OK Go is no stranger to pulling truly epic viral stunts. They showed off their acrobatic skills on treadmills in “Here It Goes Again,” danced with moss people in “This Too Shall Pass,” did some pretty cool puppy tricks in “White Knuckles,” and turned toast into artful storytelling in “Last Leaf.” Now the band is leaving its mark on the streets of Los Angeles in the new “Back From Kathmandu” video, which premiered Dec. 12.
Video: OK Go, “Back From Kathmandu”
Using the “Pulse of the City” iPhone app, which outlines your path as you travel, OK Go organized an 8.5-mile parade — called the “Dance With Your City” Parade — that spelled out the band’s name via the path they took through the city on Nov. 17.
They recruited 100 of their friends, a few wagons and a couple hundred acoustic instruments to invite any passerby to join in on the celebration. Frontman Damien Kulash told Billboard while filming the video that the inspiration came from a brief period he spent in New Orleans.
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OK Go Leads Wacky ‘Dance With Your City’ Parade Through L.A.
“[I] was blessed to be involved with a bunch of second line parades [wherein bystanders join], and nothing will invigorate your love of music like seeing 500 people in the streets banging on pots and pans, playing trombones, hollering along in their crazy costumes,” Kulash said.
As the sun sets in the new video, everyone is decked out in glowsticks, necklaces and bracelets to add a blur of neon to the sea of instrument-playing paradegoers. We can imagine it may have seemed strange to L.A. natives who witnessed the filming of the video, it was just another day for OK Go.
OK Go: The Billboard Cover Story
“When a band has their first massive hit, they then have to spend the rest of their lives either remaking that hit or making a giant leap to try to do something else,” Kulash told Billboard.com. “The lucky thing for us is that our big hit was having a crazy idea. I like to think that our music is awesome and that the ideas are awesome, but we don’t have to keep creating the same song or video. We just have to keep having an idea hat other people think is exciting.”