Tokyo Police Club (and beyond!) with Greg Alsop

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Welcome to Major Label Debut. It's the podcast about major
label debuts. I'm Graham Wright DJ Bump. That MLD theme tune.
Listen to that. Every sound you hear, every instrument you hear,

(00:30):
every melodic harmonic production idea that's going on in this
music comes from the brain of the talented mister Greg Allsop. Greg,
of course, was my bandmate in Tokyo Police Club for
the entire time, and I was friends with Greg even
before that. We have collaborated on all kinds of projects,
not just musical, but many funny high school videos that

(00:53):
will never see the light of day. And once, very memorably,
I threw a party ten years ago more than that,
and Greg was invited to the party. And Greg showed
up at the party and I was upstairs on the
balcony and he was downstairs, and he whipped up a
plastic shopping bag and I caught it and it was
full of bread and stuff. But then I forgot by
the time he got upstairs, I forgot to ask him
about it. And it was a big party. It was

(01:14):
a great party, and it hit that point in the
night where everyone had had enough to drink that they
were starting to get kind of snacky, and I was
starting to wonder how many pizzas I was going to
have to order for this house full of people when
someone handed me a plate with a grilled cheese sandwich
on it, and it turned out that Greg Allsop had
brought grilled cheese sandwich ingredients to the party and was
making them in the kitchen and handing them out. People

(01:36):
were losing their minds. It was genuinely the most stand up,
solid guy move I've ever seen pulled in a party environment.
And that's just the kind of man Greg Allsop is.
He's our guest today on major label Debut. That's why
I'm talking about him. We thought it would be fun
to have Greg on. We We thought it would be
fun to have Greg on to talk about his work

(01:58):
making music for kids TV show, his work making music
for podcasts, his work producing out of his studio in
Prince Edward Island. We had a whole script full of
questions about Greg's musical life and where he's at now,
and I didn't ask him hardly any of the questions.
We just talked about Tokyo Police Club the entire time.
In so many words, It's not like a tell all,
it's not an expose, it's not even a summit. It's

(02:20):
just two guys who were involved in this really intimate
relationship for a really long time and then who just
went through the same sort of emotionally intense experience of
it ending and then hadn't spoken about it since. You know,
I think we had this conversation maybe two or three
months after the last TPC show, and I don't think

(02:43):
Greg or I really realized how much we wanted to
talk about it with each other, because you know, after
any tour, you kind of tend to take a break
from the other guys, and after the farewell tour it's
only natural to take a slightly longer break. But instead
we just really found ourselves coming back over and over
again to that topic and topics that at least reminded
us of it. It's a really great conversation, even if

(03:05):
you weren't in Tokyo. Please clove there are more than
two other perspective listeners for this, I swear. What can
I say? I've always thought Greg just has such an
amazing unique perspective. I've learned so much from him musically personally.
Many is the time when Greg has adopted some new
lifestyle quality or musical idea that I've sort of scratched

(03:26):
my chin at, and then two years later I've realized,
oh my god, I should have been listening to Greg.
He was right all along. So don't make my mistake.
Learn from Greg Alsop. Listen to Greg Alsop. I've talked enough.
Let's get into my conversation with my friend Greg Alsop. Hi. Greg, Hey,

(03:49):
this is our first time seeing each other face to
face to computer to computer since we said goodbye after
the last Tokyo Police Club show. How are you?

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I'm well, yeah, I was just thinking about that this morning.

Speaker 1 (04:01):
That.

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Yeah, the last time I saw you or Josh or
Paul was after that show, and the next time i'll
probably see you after this is a wedding in the
not too distant future.

Speaker 1 (04:13):
So that's right.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
Yeah, So as long as we just keep scheduling momentous occasions,
I think this relationship is right on track.

Speaker 1 (04:22):
You know, like Daniel day Lewis only makes a film
when it's like a true artistic statement that really, you know,
it's got to be worth it. I think at this
point in our lives and friendships, we should only come
together for the krem De la creme of social gatherings.

Speaker 2 (04:38):
No wasted time or space. Yeah, I don't want to
exactly get a beer any waves anymore. So we've moved
beyond that.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
This is I'm asking for my own education because I'm
figuring it out, and I'm sure Josh is listening in
curiously as well. Have you started to get a handle
yet on like how you're feeling?

Speaker 2 (04:57):
I feel like I do in my day to day,
but I'm like continuously having dreams about the band or
the last show, So I guess subconsciously there's still some
some work to do down there.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
That sounds like a positive direction. Though I haven't had
any dreams. Either it's all the way out of my
subconscious or it's buried so deeply under so much concrete
that it hasn't even begun to leak out yet.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Yeah, it's hard to know what the processing is around that,
but I think like the last one I had was
we had played the last show. It was the day afterwards.
I had already flown back to PI, and then I
got a WhatsApp message from the group message saying from
our agent, Stephen Himmelfarb, saying, guys, we gotta do a

(05:45):
fifth show, and we got to do it tonight. Everything's
already in there, we're set to go. Take as it
flying off the shelves. You gotta get back right now.
And so I did a one to eighty, tried to
find my way back to Toronto, and then ended up
delayed at the Montreal Airport and Jake Boyd from Colorado
filled in for me for the final final Tokyo Please

(06:06):
clip show.

Speaker 1 (06:07):
That's not we should have done after the fourth night,
just one less member night by night as the band
just diminished, sort of a fade out rather than a
hard stop.

Speaker 2 (06:17):
Yeah, the most expensive last four shows ever.

Speaker 1 (06:24):
For the listener's edification, Greg did spend most of the
summer delayed at the Montreal Airport, flying back and forth
across Canada for various oh it's just one day, easy
money shows that then extended to like four days of
hellish transit disaster.

Speaker 2 (06:41):
Maybe that's the true minor trauma that I'm trying to
work out, is just he's stuck at Montreal Airport again
and again.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Yeah, maybe you missed the liminal space. You need to
fly back to Montreal Airport and see what happens to
your body when you walk off the plane.

Speaker 2 (06:57):
There it is. Yeah, that's when I'll finally Yeah, time
and space while I'll meet in that perfect point and
I'll be reborn as I truly was meant to be.

Speaker 1 (07:06):
As a fixture of the Montreal Airport. The terminal esque
just character. I think that of any airport, I think
the Montreal Airport could really stand to have like a
couple of just you know, little local color. You could
learn to juggle, you could learn devil sticks.

Speaker 2 (07:25):
As a busker at the Montreal Airport. Yeah, I think, yeah,
you do. Yeah, I think Montreal would really support that
kind of initiative.

Speaker 1 (07:33):
I'm not sure how French culture laws apply on the
international ground of the airport, but we'll get that all
sort of in the performance.

Speaker 2 (07:40):
I am looking for work, so there me too.

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Most of this podcast is the two of us just
stating our resumes in hopes that, you know, instead of
a collecting sponsors, we're going to send the audio to
potential employers.

Speaker 2 (07:52):
Yeah, if you could just prep me for a potential interview, questions,
and I'll do the same for you.

Speaker 1 (07:58):
I did. I just updated my resume the other day,
and it is a real it's like a creative writing
exercise more than anything where you're just sort of trying
to express the point that I know I have one
thing on my whole resume, but you have to understand
that if you think about it a certain way, I
have a great experience and I've done many jobs, and

(08:20):
when you think about it, being in a band is
actually owning a small business, it's well, it's one of
the many ways I guess that we get to process
this grand transition. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (08:32):
I had to write a bio for myself the other
week and I was like stuck on it, and then
a friend suggested, like, oh, just like ask like chat
GPT to like do a one over on that. I
will say it was like the most glowing, like like beautiful,

(08:53):
like look at this saint of a person, and I
mostly ran with it. I was like, Okay, you know
what I needed that kind of like boost in my
ego and mind right now to just have some robot
and partially take a look at my life through Google
and put together what they could of me.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
And that could be really future proofing, you know, having
that kind of like positive assessment in the machine. Later
on when the machines take over and are executing the undesirables.
It'll know, it'll look it'll be like Greg Alsop. It
says right here that he was the drummer of Tokyo
Police Club, Right yeah.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
It'll allowed me to be ascending to whatever have do
they have for us on the other side of it,
instead of wallowing in the the or pits or whatever.

Speaker 1 (09:42):
We've crunched the numbers and we can store your data
alongside the simulated atmosphere of the Montreal Airport for all eternity.
So don't worry. You're right where you're meant to be.

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Now.

