How I Learned To Stop Being Insufferable And Love 3OH!3

 

I’ve only met Nathaniel “Nat” Motte and Sean Foreman of 3OH!3 briefly, but considering they named themselves after the area code of their hometown, the foremost way to honor them would probably be to say some nice words about Boulder, Colorado. Unfortunately, I’ve never been. I’ve only visited Denver, but it’s in the same area code so it all feels relevant.

Denver is stunning, and there’s something about it that doesn’t feel quite real. It’s either the striking, snow-covered Rockies that backdrops several views of the city or the signs of modern civilization jettisoning up in front of them. Or it could even be the crop of impossibly nice people that reside there, many of whom were driving the Ubers and Lyfts I took around the city.

Five months ago, if you would’ve told me I’d be flying across the country to take in these spectacular views and show up for elder emo electronic rap duo 3OH!3, I may have asked you why. I certainly wouldn’t have balked at the idea, though. Not today.

When 3OH!3 released their inescapable single, “DONTTRUSTME”, in 2008, I was the exact target audience for it — college-aged and terminally on Myspace. The only problem was that I was a 20-year-old music snob and the forever-frat-boy aesthetic of 3OH!3 didn’t really align with my idea of prestigious and purposeful music. I was dying to be taken seriously as an adult with intelligence beyond my years, and emo culture was tied to the hopeless throes of adolescence, so I dug my heels in on the bands and acts that made the front page of Pitchfork rather than the cover of Alternative Press. 

For several years, the duo was relegated to the guilty pleasure corner of my stack which afforded them a check-in every few years and a dismissive chuckle whenever my playlist went from “Dancing Choose” to “Touchin’ On My” around other musically elitist friends. It’s exhausting, though, to deprive yourself of media that you enjoy in service of some arbitrary, useless process to determine if it’s “substantial” enough to deserve enjoyment, and it doesn’t hold up much past the age of 25. By my late 20s, I began to allow myself to love things unabashedly, which means I got to call up 3OH!3 from the shadowlands of my playlists. 

After releasing WANT and Streets of Gold in pretty quick succession, the length between releases got more spaced out for the pair as they started to get called to write and produce for other artists. Together, they helped crank out some heavy hitters for Kesha (“Blah Blah Blah”) and Ariana Grande (“Tattooed Heart.”) Separately, Motte co-wrote “Love Somebody” for Maroon 5, and co-wrote and produced “Lights Down Low” for MAX. Foreman would go on to write on “Waste It On Me” for Steve Aoki and BTS and work with Two Door Cinema Club on their album Gameshow. Those breaks gave the big outlets enough time to lose interest in eviscerating their albums the way they had been for the first several years of their career. 2016’s NIGHT SPORTS went mostly unnoticed by critics, but for me, it (finally) brought me on board with them. My love and appreciation for their brand of inclusive goofiness would continue to grow until I’d eventually find myself flying from Georgia to Colorado to attend and photograph the first post-lockdown in-person 303 Day show at the Mission Ballroom. 

303 Day takes place on March 3rd, and is the Boulder/Denver area’s yearly unofficial celebration of the original area code for the state of Colorado. Legend has it that the day was dreamed up by a Denver radio station 14 years prior along with the duo and later expanded to include concerts at various venues around the area – the biggest one headlined by the band. Foreman and Motte put so much thought into choosing who they wanted to share a stage with for a post-lockdown return, and they booked some killer acts that complimented their energy more than their sound, which paid off. Opener Wildermiss is a band that I would have eventually come across on my own, though I appreciate being fast-tracked to them through this show.

They’re an indie rock trio with ethereal, moody synth sensibilities, which means they were practically genetically engineered for me to love them. Second opening act, Joey Valence & Brae, blasted onto the stage, and bounced across it back and forth to an old school hip hop-inspired set that felt like a sincere homage to that era, rather than a gimmick. 3OH!3’s current labelmates and Warped Tour alums, The Maine, looked like they were having the time of their lives on stage, never hesitating to take cell phones from the audience and perform for fans attending via Facetime. For their last song, they even pulled a fan up on stage to help them sing the last few rounds of the chorus on “Black Butterflies and Deja Vu.” 

