Interview: 3OH!3

Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman of 3OH!3 fame discuss past experiences, future performances, and their current reading lists ahead of their Austin show on Simple Plan’s “Bigger Than You Think! Tour–The Sequel!” Tour.

Written by Arundhati Ghosh

Photo courtesy of 3OH!3

As long as people keep using Tumblr, “DONTTRUSTME” will never fall out of style. With the new generation of social media users, “RICHMAN” has seen a new life on TikTok. 3OH!3’s Nathaniel Motte and Sean Foreman sat down with Arundhati Ghosh of Barricade Magazine to remind us of just how long they’ll be, thankfully, sticking around. 

Arundhati Ghosh: When it comes to touring in the South during the summer months, do y’all and your crews have to make any extra preparations for our climate? I imagine it gets especially hot onstage under the glare of the lights, and staying hydrated could be difficult.

Nathaniel Motte: Yeah, definitely. We have the good fortune of years of training on Warped Tours, and I think it teaches you how to deal with it. We’ve also grown up in a dry climate so we’re all obsessed with hydrating, and I think that’s the important thing. You’ve also got to remind yourself that, no matter how hot and sticky and sweaty it is for us onstage, it’s the same if not more for people coming to the show, since they’re sitting there in the sun for a long time, so I think everybody’s in it together and, yeah, we just try to stay healthy, stay positive, and save up enough energy to put on a really good show.

That makes sense! Hopefully the humidity in Austin won’t get y’all, and Moody Amphitheater is a great, great place to put on a show. You did mention Warped Tour, and I wanted to touch on its revival. “DONTTRUSTME” was and always has been pretty massive, and there’s been this jump in seeing “RICHMAN” on TikTok. What are some factors, beyond the Warped Tour revival, that have maybe increased or emphasized the positive attention your music, both old and new, is getting? 

Sean Foreman: There’s so much beyond our control. I think the TikTok thing is very fascinating because, as a band, it’s what you dream for, especially a song that’s not even from a new catalogue. It’s from your first real commercial endeavor and it’s dug up 18 years later and used in such a… you know, more than anything we had any control over. It went from a meme to a dance to just viral. I think, for us, it’s great, clearly, because it puts us back into the zeitgeist. At the same time, we sit here and try to make TikToks or try to make things that go viral and sometimes it’s out of your hands and it’s exciting.

Because, you know, [“RICHMAN”], we’ve played it and always had it in our setlist, so now it almost feels like it’s up there with the singles that we’ve had, like “My First Kiss,” “STARSTRUKK,” “DONTTRUSTME.” It’s very cool to see that transcend, and there’s always a nostalgia component with Simple Plan, Bowling for Soup, all these Warped Tour type bands. 

It’s not a secret to us, we play a lot of our old music when we’re on stage. We play maybe a new song, maybe two depending on how long of a set we have, but for us, we know that [these old songs have] a place in people’s hearts, and even if it’s people’s first time to come and see us, a lot of those songs are the ones that they want to hear, so we’re happy to play them. It’s super fun. 

I was just about to ask how you’ve experienced nostalgia on this tour and how it’s affected what you choose to perform, so we’ve just killed two birds with one stone! This next question is a bit of a pivot, but is of personal interest to me, because I originally went to college for electrical engineering and am now doing a PhD in English lit. Nathaniel, you were almost a medical doctor, and Sean, if I’m correct, you majored in English but minored in math. 

Foreman: Yes.

How interdisciplinary, for lack of a better word, do you feel the music y’all make is? Are there both STEM and humanities influences in how you approach making music?

Motte: That’s interesting… in terms of the nascent phases of our band and of our relationship and starting to make music. If anything, I did hard sciences at school. I applied to med school and ended up getting in and deferring for four years and, if anything, it taught me how to work and how to look at a project holistically and be able to lock in and see something through. It’s not like we approach making a record or making songs as homework, but I think we’re both pretty diligent and we both did well in school. We also had a lot of fun in school.

