OK Go zero gravity music video goes viral

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Friday, February 12, 2016
OK Go zero gravity music video goes viral
The latest viral music video from OK Go defies gravity as it gathered millions of views the day of its release on Thursday, Feb. 11, 2016.

LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- The members of OK Go are viral music video superstars. Over the last decade, their music videos have been viewed on YouTube some 218 million times. And their latest effort is going to send those numbers soaring, literally.

The band's video for "Upside Down & Inside Out" has 19 million views on the band's Facebook page in less than 24 hours. To make their video standout, OK Go actually defied gravity.

"Limits are boring, I think," OK Go bassist Tim Nordwind said. "We have to keep ourselves interested and excited."

Working in zero gravity was something "OK Go" has wanted to do for years. But it's a very pricey proposition. Then the Russian airline S7 suggested a collaboration.

"We were like, we've got exactly the thing we want to do," OK Go lead singer and guitarist Damian Kulash said. "When we were like, 'we want to make art with your airplanes,' and they gave us the thumbs up. It was like we went as hard as we could."

Kulash and Nordwind, along with drummer Dan Konopka and guitarist Andy Ross, spent about a month in Russia working on the video for "Upside Down & Inside Out." The guys all took heavy anti-nausea drugs to shoot in zero gravity aboard a flying plane.

What you see in the video is all real. No green screens or wires.

"What I want people to get from this video is a sense of pure, like, joy and wonder," Kulash said. "The truth is, making a video in zero g is not very comfortable. What looks like a lot of fun is some fun, but is also like very nauseating and very hard to do."

"Damian and I have known each other since we were 11 and I think we've always been attracted to the absurd," said Nordwind. "And we've taken chasing absurdity and fun really seriously our entire lives."

And they can't wait to see what they'll chase next.

"Hopefully, there's still ideas out there that will make this one seem small to us." said Kulash.