With some of the biggest choruses and most gleefully absurd punchlines in the game, it’s near impossible to overstate the impact of 3OH!3 on scene culture.
Since the reckless spirit of ‘Want’ first gripped us all in a chokehold back in 2008, Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte have continued to twist pop, hip-hop, punk and alternative music into increasingly unpredictable shapes.
Merging their chaos and hilarity with contemplations on heartbreak, disillusionment, and the strange realities of trying to find your place in the world, they’ve found a penchant for transforming life’s darkest and most uncomfortable moments into infectious, irreverent, cathartic bursts of colour, walking the finest of lines between stark sincerity and salacious satire.
With a fresh new era now fully underway, colliding the unruly energy of their beginnings with everything they’ve learnt throughout the two decades since, the Colorado duo sat down to talk Rock Sound through ten lyrics that have defined 3OH!3’s journey.
“So, tell me baby, pretty baby, that this house is not a graveyard // Tell me how to stay strong and carry you home // Over corpses of her long-lost fathers and her unborn daughter // Cause goddammit, I can’t do it alone” ‘ICANTDOITALONE’ – ‘Want’ (2008)
NATHANIEL MOTTE: “I remember this song coming together while I was still working in a medical office. I was still prepping myself to go to medical school, and I remember sending a demo of it to Matt Squire, who we were collaborating with on production. He really loved it, and I think that was mostly because we made it in a pop song format, instead of all our other shit which was just all over the place.”
SEAN FOREMAN: “I think a lot of our lyrics are just a stream of consciousness, but also based around a vibe, especially the songs on ‘Want’. If you listen to that album, there are lots of moments that have this uplifting, pop-leaning production, but there are also parts that clearly take inspiration from the music we were listening to at the time, like Murder By Death and Head Automatica. There’s that darker tinge to the lyrics, and we were also both going through breakups when we wrote those songs. That’s how we ended up with weird gothic lines like this one.”
“Kill the lights // These children learn from cigarette burns // Fast cars, fast women and cheap drinks // It feels right // All these asphyxiated, self-medicated // Take the white pill, you’ll feel alright” ‘IMNOTYOURBOYFRIENDBABY’ – ‘Want’ (2008)
SEAN: “There’s this call and response vibe here. There’s a statement, and then there’s the actual sung part. We have a tendency of writing these rapped-out lyrics about popping bottles and then bringing in this zoomed-out lens that feels a bit more meta. This line is about how we’re brought up, but also it just sounds cool!”
NATHANIEL: “It’s always a cool moment when we play it live too because there are so many ups and downs in that song. It’s got this pure guttural energy followed by these more sweeping emotional parts. There’s actually been an online movement led by some of our ultra fans who we love and cherish. After ‘RICHMAN’ had a crazy resurgence on social media, they want this song to be the next. We’re lowkey trying to get dudes to take off their shirts and film themselves driving their car whilst singing to it.”
“I can see it from the other side, the grass isn’t always as green // The house is burnt to ashes, I’m no longer in-between” ‘R.I.P’ – ’Streets Of Gold’ (2010)
SEAN: “It’s about the death of a relationship or a situation and accepting that it’s no longer in limbo. There’s that saying that the grass is always greener on the other side, but what if the house is on fire? What if there’s nothing on that other side. It’s one of those dark, emo lyrics that could definitely have been in an Owl City song. It’s got this bubbly feel to it, even though it’s dark.”
NATHANIEL: “I’ve always thought that we weren’t an emo band, but now I’m thinking about our lyrics… Maybe we are!”
“I went to pick up the parts, the doctor’s hiding the charts, he won’t let me see this side of you” ‘I’m Not The One’ – ‘Streets Of Gold’ (2010)
SEAN: “This is a pretty special one because it’s largely about my younger brother. He has epilepsy, and at the time he was going through a lot of research where he’d have all these hospital visits with specialists. There are parts that go somewhere else, but my brother was definitely the initial spark for this song. It’s definitely unique in that sense. I don’t think we have many other songs that specifically hit on one specific inspiration.”
“Shallow nights, shallow days // Teach me how to live with all this poison under my veins // I’ve become the person that I hated the most when I was young” ‘I’VE BECOME’ – ‘OMENS’ (2013)
SEAN: “I think there’s a bit of a jaded quality to this line, especially considering when we wrote it. Around when you hit 30, you can start to become like your parents. You start fighting the idea of ageing.”
NATHANIEL: “You hit your third life crisis.”
SEAN: “You’re not quite young and hip anymore, but you also desperately don’t want to be old. It’s this moment where you’re almost becoming the person that you hated when you were young. I don’t think either of us feel that way anymore. To be honest with you, I don’t even know if we felt that way back then, it was just this real jaded moment for us.”