The studies were great, but also the social aspect of going to school. We learned how to party, how to hang out, what’s fun, and musically learned a lot of things from house parties and from friends. That’s why we started making music, to have fun with friends and put smiles on, you know, our faces and our family’s [faces]. We eventually played our local venue where we’d go to a lot of shows when we were in school, so, yeah, I think it’s less directly for me since [Sean] is the English language major. Did you ever insert homework into 3OH!3 lyrics?

Foreman: I think with reading—I still am an avid reader—I think it’s just fun to be within other characters and explore that. I think some people might write in such a memoir fashion of writing about their own life experience to a certain degree, but for me, it’s really fun to just cosplay into different types of experiences. When we write, I let a lyric take me. I think at this point, I’ve been songwriting for longer than I was in school for any sort of creative writing. I obviously went with English lit over creative writing, but I think if anything, it’s just trying to read books and filter in other people’s experiences and lives that feeds my creativity. I know a lot of people watch TV shows or movies or play video games, but for me, books have always been a throughline for me.

I can definitely relate. What is a must-read book, or one you’d recommend that you’ve read recently?

Foreman: I just read two that I really loved. Land by Maggie O’Farrell, who did Hamnet. It’s really beautiful. And then, I’m almost done with Whistler which is Ann Patchett. Both are very, very well done, just high craftsmanship. That’s just current.

I just finished [Patchett’s] Bel Canto so I definitely have to check out Whistler. 

Foreman: Twilight is pretty good too.

Motte: Goosebumps, R. L. Stein.

R. L. Stein is foundational, I think.

Motte: Absolutely.

Definitely for anyone now into “weird” lit. I do a lot of Medieval literature, honestly, and I have considered y’all’s lyrics sort of Chaucerian in a way.

Motte: We really used to rap about swordfights and dragons and wizards onstage. We still do, honestly.

Pop punk, electropop, a lot of things under the Warped Tour umbrella, as Jaret Reddick phrased it to me a couple of days ago, they’re all having a moment. The 2020s are also seeing a pretty astronomical rise in hyperpop, some of which takes influence from y’all’s work. What are your thoughts on your legacy on hyperpop and related genres, and what has your experience working with artists such as Rebecca Black or 100 Gecs been like with this legacy in mind?

Motte: It’s been amazing. Personally, I try to not think about our music as a legacy too much, but it is amazing to hear that this younger generation of artists has been influenced by our music. I remember working with Benny Blanco and him saying that 100 Gecs were huge fans of us and cited us as an influence on them. It’s rad, man, it’s rad. In terms of musically and with musical peers, it’s the highest compliment you can pay to people, that you’re either influenced by their music or want to rip their music off.

Trading ideas like that has always been at the core of music. Whether it was the Rolling Stones biting Muddy Waters back in the day, or Vampire Weekend biting Paul Simon, reinterpretation and remixing musical ideas is at the heart of pop music and music in general. I try to not think too much about our legacy, because we’re still still going and as an artist you don’t want to trap yourself with past stuff, but when I do take a birds-eye view, it’s amazing.

I think that’s my time, but thank y’all so much!

Foreman: Thank you! Good luck on your PhD, that’s awesome! Do you have a book for me that you like?

Ooh… because I read so much for class, reading full books during the school year and as it approaches can be really difficult, so I’ve been reading a lot of short stories. Self-Help by Lorrie Moore is this just biting, [mostly] second-person short story collection that’s a quick read, but it is so fun. I highly recommend it.

Motte: Are you writing your dissertation right now?

I have a couple of years until that, but I’ll be working on Arthurian literature, so high to late medieval Anglophone literature. Maybe some French, if I ever finish learning Latin.

Motte: My dad is recently emeritus, but he’s a French literature professor at the University of Colorado, so if you ever need some recommendations, I’m sure he’d be able to provide you with some great stuff.

Very quickly, since y’all have to run, but do you have any up-and-coming acts you’d like to shout out?

Motte: Nickelback.

Foreman: We love the Slayyyter stuff that’s been coming out.

Motte: Yeah, she’s great. Honestly, I’m still listening to anything Tove Lo puts out that’s new. 

Foreman: slimdan.

Motte: We’re excited for anything coming out, anything electronic that’s a bop.

This interview has been minimally edited for clarity.

You can find 3OH!3 on streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music, and on social media such as Instagram and X, formerly known as Twitter.