Katy Perry and Nathaniel Motte in the "Star Strukk" video
Photo: Photo Finish

It seems like a match made in party heaven — 3OH!3 having Katy Perry jump on the remix of their track "Starstrukk." The band's former tourmate and superstar pal even made a cameo in the video, all dolled up in a skimpy leopard-print dress, which is sure to capture fans' attention.

"Katy did this 'cause we had, like, a million dollars," 3OH!3 frontman Sean Foreman joked to MTV News. "No, Katy did this because we toured with Katy, we are good friends with Katy and we worked on the song together — we worked on the remix together. She came in and did the vocals and it's a great song."

The track will be featured on the upcoming Kristen Bell and Josh Duhamel rom-com, "When In Rome," and makes its big video premiere Monday (October 26). So in honor of the film's title locale, the trio made sure the video included a fountain like the ones that can be found in the Italian city.

Perry also chatted with MTV News on the video's set and gave the real backstory of how she worked with the guys on the dance track. "I came in on the song after they had finished, and they said, 'Katy, just come in and do, like, 16 bars,' and I was like, 'Yeah, whatever. It's nothing,' " she joked about her contribution to the song. "And I just went in and blew in the studio like that."

Perry's happy that the guys are on their way to joining Perry in the pop stratosphere. "I had been on Warped Tour with the 3OH!3 guys and we had had a lot of fun times. We have come up together ... and it's nice to be around them when they're exploding — like in a musical sense, not in the other explosion sense," she joked. "But it's really fun. It's going to be a fun music video."

• Katy Perry And 3oh!3's 'Starstrukk' Video Premiere

• Katy Perry
• 3Oh!3

3OH!3's Sean Foreman rehearses for the VMAs
Photo: MTV News

One of the unique aspects of the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards is that the winner of the Moonman for Best New Artist will be decided entirely by fan voting. No matter who wins — be it Drake, Kid Cudi, Lady Gaga, 3OH!3 or Asher Roth — the victor will be the one who receives the most votes online. And this year, the online polls will remain open up until the moment that the presenter walks onto the Radio City Music Hall stage with the trophy in hand.

3OH!3 have taken this campaign very seriously. Saturday afternoon, they held a press conference that was streamed online via , which allowed them to directly interact with fans and answer questions sent to them via Twitter. The whole event was set up like a real campaign event, with the Colorado flag (their home state) hanging behind them as they made their case for votes and provided a little insight about how they felt about the VMAs. The stunt may have paid off in a big way, as by the end of the press conference, "vote30h3" had become one of the top trending tags on Twitter.

So did 3OH!3 convince you to vote for them, or are they destined to fall to Roth, Cudi, Drake or Gaga (who even Sean and Nat admit is probably their stiffest competition)? You can keep voting all the way through the start of the show at the official voting site, and then tune in tomorrow night to see if the candidate you backed is the one doing a victory dance on the Radio City Music Hall stage!

Watch the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards Preshow this Sunday, September 13, at 8 p.m. ET, followed by the big event, live at 9 p.m. Check out our interactive map of New York to see how the city is celebrating the VMAs all week long, and stay tuned for party coverage, concert reports, behind-the-scenes updates and more.

• VMA Artist Access: 3OH!3
• The 2009 VMAs Are Taking Over NYC!

• 3Oh!3

3OH!3's Sean Foreman
Photo: MTV News

Ever since their second album, Want, caught on with mainstream audiences, the guys in 3OH!3 have basically lived on the road. Which means they've perfected the art of traveling light.

And with the band nominated for an MTV Video Music Award, they found themselves leaving their hometown of Boulder, Colorado, once again (they were in the U.K. for the Reading and Leeds festivals, by the way). And not only were they nice enough to let us tag along with them from Denver International Airport, they let us in on a few of their packing tips too.

And though the VMAs are a decidedly high-class affair, one-half of the dynamic duo still didn't stray from his tried-and-true travel technique: He jammed everything into one carry-on bag.

"I always have clothes in carry-on," Sean Foreman laughed. "I'm a low-maintenance kind of man."

And buried among his clothes, a handful of other must-haves, including a gigantic book — in this case "House of Leaves," by Mark Z. Danielewski ("I wanted something thick and very hard to read, so it can put me right to sleep," Foreman joked) — two pairs of headphones (Beats by Dr. Dre and his custom-fitted set of Ultimate Ears), his laptop and a sketch pad, where he draws comic versions of 3OH!3's on-the-road exploits.

But by far, his most important piece of luggage is a well-worn copy of "The Pocket Reference Guide." And though he probably won't need it on the red carpet of the VMAs, Foreman never leaves home without it.

"This is the man's guide to everything. You want to know worldwide area codes? The have it. They have it. You wanna know knots and bends? They have it," he laughed. "If you wanted to know firewood vs. fuel comparison, they have it. You can basically work on a construction site just by having this book."

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards will take place September 13 at 9 p.m. ET. Additional celebrity presenters and performers will be announced in the coming weeks. To be the first to find out the inside scoop, follow the Inside MTV Twitter account at Twitter.com/InsideMTV.

