A Conversation with 3OH!3’s Nathaniel Motte – HuffPost 10.24.13
Mike Ragogna: Nat, it looks like you’ve got a national headline tour going on.
Nathaniel Motte: Yeah, we’re excited to go out. It’s been a while and we’ve done a full headlining tour. We’re excited to get back out.
MR: And you’ve already kicked off the tour in Clifton Park.
NM: Yep, correct.
MR: How has your live act evolved since you first started and now?
NM: You know, it’s funny. I guess our live show has really been hand in hand with the way we’ve made music in the studio, just because we started playing shows right when we started writing music in Colorado, whether they were house parties or opening local venues for our buddie and we actually started to quickly headline shows. At first, we were recording in a hip-hop format, we’d just sort of play a track and have two microphones over it and kind of go crazy on stage. It was when we actually went on Vans Warped Tour in 2008 and we shared a stage with Katy Perry and we became good friends with her and her crew. Her musicians would set up their stuff on our stage during our set–her musicians would set up their drum kit and guitar rig, and their bass–and it kind of morphed from there. Now we kind of run with the fairly fluid amalgam of electronic and rock elements during our live show. We always try to keep the energy very high and more of a rockin’ party rather than a performance.
MR: How crazy is it getting as the energy amps-up with this tour?
NM: It gets nuts man, it’s funny. It’s more than performers, we’re kind of like party animals. That’s what we want to do for the people coming out to the shows. There are only a few nights they get to come out and let loose, have fun, and not worry about so much about their stuff. For us, it’s a lot of fun too, that’s the kind of the thing that motivates us. It does get crazy; it takes different shapes and forms at different shows over the years, but it’s definitely a lot of fun.
MR: Does a lot of it have to do with the acts that are supporting you? Do you influence each other when you play together?
NM: Yeah. We learned a lot from those bands, the hustle and just putting forth so much energy in their sets, and if they’re ever on tour. We’ve been fortunate enough to take out a lot of bands that are great and become friends with a lot of bands. We’re actually already known and have a great relationship with the bands on our next tour. Actually, in honor of the tour, we did a collaboration song, which is cool to kind of be a part of. So we’re releasing the song with a video that we’re all filming from all over the world, putting it together, and we’ll be performing that song every night. I think it goes with the mantra that we have that every show is a big party and a big event more than just a concert or a performance.
MR: So you’re performing most of the songs from Omens, right?
NM: No, we perform songs from all of our CDs actually; it’s not necessarily an Omens Tour. I think we’re doing maybe five or six, maybe seven songs off that record and then really songs from all of our records. We realize that there are fans from back in the day and that like that old stuff that come to our shows so instead of only the new stuff, we try to just mesh it all together into one mix.
MR: The spotlight seems to be on that album’s tracks “Back To Life” and “You’re Gonna Love This.”
NM: It was nice to have those songs lead the way for this album. We were fortunate enough to have some really cool syncs and placements and commercials to get the word out for them. Those are the songs we’re going to play every night.
MR: I imagine you play songs like “Don’t Trust Me” and even “Starstruck.”
NM: Oh yeah, we play those for sure, every night. Those are fun ones because we play them so much. But with songs like that, I actually go in and remix them and mix the outros and make the ends of them a bit interesting, and its fun for us to play. I think it’s interesting to hear the song take a different shape.
MR: And I bet your songs are evolving as you’re rediscovering them in this setting.
NM: Yeah. A lot of the older songs, I’m going in and reproducing them, trying to stay faithful to the aesthetic and not necessarily making them a new sounding song but also arranging them for a live show. At this point, we have four records out so we’re not going to be able to play every song we’ve put out. But we do a lot of medleys of older stuff going in and out of each other, deciding if it all makes sense and figuring out if it goes well with the crowd. So far its been really good.
MR: Do you regret not having Miley Cyrus on one of your records?
