Sibling Revelry

Wow, this is four years old now?! This is an interview that choreographer Trish Sie graciously conducted with me over email in 2007. She was so nice about it--it consists of questions from several OK Go fans (including me), and I think I originally told her it would be around ten questions long. She still kindly obliged when it actually turned out to be thirty or so ;) Thanks, Trish.

Some things have changed--I don't think the Snark-a-Snoops exist anymore--but please enjoy this blast from the past:

She's Invincible

March 2007
okgocentral.com [now defunct]

She hardly needs an introduction, but for those of you new to OK Go World, here you go: Trish Sie--Grammy winner, world-class ballroom dancer, sciencey children's entertainer, big sister to Damian Kulash, Jr. She created the dances in the most downloaded videos in history, "A Million Ways" and the Grammy-winning "Here It Goes Again"; she's been instrumental in OK Go's recent surge of success. I asked if I could interview her with the help of questions from fellow fans, and she said yes (okgocentral.com partner-in-crime Michael and I were honored). If you are interested in what a certain band did after the Grammys, the inside scoop on the making of the "Here It Goes Again" video, the hair-raising world of competitive dance, life in the Kulash family, and dirt on Damian (and Tim Nordwind), read on.

How was the post-Grammy partying? What was your most mind-boggling celebrity encounter, there or at the VMAs?

Believe it or not, I only went to two parties after the Grammys. The first was a ridiculous gluttonous smorgasbord of Armenian food from our favorite restaurant, served with champagne, at Damian’s house, because none of us had eaten all day and we were getting a little glassy-eyed-speak-in-tongues-low-blood-sugarish-overwhelmy. Plus, it had all been such a colossal tidal wave of insanity, we needed a reality check. And Damian’s dogs and backyard are really good for that. Also, I, for one, was wearing really obnoxious strappy sandals with heels about nine inches tall and I needed them OFF.

After we refueled, we headed out to EMI’s swank party at a club in Hollywood. It was fancy. The best parts about that were a) the roving waiters actually served In-n-Out burgers and goody bags of fresh-baked nubbins from the bakery next door and b) I got to tell a reporter that for my next groundbreaking video, I plan to shove a bottle up someone’s ass and out their nose.

The most mind-boggling celebrity encounter to date has got to be JT at the VMAs. The dude is unreal. We were watching him rehearse at the VMA dress rehearsal. He was doing his dance-romp-sing-strut thing right there, about four feet in front of us, and we were all a little dizzy and hyperventilatish about it. And then he just ripped his headset mic thing off, and pointed, and sorta snarled, and said something aggressive and explosively awesome, something akin to “I FUCKING LOVE YOU GUYS.” There was this demented pause wherein we all collectively attempted to control bodily functions and maintain consciousness, and then I think it was Damian that warbled something back in reply. CRAZY.

Whose idea was it for the band to wear the "Do What You Want" outfits on the red carpet?

As far as I know, it was an epiphany the band experienced all together.

Where were you when you found out 1) about the guys’ invite to perform at the VMAs, and 2) about the Grammy nomination? Did Mom cry?

Both times, I was in my living room, which is where I am a lot. Also, both times, I believe I was trying to convince the naughtiest of my three dogs that chewing the crotches out of my underwear and eating the bloody centers out of my blister band-aids is gross. That’s also something I find that I do a lot. Mom cried when we won the Grammy, and she may well have cried when the guys pulled off the treadmill dance at the VMAs, but for the latter, she was in New Hampshire and I couldn’t swear it for sure.

Have the band and you and the rest of the family become reacquainted with a lot of long-lost friends due to the success of the viral videos?
A fan who wants to remain anonymous

A lot of people email to congratulate us, which is always nice. I had one creepy ex-boyfriend write to me and confess that for years now, he’s been secretly watching me and my “creative processes at work” because he links in to my psyche at night via the Astral Plane. No joke. That was pretty spooky.

What’s the latest on the possible development of a Snark-a-Snoops TV show or movie? Anything you can tell us?
Kay and Theresa

We’ve had a nice steady stream of TV execs and production companies coming to our live shows, and we’re in talks with a few different networks about development possibilities. There’s one particularly rad network that will have to remain unnamed for now, which looks like a good possibility. We’re crossing our fingers on that one. These things are so damn complicated and multifaceted, though, who knows what or when. I’ll keep you guys posted.