• VMA Artist Access: 3OH!3

• 3Oh!3

Cobra Starship's Gabe Saporta
Photo: Daniel Boczarski/ Getty Images

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards will air live from New York's iconic Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, September 13 at 9 p.m. — but you know we wouldn't limit all the fun to just one day, right?

MTV has decided to stretch the party into an entire weekend (the kind that actually starts on Thursday), and we've invited some of the hottest acts in the business to help us out.

On Thursday night, September 10, at New York's Touch nightclub, the 2009 Video Music Awards and Verizon Wireless present the VMA Weekend Kick-Off Party With 3OH!3, featuring a performance by the VMA-nominated group And the celebration only continues from there, as we take over some of the city's hottest spots.

On Friday night, more Moonmen nominees will share the stage at the Fillmore New York at Irving Plaza as the 2009 VMAs and Taco Bell present a Concert With Fefe Dobson and Cobra Starship. On Saturday, the party heats up at Terminal 5 for a good cause at the 2009 Video Music Awards and Pepsi Present: A Refreshing Night of Music With DJ Clinton Sparks, Kid Cudi and Phoenix, a benefit for LIFEbeat, the music industry's HIV/AIDS prevention charity. (Tickets to the LIFEbeat concert can be purchased by going to LIFEbeat.org, TicketWeb.com or by calling 866.468.7619.)

That all leads up to Sunday night's big show, hosted once again by outrageous British comedian Russell Brand. Jay-Z, Beyoncé, Lady Gaga, Muse and Green Day are among the performers. Katy Perry, Nelly Furtado, Leighton Meester, Chace Crawford, Ne-Yo and Miranda Cosgrove will present. And, of course, "New Moon" stars Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner will be debuting a new, extended trailer of the movie.

The 2009 MTV Video Music Awards will take place September 13 at 9 p.m. ET. Additional celebrity presenters and performers will be announced in the coming weeks. To be the first to find out the inside scoop, follow the Inside MTV Twitter account at Twitter.com/InsideMTV.

• Cobra Starship Forms A 'West Side Story' Gang For VMAs
• Cobra Starship Produce 'Hot Mess'

• Video Music Awards In NYC: A Photo History
• 2009 VMA Nominees

• Cobra Starship
• 3Oh!3
• Fefe Dobson
• Phoenix
• Kid Cudi

All Time Low's Jack Barakat at the Warped Tour in Cincinnati on Wednesday
Photo: Gil Kaufman/ MTV News

CINCINNATI — It takes more than a little Liberty-spike-melting rain — OK, an hour-plus torrential downpour with mega-flashes of lightning — to wash out the Vans Warped Tour '09. With a crowd undeterred by the weather, the 15th annual punk extravaganza rolled up on a steamy Wednesday afternoon to the Riverbend Amphitheatre with a typically eclectic mix of old-school and new-school punk, plenty of hardcore, tons of screamo, a dash of ska, a dusting of hip-hop and ... whatever crunkcore is.

As Warped — the longest-running summer festival tour in the U.S. — continues to evolve, one thing remains clear: No genre is safe. Where in years past screamo and metalcore bubbled up as the predominant sounds of the day, this summer it's hip-hop-inspired popcore's turn, with more than half a dozen bands at the Cincy stop mixing up beats, rock guitars, party-on rhymes and yes, even vocoders.

Among the most popular proponents of the day were Boulder, Colorado's 3OH!3, whose Sean Foreman and Nathaniel Motte bounced around the stage like 5-Hour Energy-fueled ping-pong balls, bashing out beat-heavy anthems like "Don't Trust Me" and "Holler Til You Pass Out."

Dallas' Forever the Sickest Kids took a slightly different tack, dropping in some rap breakdowns and glitchy keyboard bits into a set that would have made crunk-rock king Lil Jon proud. Mixing David Lee Roth-style campy rock with punk attitude and a plea for bras that garnered a barrage of polka-dotted tops, singer Jonathan Cook proudly preened around the stage with his blinged-out FTSK-emblazoned microphone stand during hyped songs like "Whoa Oh! (Me vs. Everyone)" and their signature tune, "She's a Lady."

Among the Warped veterans along for the ride again were ominous Tampa punk metalers Underoath, who drew a huge throng of onstage musical admirers as they pummeled the crowd in the main pavilion with fist-pumpers like "Drowning in My Sleep." Another old skull act — making their sixth tour of duty — was political thrashers Bad Religion, who busted out nuggets like the galloping "I Want to Conquer the World" to a weary late-afternoon crowd.

Unlike last summer, when now-mega Katy Perry and ex-boyfriend Travis McCoy of the Gym Class Heroes brought some pop smarts to the tour, the head-bobbing was a bit harder to find this time around. There was the ska bop of Big D and the Kids Table, complete with two shimmying backup singers and a three-piece horn section, and the straight-ahead Abercrombie & Fitch pop-punk of All Time Low. The Maryland quartet drew the biggest crowd of the day in the main pavilion, which was packed 6,000-strong, as the floorboards up front literally bounced up and down during sugary, pogoing shout-alongs like "Lost in Stereo." Elsewhere, the White Tie Affair mixed in some vocoder effects on "Take It Home," the Dirty Heads paid tribute to the white-guy stoner reggae of Sublime, and Utah group Meg & Dia, one of the only female-fronted acts on the day's roster, mellowed things out with some sensitive pop.

