God bless the rock star! After Super Furry Animals' Cian Ciaran gave us a rather taciturn response to the last "Ask A Straight Guy," Damian Kulash comes along and redeems it. The hot lead singer of OK Go, the band best known for that video where they dance on treadmills, plays the 9:30 Club tonight tomorrow night with Bonerama as a benefit for New Orleans musicians displaced by Katrina. It turns out Damian has a sizeable queer-friendly streak and a lot to say about it. He says his show tomorrow is sold out, but the 9:30 website says otherwise. If you're not going to Crack, it will be the second best place in U Street to ogle cute boys.
The New Gay: When did you first realize you were straight?
Damian Kulash: Junior high, I think. I was an effeminate boy — the kind of kid people assumed was gay, and hence subject to the ridicule of other kids who believed themselves more masculine, as if masculinity is ever more than a trace element in 13-year-olds. I went to an all–boys prep school, so homophobia was a running theme and a source of a lot of go-to insults; I was often called a fag. Under the influence of it all, I remember having a serious personal conference with myself during a religious event of some kind. Probably there had been a heavy sermon that roused universal fear and I decided they must all be right: I probably was gay. But it just wouldn’t stick and the inexplicable magnetism of boobs persisted, and eventually I came to terms with my straightness.
TNG: What is your least favorite stereotype about straight people?
DK: I hate that we have to lump people into proxy categories at all. Why bother with straight and gay? They’re not good predictors of anything important. Good vs. evil seems important. Brave v. cowardly, creative v. stale, interesting v. boring, just v. unjust, generous v. selfish: these seem like valid axes on which to judge people, and maybe even grounds for drawing generalizations and stereotypes. But I haven’t noticed any correspondence between gender preference and anything that matters.
TNG: What are the biggest challenges faced by a straight guy in today's culture?
DK: I hate to deflect the question again, but I don't associate many of my own challenges with sexual preference. Admittedly, mine’s the privileged position enjoyed by straight American (white) men. We are not, broadly speaking, the victims of systemic injustice, and that makes us a minority among humans. It also makes it pretty presumptuous of me to say the following, but I will anyhow: Most people I know, regardless of race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, nationality, or any other external category they might fall into, spend most of their time fighting demons from within, not from without.
TNG: What kind of bars do you like to go out to?
DK: Quiet ones. I spend enough time in loud places.
TNG: Do you find that a given stereotype about straight social culture doesn't apply to you? If so, how do you go about changing its reputation?
DK: Rock singers who aren’t in the Creed/Nickleback school are more or less exempt from normal gender stereotypes. We get to wear pastel suits, gaudy jewelry, or girls’ jeans and everyone chalks it up to the fact that we’re in rock bands. In the last three years of non-stop touring I’m not sure I’ve seen a single rock dude in any band anywhere who looked like he’d found a majority of his clothes on the men’s floor of the department store. Either we are consistently pushing the gender stereotype boundaries, or we just don’t count at all, living in our little bubble of heterogeny. Or is that heterogeneousness?
TNG: What obligations, if any, do you think you have to the gay community?
DK: If there’s a duty specific to the gay community, it’s this: not to support homophobia by reaping its benefits. Nothing keeps cultural wedges in place like the apathetic beneficiary — the guy who believes he’s “open minded” but is quick to reassure bigots that he’s a member of the safe group when it benefits him. To be honest, though, I’m a dude in a rock band, not a civil servant or a social justice warrior. My obligations are really to my own creative impulses. I’m supposed to make cool shit. It would be beyond absurd for me to tell you that the records I make are primarily vehicles for social justice work. They’re for people to rock to, regardless of those people’s superficial categories.
TNG: Did you get a lot of shit for being such a good dancer? Do you think you'll ever live down those treadmills?
DK: Yes, we bear the cross of being That Dancing Band. But if I had to choose a cross, it ain’t a bad one. The treadmills are far more a blessing than a curse. We became a household name on 6 continents (I have yet to see convincing evidence that Antarctica was involved), and we were introduced to literally millions of people who would never have heard of us. There’s no doubt that a huge segment of the people who enjoyed our video will never come to a show or buy a record, but who cares? For the non-rockers out there, the blue-haired knitters, the stick-up-the-ass co-workers, the jovial weirdos who bounce through life claiming they’re “not that into music”... if they were entertained by it: great. We’re not too worried that our more engaged fans will suddenly bail on us, or the success of the videos will somehow make it harder to keep making the records we want to.
TNG: Why should people come out to see you play at the 9:30 club on Saturday?
DK: Our shows are usually a lot of fun. We see the show as a big collaborative party, and for reasons I don’t entirely understand, that party always seems to be at its most off the hook in D.C. Plus, it’s the last live show where I’ll be singing with the trombone-and-tuba funk orchestra Bonerama, and (if I do say so myself) there is a pretty rare magic to it. On a practical glamour level, if your readers can still get tickets, they should come just to prove they can. I can’t even get guest passes for my mom’s friends at this point.
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Yay for local bands! Bombastic, guitarless quintet The Apes have been performing since they formed in our fair city in 1999. Though their tour took them through South By Southwest and all over the country, they have not forgotten their roots enough to play tonight at The Velvet Lounge with Health, or to let a gay quasi-music blog bother their bassist Erick Jackson (pictured) via email.
