3OH!3: straight outta Boulder

(Credit: Sarah Cass)

Boulder may conjure visions of snow bunnies and jam bands for most people, but Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman are determined to stick their city on the map for a different reason. The party-rap duo known as 3OH!3 is on the rise with a grimy, grungy debut album (“Want”) that pulls heavily from crunk and electro. For the past two years, they’ve been inciting sweaty young Coloradoans to throw faux gang signs and sing along to lines like “Shush, girl, shut your lips/Do the Helen Keller and talk with your hips.” Recently, their single “Don't Trust Me” went platinum and cracked the top 10.

Motte recently sat down with Metromix to discuss beat-making, partying, parodying and chasing half-naked after fans.

You and Sean met in physics class. Were you good students?
Yeah, I actually graduated summa cum laude—like 3.95, I think. Sean did an English major and math minor and I think he graduated with a 3.93 or something like that. So, yeah, we were both really good students.

That’s not very rock and roll.
Or it’s very rock and roll. It works either way.

If you guys are just out at a club or at someone else’s concert, are you two still the party starters? Is that strictly stage persona?
We’re not going apeshit every second of our lives. [Laughs] I mean, it is a persona and it is something that we adopt and can quickly get into when we have shows. I think in life we’re just a couple of dudes who like to have fun. We’re not wasted and throwing up all the time with tons of babes all over—not by any means. It’s mostly dudes hanging around.

But there’s a lot of girl drama on the disc. Have any of the real-life inspirations ever nailed you for putting them in a song?
Not too much. We definitely draw from some specific life experiences in our songs, and Sean does a little more of the lyrics than I do, but I think it’s mostly witty, sassy stuff that can be applied to a lot of different aspects of our lives. But, yeah, for one reason or another, a lot of that comes out as based around chicks.

Have you pampered yourself with a luxury item yet?  That band logo in the diamonds and gold would look pretty good as a gigantic necklace.
We’re not that rich yet. We need to get some more scrill before we do that. Sean has a dreamcatcher hanging off his neck; it’s a pretty standard issue dreamcatcher that runs about 10 bucks at a truck stop. I got the same thing on a key chain. I think they’re pretty fancy.

Who do you think is making the best beats these days?
I think there’s a lot of crazy shit. Benny Blanco, who we’ve worked with, is really incredible. He’s like a 20-year-old crazy genius. We’ve been influenced by the electro shit that’s coming out of everywhere, but especially the French stuff like Justice. As the technology gets cheaper and more accessible, it’s incredibly liberating. Anyone can make beats. If it weren’t for cheap beat-making technology, we wouldn’t be doing what we’re doing.

Are you leaving a trail of destroyed speakers and amps behind you?
[Laughs] We are, definitely. We try to have it loud and in your face. I was DJing and blew some shit out the other day. Our beats are lo-fi on purpose—because we kind of suck at mastering. But that’s also what we go for, that abrasive sound.

There’s a tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top quality to much of “Want.” Most of your fans who throw up gang signs are presumably not in gangs. Does that make it all a parody on some level?
There’s an important distinction that we draw: rather than making fun of music, we’re having fun with music. Coming out of the scene we came out of, we felt sometimes that it was taboo to have fun. Music had to be so heavy. We want to have fun with the shit we do—whether that’s rap or that’s electro. We’re dead serious about the music we make. We try to make music that’s new and different and progressive. But one of our main motivating factors is to have fun.

You get some pretty interesting offers from your female fans online. I saw an invitation to a dry humping session and a few offers to bear children.
Ooh, there we go. I’m gonna take those up. I think that’s a good decision for me at this point in my life.

Print ‘em out, shuffle ‘em around and pick a winner.
No, no, there’s plenty of 3OH!3 to go around. I think we’ll be able to satisfy all of those offers.

Have you had a crazy fan interaction in person?
You know what, last night, we had a crazy great show. It was sold out and exactly what we’d hoped—sweaty, crazy kids going apeshit. At some point, someone stole Sean’s shirt from the stage—because by that point we were half-naked and it was too hot to be in clothes. At the end of the show, we were hanging out and signing autographs and Sean was talking to a fan about his shirt—and she said “Oh, it’s in that pickup truck over there.” Sean turns and looks over and this pickup truck screeches off. So Sean chases it. He’s dressed just in Daisy Dukes and basketball shoes and he’s running this truck down. They get to a red light and he thinks he’s going to get his shirt back—but the truck just blew the red light and kept rolling. [Laughs]

But shit gets crazy up there—whether it’s us in the mosh pit getting our belts ripped off or Sean bleeding pretty much every night from some sort of random injury. It gets crazy. It’s not a show unless we sweat and bleed.