“Claustrophobia // The walls are slowly closing in // This town has a hold of us // The claws are tearing at my skin” ‘CLAUSTROPHOBIA’ – ‘NIGHT SPORTS’ (2016)
NATHANIEL: “That’s essentially an ode to Colorado.”
SEAN: “Yeah, but a lot of it is more specifically about Denver. We love Colorado, and the Denver music scene is what brought us up, but there was a moment around ‘NIGHT SPORTS’ where we really saw two different sides of it. There’s what it was like when we were growing up, and what it’s like now there’s been a big influx of people moving there. That line is like a commentary on feeling enclosed by it all.
“We obviously made it out of the local scene, but there are bands there that are so good and still haven’t made it out. It’s like there’s a black hole that spins people around, and so many bands that I grew up being inspired by never made it out of that scene. It’s this thing that keeps pulling you back, and whilst everything feels like a small town, it’s actually a pretty big city.”
“I sleep like a vampire, arms across my heart // Helicopters outside like creatures of the dark // It’s running in my head, I shouldn’t be awake // While the world outside my door is sharpening their stake” ‘VAMPIRE’S DIET’ – ‘NEED’ (2021)
NATHANIEL: “I can’t remember what the exact inspiration behind that song was, but it was sort of a gothic, Morrissey thing. It’s about lockdown, right, Sean?”
SEAN: “Yeah, but it’s also about moving to L.A. When we first went out there to write, the sounds of the helicopters would literally keep you awake all night. A vampire’s diet means existing on drinking other people’s blood, and so it’s also kind of a commentary on the dog-eat-dog world out there. People are just trying to get stuff from other people, including us. It’s this anxiety of the world being ready to pounce on you and shove a stake into your heart.”
NATHANIEL: “That’s how Sean and I would subsist back in the day, too. We would just drink each other’s blood. That’s why we’ve aged so well.”
“All these catalyst converters are just bummers on the weekend // They just wait until they see your face and then adjust the preset” ‘LONELY MACHINES’ – ‘NEED’ (2021)
SEAN: “Catalyst converter is just a cool thing to say!”
NATHANIEL: “Is it actually a thing though? I know that a catalytic converter is something…”
SEAN: “Yeah, that’s probably what I meant to say.”
NATHANIEL: “I feel like if you scream anything like that you can get away with it.”
SEAN: “That whole line was about those weekend warriors , though. Those people that like to cosplay at partying or some other situation. Then during the weekdays, they do their best to put everyone else down for doing the things that they’re also doing. Honestly, it’s not even that deep, it’s just about those people that ruin it for everyone else.”
NATHANIEL: “When we were at the University of Colorado, there was a pretty big fraternity scene that we were definitely not involved in. On party nights, the frat bros would raise hell in the city, and Sean and I always dreamed about trying to meet their party level at 8am on a Monday morning, during the school day. We loved to joke about bringing the party at times that weren’t convenient for them.”
“I’m lying in the cut // Yeah, I’m looking for the cure // The devil on my back, but an angel at my door // Wasted in the car, headed to you at the bar // Never said that I was smart” ‘HIT ME HARDER’ – ‘HIT ME HARDER’ (2025)
SEAN: “It’s about a late-night bad decision.”
NATHANIEL: “We wanted to overtly recapture some of the energy we had on ‘Want’ with this song, both sonically and lyrically. There’s a real tongue-in-cheek feel to the main line, which is ‘This beat hits hard // but her boyfriend hit me harder’. It’s self-deprecating, but fun and not too deep.”
SEAN: “It reminds me of when I was briefly single, before I met my wife. I’d never experienced dating apps and all that stuff. I didn’t want to go out on any dates because it just seemed exhausting. I had to literally kick myself out the door at 9pm because I was already 10 episodes deep into Gilmore Girls. It was hard to just get out the door. So, maybe it’s not always a great decision to go out, but you never know until you try.”
“I try to live a simple life, but it falls down // Like a house of cards now // Throw me in a car, take me downtown // How many people can we pack into the back now // Speakers gonna blow out // All my friends are clowns in a clown town” ‘MY FRIENDS’ – ‘MY FRIENDS’ (2026)
NATHANIEL: “That song started with me and my daughter. I was just playing guitar in the living room, and we were laughing and dancing together. I started playing a riff and we were singing about her friends. My daughter is three years old, and she’s got all these friends who are just crazy. My daughter is so cautious and rad, and also smart and funny, but some of these other kids are just insane!
“We started rapping about that, and then Sean and I tweaked it to be about some of our friends too. Those friends that are sometimes punishers, and who you can’t always meet at their level. We always notice it when we tour, because often we have friends who live in the cities we play. They’ll come out to see us on a Wednesday, and that’s their night to get fucking crazy. It’s just our Wednesday though, especially when we’ve been out on the road for a month and a half. We’re down to have a few beers, but it’s hard to go crazy like they do.”
