Ninja writesChicago Band OK Cool Talks ‘fawn’ Singles and Growing their Music Careers

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There is no long-term plan for one of Chicago’s most buzzed-about bands, OK Cool, though their new record "fawn" drops April 28. “We’re just two buds. We're just hanging out. Sometimes we make music, sometimes we don't,” bassist Haley Blomquist said.

Meet OK Cool

Bridget Stiebris plays guitar and acts as primary vocalist, in addition to playing drums for studio recordings. Blomquist is the bassist but also lends guitar and backup vocals.

The two have been friends for seven years, first connecting online when Blomquist was looking for a new member for a cover band. OK Cool is the pair’s second band, previously also having been part of Weekend Run Club.

OK Cool was born during the pandemic when Blomquist and Stiebris started writing songs of their own together, as neither had previous songwriting experience. The new album "fawn" is technically an EP, with eight tracks totalling just 17 minutes in length. Stiebris said it features more acoustic guitar and sampling than her previous work. “I'm getting really interested in how to make more weird noises that I hear on stuff that I like, so a little bit more into that sector of things.”

When asked about the Chicago music community, the band says it has been nothing but welcoming. “I don't know that we really struggled there. I think we just kept talking to people and going to shows,” said Blomquist.  “And you just kind of build your own little world.” Stiebris said she’s been impressed with the depth of talent in the scene and that’s it’s been easy to make friends. The hardest part, according to Blomquist, is, "Figuring out how to spread new music to the masses. That's something we're still kind of workshopping every time we do a release."

One of the challenges OK Cool had at the start was deciding who would sing, but eventually Stiebris took the lead. However, the anxiety is still there. She noted, “I feel most comfortable when I'm able to record vocals alone in my room." Stiebris said having any number of other people in the room while she sings can be nerve-wracking. She feels the same about recording drums and guitar, too. “Even if it's just Haley and the audio engineer, it all is a form of performance anxiety that I can't quite shake."

With a new song on “fawn” that has her singing lead vocals, Blomquist expressed her own uneasiness during the recording process. “Recording that song in the studio felt extra embarrassing,” she said. “I think more than playing it live because it's so intimate with two people in the room.”

fawn’s Singles

“normal c” was both the first single released off “fawn” and also the first song the band started performing live. “nissanweekends” and “soaked in” followed next ahead of the release date. Stiebris said “normal c” was a natural first choice because it has a little bit of every genre the band has touched. “I think our stuff can lean more punky, our stuff can lean more dreamy,” she said. “That one feels definitely like it's a nice solid middle ground.” Blomquist added that playing “normal c” live gave them the opportunity to fine-tune the song and get comfortable and confident playing it.

OK Cool has been making music videos since they first formed, with early videos being as simple as the two of them with an iPhone in the woods, or a video with their friends in a pumpkin patch. Previously, they found it both fun and challenging to come up with music video concepts. But ultimately, they often leave the concepts to the video professionals they work with. For “normal c,” inspired by campy 1980’s horror, they worked with Justin Sheehan at Roadhouse Productions. They’d previously filmed a video in his empty backyard pool.

“It's fun to see what people come up with,” Stiebris said. “It's really fun for them to get to kind of put their own creative spin on stuff, too. I don't want it to feel too orchestrated in that regard because we don't know anything about film.” Film student Brian Garbrecht also worked on the video, which features Stiebris and Blomquist meeting evil twins of themselves. “Brian had a whole vision that had to do with some old movie, and he was describing these film techniques to us,” said Blomquist. “And they totally went over our heads.”

The second single, “nissaweekends,”  became a stop-motion music video, directed by Joe Baughman. “That video is the most insane thing I think to ever come out of our music,” described Stiebris, adding that the video took several months to put together. “That our art had anything to do with the inception of this art, is really crazy to me,” noted Blomquist. The video centers on a bunny who has to crash cymbals in a clocktower on the hour. The miniature set was hand built by Baughman, Stiebris, and others. Stiebris found herself revisiting old skills, saying, “I figured out how to use a drill again for the first time in seven years, so that was a trip. It was just a lot of measuring and outlining the set on grid paper. And then realizing we needed to change something, changing it, going to Lowe's, getting the wrong thing, going back to Lowe's and getting the right thing, staining the wood, and painting everything.”

Looking Back, Looking Ahead

OK Cool recently opened for Cheekface at Lincoln Hall, an major achievment for a band who has only existed for two years. Though both Blomquist and Stiebris had played the venue with their preivous band Weekend Run Club, as well. “Being able to come back to that same place after only two years felt like a really big accomplishment for us,” Stiebris said. They’ve played coffee shops, musty basements, backyards, warehouses—almost everything. “I've been gigging since I was 13,” Blomquist said. “Anywhere you can play, we've probably played.”

They also run Take A Hike Records, an online resource for local bands to ship merchandise and provide PR for artists. “I've always enjoyed the math brain of managing inventory and making shipments happen,” quoted Stiebris. “We're not able to give people money for a record studio or anything. So that's why I say ‘label’ pretty lightly.” The label also serves as a way to get to know other bands.

OK Cool is hosting a record release show at Schubas on May 4, with openers Scarlet Demore and Background Character—bands the members of OK Cool praised highly. “Personally, I want to make a show that I would want to go to,” Stiebris offered.

As far as other musical influences, Blomquist mentioned music she grew up on in the 2000s—bands like Cake and Jimmy Eat World—and local scene contemporaries Gosh Diggity. Stiebris said Green Day was her first, favorite band. “They brought so much more to my attention than just the music. As writers of rock opera, that really introduced the importance of establishing some sort of concept—I hate using the word ‘brand’—but identity." The band also mentions 21 Pilots' ability to mix unique sound elements into their recordings as a source of inspiration. “I like hip hop, or grungier stuff, I used to like pop punk in high school,” said Stiebris. “I just keep widening my lens to try and grab inspiration from more and more people as the years go on. I really got into Brockhampton. I'm really into Alex G right now. I just like finding new stuff that I really admire and trying to figure out what I can draw from them and use as inspiration for myself in my writing.”

OK Cool isn’t on a mission to write songs on a regular cadence or force creativity. When the mood strikes, the writing comes out. “For me, it feels like a melody, it just goes into my head, and I'm like, oh, that's kind of interesting,” Blomquist said. “I'll have that same kind of thing, and I'll try to develop it,” Stiebris said. “And then I'll get to three hours, and I don't like it anymore.” Blomquist noted that’s how many of their collaborations start—one of them will write a partial song, send it to the other just because they’ve worked on it so long, but they may not even feel strongly about it. “Honestly, every song that we ever send to each other. I feel like we feel that. It's so hard to tell right after you've made it if you spent so much time just sitting there with your headphones on just listening to the same song and making it up. It feels so fake, and then you send it to someone else and until you have outside perspective, it's really hard to tell if it's good at all.” They radically trust in each other’s taste and use that as momentum to decide whether to continue working on a partial composition. “If Bridget really thought it was bad, she wouldn't publicly embarrass us,” Blomquist said. Adding, “I wouldn't put my name on something and my face behind it if I felt like it was gonna be really cringy in the end.” “We want so badly to not be embarrassed,” Stiebris stated further.

You can check out OK Cool on Bandcamp, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Listen to more CHIRP Artist Interviews in our Podcast feed!