Tokyo Police Club: Not Just Making Up The Numbers

They're young, ambitious and, er, highly professional. Not your average rock band then, as Finbarr Bermingham comes to learn

Feature by Finbarr Bermingham | 28 May 2008

There’s something refreshingly simple about the music of Tokyo Police Club (the lyrics are a different matter). At a time when every other group emerging from Canada seems to be a ‘collective’, the fixed and focused Toronto unit are comparably straightforward. It’s pretty inescapable when listening to their brilliant debut album, Elephant Shell: the self imposed three minute time limit they’ve placed on their songs immediately sets them apart from the majority of their compatriots and proves that quality need not be sacrificed whenever quantity is.

When The Skinny caught up with keyboardist Graham Wright recently, he confirmed that life in a rock band need not always be as complicated as some would have you think. “We just try to keep some normality in our lives. Sure there’s the odd party, but we try to make it to bed by midnight. I don’t think we could function properly as a band if we were all messed up all the time. I know it may not sound like typical behaviour for bands of our age,” he laughs, “but first and foremost, we gotta do our jobs.”

It’s a job, incidentally, that they do very well, and with startling efficiency. Picking up where their debut brace of EPs (Smith and A Lesson In Crime) left off, Elephant Shell is almost ruthless in its delivery. The true strength of the band is careering headlong into every track and knowing exactly when to apply the brakes. Astoundingly, this is also an aspect of their art for which Tokyo Police Club have come in for criticism as a result. Wright, however, shrugs it off. “It’s the only way we know how to right songs right now, its how we’ve been doing it since we started. When we first met back at school, we couldn’t even play our instruments so it really wouldn’t have made sense for us to have started writing operas or something! Sometimes people seem to forget that we haven’t been together for very long.”

The infancy of the band was spent riding the crest of a wave of media hype so vast, many groups would have found themselves struggling to stay afloat. Wright concedes the publicity was at times “overbearing”, but readily admits there are massive pluses to be derived from what turned out to be global interest. “I think MySpace was a huge help for us,” he acknowledges. “As soon as we had released something, people would know the words, no matter where we went. I guess it was a little strange at first to go to a place you’d never even been before and have people waiting there to see you. But once we got over the initial amazement, we realised that only good can come from such a thing.”

Despite the characteristic breathlessness of their sound, Tokyo Police Club find themselves signed to Saddle Creek Records, the Omaha based label that plays home to Bright Eyes and a host of other countrified indie acts. It’s a partnership that seems odd on paper, but according to the band itself, it’s the perfect fit. “Saddle Creek have been great,” enthuses Wright, “They were so patient with us whenever we were recording the record. It has been in progress for some time and they never put any pressure on us, something we maybe wouldn’t have got if we’d signed for a major label.”

With an album of the calibre of Elephant Shell, TPC have rewarded the patience of Saddle Creek, proving that their trust was not misplaced. But let's hope that next time round, the wait isn't quite so long.

Tokyo Police Club play King Tut's, Glasgow on 10 Jun

http://www.myspace.com/tokyopoliceclub