When was the "Here It Goes Again" video shot?

August 2005.

Are there any moves you envisioned for the HIGA video (at any point between the dream that inspired it and your getting together with the guys to actually work it out) that didn’t make it in because they turned out to be impossible/too difficult/just didn’t fit?
Michael--okgocentral.com and Sheri

Well, there were the somersaults. I was pretty devoted to the idea of the somersaults, but when the skin on Damian’s back split open down his spine on the third day, we put the old 'saults to rest once and for all. Then came the wheelbarrow, where you hold a guy’s feet and he walks on his hands. There was also my fantasy of true old-world ballroom dancing on the mills … foxtrot or quickstep, maybe. But between the g-a-y factor and the sheer difficulty, we never even seriously considered that one. We experimented for a while with exploiting the incline feature … the treadmills look unspeakably, chaotically malignant and wonderful when they’re all simultaneously ratcheting themselves up to their maximum height—they look like an evil army. And then, when fully erect and viewed from the front, they look demonic and cross-cross-funhousy. But the anarchy of the shifting angles just made everything exponentially more dangerous. Ok ... this one’s tough to visualize, but I also had this vague notion that a person could swing Tarzan-style under the console of one treadmill, feet landing on another treadmill, feet being pulled to the end of second mill, stretching out the arms and body and creating a sort of inverted dangling plank shape, and someone else could leap through the space created by the arms and the first treadmill’s console, landing on the platform of the first treadmill and sailing off down the belt in triumph. We never figured that one out, although the Tarzan swing part managed to stick. There was also a hot-looking ball-sack-splitting move wherein you jump and land with each foot on a separate mill, which drags your legs into a split. With time, that move morphed into those spinning helicopter jumps at the end. The sack-split aspect wasn’t so fun for them.

As a creator, how do you overcome the fear that “it won’t work,” or “it isn’t good enough”? Is fear even an issue for you? If so, how do you deal with it?
Suzanne

The night before OK Go rolled into town to do the treadmill video, I had a panic attack. These guys had agreed to spend the only chunk of time they had off in two years to work on this crazy thing. And just about everyone with whom we’d talked about the project had the same reaction: awkward, polite smiles and a sort of “ummm … wow … ok, interesting … yeah” response, combined with a “please tell me you aren’t really serious” kind of facial expression. So I was getting pretty scared, thinking maybe this was going to be a colossal waste of everyone’s time… that we would make something really lame and then scrap it because it sucked so bad. Or worse, that we would make something really lame and then NOT scrap it because we couldn’t tell if it sucked or not. But I guess that’s the same shit that everyone goes through on a daily basis. It’s the feeling of standing in front of your mirror--wearing the dress your grandma wore at her bridal shower and the belt you bought at a truckstop in Arkansas and the bohemian lime green suede boots you pulled out of a dumpster—-and wondering if you look really fashion-forward and bold and hip or just really really stupid and pathetic. So in the case of the treadmills, and with any creative endeavor (including getting dressed in the morning), you eventually just have to try to look at what you’ve done (or plan to do) as objectively as possible, and then trust your instincts. You’ll always be afraid that you’re going to fail. No way around it.

It seems to me that you're so incredibly driven by your creativity, what with your degree in music and your multiple careers in creative fields. After you got out of college, did you ever go through a rut where you had to work in an unrelated job for bill paying/stomach filling purposes? How did you propel yourself out of it and back into the arts?
Rachel

I’ve starred in my own personal parade of paltry, soul-crushing jobs. Clerk at a record store. Receptionist. Pool cleaner. Administrative assistant to an administrative assistant to an administrative assistant to a douche bag. I tried to keep doing what I needed to do on the side to keep myself from spiraling into absolute mercenary insentience. I wrote songs, choreographed goofy dances with friends, volunteered as a synchronized swimming coach, wrote enthusiastic first chapters to about eighteen novels. I was also lucky enough to get jobs in creative fields pretty early on. But the tricky thing is that even jobs in industries that seem interesting can get pretty oppressive and suffocating after a while. At the risk of sounding like a stinky wedge of ripe cheese, I’ll dare to say that overcoming the boredom and fatigue of the real world is a lifelong pursuit. The single most helpful thing for me has been finding fascinating friends with crazy minds and spending as much time as I can with them. And making 180-degree changes in my life when I need to.

