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October 2004
By S. Appel |
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It seems like every pop star, hip-hop artist, and rock band out there right now is trying to get you out to vote. There's the shows, like "Concerts for Kerry" and the "Vote For Change" tour. And then there are the campaigns, P.Diddy's "Vote or Die", for instance, and Declare Yourself's Andre 3000 billboards. And although most of these events and organizations won't come out and tell you straight up to vote the Democratic way, they're all pretty "Left" of center because let's face it, not many creative folks are down with what's currently going on in America.
One of the bands who decided to get involved is Ok Go. Just go to their website (OkGo.net) to see how passionate they are about the cause. During the Republican National Convention, they headlined a couple of New York area shows for Involver. Posted are links to political organizations like MoveOn.Org. Frontman Damian Kulash even put together "How Your Band Can Fire Bush", a how-to document which gives bands (and anyone else willing to read it) handy Bush-ousting tips as well as some pretty astonishing anti-Republican statistics. |
 An Ok Go pyramid at Involver (Toni Simmons) |
Damian's personal reasons for involving himself and the band basically resulted out of frustration from the state of the country and just wanting and needing a change. "Pumping your fists at the TV and screaming at the radio dial doesn't do anything," he admits. "My friend's group Driving Votes came to my attention. It's an organization based around the idea that people can have fun by taking road trips and registering people in swing states. And I was sort of like 'I'm on a road trip, I'm on a constant road trip'". He thought about planning a swing state tour and to get "whatever hands we had and we'd give people free tickets to the show if they, say, spend the day registering voters in a shopping mall. It seemed like a great idea but we were in the middle of writing a record and having all of this recording stuff to do." Plus getting other bands involved (and hence playing for free) wouldn't have been easy. Add this to the fact that bands like Pearl Jam and REM were doing practically the same thing, Damian decided to nix the tour idea but wanted to get involved in other ways. |
"The reasons most musicians I know aren't involved isn't so much that they don't have the guts to do it but they don't know exactly why they should do it or what they should do, " he explains. "And they always feel one fact short of a good argument. But, you don't need to know everything because there is a disgusting wealth of numbers against Bush. You don't need to be a professional politician to give a shit about politics". Besides the shows and internet action, OkGo also contributed a Zombies cover to the Future Soundtrack of America compilation, a political fundraising CD comprised of new, exclusive and rare recordings from artists including Bright Eyes, Death Cab For Cutie, and REM. "John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants organized it, he's a close friend. I heard about the line-up and sort of begged to be on it." The result is a brilliant (and critically lauded) rendition of the Zombies' "This Will be Our Year". "It's one of the Top 5 songs of all time for me," says Damian on chosing this particular track to record. "It's my favorite Zombies song. It was really appropriate to the cause". When talking about "How Your Band Can Fire Bush, he says that the reactions to it are "Mostly positive", though he adds with a chuckle, "We certainly have more Republican fans than we thought". He responds to "How the fuck can you shove your viewpoint down my throat"-letters by killing-them-with-kindness. "You write them back a drippingly nice email and say, 'I'm so glad you spoke up' and 3 out of 4 people will be like 'You're right, we disagree but I'm glad someone is doing something". "The main point of that thing I wrote, besides how I think bands can get involved, is that I believe and I think most people believe to be the case is that if every citizen in this country voted, the neo-conservative agenda wouldn't even come close to finding it's way on the map." |
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