Electro-pop act thinks critics should get a sense of humour

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This article was published 04/11/2010 (5805 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

3OH!3 have been called perverted, irritating, dumb and trashy by critics for their juvenile, sophomoric lyrics.

But the Colorado electronic duo are actually pretty smart guys, despite what lyrics like “I’m gonna have a house party in my house/I’m gonna pour booze down my mouth,” would have you believe.

Keyboardist/drummer Nathaniel Motte and vocalist Sean Foreman met in a physics class at the University of Colorado and became musical partners based on a shared love of hip-hop and dance music.

Motte, 26, was on his way to becoming a doctor but has deferred his admission to medical school for three years.

“When I was in high school it was kind of what I was going for,” he says. “I was going straight into college and that was going to be my major. I was in pre-medicine and music was going to be a hobby, but it became a career. I got accepted to medical school and just when I was about to go the whole 3OH!3 thing took off.”

The duo met in 2004 and released their self-titled album in 2007. Things really started moving for them following the release of their second album, Want, in July of 2008. The single Don’t Trust Me became a summer smash, they wrote a song for baseball’s Colorado Rockies and contributed the theme song, Sex on the Beach, to TV’s The Real World: Cancun.

They played the Warped Tour 2008, sharing the stage with an on-the-rise Katy Perry, who became a friend and was recruited to add vocals to a new version of the single Starstrukk.

The electro-pop of 3OH!3 is different from most of the punk and hardcore offerings at Warped, but Motte says the duo were well received by crowds because they didn’t sound like anyone else on the bill.

“We were different enough to generate interest, but at the same time our shows are inclusive enough. We’re don’t give a s–t where people come from musically; we just want to put on a good live show,” he says.

Winnipeggers can see for themselves if Motte is telling the truth when 3OH!3 plays the Burton Cummings Theatre Sunday with Down With Webster (tickets are $29.50 at Ticketmaster).

On their new album, Streets of Gold, the pair needed a female voice for a song and recruited an unknown backup vocalist to help out. By the time the single, My First Kiss, was released this past June, the singer, Ke$ha was a star in her own right and the single went on to reach the top 10 in Canada and the United States in June.

“Our producer had worked with her, so she just came in and sang it. It was before she sang on the Flo Rida song (Right Round),” Motte says.

Thematically, the album is a continuation of the subject matter of Want, with references to partying and sex that have led to criticism that the band’s music is simple, crass and even misogynistic, something Motte takes issue with.

“I think some people are lacking in the sense-of-humour department. We aren’t trying to offend someone or make enemies,” he says. “I think having fun with music in a variety of ways is something we’re attracted to and sometimes that takes the form of poking fun at stuff with lyrics. On the new CD, there’s songs that deal with intense issues, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t fun to make, record and write.”

One person interested in what 3OH!3 does is wrestler “Diamond” Dallas Page, who filed a lawsuit against the band, claiming they are infringing on his “hand diamond” gesture copyright with their logo: two hands joined together with the index fingers and thumbs touching to form a circle, while the three remaining fingers of each hand stick out to spell 3-0-3.

The hand gesture is also a crude sign for part of the female anatomy.

rob.williams@freepress.mb.ca