After playing a 3OH!3-branded mix of John Denver’s “Rocky Mountain High” which served as their walkout music, Foreman and Motte launched into “PUNKBITCH” in front of a completely sold out room. I refuse to believe that I was the only person out of the 3,950 souls filling The Mission Ballroom that had an ah-ha moment when they came to the stage in their modified (two-piece rather than jumpsuit) mechanics’ outfits. Paired with the stage dressing of wacky inflatable tube men, cardboard cutout cars and, of course Gary and Warren, I was finally able to catch the theme and connect it to a promo video where Motte and Foreman hyped the show as two unhinged — but hilarious — car salesmen. 

They stuck pretty close to their high energy, big hits and fan-favorite deep cuts with the likes of “RICHMAN”, “Double Vision”, “COLORADOSUNRISE”, and “Electroshock.” Much to my surprise, however, they slowed down the set twice for a few of their punchline-less songs: “CLAUSTROPHOBIA” and “STILLAROUND.”

I went in thinking they’d be more eager to play tracks from their most recent release, 2021’s NEED (my fingers were crossed for “MI CASA”), but “LONELY MACHINES” was the only song to make the setlist. For the encore, they brought out John O’ Callaghan of The Maine for a spirited rendition of “Teenage Dirtbag” before ending the night with the song, “DONTTRUSTME.”

I think I understand why they went the route of classics and covers of TikTok-resurrected songs. Even though this was my first 3OH!3 show, it didn’t feel like a typical one. It was a hometown party, and not the place to work out the material they recorded in quarantine that hadn’t been stage tested. I’m anxiously awaiting the announcement of shows in which they’ll do that, though. Photographing the show meant I had to retreat to the far left side of the stage after the first three songs. There, Motte and Foreman couldn’t see me singing, dancing, jumping, and generally losing my damn mind all night. I want to be at the barricade for at least one of those future shows, singing loudly and proudly enough to cringe 20-year-old me to the realm of shame to that I once found appropriate to banish them. That’s the place she belongs now. 

That probably would have been a decent enough place to end this. But in the process of putting this relatively light-hearted review together and titling it “How I Learned to Stop Being Insufferable and Love 3OH!3”, I went down a rabbit hole into my past and came to a place where I needed to confront why I was insufferable to begin with. Just so we’re all on the same page, in a piece about a band who made a parody video of NPR’s Tiny Desk concert series called Tiny Dick, I’m about to unpack some childhood trauma. You are welcome to exit this ride now if you’d like.

Throughout my time in school, I was teased a lot. I’ve always been overweight, so there were those jokes, but I was also a black girl who listened primarily to rock music. So take every fat joke you can imagine and combine it in some unimaginative way with being called “Oreo,” and claims of not liking my own race from other black students. Graduation day was the best goddamn day of my life. 

The most painful comments came from the people I had to go home to every night. I was questioned about why I liked “white people music.” I was told that I didn’t actually like it — that it was a phase and that I’d soon like the appropriate genres, like R&B and rap. My whole identity at the time was wrapped up in the music I listened to and being constantly forced to defend it and prove it was worthy, and by extension that I was worthy, made me very intense about it. There wasn’t much room for anything goofy and inconsequential, which was 3OH!3’s whole offering. Everything I listened to had to say something important and substantial because it was also tasked with saying something about me.

Even with all of that in mind, I was still particularly dismissive of 3OH!3, especially since my facade did happen to slip at times. I was mainlining Modest Mouse albums along with The White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand and Keane, but in 9th grade, I was ready to form a cult for Andrew W.K. 