What do you like to read?
Suzanne

Right now I’m reading that book, A Million Little Pieces, by the dude that recounted his battle with addiction and his crazy stint in rehab [James Frey]. He got a lot of flack a while back when the Smoking Gun outed him as having totally fabricated his story. I love Michael Chabon, Jonathan Franzen, Margaret Atwood, Don DeLillo, Ian McEwan, Stacey Richter, the New Yorker, Discover magazine, Jared Diamond, various blogs I stumble across online. One of the best books I’ve ever read is one Damian gave me for Christmas the year I was pregnant: A General Theory of Love, by Thomas Lewis, Fari Amini, and Richard Lannon. Really good. And not the self-help book that it sounds like.

We know from your MySpace that you are dancing in the new "Do What You Want" video—is it you in the dress? And who are you dancing with?
A fan who wants to remain anonymous

Yeah, that’s me in the skirt with my most recent ballroom partner, Sonny Perry.

So some people thought you were Mr. OK Go Head, and some thought it was Dan, and we’ve been told it’s neither (btw, I was in the Dan camp—I never thought your legs were that mannish! lol). Can you tell us who it is or give us a clue? Might it be someone to whom you’re … married?
Michael--okgocentral.com and Sheri

No, it’s not Roe. If I said his name, it wouldn’t mean all that much to anyone because it’s not one of the OK Go personalities you’ve come to know and love over the years. He’s a friend of mine.

Any scandalous stories from the world of competitive dance? Is it cutthroat? Do you know of any instances of sabotage?

The world of competitive dance is pretty brutal. One of my good friends, Juliet McMains, just published a book called The Glamour Addiction, and I highly recommend that anyone interested in the bizarre vortex of DanceSport read it. She covers it all … from a pretty intriguing sociological perspective. Basically, learning to dance at that level was the most difficult thing I’ve ever done, both physically and psychologically, which is really pretty ridiculous considering that this is BALLROOM DANCING we’re talking about, here. It’s a very insular community, and people really get caught up and lost in it. I do have some pretty spectacular stories, souvenirs of my days on the pro-dance circuit … like the time my fake ponytail flew off during a competition and landed on a lady’s lap … or the time my coach got so angry during a rehearsal that he left the studio in his dancewear, hailed a cab to the airport, and flew away without another word … the time when my ex-partner and my current partner’s ex were both on the competition floor, dancing against us, and we switched partners and danced with our exes mid-round, just to confuse and piss off the judges … once the crotch snap on my dress came open and I had to dance the rest of the round with my legs closed as much as possible.

As a dancer, did you travel the world? Win any awards? Did you have the same partner the whole time? Where did you get the costumes and where are they now?
Theresa

I did travel a lot. Won some awards. I think I had twelve professional partners in all. But most of my career was spent in two very serious partnerships, the strongest and most successful ones. My dresses were outrageous. I had a costume designer, and most of my dresses were sold right off my body on the competition floor. If you’re a pretty high-level dancer with custom dresses, students or other dancers will see your costume when you perform and buy it from you on the spot. Then you run around naked the rest of the night. Just kidding. I still have some of my dance dresses. I use them for shows now and then. And if I ever have a daughter, she can have a kick-ass dress-up box.

Now that your choreography is world-renowned, do you have loads of people trying to get you to teach them to dance?
A.N.

Hmmm … kind of. Mostly I have people wanting me to “make another treadmill video” for them or their clients. I’m never sure what that means. Do they want me to make a silly dance video for them, but with, say, lawn mowers this time, instead of treadmills? Or do they want me to come up with something totally new that may not involve dancing at all?

What did you think of OK Go’s Las Vegas episode? Did you laugh hysterically? (And I mean that in the most loving way ;D ) Should OK Go get shipwrecked on Lost a la the Mosquitoes on Gilligan’s Island?
Deb and Sheri

Yes and yes.

When and where was your first OK Go show, and what did you think?

