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On tour: an interview with David Monks of the indie rock band Tokyo Police Club

Written by John Johnston
Wednesday, 23 April 2008 00:00

Tokyo Police Club released their debut EP A Lesson In Crime in early 2007. It sold 30,000 copies and garnered accolades such as: “If only all young guitar bands were smart enough to rock out this fast, banging out seven first-rate mod-punk party starters in barely more than sixteen minutes”. After a solid year of touring, which included an appearance at Glastonbury, Tokyo Police Club are back with their album Elephant Shell. John Johnston spoke to lead singer and bass guitarist David Monks as the band hit Florida on their US tour.

Hi David, how are you? How’s Florida?

I’m good thank you. Florida is [dry laugh], it’s all right. I guess.

Has the US tour been going okay so far?

Yeah, it’s been good! It’s our first tour in a while. We haven’t toured in four months or something like that, so it’s good to be back on the road.

Do you enjoy the touring process or is it something you could do without?

It’s kind of a love/hate thing. It’s like sometimes it’s amazing and sometimes terrible, but it’s the good times that stick with you, like really good shows and meeting new people and finding yourself in really bizarre situations that you never thought you would be in.

How did the band start?

We’ve all known each other since (I think) grade five. We were all friends and in high school it seemed like the thing to do to form a band. Graham and Josh already had a band going with another guy, so I learned guitar - bass guitar, first - and then Greg joined that band, then the four of us stuck around and played together.

Has it always been the same style of music or have you evolved?

No, when we started we were originally a five-piece. Our other friend Will was in the band and he was the head songwriter, so we played sort of Brian Wilson pop stuff. But in the last year of high school it was just the four of us and I started writing songs.

So are you the head songwriter now? I hear that you’re quite democratic in that respect.

Yeah, I write some ideas, but we all write our own parts and put the songs together.

There was a paranoid element to the lyrics on your EP, A Lesson In Crime. Is that continued on your new album, Elephant Shell?

No, not on this record. I think with the lyrics on that record [A Lesson In Crime] I was just having fun, just being playful with words. I like the lyrics a lot more with this record. But I like those songs too!

What does Elephant Shell mean?

It was just two words at first that I put together. I just like the sound of it, the kind of half rhyme. Now in the context of the song it does seem to have a meaning, but it’s woven in the song.

After the success of A Lesson In Crime, was it a difficult album to record?

Yeah, it was. We made the EP and it was really natural for us to make, really quick and easy. Then, because of all the touring we did for that record, it was really difficult just to sit down and think about the next one. I started to write down some melodies or lyrics or put chords together on my own but we never got to sit down as a band. It wasn’t really until November last year that we did that.

Did you have a general idea of what you wanted the new album to sound like? Your English is Good is on it and I believe that’s one of your oldest songs.

Yeah, that’s an older song. We really had to decide what we wanted to do for the album. We started writing some stuff and had been in the studio for a couple of weeks and it was going alright, but we were feeling a bit lost. But, the day after, we were opening for Bloc Party at Madison Square Garden and it was kind of one of those experiences that remind you of why you’re doing something and we just realised how much we love to play live, and such a great band played with us. Then we realised that our new record kind of lacked that live element, so when we went to record it in November we tried to keep it as a four-piece live band and give it that immediacy.

Which song best represents the record and why?

I think lyrically the first track, Centennial. It was my lyrical reference point for the rest of the album and I achieved what I wanted to do with that song.

Tokyo Police Club are noted as an energetic live band, worth seeing at least once. Is this something that you had to work on?

I think compared to the struggle of songwriting and wanting to perfect our craft, the live aspect has come so easy. We play live the same way we did from the first time we played. Better, but still in the same way.