Speaker 1 (09:57):
Typically on this show, we like do research and we
write questions and we create a plan and I really
participate in it. And this time I thought, I don't
really need to research Greg's life and career because I've
been in the same vehicle and bedroom with him for
ninety eight percent of it. So I asked our producer,
John Paul Bullock, our mutual friend, to generate a list

(10:18):
of questions, and I didn't look at them, and I
have them here, So I'm going to start asking some
of them and then we're we're gonna go from there,
depending on how many traps he set for us. That
sounds wonderful. So question one, how dare you now? Is
it weird that I'm interviewing you? Does this make you uncomfortable?

Speaker 2 (10:37):
No? But I was like, I did wake up in
the middle of the night last night like a bit
nervous about it, just hoping. I was like, oh, man,
I hope I have enough fuel in the tank to
give a proper interview and make this a decent episode.
So yeah, I think I think this is just another
and continuing extrapolation of like what our relationship is. It's like,

(11:02):
we're like friends in high school and then you know,
like bandmates, co business owners. We spend yes, so much
time together in so many different like roles that are
kind of around a foundational friendship. I think this just
feels like a pretty natural expansion of that.

Speaker 1 (11:18):
I think I know where I'm going with this example,
but let's see if I get where I'm going with it.
I was talking to someone the other day about dating apps,
and it was someone, you know, there's some people I
like yourself, I think, whose marriage relationship started before dating
apps really came on the scene. They didn't get to Yeah,
And I was telling my friend about it, and I
was saying, one of the things about dating apps that

(11:41):
is different, you know, value neutrally is that you don't
just like go to a party and meet a person
and then while you're engaging with that person you start
to go like, oh, actually I have a little interest here.
Every single person you meet is like pre defined as
whatever it is you're looking for, whatever it is they're
looking for. You know, obviously there's different ways to use

(12:02):
the apps, but whatever the case, you go into these
meetings with like a sense already of what it is
supposed to be or what bauttery it's supposed to go to.
And when you and I really became friends, like playing
in a band together, and we knew each other in
high school, but we were in different grades. We didn't
hang around all the time, and at least in my recollection,

(12:25):
we kind of recruited you. We knew you played drums,
we knew you're an interesting musician, and like a cool guy.
That was enough to swipe proverbiably, right, Yeah, but we,
like Josh and I were friends, and you know, we
liked the same girl, and that you know, when you're
in grade eight, that bonds you. And then I needed
someone to play guitar with me, and I was like, oh,
I bet Josh could do that because he's my friend.

(12:46):
Whereas our relationship really started as like, let's be in
a band together, and then within the context of creating
art together, of figuring out how to even do this
shit together because we're fourteen, we like built our friendship
ship out of that, which makes it even more weirdly
tied into the band.

Speaker 2 (13:06):
No, No, I think I think you're right. It's it's
interesting to start a relationship that way, let alone one
that way when you're teenagers, where you know, relationships are
supposed to be pretty free and easy and also naturally
be called off in like certain ways. We had this

(13:27):
thing that like right from the get go is like, oh,
we're doing this together, this is what we do together.
And yeah, I think that, Uh, it feels natural to
continue to find ways like this for that relationship to continue.

(13:47):
Like it's it's a working and creative relationship and like
a very deep one, And I don't think that feels
less than other friendships, Like in some ways it's a
much deeper bond being creative and like creatively intertwined with
someone else.

Speaker 1 (14:07):
Yeah, that's why I wanted to talk to you. Because
I realized we interviewed like three drummers in a row,
just coincidentally, and I thought, oh my god, we're having
drummer months. We got to talk to Greg, But I
knew there was something about talking to you that was
like had that spark you know, that was exciting, And
I think it's that. My whole thing with this podcast,

(14:28):
the like analytical project that I am attempting to embark on,
is all about how creativity and the music that comes
out of it is impacted by life and by circumstance.
And typically that's like, oh, the major label of it all.
A label comes in and you know about commerce and
money and this and that, and that all affects you,
and we'll talk about that. We have shared some of

(14:48):
those experiences. We have the same point of reference. I
mean I learned about that stuff at the same time
as you, in the same place as doing the same things.
But also with bands such a coll also, I mean,
there's no way to overstate how big a part of
it the personal relationships within the band are, because that's
what makes the magic, and a great band is more

(15:10):
than the sum of its parts. But also it's that
because of the interaction of its parts, and you and
I were two parts of a band for twenty longer
than twenty years together. I don't know that either of
us fully understand how that manifested for us, for the band,
et cetera. But talking about it, that's what I'm curious about,
is like how all the stuff we're going to talk

(15:32):
about manifested. At the end of all of this shit
we're going to talk about, there's like a three minute song,
and the three minute song is what it is forever,
but everything in it is what we're going to talk about,
and that like magical mystical process is to me the
most interesting part of all of it. You know what
I mean? What a question? Let me state a point

(15:53):
and say, do you know what I mean? That's I'm
doing it from now on. Agreed, this has been major.
I'm Graham right and I'm never wrong. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (16:04):
No, I think you're You're very right. And it's also
weird because I think like it's a relationship that you
you don't you can't like really replicate with any other people,
Like the the exact ingredients that we're there will never
be there with other people in that same sort of way,

(16:26):
Like friendships or spouses. Like you, There's like so many
different ways to have deep friendships and relationships, but this
one is such a specific time of our life and
such a long time of our lives as well. It's
just like this chance thing that happened to the four
of us, that we got the opportunity to get banned

(16:49):
professionally for the entirety of our young adult lives together.
That's so bizarre. That's like such a rare thing. Like
maybe you'd have a band for five years, maybe ten years,
like twenty years with the same four people doing the
same exact thing in just like different iterations and trying

(17:13):
to just keep it going like you're never going to
get that with any other people in a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (17:19):
And doing it starting in high school and then just
proceeding uninterrupted. I often lazily say that we didn't go
to university because I didn't go to university, and Josh
didn't go to university, and Dave went to a tiny
bit of university. But you did go. You have a
semester and a half under your belt, and I do
want to honor because you did. You did some of

(17:39):
that while we were doing the early days of Tokyo
Police Club, and that's no mean feat. But we were
still you know, we didn't start as adults. We started
as kids, and then we just like grew up within
the band and learned so much about like the world
and just the basic lessons of becoming human. We learned
in the context of this machine, this hive mind, just

(18:02):
you know, roving the land together, which made it so
probably easier and more special and fun. But also now,
you know, we get to begin to unravel, like, so
where do I find my coming of age?

Speaker 2 (18:15):
You know?

Speaker 1 (18:15):
And it's not just like, oh no, that's Greg's that's
Greg's Okay, that goes over there.

Speaker 2 (18:20):
No, I don't know what's on the other side, like
really like it is still so fresh, like all of
it is. And as much as I think, you know,
we had a year or so to kind of process
the band ending you couldn't process it.

Speaker 1 (18:37):
Well, no I thought I could. I thought I did.

Speaker 2 (18:40):
Yeah, I thought I was doing it the whole time.
That's what all those mushrooms were for.

Speaker 1 (18:47):
I kept referencing in like towards did you watch Succession? Yeah,
I guess spoilers for anyone who didn't. I'll try and
be vague. There's a character towards the end, someone dies,
and then other characters talking about the person who died,
and they're grieving in their ways, and one of them
keeps saying like, I'm good, you don't need to worry
about me. I'm pre grieved. I already got that all

(19:08):
out of the way. And then of course that's the
character that like breaks down in the most comprehensive way.
And I kept hearing myself telling people about how I
was doing leading up to the end, and I could
hear myself basically saying like, no, no, no, I pre grieved,
I pre grieved. I'm fine. Well, we'll get back to
the end of Tokyo, but maybe by way of tracing
it back to something like the beginning. Do you remember

(19:30):
when you first, like when the notion that you could
be in a band first occurred to you, and then
how quickly was it followed by the notion that you
should be in a band?

Speaker 2 (19:41):
Yeah? I think, well, I mean, like the first idea
of wanting to be in a band comes back to
like like nine years old and like trying to create
like a rap group with like three other nine year
olds who are not as like committed or interested in
it as I was. I was like very serious, like, Okay,

(20:03):
this is what we do. We here are our songs.
We're going to go to like much music and perform
these in front of like VJs, and they're going to
discover us and we're gonna like take off from there.
And then I quickly realized like, oh no, yeah, I'm
like the only one who and this fifteen minute recess
like really believes in this like master plan for world nomination.