There were a few musical palette cleansers among the 60-band onslaught of mostly aggro vocalists playing to the near sell-out crowd of 12,000-plus, including second-generation country outlaw Shooter Jennings. The son of Waylon started off by kicking it "Sweet Home Alabama"-style on straw-chawin' opener "Gone to Carolina." While his laid-back good ol' boy country/ metal mash-up didn't quite fit the mix on the Skullcandy stage — where legendary Fishbone frontman Angelo Moore served as the MC and lent a sax solo to "Radio Goes Dead" — it's hard to argue with a dude who has a revolver tattooed on his forearm and an accompanying bullet on the web of his hand.

Another guy who seemed wrong to mess with was Gallows lead singer Frank Carter, who played his English old-school hardcore band's entire set in the middle of a giant circle pit. As the skies cracked open and rain flooded the parking lot, Carter and guitarist Stephen Carter stood their ground despite microphone shorts and gigantic lightning flashes, screaming the lyrics along with drenched, body-slapping, slipping-down fans.

Oh, right, and there was the crunkcore. It's easy to poke fun at Albuquerque's brokeNCYDE and their punk-hop mash-ups, which is why so many people do. With strip-club-flossin' songs like "Freaxx," "Schizophrenia" and "Get Crunk!," their mix of suburban mall-rat rap and gangsta goofiness has led to questions about whether their four MCs and a click-track shtick even belongs on the tour. But here are two things: a) they drew a gigantic crowd to the smallest stage on the concourse, b) when I heard that throng shouting the refrain from the song "Sex Toyz," I knew it was time to go home.

• Warped Tour 2009 In Cincinnati

• All Time Low
• 3Oh!3
• Underoath
• Forever The Sickest Kids

3OH!3
Photo: MTV News

3OH!3 are a party-ready duo from Colorado (home of the 303 area code) who make blippy electro/rap/punk (the kids call it "crunkcore") about girls and parties, and making out with girls at parties.

Or, as beatmaker and defacto hypeman Nate Motte puts it: "We're in this a throwback Backstreet-Boy-'NSYNC-esque-hot-dude band called 3OH!3!"

That sounds about right. But with an album that's sold more than 150,000 copies, a slot on the Alternative Press tour, a space on last summer's and this summer's Warped Tour and upcoming gigs opening for Katy Perry, it's getting harder and harder to write off 3OH!3 as jokey, crunked-up hornballs.

Luckily, when MTV News caught up with them on the set of their new video — for the song "Starstrukk" — they did a pretty good job of doing it for us.

"There's a mat on the floor and there's liquid spilled all over the place," frontman Sean Foreman explained. "The concept of the video is one that we brainstormed up. It has to do with a dog pile and crazy body parts and hot legs and boobs and football players."

"There are all sorts of body fluids involved. Different types. Blood, spit, a couple we can't mention," Motte added. "You're going to see people flying off a doggy pile, like, flying up into the atmosphere, and at the end, it's revealed it's in reverse motion, so it's just people dog-piling on us. It's movie magic, because we're actually not even in the video. They're CGI-ing taller, better looking people in our places. It works out well."

Whether they're actually in the "Starstrukk" video or not, there's no denying the sweaty, fluid-drenched clip keeps in line with the duo's rather frantic (and equally lubricous) live gigs. Which was sort of the plan.

"We're shooting a real stupid-fun video," Motte said. "Our live shows are barely controlled chaos, for 30 minutes to an hour. Sweat, blood, tears of joy and sadness."

"We've had shows where we've had swordfights with all the opening bands we've played with, and we killed them off," Foreman added. "We had gallons of fake blood made. It's basically just us gyrating and sweating on people in the front rows. There's a fan here, who's going to be in the video, and I was talking to her and I accidentally spit on her and I apologized. But she said, 'Well, that's like every one of your shows, you just spit all over me.' "

That's gross. But also awesome. And while the clip certainly looks to be lively, we can only hope "Starstukk" doesn't turn out like the pair's first-ever gig.

"Our first show was a house party, and I remember [Sean] had an adult beverage in your squirtgun," Motte laughed. "And he was squirting people in the eyes with the adult beverage."

"People were pouring adult beverages on me," Foreman interjected. "And I think there was a naked guy running around. So, you know, it was fairly typical."

• 3OH!3 Get 'Starstrukk'

• MTV.com Exclusive: 3OH!3

• 3Oh!3

Woodie Awards 2009 Nominees

• 3Oh!3
• Alicia Keys
• Amanda Blank
• Animal Collective
• Anjulie

Woodie Awards 2009 Performers And Presenters

• 3Oh!3
• Asher Roth
• Cam'ron
• Clipse
• The Dead Weather

2009 VMA Nominees

• Yeah Yeah Yeahs
• Green Day
• Kings Of Leon
• Paramore
• Fall Out Boy

MTV.com Exclusive: 3OH!3

• 3Oh!3