Tokyo Police Club are four guys in their early 20s from Newmarket, Ontario, who have suddenly found themselves signed to Saddle Creek Records and traveling the world, all on the strength of the first hour's worth of songs they've written. Pay attention, because these are the new rock stars.
The compelling thing about Tokyo Police Club is that they never planned it this way. The band went from making an EP as an experiment to becoming the most-blogged-about band on the Internet, all within a couple of years. They're not manufactured pop stars with big-time endorsement deals. They just create intelligent, melodic, fast-paced songs that inspire. Which is not to say that Tokyo Police Club haven't worked hard for their success -- they maintain one of the most intense touring schedules around.
Drummer Greg Alsop chatted with SuicideGirls about living on the road, the bands new album Elephant Shell, and taking TPC's newfound success one day at a time.
Jay Hathaway: So where are you guys today? Greg Alsop: We're halfway between Rochester and Wyoming, en route to Denver, I guess. Wyoming I don't really get that state. There's nothing of great importance as far as I can see from the road, so I don't know why they don't just get rid of it, divide it into Colorado and Idaho. Just extend those states a little bit. Do people have a lot pride in Wyoming? JH: You know, I think Dick Cheney is pretty much the only famous thing to come out of there.
GA: Oh, wow. Then definitely divide it up, for the better of the nation. Everyone could use a morale boost right now, and I think that would shake things up just enough. JH: How did being discovered so early affect the growth of your band? GA: It definitely gave us a short burst of confidence that we might able to actually pursue this as a viable career option. When we started this band, we never had intentions of trying to make a proper go of it; it was really just more of a hobby. Something we would we do on weekends. JH: How important is fame to you?
GA: Respect by our musical peers is more important, and being able to reach a broad audience. I don't know if actual notoriety among people is that important. It's not like I go out in public hoping someone will recognize me. Fame has never been a goal in this band, but if in some kind of backwards way it allows us to keep making music, then it's welcome. Having an audience that wants to hear the music is definitely moreso the goal than showing up on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
JH: You're touring when a lot of 21-year-olds would be in college or looking for "regular jobs." Do you feel like you're missing out on something? GA: Oh, definitely. When you're on the road for months at a time, you miss your friends, your girlfriend, your own bed and just having freedom and space to do what you want to do. When you're traveling on tour, you're with seven or eight people for 24 hours a day, every day in a row. The only real instances where you have any time to yourself is when you're in the washroom or are asleep. And even then, you're sleeping right next to someone. So just the lack of privacy is something you get to notice and you have to learn to adapt to. JH: Everyone who writes about TPC seems to portray you as really nice, straight-laced, clean-cut guys. Is that strictly true? What are your vices? GA: Well, none of us has any hidden drug addictions or sexual exploits that we're trying to run from. Yesterday I watched five episodes of The Office in a row. That's a vice right there. Laziness? Procrastination? Normal things that 20-something guys do, I guess. We're boring people. We don't have any hidden rock star agenda or anything like that. JH: What music are you listening to right now? GA: I'm really into Basia Bulat. She's from London, Ontario. She created a great album last year, and I finally had the opportunity to pick it up about a month ago. We've listened to that nonstop since purchasing it. Stephen Malkmus. Huge Pavement man. I just missed out on most of his solo career, up until a little while ago. He's still creating amazingly innovative music and pop songs, so I'm really enjoying his stuff right now. JH: Have you been to Tokyo yet? GA: Yeah, we have. We went over there about a year ago. We really only did one show there, but it was an incredible experience. I can't wait to get back there. I think we're actually going there for the Summer Sonic festival in July. It's always great to travel to a foreign country and experience that kind of culture shock. JH: How did the band name go over when you were there? GA: They were intrigued by it, just curious. We really weren't sure if they'd kind of think it was idiotic. I mean if someone showed up in Canada and it was the Toronto Firefighters' Association, I mean, that's an awful name, that's a completely horrible choice. But I guess they were just curious about why we would choose Tokyo, out of all the foreign cities we could name our band after. JH: Do you feel a lot more pressure to put out new material more quickly because you're known for such short songs, and people are demanding