Speaker 1 (20:25):
I know exactly how you feel. I would do stuff
like that all the time as a kid. I'd show
up the next day ready to continue our big plan
that we'd made, only to find that no one else
took it seriously at all. Yeah, and maybe that's what
you're looking for when you find your like musical soulmates.
It's just other people who will show up at the
next recess still raring.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
To go totally. They have people who take it seriously.
And I think that is when I met you guys
in high school, and you guys were doing like the
Suburbia EPs on like Year's Eve, like you were taking
a band seriously, and I think those that was the
first time I saw people who prioritized it in the

(21:02):
same way that I wanted to prioritize it. And so
there was like a real kindred spirit and like tenacity
that I was like, Oh, these people understand the vision.

Speaker 1 (21:13):
I just was in the Tokyo Police Club stores space
yesterday getting some of my stuff, and I unearthed this
for this for Theater of the Mind. I'm holding up
a eight track digital recorder from like two thousand and
two or maybe earlier that was like what we made
all of our high school demos on. And it still
works and it still has some old demos on it,

(21:35):
and I was listening to some of those stuff I
did listening to my like sixteen seventeen year old demos,
which is always a like jumping into an icy bath.
But one thing that really struck me was I was
so I was like really coming from the outside in.
I wanted to be in a band. I knew I
wanted to be in a band and be of a

(21:56):
band before I understood like what that meant, or before
I even cared about writing songs and making art, Like
those all came after the idea of like what I
want to do is be in a band, and I
wanted to look like this and feel like this. And
I was obsessed with putting setlists down on the ground
because I would see pictures from bands that played shows
with set lists, and the idea of having a set

(22:16):
list felt real to me, and I would spend more
time on that than I would on like the lyrics
to the song I was meant to be writing.

Speaker 2 (22:22):
But I think that's interesting because that's like, you know,
to go out there with it, Like that's vision boarding
kind of. That's like saying, like, oh, Okay, I know
exactly what I want the image of my life to be.
I know I want to be in a band. I'm
going to get that image as clear in my mind
as possible. And who knows, Like maybe that's like what

(22:46):
allowed us to like actually do it. It's like we
knew we really wanted to be in a real band,
not just like a band that plays like at Newmarket,
at the Optimist Club or whatever. Like there's like so
many different versions of it, but it's like we want
this one. We want like the real one where we
get to go off and do the thing and go

(23:07):
on tours and go into a recording studio, Like we
want it to be as real as possible.

Speaker 1 (23:12):
Do you remember what like your day dreams were like
about that when you were like before we had done
it for real, back when it was still brash and
you were I want to ask about like you're learning
to play the drums, And maybe for me, certainly learning
to play guitar was a lot of like in front
of the mirror watching myself be a musician. That's what
encouraged me to do it. But yeah, the whole day
dream of it all like the visions that you would

(23:33):
entertain of whether it's on stage or the studio or
whatever it was. Do you remember what you thought you
were headed towards.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
Yeah, I think it was like it would have been
all informed by you know, what I would have seen
from stuff like much music like intim and interactive so
or studio shots from like the inside of like a
Smashing Pumpkins like album or something where it's like, oh, okay,
this is like you're getting like glim of like what

(24:01):
it is, and then your mind just kind of fills
in the rest and you imagine it just being the
greatest ride of your life. And then like thinking of
like when we've got to start to do it, like
the fantasy versus reality of like going to the Pop
Montreal festival, like to play a real show for the

(24:22):
first time in a real place. We're at the Pop
Montreal Festival and we're all sweeping on like Dave's dorm
room floor, like four teenagers and they're like girlfriends, Like
that's not glamorous, but it is because that kind of
feels like what roughing it was, like it's part of
the story. It's all part of like the legend of

(24:42):
like being in a real band.

Speaker 1 (24:44):
Yes, yeah, And it's like, you know, you're aware of
building your own legend while it's happening, which is such
a bizarre like heart before the Horse way to do it,
and yet I feel like I don't know any band
that did it any other way exactly.

Speaker 2 (24:57):
It really is just like feeling like this is real
and I know it's real, and that's what keeps it going.
And that's like it gets you through like the crappy parts.

Speaker 1 (25:08):
Of it, yeah, and just like you know, it gets
you through the crappy parts of learning to write a
song or learning to arrange a song or learning to collaborate,
where you're like you have to face that reality even
with the like delusions of grandeur that make everything you're
writing feel like better than it is. There's still that sense,
or at least I remember that sense of like, now

(25:29):
that we're done it, it's not quite kid.

Speaker 2 (25:31):
A yeah, but it's still like there were moments where
it did feel like as big as that, Like even
in the suburbia like days in high school, like the
band before Tokyo Police Club, there was a sense playing
some of those songs in your basement or Will's basement

(25:54):
for the first time where like when you like land
on it and you're just like, oh, like this is
a real song. We're not just playing with like pretend anymore.
Like we've landed on something that that feels real. And
then like even though it doesn't you know, sound like
that polished you know, Yankee Hotel Fox Trot, it's still
when you played it for people, it's like, oh, yeah,

(26:16):
there is something there, Like you do get like little
bits of validation from from other people that yeah, I
think you are kind of like you're kind of onto something.

Speaker 1 (26:28):
It's enough and it feels like you're if you were
like a little kid in the backyard going like wow,
whoa And then for like for one second, you like
actually cut a tree in half. You're like, holy shit,
I made a real lightsaber with just my imagination, and yeah,
I mean I think those are still Honestly, that's like
the feeling in the moment that I'm still chasing totally.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, that bit of magic where where it all just
the fantasy becomes reality.

Speaker 1 (26:54):
What attracted you to the drums?

Speaker 2 (26:56):
Initially I was taking piano lessons, and I had a
really excellent instructor who Dave. Also took lessons from Eugene Berta,
who recorded some of the first like Tokyo Police Club demos,
and he was always a really innovative and supportive instructor,

(27:16):
and so half the lesson would be doing regular conservatory
stuff and then the other half the lesson would be saying,
like go write a song, or let's just like play
around in a studio. And he had this Yamaha eight
had like electronic drum set there, and I was always
so excited to stop playing piano and then go over

(27:39):
and then just like hammer away on this. And I
think it was just that he was like, hey, you're
pretty good at that, Like it was like, oh, you
can do like the basic thing right away. And I
was like I am really good at this, like maybe
there is like something in there that I could do,
and then it's all I wanted to play. Like after that,
I remember, like in grade seven in music class, you

(28:02):
had to like write an essay and audition on why
you wanted to be chosen as the drummer because there's
so many people who wanted to do it, but you
can't have twenty.

Speaker 1 (28:15):
Twenty drummers and three clarinetists. It's a hell of a band.

Speaker 2 (28:18):
So I wrote an essay and I also constructed a
pretend kit out of like connects and old like plastic
ice cream tubs and a practice pad. I like for
my birthday that year, got like a real practice pad
and a set of drumsticks, and I just practiced what
the rehearsal song like endlessly on it and I got

(28:40):
to do it, and so yeah, it's just it was
just like it seemed fun. And also I knew, like
the other kids in my grade who I was like
starting to play around with music, they were all like guitarists,
and so it was like there's an opening there as well.
It's like, oh, okay, if I could be the drummer

(29:00):
in this band, then I kind of have a secure spot.

Speaker 1 (29:03):
I think for most people that's right around the age too,
when you start to like get into a new phase
of music a little, it's a little more independent, it's
a little more like in those days at least it
was you know, alt rock, And I know you're a
big Pumpkins fan, And did you start to listen to
the drums differently more? You know, Pumpkins are obviously a
great drums band.

Speaker 2 (29:22):
Yeah, yeah, that was like listening to Jimmy Chamberline drum
on Melancholy was just like mind blow. It's like I
couldn't decipher any of it, and I still can't decide
for half of it. It's like it's so out there,
but it was such a it's such an exciting sound.
It felt like what like people in like the seventies

(29:43):
or sixties when listening to like Keith Moon or like
John Bonham must have like felt if you wanted to
be a drummer. It's like, oh, here's a drummer playing
he's insane parts, but like so musically as well, he
was like he was writing parts. It wasn't just the
regular kicksnare hat like support of stuff. And I think

(30:04):
I've always wanted to be a drummer like that and
try and create parts for the songs and not just
not just support it, like not be flashy, but just
do something, I don't know, just like different and unique
and have like an original contribution.

Speaker 1 (30:24):
I think it's safe to say that you achieved that
goal and then some I know, the when Tokyo Police
Club was first starting out, I think I would you
would hear more about you after shows. I remember at
the Palmontary all show people being like, your drummer's really cool, man,
Like those beats are like he doesn't have to do that,
you know, he could just be playing time was he's

(30:45):
doing hooks instead? And I think that was not to
jump ahead too much, but that was so formative for
Tokyo and that notion that like no one in this
band is just like doing the normal thing. No one's
strumming a guitar, no one's playing just them roots on,
Everyone's doing something.