NM: You know, we called but she wouldn’t answer our call. I think she has some kind of restraining order against us, which is kind of weird. [laughs] It was kind of conscious and subconscious to not have collaborations. We kind of just wanted to bring it home and we were holed up in Colorado in my studio. It was nice to pull everything back and make a complete project that was unadulterated view of what we wanted to do. I also think it kind of opens up the gauntlet for collaborations on forthcoming records.
MR: Music relationships and collaborations must be interesting at this point.
NM: I think a lot of our music relationships are based on friendships, which is fortunate for us. I mean, Ke$ha, that was a friendship first, which opened the working relationship, and even with Katy Perry and when we did a song with Lil Jon for his record. I think those are the most organic ways of working on music collaboratively, if people are homies first, and they know the deal with our music.
MR: With all the reinvention and having a new album, how do you look at your older songs at this point?
NM: Absolutely, I think that music is changing so fast these days, especially electronic music. In terms of production values, there are a lot of things that you would do differently and then some of the format… Yeah, I think based on our earlier stuff, we didn’t really know what the format was. It’s nice to go back to some of our albums and do a weird format that we wouldn’t necessarily use these days. To me, it’s cool to have those songs because it’s like a portfolio; it’s a time and place. It’s like a journal or diary and there are some lyrical things that we probably would not have said if we knew the song would have a lot of success. But at a certain point, we’re just like “F**k it, we’re just a couple kids having fun” and that spirit has carried us through a lot of cool stuff. When we’re performing it, it’s fine, it’s a lot of muscle memory; you’re not necessarily hyper-analyzing the lyrics you wrote five, six, seven, eight years ago. You’re just singing it and not thinking about it too much. For some songs, that’s a good thing.
MR: How important is reinvention when you’re updating the sound?
NM: It’s important for us that we fluff up the sound and make it sound new, and like I said, it’s important to keep the aesthetic of the old stuff alive and not get too far away from that. Also, we have the rock element of our shows. It’s not just an electronic show, it’s not just a DJ up there trying to mix the sonics of their sound being as broad as they can. Those things fluidly feed into each other and create a big sound that’s also a live sound.
MR: I look at your tour schedule, and it looks like you’re playing almost every day.
NM: Every day, you’re on the road. We’ve been fortunate enough to keep pretty healthy. My band mate Sean was having fairly severe vocal issues. I guess it’s like any job that you get into the rhythm of. And we know what we can and can’t do as we’ve gotten a little older. We’re not out every-night partying until 4am. We might have been on our first tours. You adapt to it and it has the likeness of being a professional athlete playing a basketball game five days a week. It’s tough and you travel a lot, but it’s also very tonic and very energizing. It’s exciting and it gives you a hit and grab of energy.
MR: What’s you advice for new artists?
NM: We didn’t set out to make it big and make these records. We were just a couple of kids having fun making music and it developed into something incredible. We were always interested in creating something that was new sounding and different sounding and within that, trying to incorporate the genre and do something that was progressive and different. So I usually tell people to try to have fun with their music and be satisfied with what they’re making and also do something new and different that’s not purely regurgitated and imitated. I think it’s important to advance stuff, make it new and interesting. We actually did a lot of external work writing and producing for other artists as well and I think we brought that mantra into the sessions with those artists too and make something new and different.
MR: What’s the future looking like for 3OH!3?
NM: We’re always working, which is fun. We’ll be writing the music and every now and then Sean and I’ll get together, and whether that means, an album in 2014 or not. We’re not sure. I’ll also be writing for other artists. This year, I was fortunate enough to do a song on the Maroon 5 record and also for this band called Carmen and other more underground projects, so it was fun. Whether we’re on the road or not we’re always creating music in the studio. So this should be a good year.
MR: And the fun continues making music with Sean Foreman.
NM: Yeah, definitely. I don’t know if many people can say that they run a fun and productive business with their best friend. It’s been a lovely friendship.
Transcribed by Amy Laudicano