I can’t remember when my first OK Go show per se was. Obviously, I had seen Damian in a multitude of bands when he was growing up. Some of those early bands were pretty wretched, and ALL of them practiced at our house, as I recall. And then I saw him play a few shows at college … many of those same songs later became OK Go songs, so it all kind of blends together in my mind. I know there was one point when I went up to visit him at college, and we were actually working on a music project together at the time. I saw his band play that weekend and also got the chance to see him at work in the recording studio. That was probably the point at which the switch flipped in my mind, and I said, “Holy shit! My baby brother really, truly knows what he’s doing here! He’s a bad-ass!”

Did you always support Damian in his aspirations to be a musician?
Michael--okgocentral.com

I think so. My mom’s a musician. The three of us used to play chamber music when Damian and I were growing up. We’d play Mozart quartets without the viola part and Christmas carols and even show tunes, I think. Anyway, music was always a pretty big part of our lives.

Assuming there was a time of sibling rivalry between you and him, at what point did you start seeing eye to eye and what was your first successful (i.e., no hair pulling) collaboration?
Karen

Honestly, we’ve been collaborating since Damian was able to walk. Maybe even earlier than that. My parents have old photos and recordings of us performing elaborately choreographed dances and staging productions together starting when I was six or so and he was two. When we were a bit older, we used to make videos when we were out of school on break. One summer, we made a series of videos starring a Pop-Tart. We called him Star Tart and carried him lovingly around in his own “trailer,” which was a Pop-Tart box. We filmed Star Tart in all kinds of situations and involved him in all kinds of hijinx. It was pretty rad. Over a lifetime of summer visits to a lake in New Hampshire, we also created our own two-man inner-tube water show which involves a signature move that no one else on the planet can do: the Land Bridge.

Do you two ever get into any sibling-rivalry-caused fights while working together now?
Christine

We have a special siblingesque way of pushing each other’s buttons in a uniquely churlish way. But we don’t do it often.

As brother and sister, you and he must have influenced each other a lot. How do you think you have influenced him, and how has he influenced you?
Suzanne

I think that being the older sister, I introduced Damian to things that most kids his age weren’t aware of yet … Squeeze, Depeche Mode, tampons, beer, Downtown Julie Brown, jelly bracelets, filthy language, hair gel, the Cabbage Patch, etc. But the flip side of that coin is that he was always a much more evolved and cool kid among his contemporaries than I ever was. So as we’ve gotten older, he’s definitely outstripped me in the brainy-cool department, and I turn to him a lot when I need his more advanced sense of aesthetics.

Damian mentioned that he finally became won over to Aerosmith, a band that you liked. Damian played violin and then got into the punk scene. You liked Aerosmith and went on to become a ballroom dancer. That's a pretty eclectic mix that shows a strong affinity for music and creativity. What were the musical and creative influences in your house/family?
Karen

In addition to my mom being a violinist, my dad is probably the world’s most amazing whistler. He used to whistle Kingston Trio songs and old plantation spirituals around the house. And he also played accordion as a kid.

Who rode in the front seat of the car when you were kids and why? Did the hierarchy change at some point? What happened?
Karen

Damian and I generally both opted for the way back of the station wagon, which had one of those jumpseats that face backwards. That way we could scan for Sneaky Snookers, the radical wing of the KGB that had kidnapped me and my friend Rachel and was constantly threatening our safety.

Looking back, compared with other sibling relationships you’ve observed, was there anything special about your relationship as kids—did you get along remarkably well or were you the bicker twins like most brothers and sisters?
Sarah and Sheri

Believe it or not, we have one of those weird rare sibling relationships where we’ve sort of always liked each other and always liked doing things together. We bickered and pissed each other off plenty, but we really always enjoyed each other’s company. In fact, our whole family was pretty much like that. We traveled a lot as a family and spent a lot of time at our cottage in the middle of nowhere, with no one but ourselves to hang out with. We’re really lucky that we all have a great time when we’re together. We still do.

Was Damian ever short? :D

No.

I mean, he was three feet tall at one point. But never short for his age.

