Expanding the club

The MUSE got the chance to catch up with Tokyo Police Club ahead of their sold-out show at the Paradise Wednesday night with Two Door Cinema Club. Garrett Brooks spoke to keyboardist Graham Wright.

The MUSE: How’s the tour been so far?

Graham Wright: Good. This is, I think, the sixth day of the tour, but only the second American [show], so it’s been great.

TM: You guys are doing a really cool thing with your posters. How did that come about?

GW: Ah, the coloring thing. Yes. That was a promotional initiative which half the time comes from us, and half the time come from the label. We have our friend, Darby, who works at the label. And we saw her, I think in Portland, and sat down and brainstormed a whole whack of stuff. You’re just always looking for new things you can do, and that was one of the ideas that she came up with. It was fun. We just did a T-shirt design contest that went really good. It’s always cool to do crowd-sourcing stuff. People have amazing ideas. We did the T-shirt design contest thinking, ‘Well whatever… we’ll see,” and we ended up getting three designs that we ended up using that was better than the stuff we paid for.

TM: Awesome. You guys played the Paradise a few years ago. What’s your favorite place to play around Boston? And favorite cities?

GW: In Boston, the Paradise is my favorite to play at for sure. We had some really rotten shows at The Middle East, and I don’t think it was that venue’s fault, but after it happened three times it’s just a bad coincidence we were like, ‘We’re never playing here again. Something’s just not working here.’ And then we played the Paradise, and it was amazing. So this is my favorite place in Boston to play. And then around… I don’t know. Everywhere is good for different reasons. It’s fun to play in New York or LA where we have friends. We always have a good time in Austin because… I guess when you’re in a band you go for South by Southwest. So we have a good relationship with that city, as well.

TM: Cool. You guys played a couple of other festivals as well, last year: Bonnaroo, Outside Lands. How do you like playing those festivals to bigger crowds?

GW: I like it. It’s fun. It’s different. We haven’t done that many I guess. Hopefully we get to do a few more. This summer we’d like to do a circuit. It’s kind of like vacation a little bit. In one way, it’s not vacation for the crew. You don’t get to sound check. You have a limited time to get set up, and get everything torn down. So it’s pretty common that the least fun thing about the festival is playing the show. But, you get to hang out. You get to see all these other bands that you don’t get to see because you’re on tour all the time. You get to see old friends sometimes, like bands you’ve toured with in the past that you just never ever see because you end up in the same place. So you hang out at the catering or whatever and just kind of shoot the shit and have a good time. It’s especially fun because, you know, when you’re on tour it’s not easy, but when you’re there for the whole weekend it’s fun. I love when we play on the first day at like one in the afternoon. That’s what happened at Coachella last year. We just hung out all weekend. It was a blast.

TM: What bands have you seen at festivals?

GW: I don’t know. I usually end up missing everything I plan on seeing. But for Coachella, I actually put some effort into seeing bands. I saw Thom Yorke, which was my main goal. Saw a bit of Pavement. I saw a bit of Phoenix. Julian Casablancas. Matt & Kim – we’re friends with those guys, so it was great to see them.

TM: Champ is your second full-length album. What was the difference between recording this and Elephant Shell?

GW: We had time with this one. We allowed ourselves time, and I suppose we had the luxury of allowing ourselves time. With Elephant Shell we were still riding the wave of bloggy whatever. Which was great, but when you’re getting these opportunities so early on, you can’t really say ‘no’ to them. You can’t say ‘No, we need six months to record a record.’ And everyone would say ‘OK… see you never.’ So we had to keep doing stuff and doing stuff, and at the same time we had to hit the studio and write the songs, record the songs, and there’s always a deadline looming. Like ‘We need to get another record out for these reasons.” And everyone around you is very good about assuring you that there’s no pressure, which only magnifies the fact that there’s clearly pressure and that they’re just trying to protect you from it. It worked. We made a good record and I’m proud of what we did. But when the time came to write more songs and record again, we just said ‘no.” We could at that point. We toured enough that we were at the point that if we went away for a year it’s not going to come back and be like we never existed. So we did that, and it was great.

TM: You guys moved from Saddle Creek to Mom and Pop Records. What was the need for a shift?

