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Their platinum-certified single, Bang!, pairs a carnival-evoking horn section with skittering trap hi-hats.
And yet this strange coupling has produced a hit peaking at No.
In the spirit of theater, Bang!
takes little moments and makes them sound larger than life.
; their latest single, Way Less Sad; and the show tunes that influencedOK Orchestra.
Charlie: On a recent episode ofSwitched On Pop,we offhandedly called Bang!
post-rock polka carnival trap and received blowback online.
But the major influence here gives the impression of musical theater.
Is that fair to say?
Ryan:Were huge fans of musical theater.
Its kind of ingrained in us; that was our first love of music.
[The style] can be so unabashedly genuine.
We write songs for other artists.
A lot of whats thrown around is No, that feels too genuine.
It feels too sincere.
Like weve got to cloud it in some kind of irony.
And so for us, Bang!
was kind of like when the evil villain walks in.
Charlie: Whats the story in Bang!?
Who are the characters?
Jack:Its about that exact moment from being a kid to basically having to be an adult.
It just really doesnt make any sense anymore for us to keep living as children.
Its time to mature.
Charlie: How are you able to translate Broadway cliches into a contemporary pop production?
Ryan:You have to dress it up a little bit.
was originally more of an acoustic kind of drum set, and it literally felt Broadway.
Its kind of in the same world.
Something likeFinding Nemo, right?
And you’ve got the option to relate on any level.
And the most broad thing you could say is Dont leave me or I love you.
Did you have any feeling that this song would go platinum and go to No.
8 on the Hot 100?
Jack:We have a different mind-set than other writers.
Thats the way to not have hits; you cant give a shot to write a hit.
Ryan and I are the absolute opposite.
We absolutely give a shot to write what we think will be a hit.
But the answer is no, we did not.
We never, ever think anything is going to get popular.
We went nine years with zero success.
No one knew our music.
So were kind of conditioned to think that theres a big chance this will fail.
I was skeptical in terms of a single, yeah.
It was the weirdest production that Ryan had ever brought to me.
And he said, No, I really think this can translate.
Now I can see people dancing to this this is so sick.
Charlie: Your next single, Way Less Sad, takes a different turn from Bang!
in its contrast between very sullen moments and then very joyous moments.
What role is it playing inOK Orchestra?
Ryan:The story of this song is interesting.
At the very end of the song, during the fade-out, its this horn line.
And we remembered hearing it growing up; it was one of our favorite songs.
We made this disco track and then we kind of forgot about it for some reason.
And thats when we ended up writing, Dont you love it?
No, I aint happy yet, but Im way less sad.
And we sent it back, and they were like, Ah, no, thats okay.
Wait, we dont want it.
And we said, Okay, thats fine, well take it for our collection.
For some reason, we thought Cardi would want that.
Ryan:She ended up putting out WAP instead, so we realized we totally missed the mark.
Charlie: How did you approach making a conceptual album for an era of streaming singles?
Ryan:I think its good to look atHamilton.
[The album] has a crazy amount of streams; that makes no sense in the streaming age.
Why wouldHamiltonhave so many streams?
Its because theres a story that you could follow through.
Theres a reason to listen to it in order.
And then it ends in a way that relates back to the rest of the album.
I think we really think about it as one cohesive thing.
This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.