more material from you? GA: We try not to let any outside influence controlling our schedule in any way. We took two years to create this new album, because we thought we needed those two years. Definitely, the length of our songs isn't a deciding factor. They're not five minutes long, we're not creating 45-minute albums, but we still put the same kind of work into creating those two minutes, so it's hopefully not for lack of quality. JH: Yeah, of course not. And it's not like you've ruled out putting out a five-minute song, right? GA: Yeah, not at all. It's never by a choice where we go, "Ok, two minutes is up, we better wrap this up pretty soon." We just feel we can say everything we need to in that amount of time, and if we feel we need more time with one of our songs in the future, we'll definitely write accordingly. JH: But if you all of a sudden decided you wanted to be King Crimson or something, people would freak out. GA: Yeah, definitely. [Laughs] But you can't please everybody, so we'll just keep making the music we want to make. If that ends up being a 20-minute rock opera sometime in the future, then we'll do it! JH: You're coming into the music industry at a really weird time, and there are so many fewer rock stars then there were when we were growing up. What's your impression of the industry right now? GA: Everything is trying to adapt really quickly to the ever-changing market. People don't seem to be as interested in rock stars anymore just because everything is so accessible to them. You can see a band who'll post early demos on their MySpace page, and within a week, the entire world can know about them. It's thrusting people into the spotlight before they might be ready for that kind of exposure. People have their music criticized and scrutinized by a huge public, so they really quickly have to decide what kind of band they're gonna be. Is this the kind the music we want to make, are we ready for this? Or is this just an early, crappy demo? It's getting rid of that idea of the rock star, and that eventually you're going to be this huge, world-renowned band that had time to build up to that. JH: Trends are moving so much faster, too. You can kind of classify songs as 80s or 90s, what do you think everyone's going to remember about this decade in music? GA: Yeah, everything's moving so quickly these days that genres are blending into one another. Hopefully it'll be divided by good and bad music, and not so much by a certain style. Just, "this particular did something innovative or worthwhile, and that's worth remembering." All the other crap that's being put out can fall by the wayside. JH: Do you guys think about posterity at all, what people are going to think about your music in 10, 20 years? GA: Uh ... [laughs] no, not at all! That doesn't really cross my mind in any way. It's hard to look forward and think about how your music will hold up against the test of time. Hopefully people will still enjoy our music and discover it generations in the future. JH: What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you on tour so far? GA: Well This is one of my favorite stories; this is the closest I think we've ever come to rock stardom. At a show a couple months ago, a girl threw her bra on stage. And we didn't know what to do with that. It just kind of sat there on stage, and Dave goes, "This is ... funny. Why would you give me this?" And so we just left it on stage afterwards. Then the girl, a few minutes after we finished our concert, was waiting outside our dressing room, and as we were coming to pack up the stage, she went, "Oh, can I have my bra back?" I guess she assumed that we would take the bra, ensuring that she'd be able to meet us with some kind of connection. She had left the bra onstage, hoping that we would take it and somehow return it to her, and she'd be able to party with us afterward. I don't know what happened to the bra. Hopefully she got that back. I guess it was just a waste of effort otherwise. JH: [Laughs] Since you're so accessible, with MySpace and blogging, how do you handle all the girls hitting on you?
GA: You kind of just ignore it and move on with your life. It's kind of bizarre if people imagine they can just add you on Facebook and start up a normal conversation. If you meet me at a show or see me on the street, yeah, but Facebook is a bit too personal, I feel. When it comes to adding them as a friend, it's like, "Whoa, we didn't go to high school together. I don't know you that well. You don't really need to be that much into my personal life." But if we were to meet on the street and become good friends, then so be it. JH: Do you think of yourselves as hipsters? GA: I don't really know what the agreed-upon definition of hipster is. No, I don't think. I'll go to local shows in Toronto and check out new bands whenever I can, and I'll head out to dance clubs with obscure DJs playing there, but I don't know what that hipster culture is. It's evolving so rapidly that no one can really put their finger on it.
For more information on Tokyo Police Club go to www.myspace.com/tokyopoliceclub.