Speaker 2 (31:02):
Yeah. I think that's like a big part of it
as well, Like that's really what we we tried to do,
especially when like we started writing songs for Tokyo, like
where was we wanted to do the most Tokyo police
Club thing on every song, and it like really became
like that is the DNA of the song, like the band,
Like what could we do? That sounds so much like us.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
I wonder if, like starting as young teenagers had a
lot to do with that too, because none of us
were virtuosos, you know, like you weren't playing Chamberlain Monster
megaphills back there. I mean, I'm the word I was
the worst in Tokyo for like practicing and technical skills
and stuff. I hate practicing, and I only ever wanted

(31:46):
to learn as much as I needed to know to
like write the next thing. And I still am like that.
I only learn as much as I need to know
to like do the idea I had. And I wonder
maybe if we'd waited a little longer before we all
got into you know, a band together, where we were
just slapping drawn there on the back and getting that
reward of writing, maybe we would have got like more
technically skilled. But there's like a simplicity in that early

(32:08):
stuff as well that I think if everyone in Tokyo
was doing their own thing but it was like treading,
it probably would have been a mess.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
Yeah, I think so, I think we were trying to.
I know, I was definitely like pushing myself to like
the very edge of what I could do with every song,
Like it was really just trying to be either as
fast as I could or as like left turning as
I could. Like, Yeah, I wanted that to be a

(32:37):
part of it. And you're right, I think if we
had gotten better, and as we did kind of get better,
it did kind of like shave the edges off of that,
Like you can't be that band forever, but we really
hit the right time in music history as well to
be like a band doing like interesting but like simple stuff.

Speaker 1 (33:00):
Remember very vividly when we were like before Tokyo was finished,
you know, and we were still cooking it up, and
we were still experimenting with some of the sounds and
some of the tunes. Things are a little bit more
out there, you know. Electroclash and disco punk and stuff
were popular, and we were constantly trying to get you
to go, like do the sixteenths and the stair round,
like what we would call the disco beat back then,

(33:22):
or the bum bumsk the boots and Cats beat, which
was popular, and we're like, that's what it needs, that's
what it needs, and you would never do it. You'd
always wait until you had like a real idea. I
don't know that really stuck with me in terms of
not being satisfied with it's not the easy way but
the natural way or the intuitive way or the atuded
way to do it.

Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yeah, and again that's like all part of it. Like
Dave's baselines are not like normal baselines, especially back then,
and Joshua guitarre parts are all over the place, like
and like your synth lines are like real hooks, like
they are real hooks in there, and you're never like
like just peddling out the courts like it was. Really,
I think that's all we're all trying to do. And

(34:04):
like again, it's like having that like shared fiship for
what music could be from the four of us that
that made it actually work.

Speaker 1 (34:14):
I agree. Let's go back to the I've asked one
question from my list of questions so far, and I
know poor John, Paul and josh are listening to me,
to me ramble, and you kindly answer those questions. So
I have noticed that often drummers, whether they are literally

(34:36):
working in a producer capacity like you do a lot now,
or whether it's more casual, like occasionally I've I've been
in the studio with other drummers who were you know,
they're there to drum, but sometimes the lot off for
other ideas. And I think the drummers have such a
great like big picture view of the band, like quarterback
goalie style, like they see the whole field and then

(35:00):
have musical ideas and arrangement ideas. And I know in
Tokyo you were always like really really vital to writing
the the all of the songs, not just the beat,
you know, but the arrangement and the harmony and the
melody and the dynamics and you know, even the the

(35:20):
more ineffable stuff of just like what is this song
like about what's the vibe of it? Or what's the
aesthetic of it? Or where is the compass pointing? And
I always felt like you were kind of like if
I needed to know which way north was, I would
look at you or I would ask you. And I'm
curious how like how that developed for you. I know
it's an open ended question, but like when you started

(35:42):
having having ideas for beyond the drums, and also how
you you know, went about adjusting to that knowledge and
like functioning in a band creative context, stepping out of
like quote unquote your lane as a drummer.

Speaker 2 (35:57):
Well, thank you for that. That's every drummer's greatest compliment
that you want to hear. That's that you're treated as
like a real musician.

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Everyone in the band wants to play drums except the
drummer who wants to play the band. Yeah, and that's
the great tension at the heart of rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
Yeah, No, I appreciate that. I don't know. I think
like I always when I write songs or when I'm
working on music, like I'm always hearing it as like
a complete version in my head, like I'm kind of
hearing like what could be like a full picture, and
so it's never just a part, like I am hearing

(36:41):
it all, and so I know that there's something that
I'm hearing that I want to try to express to
the other people that I'm working on it with. And
sometimes that's like a good idea. Sometimes it's not. Sometimes
like there's just way better idea is out there, or
sometimes it's just like not right like in the song,

(37:05):
it's like it's not necessarily like going to be followed.
But I do know that I hear an end point
like I it's just like it would feel weird to
like if I did hear like an idea or like something,
it feel weird to like not kind of express it
if I could, because like we're in the creative process,

(37:26):
so it felt like, Okay, I should at least like
voice this that, like I know there is something out
there that could that sounds really good to what I'm hearing.
If that makes.

Speaker 1 (37:36):
Sense, Yeah, I guess that's I mean it is. It's
the tough thing about asking questions about creativity because so
frequently the answer is like, uh, intuition.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
Yeah, And well I also wonder, like I mean, like
when you write songs or when we're working on Tokyo song,
like what do you hear like I think like we
can all like hone in on like our part or
like whatever, like our lane of country you shit is,
but are do you hear full songs? Do you like
do you have like kind of a complete vision in

(38:06):
your head?

Speaker 1 (38:07):
I either have a full vision in my head. That
then is really tricky. I find it really like I'm
I have to fight against the like the boundaries that
I perceive initially, so like I get really bad demoitis,
Like I hear a song in one format and the idea,
and it's frustrating to me because I came up listening
to Radiohead and Wilco and like bands that blew shit

(38:28):
up and changed it. And then I find myself hearing
demos and always being the voice. It's like, oh, I
think it's pretty good. I don't know why we're changing it,
And nine times out of ten it turns out that
we're changing it because it's going somewhere way more exciting.
And then once I can finally I like to That's
why I loved being in a band. I could let
the band kind of carry me away. I couldn't get
away by myself, but if I let the band carry

(38:49):
me away far enough, then my brain would just start
kicking out, like things I would expect to hear, and
then it's just intuition. But it's like things that when
I find with my own songs, all work on it,
all work on it for a while, and then when
I stop working on it and it just lives in
my brain and I'm like singing it to myself or
remembering it, it solidifies because then I start remembering certain

(39:12):
melodic tricks or certain arrangement moves that that feel exciting
and right, and I'll go back and listen to the
first demo to be like, oh no, did I forget
the good part? And it's always better? Maybe this is
a way of getting into the TV and film and
podcast music that you've been working on, not just since
the end of the band, but before that as well.
There's an intentionality in that you have deadlines, you have briefs.

(39:35):
You know, you're working in a way that's not quite
as freewheelings like we're a band and we're you know,
we booked a rehearsal space and we're just coming up
with what our heart tells us to come up with.
How have you found your creative instrument has like adjusted
or asserted itself in that context?

Speaker 2 (39:52):
I think, especially because it's not like a freewheeling like
amount of time to play with. You're just like with
the TV stuff, you have like a week generally to
kind of like come up with a fully formed demo
and submit it, and so you kind of have to
just go with like the first idea that comes to you.

(40:13):
You're like, Okay, great, that's the idea that feels like
there's something there, and I'm just going to keep like
playing with that until it feels done. You don't have
like the room to kind of like keep like forgetting
and coming back like you sort of do. I'd say,
like in day one and two, it's like you start
with the idea, you like sing a bunch of like
random voice memos into your phone and then sketch out

(40:36):
some lyrics and then kind of like forget about it
after you go to sleep, like that night, and then
like that morning afterwards you kind of try and re
remember the idea before you listen back to it and like, Okay,
do I have like something better in there? Is there
like like you're saying, it's like your mind just had
a chance to kind of fog it up enough that
maybe there's something like better in there, But it is

(40:59):
still like coming up with like as clear a vision
as like you can like right away and like really
trying to follow that as like Okay, that's the that's
what I need to get to.

Speaker 1 (41:10):
I have a real really bad habit creatively, especially with
like I did it in early in the podcast when
when I was being a lot more precious about you know,
I have to write the greatest intro script of all time.
And I have a really bad habit of working on something,
say for a week, whatever the amount of time is,
and then at the eleventh hour having like Eureka, a

(41:31):
way better idea. That's an entire reconception that involves us
throwing all that out and now moving on to this
new thing. And it's when you're working with collaborators, obviously
it can be a frustration for them. Do you experience
that sort of like ill timed eureka? And if so,
how do you channel that energy in a way that
doesn't alienate everyone who is working with you.