I Get Wet, his debut album, is the only album I remember playing in 2001. It’s not the only album I owned in 2001, but it’s the only one that was allowed to touch my CD player for the entirety of my freshman year. I went on a crusade to convert everyone I knew into fans of his, and spread his party wisdom to the masses. It never bothered me to be the weirdo black girl breaking out into “Party Hard” or “Ready to Die” in the halls of my high school. A.W.K. was surprisingly sophisticated and insightful offstage, which allowed him to skip some of the strict criteria I had created, and forgive the occasional crudeness of the music (“Party Til You Puke” comes to mind), but ultimately, 3OH!3 and A.W.K. were on the same musical wavelength. They even crossed at a few points. A.W.K. joined 3OH!3 onstage for their song “House Party” during the duo’s single day of Warped Tour in 2010. The guys even got him on an official remix of the song.

It took me a moment to zero in on why there were such different feelings from me when it came to those two acts, but I think the answer lies in the culture they allowed themselves to be associated with. A.W.K. steered clear of any alienating labels or genres, opting to really hammer home his message of positivity whenever he was prompted to classify his music. Foreman and Motte were pro-positivity, but they also firmly aligned themselves with emo culture, a subculture that worked out best for people who were white. I suspect my extreme rejection of 3OH!3 was a response to the feeling that they’d, by association, rejected me. 

I want to make it perfectly clear that I don’t think the guys were cognizant enough back in the day to know that the scene skewed that way for some (not all, of course) of their fans of color. I also hope this doesn’t come off as me retroactively placing the whole of emo culture’s sins on 3OH!3. They weren’t much older than I was when they broke out — Motte is three years older than me, Foreman is only two — and they were at their most famous in a world without the kinds of conversations we’re having now. Even with those conversations happening, it’s something that I still couldn’t pinpoint myself until 15 years later.

Today, the guys try to make the experience of being a 3OH!3 fan as inclusive as possible for everyone. They’ve become much more mindful of their lyrical content in the past decade or so, as well. That consideration feels present in the other forms of media they put out now. In the sequel to their Funny Or Die sketch, “The A&R Guy”, when given the chance to make a homophobic joke (which they were set up for perfectly), they simply didn’t. There’s a good chance it’s never been in either one of them to ever make that joke, but the general ethos of their music made me a tick nervous when I watched it. In the scene, they’re told by their A&R guy that they need to sleep with each other, and leak a tape of it to boost album sales (for the NIGHT SPORTS album cycle.) Foreman very plainly states that he and Motte are not together. There’s no exaggerated disgust at the idea of having sex with each other. There’s no uber-masculine declaration of their love of pussy. That’s something that won’t mean much to a lot of people, and I’m not sure it should, but it’s a small moment that has stayed with me. Maybe it has some real “doing the bare minimum” energy to it, but it was refreshing to see in a world where an unsettling amount of people are very determined to not do that. Instead of punching down, they saved all the jabs for themselves. They poke fun at Motte’s mythically lanky physique and, ahem, other appendages (he’s 6’8…!). And Foreman doesn’t escape the sketch without some brutal comments about his early graying. 

In Denver, I saw every race, gender and orientation walking around in 3OH!3 merch and singing along during the show. The guys can’t get it right all the time — no one can — but the penance they’ve been doing for their early career seems to be connecting with and working for the people it matters to the most.

I mentioned at the very beginning of this that I briefly met Motte and Foreman. It was before the show and came as a complete surprise to me. I was trying to figure out the best time to pick up my photo pass from the box office when they came around a corner, passing out koozies and taking photos with the fans in line. Motte is perhaps the most instantly extroverted of the two; It’s usually him I see doing the solo interviews, and when they’re together, he’s the one that looks the most comfortable taking the lead to answer questions. Foreman is anything but quiet, but he was a bit more reserved and very committed to making sure everyone got a koozie.

I had a few moments to prepare, but it wasn’t enough time to be ready for them when they approached me. I didn’t completely clam up, but I didn’t say anything I wanted to. If I would have retained my grasp of human language, I may have told them that when a friend of mine died of an overdose late last year, instead of going into my usual depression spiral and listening to Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to cope, I listened to them instead because it’s hard to remember to cry when “MY DICK” is playing at full blast. Or perhaps, on less of a bummer note, I would have told them that while I could have never predicted that they would be my first big venue show as a live music photographer that there was no other act in the world I would have wanted to have that honor. Or maybe, just maybe, I would have apologized to them. 