The compelling thing about Tokyo Police Club is that they never planned it this way. The band went from making an EP as an experiment to becoming the most-blogged-about band on the Internet, all within a couple of years. They're not manufactured pop stars with big-time endorsement deals. They just create intelligent, melodic, fast-paced songs that inspire. Which is not to say that Tokyo Police Club haven't worked hard for their success -- they maintain one of the most intense touring schedules around.
Drummer Greg Alsop chatted with SuicideGirls about living on the road, the bands new album Elephant Shell, and taking TPC's newfound success one day at a time.
Jay Hathaway: So where are you guys today? Greg Alsop: We're halfway between Rochester and Wyoming, en route to Denver, I guess. Wyoming I don't really get that state. There's nothing of great importance as far as I can see from the road, so I don't know why they don't just get rid of it, divide it into Colorado and Idaho. Just extend those states a little bit. Do people have a lot pride in Wyoming? JH: You know, I think Dick Cheney is pretty much the only famous thing to come out of there.
GA: Oh, wow. Then definitely divide it up, for the better of the nation. Everyone could use a morale boost right now, and I think that would shake things up just enough. JH: How did being discovered so early affect the growth of your band? GA: It definitely gave us a short burst of confidence that we might able to actually pursue this as a viable career option. When we started this band, we never had intentions of trying to make a proper go of it; it was really just more of a hobby. Something we would we do on weekends. JH: How important is fame to you?
GA: Respect by our musical peers is more important, and being able to reach a broad audience. I don't know if actual notoriety among people is that important. It's not like I go out in public hoping someone will recognize me. Fame has never been a goal in this band, but if in some kind of backwards way it allows us to keep making music, then it's welcome. Having an audience that wants to hear the music is definitely moreso the goal than showing up on the cover of Entertainment Weekly.
JH: You're touring when a lot of 21-year-olds would be in college or looking for "regular jobs." Do you feel like you're missing out on something? GA: Oh, definitely. When you're on the road for months at a time, you miss your friends, your girlfriend, your own bed and just having freedom and space to do what you want to do. When you're traveling on tour, you're with seven or eight people for 24 hours a day, every day in a row. The only real instances where you have any time to yourself is when you're in the washroom or are asleep. And even then, you're sleeping right next to someone. So just the lack of privacy is something you get to notice and you have to learn to adapt to. JH: Everyone who writes about TPC seems to portray you as really nice, straight-laced, clean-cut guys. Is that strictly true? What are your vices? GA: Well, none of us has any hidden drug addictions or sexual exploits that we're trying to run from. Yesterday I watched five episodes of The Office in a row. That's a vice right there. Laziness? Procrastination? Normal things that 20-something guys do, I guess. We're boring people. We don't have any hidden rock star agenda or anything like that. JH: What music are you listening to right now? GA: I'm really into Basia Bulat. She's from London, Ontario. She created a great album last year, and I finally had the opportunity to pick it up about a month ago. We've listened to that nonstop since purchasing it. Stephen Malkmus. Huge Pavement man. I just missed out on most of his solo career, up until a little while ago. He's still creating amazingly innovative music and pop songs, so I'm really enjoying his stuff right now. JH: Have you been to Tokyo yet? GA: Yeah, we have. We went over there about a year ago. We really only did one show there, but it was an incredible experience. I can't wait to get back there. I think we're actually going there for the Summer Sonic festival in July. It's always great to travel to a foreign country and experience that kind of culture shock. JH: How did the band name go over when you were there? GA: They were intrigued by it, just curious. We really weren't sure if they'd kind of think it was idiotic. I mean if someone showed up in Canada and it was the Toronto Firefighters' Association, I mean, that's an awful name, that's a completely horrible choice. But I guess they were just curious about why we would choose Tokyo, out of all the foreign cities we could name our band after. JH: Do you feel a lot more pressure to put out new material more quickly because you're known for such short songs, and people are demanding more material from you? GA: We try not to let any outside influence controlling our schedule in any way. We took two years to create this new album, because we thought we needed those two years. Definitely, the length of our songs isn't a deciding factor. They're not five minutes long, we're not creating 45-minute albums, but we still