Today is the day to accrue street cred.

Chicagoans know today's interviewee as the lead singer of one of our city's favorite bands. The rest of you might have seen or heard of their music video "A Million Ways," which was shot in his back yard and choreographed by his sister. Also, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this, if it interferes with my non-journalistic non-integrity, but he's a cutie, too.

The Damian Kulash Interview

How did you guys get involved with writing the music for the dearly-departed NPR show 'Odyssey'?
I used to work for NPR in Chicago as an audio engineer; in fact my boss there tells me that I technically still have the job. She likes to remind me that all rock bands are assured catastrophic demise, eventually, and she generously holds a position open for me, as a safety net. While I was there, I hung out a lot with the folks who work at 'Odyssey', 'This American Life', and 'Wait-Wait-Don't Tell Me'. Some insider info for you: Gretchen is indeed the smartest person in the universe (it's not just an act for the show), and she is also a spectacular dessert chef. And I once spilled an entire bottle of red wine on her white carpet.

Are you guys working on new dance moves now that you¹ve gotten so much attention for 'A Million Ways,'or just sticking with what works?
We have another routine in the works, although it is not, in the strictest sense, a dance. I am not at liberty to release any further details on it.
National security concerns- so forth, so on-you understand

When you do the dance on stage, do you put down your instruments? Or if not, how do you avoid getting tangled up?
Yes, we put down our instruments. We make no pretense of performing the music.

What are your favorite venues to play and listen in Chicago?
I love playing at the Empty Bottle and The Metro. And I guess those are probably the venues I most enjoy shows in, too.

A lot of you live in LA now. Do you consider yourself a Chicago band still?
Bands require a lot of categorization. Along with the fervent (and largely futile) quest for stylistic taxonomy (pop-rock, power-pop, melodic rock, indie pop, indie rock, alt rock: do these things actually mean significantly different things?), we all seem to be fundamentally ill-at-ease unless we know a band¹s geographical origins. And I'm not pointing fingers, here-I have his problem myself; whenever I hear a new band, my first question is 'Where are they from?'as if I'll understand what I'm listening to better if I can picture the skyline they see from their practice space. The problem is that, once a band starts touring a lot, they basically stop having a home.
Geographic labels start to feel totally arbitrary. Right now, for instance, my mail piles up at an address in Los Angeles while I write to you from the passenger seat of a Volkswagen in Delaware. I've been home for fewer than 25 days over the past 6 months, and with the exception of the Christmas, when I'll travel to see my family, we probably won¹t have a break for the next 8 or 10 months.

Chicago was definitely our home town when we first started the band, and I think the music scene there played a large part in shaping how we see ourselves and how we make music. In that sense, I suppose we could still be called a Chicago band. But after two years of solid touring on our first album, we returned there feeling a little like strangers. Now three of us live in LA and one in New York, but our band doesn¹t have any meaningful connection to the music scenes in either of these towns-so I don't know if deserve any geographical title at all, these days.

How did you like Lollapalooza? Did you think Chicago was a good choice for it this year?
Lollapalooza was great, and I think Chicago was a wonderful place for it, if a little hot.

Any of you guys Sox fans? Are you able to follow it much from the road? [Ed note: questions were sent 10/13/05]
I'm not an active baseball fan, but I'm glad to see the Sox get theirs after such an incredible drought. Andy, our guitarist, is a Red Sox zealot, and our merch guy is a diehard Yankees fan. So both of them are still sullen and grumpy about their defeats. Mostly, I like luring the two of them into arguments. There's a very particular type of humorlessness that sports fans get when they quarrel. Simple pleasures.

For reasons I cannot explain, I have been avoiding podcasts in general. Why should I tune into the OK Go podcast, though?
Sometimes abstinence is the best plan, my friend. If you¹ve got reasons, far be it for us to dissuade you. But I can say that we have just started up a new project with our podcasts. The first few were basically interviews with me and Tim, but we are now working on a series of them in which we interview other people that we find fascinating. We've already talked with my sister (our choreographer) and Jonathan Goldstein of the CBC. We tried to record a discussion with Susan Orlean, the New Yorker writer and author of The Orchid Thief, but after an hour of wonderful conversation in her dining room, I discovered that my computer, which was supposed to be recording us, had crashed. In the next few weeks, we¹re planning to record discussions with Rufus Wainwright and Ira Glass.

Who have been some of your favorite bands to tour with?
The Kaiser Chiefs were great to tour with. Wonderful guys. We're close friends with the guys in We Are Scientists, as well, and we may get to tour with them, soon. So even though it hasn¹t happened yet, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say they will definitely be at the top of our favorites list once it does.

What makes a good co-tour band? Rock n'roll lifestyle? Considerateness? General quality of work?
Good people make a good band to tour with. I know it sounds obvious, but it¹s kind of like anything else; everything's more fun if you like the people around you. So think of what makes you like your friends, it's a similar list: intelligence, a sense of humor, shared interests, etc.
Obviously, it helps if you like their music, but the most important thing is that you like the people.

I can tell you what makes for a shitty band to tour with: people who don't know their limits. I'm a big fan of partying, but everybody turns into an asshole when they've gone too far, and musicians tend to cross the line with greater regularity than other people. Spending a night or two with a total waste-oid is sort of a thrill, but hanging out with one for a month or two is a drag.

Do you remember any of the other names you guys considered before dubbing yourselves OK Go?
The only one I can remember is 'The Stripes.'We¹re lucky we didn't choose that, huh?

What made you decide to record in Sweden?
We wanted to work with Tore Johansson, and that's where his studio is. It wasn't difficult for him to convince us, of course. I mean, if someone offered you the chance to got to Malmö for a couple months, wouldn't you take it?

What are the conversations like regarding dress code on stage and in press photos? Do you guys pretty much agree on style or is there one person who is more adamant about that stuff than others?
We all pretty much agree on style. I am the loud-mouth of the band, but I don't have to do much prodding, when it comes to clothing. No need. We all share the thrill of the pattern.

You guys interact with your fans a lot. Has that been rewarding for you or do you see that weighing you down in the future if you let their input dictate your future too much (Liz Phair didn't seem to want to work that way.)
There are really only two downsides to our unusually close relationship with our fans. The first is the extra time it takes. We spend a lot of hours on the upkeep of the blogs, the myspace page, our website, the design and programming of a1000000ways.com, and (especially) the recording of Tim's audio blogs. The other downside is disease. After almost every show, we rush out to meet the crowd, and after shaking hands, hugging, and mugging for photos with dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people, we¹ve been exposed to just about every cold, cough, or flu that that city has to offer. When we're on tour in the winter, it's a constant battle to stay healthy.

I'm not at all worried about our fans dictating our direction.

What have you guys been listening to lately?
Mew and Metric. Both have new records out in the UK, to be released here soon, I think. Tim bought them for my birthday while we were touring there a couple weeks ago. My iPod has since died, and those are the only two cds I have hard copies of, so they are pretty much it, for our driving soundtrack. Luckily, they're both great albums.

Unfortunately, the following question got garbled in email translation, especially since I wasn't sure if I was emailing one guy or four. Still, the answer isn't bad.
How does it feel to be the 134th person interviewed for Zulkey.com?
I don't know what list you're referring to. But it doesn't feel too bad, whatever it means.

More interviews here!