's really great.

Alison Stewart: Tim, do you use Instagram or TikTok or any of the video platforms these days?

Tim Nordwind: Do I use it?

Alison Stewart: Yes.

Tim Nordwind: I do. Yes. I'm human.

[laughter]

Damian Kulash: Do you hear how trepidatious he is about that? I use it, but I don't want to.

Alison Stewart: I'm not sure, maybe.

Damian Kulash: Sometimes.

Tim Nordwind: Why do you ask? [laughs]

Alison Stewart: Why do I ask? Well, I'm interested in the short-form video versus what y'all do.

Damian Kulash: The problem with the short-form video, for us as a band at least, is that it is all about quantity. You just need to put out something every day, and we're the opposite. We'd rather spend six months making the perfect three-minute art project. Luckily, that stuff for us, while it's great that it brings our music to the world and it's great that it serves a business function, it's mostly there because we like making stuff. It's mostly, for us, an art project. If Instagram ever felt like an art project for us, I'm sure we would enjoy it more.

In fact, I remember when it did. I remember 10 years ago, 15 years ago, I lived here in New York at the time. I remember walking around town. I would notice details more because it had sort of gamified life where I was like, "I'm looking for the beautiful and the weird and the strange things to document my life in this way." It has changed so much since then and become this commerce platform for ideas. We use it, but doesn't feel like where our art happens.

Alison Stewart: I'm here in WNYC's Studio 5 with the band OK Go. They're performing some acoustic versions of songs from their new album And the Adjacent Possible. I did want to ask about one song before you play another. It's a song-- Good, Good Day at Last,-

Damian Kulash: Yes.

Alison Stewart: - which has some guests.

Damian Kulash: Yes.

Alison Stewart: I thought it was interesting.

Damian Kulash: Yes, it's an interesting lineup. Our friend Shalyah Fearing and Sam from BEGINNERS and L.A. Exes are the saucy lady backup band, and then Ben Harper, who you don't really think of as being the average OK Go Collaborator, but our kids are really close friends, and we were hanging out a lot, and I love the way he sings. We wanted that song to have that kind of rollicking, kind of out of control joy that I remember hearing in Magic Mountain by Eric Burdon and War, or that-- There's a Funkadelic song. What's it? Can You Get to That?. That sort of acoustic funk gone off the rails a little bit. I mean, he gave it all that energy.

Alison Stewart: Thanks. I wanted to hear about that song. You're going to play one more song for us. It's Love. Is that correct?

Damian Kulash: It is, in fact, Love.

Alison Stewart: You want to tell me a little bit about it before we hear it?

Damian Kulash: This is the one that I think gets at the heart of where we are as humans right now, 'cause it really is about new life after having kids. I guess it's just I can't believe that we are little balls of matter floating around in emptiness that get to have this kind of meaning and emotion and connection. It feels so unlikely and so beautiful and wonderful.

Alison Stewart: This is OK Go.

Damian Kulash: 1, 2, 3.

[MUSIC - OK Go: Love]

OK Go: Light cast so long

Before sound

Before song

Falls on your eyes

And the dance starts again

And in this grand ballroom of nothingness

Your hand so warm with somethingness

We whirl and twirl and music's invented again

In this grand ballroom of nothingness

We soar, we sail to the only song there's ever been

Love

The only song there's ever been's just begun

Love

The only song there's ever been plays again

Love

It's love

How marvelous

Just to be anything

Circling the hall

To divine harmony

And in this grand ballroom of nothingness

Your hand so warm with somethingness

We swirl, unfurl, and music's invented again

In this grand ballroom of nothingness

We soar, we sail to the only song there's ever been

Love

The only song there's ever been's just begun

Love

The only song there's ever been plays again

Love

The only song there's ever been never ends

Love

Love

Love

It's love

And against such staggering odds of anything at all

That lonely poet Chance called the dance and built the hall

And, with such modest hands, drew up plans and gave us all

Love

Love

Love

Love

Alison Stewart: That's Damian Kulash, Tim Nordwind, Dan Konopka, and Andy Ross. They make up OK Go. Their new album is called And the Adjacent Possible. Thanks for coming to WNYC.

Damian Kulash: Thanks so much for having us.

Tim Nordwind: Thank you.

Dan Konopka: Thank you.

Andy Ross: Thanks.