by Tina Whelski“Wide-eyed post-punk with a tendency to get over-excited so much so that someone has to come and tell it to settle down,” is how Tokyo Police Club’s David Monks has described the band. But no one’s asking the Toronto, Ontario quartet for quiet these days. In fact, crowds want more from Josh Hook (Guitar), Graham Wright (Keyboards), Greg Alsop (Drums) and Monks (Vocals, Bass) ever since they released their debut EP, A Lesson In Crime in Canada. And as Tokyo Police Club wrap up their first U.S. tour and the new EP becomes available stateside this week there’s every chance you will too. It’s all pretty fast-paced for a young band just out of high school, but they love every moment.
“Myself, Graham and Josh all finished school in June of ’05,” says Monks. “We’re all 19 and Greg is 21…It’s so weird because we started this band without any aspirations. We were just playing because we were bored in our hometown in the summers. And now we’re touring and have a CD. I guess things really started happening in September 2005 and ever since then it’s just been picking up speed. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.”
Songwriting for the Paper Bag Records EP was a discovery process with some songs taking two weeks, others two months.
“I always tend to write a song not knowing what it means, not having much of an attachment to it,” says Monks. “Then later more and more I’ll find it pertains to this episode or this event and then I’ll link them to things in my head.”
One of the best songs on the album, “Citizen’s of Tomorrow,” did have a definite course, however, sparked by a challenge Graham set to Monks.
“I was living in Montreal from September to December of last year and was all alone in my room there and Graham had set me up with this songwriting challenge,” says Monks. He challenged me to write a song about the future as it was seen in the 1950s. (You know those nostalgic retro comics that you see?) Then he wrote this keyboard part we called ‘scary keyboard riff.’ He emailed it to me in Montreal…So that was ‘scary keyboard riff,’ which turned into ‘Citizen’s of Tomorrow.’
Tokyo Police Club plays Warsaw in Brooklyn October 18.
“Myself, Graham and Josh all finished school in June of ’05,” says Monks. “We’re all 19 and Greg is 21…It’s so weird because we started this band without any aspirations. We were just playing because we were bored in our hometown in the summers. And now we’re touring and have a CD. I guess things really started happening in September 2005 and ever since then it’s just been picking up speed. I’ve never had so much fun in my life.”
Songwriting for the Paper Bag Records EP was a discovery process with some songs taking two weeks, others two months.
“I always tend to write a song not knowing what it means, not having much of an attachment to it,” says Monks. “Then later more and more I’ll find it pertains to this episode or this event and then I’ll link them to things in my head.”
One of the best songs on the album, “Citizen’s of Tomorrow,” did have a definite course, however, sparked by a challenge Graham set to Monks.
“I was living in Montreal from September to December of last year and was all alone in my room there and Graham had set me up with this songwriting challenge,” says Monks. He challenged me to write a song about the future as it was seen in the 1950s. (You know those nostalgic retro comics that you see?) Then he wrote this keyboard part we called ‘scary keyboard riff.’ He emailed it to me in Montreal…So that was ‘scary keyboard riff,’ which turned into ‘Citizen’s of Tomorrow.’
Tokyo Police Club plays Warsaw in Brooklyn October 18.
Originally published in The Aquarian Weekly (10/4/06).
Tokyo Police Club "Citizen's of Tomorrow" video.
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