The “Needing/Getting” video is the result of yet another innovative partnership that OK Go has forged to push the creative boundaries of music and video, venturing into such disparate realms as science, photography, dance and now – in a collaboration with Chevrolet – automotive territory. Directed by Brian L. Perkins, who lensed the marching band version of OK Go’s “This Too Shall Pass” and Damian Kulash, Jr., the band’s lead vocalist, “Needing/Getting” was shot in the desert outside Los Angeles. A Chevy Sonic was outfitted with retractable pneumatic arms designed to play the 1,000+ instruments that OK Go set up along the two-mile course. The video took four months of preparation and four days to shoot. There are no ringers or stand-ins – Damian took stunt-driving lessons.
The band recorded this version of “Needing/Getting,” singing as they played the instrument array with the car, so it differs substantially from the version appearing on OK Go’s latest album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky, which debuted in the Top 40 of The Billboard 200. Each piano had the lowest 2.5 octaves tuned to the same note so that they’d play the right note no matter where they were struck.