GW: We were really adamant early on with our record and our EP about doing one-record deals because it was so obvious that the music industry was going to change. The best situation you could be in was as a free agent, as in every walk of life. You always think you’re going to be in demand, and it’s good to be free. Mom and Pop represented this new breed of labels that are like hybrid major labels and indies. And they ideally have the best of both worlds. We talked to lots of major labels, and when we started five years ago the thinking was always, ‘We’ll do it with indie labels, and when the time comes we’ll switch to majors. And that’s just what you do.’ And then the time came, and we talked to major labels, and it just wasn’t that exciting. I don’t want to pay part of my touring money and merchandising money and part of stuff that has nothing to do with a label. I don’t particularly think they should get the money. They don’t know how to sell music anymore, so rather than figuring out how to do that, they’re just trying to get money in other ways. It’s bullshit. You can’t sign to a major label without doing that. You talk to these poor A&R guys, who are passionate about music, and they’re good guys. We talked to a lot of them. And they’re really, really good guys, and it’s not their fault. You just have to say ‘we’re not going to sign to these terms. I don’t want to sign to a label where it’s run by the number crunchers in the basement. I get it – it’s a business. But it’s not going to be good for anyone. And at the same time indie labels are obviously limited in their resources, but are certainly a lot more forward thinking. And are a lot more willing to do interesting things. So Mom and Pop understood the major label doohickey, and have the ability to do things on a higher level, but at the same time… they’re not working for the Man…. Not that I have anything wrong with the Man.

TM: Do you think that Mom and Pop is also a one-album deal?

GW: No, no. We did a little bit of a more long-term commitment with this one.

TM: You had some EPs before these last two records. Do you think you would go back to recording EPs?

GW: I don’t know. We haven’t talked about it. A year ago, I would’ve thought ‘no.’ EPs are bad business. Music stores don’t want to buy them because they have to sell them for less money. People don’t take them seriously. So even though you bust your ass and make this five or six song thing that you’re really proud of, which takes effort, people are more inclined to write it off as an in-between gap-filler. But now, nobody’s buying any records. There’s really no point in even making CDs anymore, sadly. It seems like now the field is open. I can make an album or EP and put it on iTunes. I could make one song and put it on iTunes. It’s pretty much anything you want to do, you can put out there. It’s terrifying in one very specific way, which is I have bills to pay. But in another way, it’s exciting and freeing. If we want to release a 20-minute short film with an original score and our new song, we can do that. I can’t imagine we would ever do anything like that, but we could. And that’s just as legitimate as an EP or album. So who knows where we will go from here.

TM: Is the writing process any different between a 15-minute EP and a 30-minute album?

GW: Nah. We’re just writing songs. You don’t really think about what it’s going to be, you just assume it’s going to be an album. We were raised on albums. I like albums. I think there’s something good about having 11 or 12 or 10 or 14 songs that work in a way and belong together and do a whole thing. That’s how I learned to love music. But who knows? Maybe we’ll go back and write 5 songs. Or 12 awesome songs. Or 50 awesome songs and release a triple album.

TM: What are some of those albums that made you love music?

GW: Nothing particularly exciting. Kid A is my favorite record. That was the first one. Is This It? is a big favorite in the band, and a huge influence. Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot was huge for me.

TM: What do you guys have planned for the rest of the year?

GW: Umm… unclear. After this tour we have a month and a half off, so we might do some writing if we feel like it. It’s nice because if we have songs, we’ll do them, if not, we won’t. Have a little vacation. Can’t hurt. Then going on tour in Canada in April. That’s all we have planned right now. Hopefully we’ll do some summer festivals here or in the UK. But by the time we finish that tour in April, it’ll be a year since our record came out, and that’s sort of the standard length of time to be buzzin’ around about it. So maybe we’ll start thinking about writing new songs.

TM: Is there a big difference between crowds in the U.K. vs. Canada vs. the U.S.?

GW: Yeah, they’re rowdier in the U.K., in general. They can get quite rowdy here and in Canada, but it seems like in the U.K. it’s just normal to jump around and smash into each other. Things will happen.

TM: What are you listening to right now?

GW: Well, we’re in the bus right now. When I’m in the van I listen to a ton of music, because you have time to kill. But when I’m in the bus, I just sleep. I haven’t listened to music in ages. I’ve been listening to a lot of This American Life podcasts. That’s pretty much it.