Speaker 2 (41:54):
I try to not. Yeah, Like, especially in those kind
of moments, I think, like, I mean, I think that's
like I think that we would do all the time
with Tokyo stuff, like when working on songs, was work
on a demo and then scrap it and then be like,
oh no, wait, here's the new version, and then scrap

(42:14):
it and like work on this and then eventually, after
you know, maybe months of doing that, we'd always we'd
call it like the circle back and go back to
like the first idea. You're like, oh, there was like
magic in that, And I think I really tried to
take that lesson to heart, especially with like this stuff,
because like there just isn't time, Like there isn't time

(42:36):
to like scrap everything. It's like you have like I'm
using like every moment that I have to try and
like get a demo out by this submission deadline. And
so yeah, I've gotten a lot better at just like
trusting my first instinct and knowing that whatever it was
me taking the time to make that as good a

(42:57):
version as I can based on that first time idea,
rather than like hoping that like another bit of inspiration
will come in and like supplant that that. Right.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
Yeah, that's so interesting because I I, you know, I am.
We're just doing a little therapy session. I'm going to
keep using ie statements. I can't do this with vash Debunyon.
She'll she'll get fed up. But you you've listened to
me talk about myself for hours and hours and hours
and hours. I get so inspiration hungry and addicted to
that notion of like, oh it's got to be like

(43:28):
it's got to strike me. That's where the really good
shit is. I've never had to do what you've been
doing over the last like five or six years is
that about right? Since you started like twenty twenty, so yeah,
like four years now.

Speaker 2 (43:39):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (43:40):
The craft of it, the fact that not only that
you can, but that you must use your powers that
you have learned and acquired over the years to work
on these songs. It must you must be getting so
much because like Tokyo, some years would write one song.
Even like the most productive year of our entire career,
we probably wrote like songs and that was when we

(44:01):
were working forty hour weeks. You've probably written that many
songs like last year, maybe twice that many. I don't
know how how much you're doing, but you must like
the iteration of it, right.

Speaker 2 (44:13):
Yeah, and I think so. Yeah, you know, you learn
to not be like too precious about it. And also
because if something does go forward, like so much of
this is, you know, you're just like pitching stuff out
there and it's just like demos kind of going out.
But if something goes forward and gets selected, you can't
be precious about any of it. Like they might love

(44:35):
the idea about wanting you to like just change you know,
ninety percent of it. And then so you have to
also get really good at just be like Okay, cool,
Like this is a song for these people and their purpose,
Like it doesn't end at me. So now I have
to take your notes and take them very seriously and

(44:57):
do whatever you want with it at that point. And
so I guess like that makes it easier to not
like fret about it too much as well, because you
know it's going to keep changing and a lot of
the changes are sort of like out of your control
until it's fully done.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
That's interesting because it echoes to some degree the way that,
you know, the thing that we talk about a lot
on major label debut about bands and major labels, and
the way that a major label will often acquire a
collection of art and say we love it, can we
change ninety nine percent of it please? And that's often
you know, in the context of bands and records, that's

(45:37):
framed as meddling and interference and like anti art. And
there's always you know, there's always a part of my
brain that's like, well, you know, I am just like
just doing entertainment at the end of the day. You know,
it's getting precious about my art as much as it's
truly how I feel. There's a part of me that
also suspects that maybe I'm more precious than is totally appropriate,

(46:00):
and maybe we all are, you know, maybe all all
guitar toting low lives have that sort of same sense
of like, well, the importance of what I'm creating here
is really what we're discussing, not like what we can sell,
not to entertain people, but to move and change the world.
Has your understanding or feelings about art and commerce changed

(46:22):
since you started doing this work, and also has it
retroactively changed how you felt about some of like the
Tokyo Police Club art commerce interactions for instance.

Speaker 2 (46:32):
I mean, I think like with some of the the
feelings of like having to like protect your art and
like and listen to other people's input. The healthiest way
that I found to look at it is that like
nobody wants it to be bad. No one wants to
like ruin this thing. They all want it to be
as like good as possible, And maybe they do have

(46:56):
like really good ideas out there, like generally they do.
I've I've been like fortunate enough, like in the television work,
to have people who they're very good at their job,
and every time it's like improved the song so much
where it's like, oh, Okay, I hadn't even thought about that,
Like I didn't even know I had. Maybe this amount
of room to play with is like you want it

(47:19):
to be like bigger or like bolder, or like more exciting.
Like they wanted to just like hit these like emotional
peaks that sometimes like in the band world with that
kind of music, because it's your art, it's almost like
too it feels too exposing to like go for the
rafters in that same sort of way. And I think

(47:39):
like probably in any of the like an R or
like producer feedback that maybe we would have gotten from
some of the music that Tokyo was doing. Like I
think they were probably just wanting us to go for
the rafters more as well. And maybe it was right,
maybe it was wrong. Maybe it was just like same

(48:00):
but different. I wonder like sometimes if like we had,
like if there were at that many moments where we
were like up against like us against the A and
R people, But I think I don't know. Yeah, I
guess that's like one of the questions like if like
if we had played the game differently, would we have

(48:21):
ended up in a different spot.

Speaker 1 (48:22):
Yeah, it's interesting, you know, like we took our major
label meeting moment was so early, you know, like we
took a meeting with Capital Records when we were I
don't know, twenty one, twenty two years old, like before
Elephant Shell. What would Elephant Shell sound like if we
had made it as the first record of like a
six record three sixty mid two thousand's Capitol deal. I mean,

(48:44):
obviously it's completely impossible to know. But some days I
feel like, yeah, oh my god, we probably probably would
have been the best record ever. We would be Kings
of Leon right now. And other days I think like, oh,
maybe it just would have There would be no Tokyo
Please Club. We would have spent five years working on
a record, got nowhere, and then broken up with nothing
to show for it. And I guess, I mean, that's
exactly the calculus that we were trying to figure out

(49:06):
when we made the decision to not sign with that label.
It's like, what will it do?

Speaker 2 (49:10):
Yeah? And I think like we always took the path
of like trying to protect ourselves and like that original
vision of like what the band is. And I don't
think we are wrong at that, but you're right, Like
it's like to have that kind of thought experiment it's like,
who knows what the other path could have done for
or against us.

Speaker 1 (49:29):
You said something in the last Tokyo Police Club interview
with CBC. We were at a Toronto institution, Sneaky D's,
and you said something to the effect of like, we
all wanted the band to work so much, and then
it did, and then we were all, on whatever level,
terrified that it would be taken away from us, and
it seemed like everyone could and might take it away

(49:50):
from us. The label will take it, the manager will
take it, we'll take it from each other if it's
not a success on whatever metric that meant at the time,
and that really h me right in my course, I
was like, oh shit, yeah, there was so much like
it's weird to call it fear based, because I think
it was also like love based and enthusiasm based, and
like we were talking about earlier, we were we got
to do the thing, you know, I didn't have to

(50:12):
play guitar in the mirror anymore. I was playing guitar
to an audience, a real audience that liked it. I mean,
we were like a real fucking band, And in the beginning,
it really felt like, damn, this guy's the limit. But
then rather than feeling empowered by that, I felt like
cowed and frightened by it was your experience along those lines.

Speaker 2 (50:34):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. It was like such ah,
it was such a leap of faith to yeah, to
like leave university and start touring and like take the
band seriously. And I don't think I ever stopped like
having more leaps of faith, like it was like with

(50:56):
every like move forward, especially during those like first five years,
it felt like okay, like we're we're like reupping on
this again, like we're coming back in there. Like it
never felt on solid ground ever, Like I.

Speaker 1 (51:10):
Think it wasn't in a way it was you know,
financially if nothing else. And this is the kind of
like our version of the art commerce interaction. Is this
really weird like working musician, blue collar musician thing if
I can call it that, where it's like if you
keep saying yes to everything, you can keep doing this

(51:31):
for your job barely, but you gotta do the weird
gig and you gotta sink the weird song in the commercial,
and like you can't like the stakes did feel I mean,
we're talking about Indie Rocks or whatever, but like the
stakes felt really high. It really did feel like at
any time we were on pretty thin ice. And that's
a funny thing to say about a band like Tokyo

(51:52):
Police Club, that we just did this big triumphant farewell
that makes it look like, oh my god, we were
a humongous the whole time. Like so many I don't
know if you've been getting this. You're not in Toronto,
maybe you get less of it, but so many people
are like, oh my god, those shows are so big.
Why did you guys ever quit? And I have to
be like, it wasn't. Those shows were real outliers man,
Like we spent ten years before that toiling our asses

(52:12):
off and we were lucky. We were an incredibly successful band.
People were jealous and justifiably so, and it was still
you know, you're always enthrall to the almighty allar.