Do you know how tall he is precisely? 6’3”?
A fan who wants to remain anonymous

I’m gonna guess that he’s 6’3” or 6’4”. There’s a standing joke in our family about when Damian will stop being “Little Damian” (because Dad has the same name). And it seems like they’re still always good-naturedly giving each other hell about which one is Little Damian now. And my dad is 6’3”.

The guys make the fans happy, and fans want to make them happy back. Do you know what kinds of fan experiences the boys appreciate most? Are there any sorts of things fans should watch out for, and not do?
The same fan who wants to remain anonymous

I really don’t know. I do know one of the most gratifying things is for them to know that their music does something good for people … helps them through a rough time, comforts someone who’s sick or injured, etc. So I know that when they receive letters or messages from people who tell them about what their music has meant, it’s really rewarding.


And now for the dirt on Damian, of course. And Tim.

What were Tim and Damian like when they were younger? Did they bother you? What is the worst trick Damian or the two of them ever played on you, or vice versa?

Sarah, A.N., and Sheri

Damian and Tim were these two little highly-coiffed, pegged-pants-and-Sebago-wearing, Run-DMC-listening coxcombs. The little girls couldn’t get enough of them, I’m not kidding. They were like first-rate prepubescent peacocks. They didn’t generally bother me. They made a lot of movies, ate a lot of pizza pockets, listened to a lot of rap, talked a lot of shit. I can’t remember any tricks they played on me … Once they roped me into playing a Hispanic TV news reporter in a Chupacabras movie they were making. But that wasn’t really a trick since I was totally into it.

Do you know if Tim ever had a crush on you (the classic crush-on-best-friend’s-sister)? Was it expressed in classic love/hate fashion?

Another fan who will remain anonymous

Wow. You guys are sick.

Tim had a crush on my good friend Lesa … who was indeed pretty extremely crush-worthy. She was kind of nurturey-coddley-older-woman-flirty with him as well. We were all at Interlochen summer camp together, and she used to pretend she was his big sister in order to sign him out of the Junior Division so he could come get ice cream with us.

Did Damian have any especially amusing crushes, from what you remember? Unattainable classmates? Teachers? What celebrities do you recall his young self lusting after?

Mandy and Sheri

Hmmm … I truly don’t remember. I was pretty self-involved with my own love life. Damian used to counsel me on my man problems and field my calls in the evenings. We had an elaborate code for which boy was calling and whether I wanted to speak to him. Seems like most of our conversations in the romance arena were about boys I liked. If he told me much about girls, I didn’t listen or remember. I was too adolescent myself. We watched a lot of CHiPS and Dukes of Hazzard. I think it’s pretty safe to say that Heather Locklear and Daisy Duke were on his mind a lot. And we went through an intense Miami Vice and 21 Jump Street phase. Were there any hot girls on there? If so, he probably had a crush on them.

His high school picture ID was published in Alternative Press a couple years ago, and he seems to have had a Billy Idol hair thing going on … What was Damian’s worst fashion phase?

The Euro-trash chapter of Damian’s fashion journey had to be the worst. He was in fourth or fifth grade maybe… He looked like a nine-year-old cross between A Flock of Seagulls, Christopher Moltisanti from The Sopranos, and a pineapple. He wore a lot of shirts with elastic waistbands and V-necks. His hair was rooster-like and swoopy and—WAIT. Scrap that. At one point, he matted his bleached-out hair into dreadlocks by mixing raw eggs into it and not washing it for six months. Then he twisted up bits of metal and other objects into it.

If you had to describe the teenaged Damian in two words, what would they be?

Lamé tuxedo.

How are Damian and your dad alike?

They both sometimes put one foot up on something when they’re talking on the phone. They do it in the same special way. They put it up on whatever is around, as high as possible, and then they lean into it and bounce a little. Neither of them notice that they do it.

Last, do flowers scream when you pick them?

Not that I’ve heard.

Check out the Snark-a-Snoops (official site/MySpace) and Trish Sie (official site/MySpace).

Photo credits (from top):

www.myspace.com/bigbadtrish

WireImage/Amy Tierney

AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill

www.myspace.com/snarkasnoops

www.myspace.com/bigbadtrish

www.myspace.com/bigbadtrish

Marjorie Galen Kitman

Nicole Szalewski

Alternative Press magazine