I’ve referenced NIGHT SPORTS more than 3OH!3’s five other LPs. The reason for that is simple: It’s my favorite one. It’s their most sonically and conceptually refined release to date. It has some of the most ridiculous songs of the boys’ discography, but it’s also home to the biggest outlier songs in their catalog. 

There’s always one or two serious tracks to break up the good-natured absurdity of a 3OH!3 record. One of my personal favorites is “YOUNGBLOOD” from OMENS. It’s a song that builds to a big, uplifting sing-along chorus that begs to be played over a group hangout scene in a coming-of-age film. In the context of WANT, “STILLAROUND” is the very obvious choice here, but I feel tempted to count “COLORADOSUNRISE”, a fan-favorite that closes the album, as a serious affair. But when it comes to performing it live, the intro is usually accompanied by a played-for-laughs interpretive dance routine from Foreman. As an untrained dancer, his gracefulness is a bit flabbergasting, but the whole thing gives the impression that they don’t need that one to be taken too seriously by anyone. 

Cutting through just shy of the middle point of NIGHT SPORTS is “GIVE ME SOMETHING TO REMEMBER”, a song with a New Wave-flavored streak of nostalgia chords that soundtracks two lovers committing to memory their final moments together before parting ways. That would have done enough to meet their quota of tracks with tongues firmly removed from cheeks, but the album concludes with the uncharacteristically somber pairing of “CLAUSTROPHOBIA” and “HOLOGRAM”. “CLAUSTROPHOBIA” is, intentionally or not, the perfect lead-in for the latter. It plays like a series of long, sleepless nights where meandering thoughts roll into suffocating dread while “HOLOGRAM” is an account of that dread realized.

That song haunted me the first time I really listened to it. Motte has some brilliant spots on it, but it’s clearly Foreman’s heart that’s bleeding from the verses. In an interview with Huffpost, Foreman stated that the song was about an ex-girlfriend’s unfaithfulness that really messed him up. Despite the whole thing taking place a number of years prior, Foreman works through some remaining raw feelings about it. You can hear him processing it even under the sample pad percussions and voice modulations. It’s a guttural scream and an exhale all happening at the same time. It took me several listens to pick up on the lyrics, because even with my arms wide open for 3OH!3, I was still unwilling to accept that they could display any form of vulnerability as people like Raleigh Ritchie or Mitski do, two artists I fall all over myself to praise for their ability to bare the heaviest parts of their souls.

I once described 3OH!3 as all bass drops and no substance. That’s a pretty toothless remark not in the same league as some of the other things their music has been called. They started 3OH!3 with the goal of making music for their friends to dance to at parties, so being the go-to guys for making sure people are having fun is hardly an insult. Through writing this, I’m now aware that when I thought and said those things I was doing more than just commenting on the music. I was most likely commenting on Motte and Foreman as well. And God, that’s just shitty. It doesn’t matter that I wasn’t the only one saying those things or that I wasn’t the worst of the offenders. I’m not that person anymore, and I’m happy I don’t contribute to that attitude toward the guys anymore. Perhaps this is the most overdramatic response, but I’m willing to pay penance as well. 

I’m willing to admit that I lost the plot on how to wrap this up several paragraphs ago. I think the best way to conclude this is to do what I do for all the bands I love and am proud to be a fan of: plug a few things that’ll provide other people a chance to maybe love them, too. 

3OH!3’s most recent release, NEED, is out now via Photo Finish Records. It’s available on streaming and wherever physical music is still sold. You can watch the video for “LONELY MACHINES (feat. 100 gecs)” below.

Also, if you’re in the Greenville, South Carolina area on April 13th, 2023, 3OH!3 will be performing at The Foundry at Judson Mills. You can purchase tickets here: https://www.bigtickets.com/e/the-foundry/3oh3/ 

Follow 3OH!3 on Instagram: @3oh3

Nat’s Instagram: @nathanielmotte

Sean’s Instagram: @kidquizine (he doesn’t post, but he’s active)