Speaker 2 (52:24):
Yeah. I think feeling that that pressure of it, like
potentially going away with every like album that we made
or like decision. I don't think it necessarily made me
more like present to like all the experiences out there
as like that that could go away. It was more

(52:45):
like the big picture, like oh, like this potential and
like when we're talking about the idea of like, okay,
we were like an indie band. The dream never felt
like that. The dream that was in our heads and
the dream that was kind of presented to us by
people in the industry was like, oh, you could be

(53:05):
it's like the biggest band in the world. We don't know.

Speaker 1 (53:08):
That's what everyone.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Wants out of you, is for you to be as
big as you could possibly ever be. The stakes felt
so high, like even when we were doing five hundred
cap clubs or something like that, it's still felt like, oh,
but who knows, Like it just takes one song and
one like right move and then all of a sudden,
you're gonna be up here.

Speaker 1 (53:29):
And that's a feeling. This is great, man. So I mean,
it's wonderful to talk to you at all. We haven't
spoken since we met the show. But it's also just
great to be able to like talk about this stuff
directly because I always find myself face to face with
you know, whatever musician of legend, and I want to ask, like,
you know, what is it like to just be like
in the dream and yet the dream is different than

(53:50):
you thought it would be. And like the way that
people talk about a song is this like crazy making truth.
I have recently spoken to one of the members of
the Surfaris, and you know, I tell some people about
the Safaris and they know people who don't know. I say, oh,
the band that wrote Wipeout, and everyone knows Wipeout. And

(54:12):
I was like, that's like meeting the guy that wrote
Happy Birthday. You wrote fucking Wipeout, Like that's the that's incredible,
you like pulled that out of the air. It's a
perfect piece of music, and it's so I mean, it's
just iconic. Doesn't even do it justice. And that's an
extreme example, but it's like, yeah, if you write a
song and almost every time, I mean, you know, there's
the pop world where those songs are manufactured more deliberately,

(54:35):
and that happens in rock too, but it seems like
the real iconic, undeniable rock songs that cross over into
you know, the just the wider world have at least
the appearance of, you know, being not written on purpose
as hits, just being written by people trying to write
a song. You know, people who got together in a

(54:56):
room and had an idea and chased the idea to
where it excited them. So in a sense there's Yeah,
there's that exact notion of like, all you have to
do is write one of those songs, and it could
be any song. That's the beauty of it. No matter
how long you've been doing this, whether you're green, whether
you're a veteran, whether you're yesterday's news, whether you're tomorrow's news,
it all goes away if you just write that song.

(55:19):
The problem is, that's like a fucking miracle to write
that song. But everyone just talks about it, and especially
as the other and I know you know all this, Greg,
I just I feel like I finally get to articulate
this to our listener. This is a way that makes sense.
When you're new, the newness itself is stalable. So it's like, oh,
this is an exciting young band. They look cool, They're
like they have their own vibe that we could that's sexy.

(55:42):
We can sell that to people as like a whole
cool vibe of rock and roll. But the longer you
go and the more established you become, people start to
only talk about the song. And you know the difference
for Tokyo, for instance, between making Champ and the way
that the industry engaged with us and the potential horizons
we saw, and then making force Field, where all anyone

(56:03):
wanted to talk about was like, there's not quite a
single there, there's not quite this, there's not quite that.
Try again, spend another year writing searching for the song.
I guess my question for you is, how do you
feel about that? I know, I think you're right, Like
that's exactly it. Like we the first three albums A
Lesson in Crime Alvin shell Chan was all based around like, yeah,

(56:27):
this exciting novelty of like four young kids, like four
young like extremely energetic kids, like cranking out these songs
that like felt nostalgic and like very fresh. But like
none of those songs were one of those songs on

(56:50):
like those albums, like those songs that just like crosses
over into the collective consciousness of people, and we didn't
like have on one of those hits. And so yeah,
that's exactly right. When we stopped to then make force
Field and we were still kind of in as close

(57:11):
as we ever were to like a major label working
with Mom and Pop, it was like, Okay, you guys
can't coast on this like fresh faced novelty forever. Like
it's either you come up with like one of these
songs that it's going to just like touch everybody that
ever hears it, or we have no other ideas for you.

Speaker 2 (57:33):
Yeah, that's the hardest part is like we're coming up
with so many ideas, like in those two years we
demoed forty to fifty songs like potentially for force Field,
and to have every one of them be met with
like a just not quite there yet, like keep digging,
keep working, like send Dave off to like writing retreats

(57:56):
with in La with these people who who might be
able to to like dig that out of you. Like
what a maddening process when everything we had done up
to that point was working perfectly, like it was met
with like, Okay, that's not you're playing the game exactly right.
But now that game is over, and now if you

(58:19):
really want to be in the big leagues and continue
a career, you have to try and level up to this.
And yeah, it's like it's not an impossible feat, but
it's like there's no recipe for that.

Speaker 1 (58:34):
And it's a very Once you start playing that game,
the whole apparatus changes. Now you're chasing a different thing
and you're looking for a different thing and it makes
all the songs have different contacts in different sense, and
if you're not careful, you wind up with a record
that's like twelve close but not quite. And I'd love

(58:55):
every song on every Tokyo Police Club record. And I
think we ultimately did a good job likeing it back
in when it really counted and not letting things get
totally lost. But like I know people who have made
records trying to write one hit and instead they wrote
like twelve songs that sound like good tries at a hit,
and they don't sound like them, and it doesn't sound

(59:16):
like the thing that people liked the label, or that
anyone liked from them, And it's like your compass gets
all fucked up. Do you remember how you went about
keeping your head keeping your heart in the right spot,
or if you if you lost it, how you got
back to it.

Speaker 2 (59:29):
I mean, I think like during that time, we were
all spending so much time together like just trying to
get it, so like we had each other to like
keep ourselves accountable, and I think that was important. And again,
like that's all we ever really had was like the
trust of like three other people to tell you if

(59:49):
it was like good or not, and we all knew
when something was like good, and we all knew when
something was like, eh, not like quite up to our
standards so or like quite up to like our vision. Yeah,
I do remember feeling discouraged in that like weird rehearsal
space going in like hours and hours every week, like

(01:00:13):
just trying to come up with ten psalms that would
like get the green light from like the label, and
again like them not really being able to like help
you at all. I think that's like a weird thing
about the relationship between like a label and a band
is like they're not always there to create the path

(01:00:36):
for you. They're just sometimes there to like block it
if they don't see it as yeah, like.

Speaker 1 (01:00:42):
Well for them that it's axiomatic that like it's a song,
and we're in the business of hits. We're in the business.
We're an American big label, We're in the business of
radio hits. And it was at a time for us,
you know, just coincidentally, the music industry was moving in
a way where a band like ours had the potential
to have a hit, to be a big band in

(01:01:02):
a way that you know, ten years before or ten
years after, I don't think anyone would have even bothered
to give us some meetings. It's like, well, in indie
band like Tokyo Police Club doesn't do hits, that's not
really like how the machine works, but it did work
like that then, but then what they can do. Yeah,
it's like, well, we have the capacity to take a
song that might work and force it down everyone's throat.

(01:01:23):
But if you don't give us the ingredients, like we
don't really turn on the machine, then there is no
point to this label, you know, or for us, you know.
And I wonder, I mean, this is a classic and
it's weird with these what ifs, these what could have
beens is I find they are almost always career based.

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:01:41):
I don't have a lot of like artistic regrets. All
of my regrets are about like, oh, we would have
been bigger, we could have made more money, And then
I have to remind myself that like who gives a shit?

Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
Right, But I mean it's like, yes, Hugh gives a shit.
But it's like again, like going back to like that
first vision for the band, it's like you want that,
like that's like the final point of the dream, or
at least like what it kind of like feels like
it's like, oh, it's like I woke up before I
got to fly or whatever it is like in the dream,

(01:02:14):
like it couldn't quite I could like jump off the
ground really high, but I couldn't just like soar through
the air.

Speaker 1 (01:02:20):
And I could feel it if I just if the
alarm hadn't gone off yep, ye, yep.