put the same kind of work into creating those two minutes, so it's hopefully not for lack of quality. JH: Yeah, of course not. And it's not like you've ruled out putting out a five-minute song, right? GA: Yeah, not at all. It's never by a choice where we go, "Ok, two minutes is up, we better wrap this up pretty soon." We just feel we can say everything we need to in that amount of time, and if we feel we need more time with one of our songs in the future, we'll definitely write accordingly. JH: But if you all of a sudden decided you wanted to be King Crimson or something, people would freak out. GA: Yeah, definitely. [Laughs] But you can't please everybody, so we'll just keep making the music we want to make. If that ends up being a 20-minute rock opera sometime in the future, then we'll do it! JH: You're coming into the music industry at a really weird time, and there are so many fewer rock stars then there were when we were growing up. What's your impression of the industry right now? GA: Everything is trying to adapt really quickly to the ever-changing market. People don't seem to be as interested in rock stars anymore just because everything is so accessible to them. You can see a band who'll post early demos on their MySpace page, and within a week, the entire world can know about them. It's thrusting people into the spotlight before they might be ready for that kind of exposure. People have their music criticized and scrutinized by a huge public, so they really quickly have to decide what kind of band they're gonna be. Is this the kind the music we want to make, are we ready for this? Or is this just an early, crappy demo? It's getting rid of that idea of the rock star, and that eventually you're going to be this huge, world-renowned band that had time to build up to that. JH: Trends are moving so much faster, too. You can kind of classify songs as 80s or 90s, what do you think everyone's going to remember about this decade in music? GA: Yeah, everything's moving so quickly these days that genres are blending into one another. Hopefully it'll be divided by good and bad music, and not so much by a certain style. Just, "this particular did something innovative or worthwhile, and that's worth remembering." All the other crap that's being put out can fall by the wayside. JH: Do you guys think about posterity at all, what people are going to think about your music in 10, 20 years? GA: Uh ... [laughs] no, not at all! That doesn't really cross my mind in any way. It's hard to look forward and think about how your music will hold up against the test of time. Hopefully people will still enjoy our music and discover it generations in the future. JH: What's the weirdest thing that's happened to you on tour so far? GA: Well This is one of my favorite stories; this is the closest I think we've ever come to rock stardom. At a show a couple months ago, a girl threw her bra on stage. And we didn't know what to do with that. It just kind of sat there on stage, and Dave goes, "This is ... funny. Why would you give me this?" And so we just left it on stage afterwards. Then the girl, a few minutes after we finished our concert, was waiting outside our dressing room, and as we were coming to pack up the stage, she went, "Oh, can I have my bra back?" I guess she assumed that we would take the bra, ensuring that she'd be able to meet us with some kind of connection. She had left the bra onstage, hoping that we would take it and somehow return it to her, and she'd be able to party with us afterward. I don't know what happened to the bra. Hopefully she got that back. I guess it was just a waste of effort otherwise. JH: [Laughs] Since you're so accessible, with MySpace and blogging, how do you handle all the girls hitting on you?
GA: You kind of just ignore it and move on with your life. It's kind of bizarre if people imagine they can just add you on Facebook and start up a normal conversation. If you meet me at a show or see me on the street, yeah, but Facebook is a bit too personal, I feel. When it comes to adding them as a friend, it's like, "Whoa, we didn't go to high school together. I don't know you that well. You don't really need to be that much into my personal life." But if we were to meet on the street and become good friends, then so be it. JH: Do you think of yourselves as hipsters? GA: I don't really know what the agreed-upon definition of hipster is. No, I don't think. I'll go to local shows in Toronto and check out new bands whenever I can, and I'll head out to dance clubs with obscure DJs playing there, but I don't know what that hipster culture is. It's evolving so rapidly that no one can really put their finger on it.
For more information on Tokyo Police Club go to www.myspace.com/tokyopoliceclub.
erin_broadley:
Tokyo Police Club are four guys in their early 20s from Newmarket, Ontario, who have suddenly found themselves signed to Saddle Creek Records and traveling the world, all on the strength of the first hour's worth of songs they've written. Pay attention,...
k_t_kat:
I love them! I seen them in Denver. I like their idea of cutting out Wyoming lol good stuff