OK Go have built their career on blending punchy, melodic rock & roll with a keen visual sense which they manifested through a series of ingenious homemade videos that turned them into viral stars of the mid-2000s. Although they were backed by a major label, the band became known as scrappy D.I.Y. heroes, utilizing low-budget but tightly choreographed music videos that inspired heaps of imitators and won them a Grammy Award for 2007’s “Here It Goes Again.” This energy carried them into the next decade and sent 2010’s Of the Blue Colour of the Sky into the Top 40. OK Go continued to craft their visual image while self-releasing their 2014 album, Hungry Ghosts, and an assortment of follow-up singles. Over a decade passed before the band returned with their fifth studio album, 2025’s And the Adjacent Possible.
Singer/guitarist Damian Kulash, guitarist Andrew Duncan, bassist Tim Nordwind, and drummer Dan Konopka, formed OK Go in Chicago during the fall of 1998. Prior to Kulash’s move from the East Coast, the other three members had played together in the Chicago-based band called Stanley’s Joyful Noise. During their first couple of years, OK Go garnered considerable media attention in the Windy City thanks to their exuberant live shows and high-profile opening spots for artists like Elliott Smith and the Promise Ring. Along with a pair of three-song CD singles, they served as the de facto house band for a touring version of Ira Glass’ NPR program This American Life. OK Go eventually signed with Capitol and issued an eponymous debut in September 2002, scoring a modest modern rock radio hit with “Get Over It.” By this time, they had relocated to Los Angeles, where they began working on new material.
When the combo returned in August 2005 to issue the sophomore effort Oh No, it was without guitarist Duncan, who’d left after sessions for the album had ended. His replacement was Andy Ross, who joined the band in creating a pair of ingenious, low-budget videos. The clip for “A Million Ways” featured the bandmates practicing complicated dance steps in a backyard; consisting of one long take, it spawned countless fan tributes online and helped the song become a hit in Europe. By early 2006, the video had achieved a record amount of downloads and the band OK Go responded with an even more effective follow-up. The video for “Here It Goes Again” was another single-shot-wonder that featured a meticulously choreographed sequence of the band dancing on moving treadmills. The riffy power pop song became OK Go’s first Top 40 hit and its video won a Grammy Award. An EP, You’re Not Alone, appeared in 2008, benefitting musicians in New Orleans who’d been displaced by Hurricane Katrina. They also entered the studio with producer Dave Fridmann to record their next LP.
Released in 2010, the funk-influenced Of the Blue Colour of the Sky split the difference between the radio polish of their debut and the edgier sound of Oh No. It was also their most commercially successful, cracking the Top 40, thanks in part to singles like “This Too Shall Pass” and “End Love.” Despite this, OK Go parted ways with Capitol/EMI just months after its release and reissued the album on their newly formed Paracadute label. They toured heavily in support of the release, logging 180 shows in 2010 alone. Some of the shows were recorded, and the resulting footage was released the following year as 180/365, a live album featuring mixing from Dave Fridmann, whom OK Go would work with again on their fourth studio album, Hungry Ghosts, in 2014. To supplement tours and recordings in the coming years, the band adopted a business model that involved funding from non-musical sponsors like State Farm Insurance, Yahoo!, and Range Rover for which they made elaborate music videos which included those companies’ branding.
OK Go’s first new music of the next decade was 2020’s “All Together Now,” a song they recorded remotely and released as a tribute to healthcare workers affected by COVID-19. They spent the next several years completing work on their fifth album and first full-length since 2014. Led by the single “A Stone Only Rolls Downhill,” 2025’s And the Adjacent Possible was a vibrant and experimental outing co-produced by returning collaborator Dave Fridmann and featuring guest spots from Ben Harper, Shalyah Fearing, and Beginners.
REF: AllMusic
For the amazing new video “Love,” (premiered April 11, 2025) shot inside the cavernous Budapest train station, over 60 people from 10 countries were scrambling to bring to life a single-shot music video unlike anything the band had done before. At its heart was a concept built on mirrors and infinite reflections. “The main idea behind the video was to use mirrors to create different visual effects. The concept revolved around multiplying reflections as a metaphor for love.
(For more from the band: “In this mini-documentary by our partners at the Project Management Institute, you’ll see the whole process and meet the brilliant, creative people that made it possible: 
• PMI Behind the Project: The Making of… In this Universal Robots piece, you’ll learn more about the incredible technology team and their battalion of dancing machines: https://www.universal-robots.com/en-u…
• OK Go – Love (official BTS shot on Ra… )”
Sacramento’s K-ZAP 93.3 FM plays OK Go. All part of 50 years of Rock, Blues and More, 24-7 on our station’s stream at K-ZAP.ORG/LISTEN/
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