Speaker 2 (01:02:26):
And it feels so like natural to want that, and
I agree, like I love all the songs. I love
all the music that we mate, and I also like
unders stand like in listen to it, like oh, of course,
like these songs aren't like major radio songs out there,
like they just weren't trying to be that, and that's

(01:02:49):
also okay. Would it have been nice to have a
song that like continuously like generated an income for us,
like into like our future that was like, okay, this
is your pension right here? Of course, that would also
be amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:08):
Of course, And that also means that that's a song
that like when you tell people you wrote it, everyone
knows that that's great, and like that maybe is the
real endpoint of the dream is not fame, but recognition
of like you made something that you know you were
a big Pumpkins fan. I was a big We were
both big radio head fans the Strokes. We were sort
of just pre social media enough that the bands that

(01:03:30):
were coming our way as teenagers in a suburb were
like big bands on the radio necessarily, And so you
form your vision of what a band ought to be,
or at least I formed my vision through that. And
it's like, well, that's like, I mean, obviously, it's the
honor of my life to have made any music that
any number of people truly like, you know, And and
the Farewell Tokyo tour was a really beautiful reminder that

(01:03:53):
you know, those not to well let's let i'll jerk
us off a little bit. Yet, you know, it's a
beautiful reminder that music really we did touch like a
lot of people in a way that the music I
love touched me. And that's I mean, it's you can't
complain about it, but it does make you hungry for like,
oh my god, but what if that was like a
million people and they loved a song that I wrote,
you know, and I wrote a song that a million

(01:04:15):
people could love. That would be who wouldn't want that?

Speaker 2 (01:04:17):
Needless to say, yeah, exactly. It's like and so now
I think it's like interesting to be on the other
side of that, having like ended the bit, it's like, okay,
like the dream is closed for now, like the potential
to write a song within Tokyo Police Club that does that,

(01:04:37):
for Tokyo Police Club to have reached that, it's like, well, no,
like it's like we don't have that, Like maybe we'll
be graced with some kind of like TikTok viral or whatever.
The next great, great app is to launch people that
are retired into the stratosphere. Who knows, maybe maybe that'll happen.

(01:05:00):
And I guess that's like where the the work is
like in like these like the past few months, like
after having like played the final show, it's just like, okay,
what is what's the new dream? Because I don't want
to stop having dreams.

Speaker 1 (01:05:17):
Yeah, it's a really interesting thing to come up. I
talked to Bob Lee, who played drums in a band
called claw Hammer and also in like roughly one billion
other bands it sounded like and he's been doing it
for ages, and he said, you know that you learn
over time that like the dream changes, and the dream
isn't one static thing. The dream evolves, but you're always

(01:05:38):
you know, you're playing music in some way, and in
that way, you know you're still living the dream, you know,
composing and creating. But the thing about living the dream
is it's oxymoronic because if you're living it, then it's
not really the dream, is it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:53):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:05:53):
So, and that's one of the things that gets in
the way of bands too, is you get to that
level that you're like, oh, if we could play one show,
if we could record one record, if we got a
record label, you know, that would be That's all I
would ever want. I'm sure I said that shit when
I was seventeen. I probably meant it too, But then
once we got the record deal, I wasn't like, but yeah,
to come up with a new dream, or not to

(01:06:14):
come up with but to discover the next dream. Now
after all that time, is a really I mean, like,
I'm sure both of us and Josh and Dave in
their own ways are wrestling with that angel day in
day out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:27):
Yeah. I don't think it's like unhealthy either. Like it's
like the dreams are are what inspire you to like
to make art and create, like you you want for
what I like to kind of get out of making art.
It's like you make it like for yourself, but you
also still have this like idea in the back of

(01:06:47):
your mind, like I really hope that people really understand
that people really get kind of as many people as
it possibly could, Like I think that's like the ultimate
goal when you make something. It's like I really want
a lot of people to say yes to it. Yeah,
And so it's healthy to dream like that's not I

(01:07:09):
don't think that's like unhealthy art. It's just like part
of the fuel and the DNA a bit at least
as far as like my personal understanding of like what
creation or like what I want creation to be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
So where are you finding that these days? You know,
you're obviously working a lot, and your it sounds like
your craft is sharpening and sharpening, and you and your
mind is getting better and better at working on this stuff.
And I mean, I can't wait to hear what you
keep coming up with for those reasons. But that feeling
of like it's happening in my heart, it's happening in

(01:07:44):
my soul. It's me, it's it's the creative and I'm
being visited by the faery. You know what, I mean, like,
do you are you locating that any one place? That's
that's a very personal question to ask on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:07:56):
Yeah, I think, like I'm I mean, I'm looking for
in trying to create like ideas that feel like I
can have some like ownership of it as well, like
beyond just like making music for like shows. It's like, okay,

(01:08:17):
the I feel like the next like step that I
want to do is like make shows. It's like and
then like be part of like the ground four of
like creating like a vision for that. So I'm starting
to play around with ideas for that because that feels
like it scratches the itch and kind of a way
more similar to like being in like a band. It's like, oh, okay,

(01:08:39):
I know, I'm like one step less removed from like
the creative project. You just get to be more of
the artist and then like more of the creator and
like more of the craftsmen. Like I don't know, I
think that's like what I'm excited by next.

Speaker 1 (01:08:58):
I mean, it makes perfect sense, but it's interesting to
me the way that like when certainly when we were
teenagers and when Tokyo when Suburbia was the band, and
then when Tokyo was young, it felt like we were
doing just as much, like our creativity was manifesting just
as much in like making buttons or writing our MySpace Bioah,
we're like all getting together to write an email to like,
you know, a label guy that came to one of

(01:09:19):
our early shows and we wanted to really impress him,
so the four of us would work on like punching
up a really funny email, and we you know, we
built a drum kid out of cardboard. We painted the
your Kick drumskin in Dave's base, We painted science that
said Tokyo Police Club. All of those activities were like
as much a creative outlet as the music was. And

(01:09:40):
then as you move into the business itself, you get
like streamed into a more focused creative environment where you're like, okay,
you guys are you're the band? Like we work on
the music, we work on the songs in the show,
and then when we need to do a video, we
hire someone or this or that. Not every band works
that way, but that's typically how it's done. And then
it's easy to forget that, like there's more than one

(01:10:01):
way obviously to be creative, and there's more than one
way that we were creative, and so yeah, that's it
doesn't surprise me that you're finding the dream in places
other than just music, not at least because there's more
unknowns there too, right, more surprises.

Speaker 2 (01:10:15):
Yeah, And I think it's like what you get to
do when you create a band is like create a
whole world that you get to like exist in. And
I think that's what I'm excited about doing, is like
how can I create like another world to exist in
and like create it and like all of those things

(01:10:37):
that were like the dressings around the music, like writing
the email, making the buttons, sewing pillows, like it's it's
all just like, oh, we got to create our own world.
That's what I want. Like that, I guess that's like
the ultimate dream. And you know that's what I wake
up like excited to try to find again.

Speaker 1 (01:10:59):
I know exactly what you mean. I mean, that's how
this podcast was born. It was like, oh, me and
someone are talking and we have an idea and suddenly,
next thing you know, three hours have gone by and
you've scrawled notes on both sides of the napkin and
you're just like it's carrying you along, that feeling. I
always think of you and I specifically when we used
to write, like when we wrote a lessoning crime the
Tokyo Place Club EP in Josh's basement in Newmarket. I

(01:11:22):
always knew that things were like really cooking when you
and I would make eye contact and both be like
have that giddy grin on our faces, and it's like,
that's the feeling. Ultimately, that's what I want. I want
to catch eyes with someone that I love and no,
both of us know outside of language that like we're
doing something.

Speaker 2 (01:11:41):
Yeah, oh my god, that's it. That is like the
that's the exact moment that you want to capture again
and again. Is just like that shared acknowledgment in like magic,
it's magic collaboration.

Speaker 1 (01:11:52):
Yeah, and it's the same magic that happens in a
good gig where it's like everyone in this room is
understanding something between us without talking about it, but we
just all know at the same time. And that like community,
that true community is so I mean, how can you
ever stop searching for it once you've felt at one time.

Speaker 2 (01:12:12):
Yeah, it feels so h you feel so alive and
so connected and so just like in it, like so
in the moment, it's like the the most like flow
steady kind of thing that you can ever go for.
So yeah, totally, I do want to I don't want
the end of the band to be the end of
like having those those moments. I want I want to

(01:12:36):
want that drug again.

Speaker 1 (01:12:39):
It's the greatest feeling in the world.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Kids.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
That's our advice for young kids who want to be
in bands. Chase the dragon.

