OK Go released their new album, And the Adjacent Possible, a first in 10 years, April 11. The first track, “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill,” came out on January 16, accompanied by one of their trademark, surreal and brilliant videos. And this year they head out across the States on tour, starting in South Bend on April 23 and finishing in Vancouver, B.C., in late June.
“We forgot to look at what was happening musically speaking in the world; we just didn’t think about what’s popular on Spotify or on the radio,” shares Timothy Nordwind, bassist and vocalist. “So it really allowed us to sit with these songs, and it made the process a little more pure for us.”
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Two of the band members, Timothy and Damian Kulash (lead vocals and guitar) met at summer camp when they were just 11, and the band’s name comes from a little inside joke where a rousing art teacher would give them instructions and then say, “OK Go.” And it stuck with them as perhaps an introduction to creativity — or perhaps just psychedelia?
Back in the day, after summer camp they would share mix tapes, and that is where a love for Prince, Run DMC, Fugazi and Led Zeppelin was formed, plus a love for existential silliness. And speaking of existentialism, the band never were narrowingly cornered by labelling themselves in one specific genre: and that is where the band becomes even more interesting, worth leaning in deeper for.
“In some ways it feels ridiculous to be making a record right now because who’s really listening to it is algorithms,” says Kulash, not unreasonably. “And they are a reflection of humans, don’t get me wrong. There are real human inputs, but they’re filtered through so many other things that we decided to write the first song on the record just straight to the algorithm. Basically like to it; it is written for the beings that will exist after the singularity, assuming that they still consume music in some way.”
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