Speaker 2 (01:12:45):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:12:46):
Well, by way of moving towards a satisfying conclusion, I
should ask you about the most important, enduring, iconic work
of music you've ever been involved in. I'm talking, of course,
about the major debut theme, which you created for us
so quickly based on such a vague, napkin sketch of

(01:13:08):
not even idea. Just to sort of general brief, how
do you go about approaching a podcast theme creatively? I mean,
it's such a talk about a specific purpose for a
piece of music.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Yeah, I mean, I think like you guys had like
an idea that made a lot of sense. It's like, okay,
like the sound of like a low fide demo tape
evolving into something that feels like a major label produced single.
So like the arc was there, and then thankfully at
that time when Paul called me. I had just been

(01:13:45):
doing a bunch of demo pitches for the new Ninja
Turtles show, and I did not get it. But I
did like six demo cues that were all like the
brief said, we want like a scratch beat garage rock
songs that sound somewhere between like sext the Bomb from
like Scott Pilgrim and like sleigh Bells. And so I

(01:14:09):
was already like in that world of like, Okay, I'm
gonna be playing a lot of guitars and like drums
and doing something that feels like somewhere between like really
garage rock and like really like glossy like punk kind
of stuff. And so I submitted those and then Paul
call me like the next day, so like, hey, you
want to We're starting this podcast and we want you

(01:14:31):
to do the theme song for it, and like the
idea of it like fits almost exactly on what you've
just been doing over like this last week of scrambling
to create music. So it was like it just kind
of seemed like a natural extension of what I had
already been doing, and yeah, it came out really bast Like, Yeah,

(01:14:52):
I remember like starting a version of it that morning
after the phone call, and then by like midnight. I
think that night I was like, oh, I think I
got like something here. I'll like send it off and
hopefully they like it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:06):
And then it was done. I feel like we had
no notes.

Speaker 2 (01:15:08):
Yeah, there was no notes, which was really.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
Do I've been saving them for this conversation. So it's
just another couple of hours and we'll get through it. Yeah,
in your home studio, there is there a piece of
gear or software or anything that you find is like
your current inspiration center.

Speaker 2 (01:15:28):
Yeah. I bought this like synth like two years ago
called like a cork Wave Stake, and it's like a
digital synth that uses wave samples and you can kind
of it kind of like almost like scroll through them
in like real time, so it's almost like sequencing waves
like and it's like endlessly creative. It's like the samples

(01:15:49):
are really good. It's like everything sounds incredible through it.
But you can do really like weird synth stuff where
you can have like the sample of a like a
marimba and like somebody screaming like slowly cross fading like
between the two, and so you can come up these
really cool textures or played beautifully sampled versions of like

(01:16:12):
analog sense.

Speaker 1 (01:16:13):
Do you find yourself? You know, I also make a
good amount of music like alone in my home, and
I find myself in the absence of other band members.
I think I really gravitate, Like I recently bought it. Really,
I bought one of those Hologram Electronics Microcosm pedals. You're
a really like expensive, fancy cool thing that when I
watched YouTube demos of it, just everything sounded amazing and

(01:16:36):
I was like, I want to do that. And I
got it and I put it on my board and
I could, you know, spent like forty minutes arranging my
whole place to like around it, and then I started
playing through it, and I was like it just is
like beautiful sound is coming back at me, but like
I can't get inside it, and like it isn't surprising me,
and it isn't so anyway. I find myself gravitating instead
to things that like do something weird or unexpected or

(01:16:58):
like wrong or imperfec And I wonder if it's kind
of like a way of like I need another presence
in the room and if I can't have a band
with me here, then I need to have like a
ghost in the machine instead when you said marimba and
screaming voice back and forth. That's the kind of cockamamy
idea that sounds like collaborative.

Speaker 2 (01:17:16):
Yeah, I think. So it's like you find you got
to find something that like sets you off on a
new direction, and it's so hard to do that on
your own, Like how do you interrupt yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:17:26):
Yeah, and how do yeah, exactly, how do you make
something that's not just like a perfect execution of the
one idea?

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:17:33):
And that's I mean, I guess that's always the trick
is finding that, like the keeping the humanity in it,
especially now when you're like, oh, you know, what's the
easiest thing in the world to do is create perfect music.
It's never been easier, And it's always interesting to look
for those little blips or bloops or scratches or fuck
ups or whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:17:50):
Totally I do find like I miss like like when
I am working on my own on like, so I
do miss other people. I think, having like a co
writer or even just like somebody else like come in
like to like sing a demo or something like just
having somebody else infuse their energy into it. Yeah. So

(01:18:11):
it's not just you, like it's not just all coming
through you and you're like strain to like push the
rock up the hill. It's like, oh, can you like
take a turn and like push it for a little bit.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (01:18:23):
It goes so far.

Speaker 1 (01:18:25):
Especially as a drummer. I mean, you have so much
power when you're playing in a rock combo to like
jump a beat or to like to do something unexpected
or to get you know, to stop, or to just
be surprising. And obviously you can do that by yourself,
but you have to either you're playing along to a
finished piece of music that doesn't do that and it
keeps on not doing it it doesn't react to you,

(01:18:46):
or you have to plan it all out in advance.
And then that's cool too, but it's like an ingenious
idea rather than a inspired notion.

Speaker 2 (01:18:54):
Yeah, exactly, you don't have like the room for like
those those like magic moments of whatever to like come
in in that same way. So yeah, I totally go
what you're saying, like you need to find like friction
points out there to just kind of like rub you
into a new direction.

Speaker 1 (01:19:11):
But then on the other hand, there's not three other
assholes and they're ruining everything for you, So it's it's
a double edged sword. We always wrap up every episode
of major label Debut by asking the most important question, which,
of course is what did you eat while you were
in the studio recording the album in question? So I
guess in this instance, i'd love to know what you
were eating when you were recording the MLD theme song

(01:19:34):
and or what fuels you in your home studio. Eating
in your home studio as a different, different vibe than
eating in a recording studio where you just get take
out every single night.

Speaker 3 (01:19:44):
Yeah, I eat you wan thing late at night, and
I would have wanted something warm because my studio's in
my basement and it's always like a little too like
chili down here, So I would have been eating They're
called like morning They're these like little like baked musly

(01:20:05):
bread kind of things, almost like a flattened like.

Speaker 2 (01:20:08):
Bagel with like raisin nut in it, but with no
hole that with like peanut butter.

Speaker 1 (01:20:14):
Oh yeah, it's so funny you're in the recording One
of my favorite things about being in the recording studio
is getting some junk ass food and sitting around with
everyone eating it, and then you're at home you're like, oh,
I guess I'll just have like a spoonful of peanut butter.
Back to work. We come for the glitz, we stay
for the glamour.

Speaker 2 (01:20:31):
Just pure protein.

Speaker 1 (01:20:33):
And yeah, I also want to shout out just talking
about Tokyo Police Club and eating. I've never got the
opportunity to pay tribute to Uncle Benny's the Aurora twenty
four hour diner where in the early days of Tokyo
Police Club, the early early days, like pre playing gigs,
even practically, we'd go there almost every night after our
rehearsals and eat.

Speaker 2 (01:20:54):
What a bizarre place. It was open twenty four hours
and family run, and it seemed like the entire family
was like working there all the time too. So there'd
be like an old grandfatherly figure like bringing us milkshakes,
and then sometimes like a eight year old girl like

(01:21:15):
also like bringing us fries, like it was like a.

Speaker 1 (01:21:18):
I vividly remember, like, yeah, like a girl who could
not have been older than ten. Yeah, showing just unremarked
upon as though she was the regular server, just like
rocking up to the table and putting down some food
and walking away. In the four of us just sort
of talking about catching eyes in a moment of not
creative inspiration but yeah, universal comedy.

Speaker 2 (01:21:38):
Yeah, it felt like being in like a like a
weird Twin Peaks moment or something like that where it's
just like, oh, something's just like slightly askew right here,
and it's two in the morning. No one's drunk as
we're teenagers and driving around, so it's like a stone
sober like version of like, huh, like what do we
just slip into right now?

Speaker 1 (01:21:59):
That was uncle, yeah, very fifties. We like put down
our rock and roll guitars and went out to have
shakes and burgers. The local die just cruised on down
there in the car. But you know what you need,
I think an important ingredient in a dream like that,
you know, which so far has been kind of the
great dream of my life is a place to like
dream it. And we were, you know, in between food

(01:22:21):
deliveries by child laborers, we were outlining our plans for
world domination and our and our plans for what the
band was going to be, and it kind of became
many of those things as well as something entirely of
its own.

Speaker 2 (01:22:35):
Yeah. Well again, like we were living in the world
entirely like that we were creating around us and like
that was as much a part of it was like
making the music and then going off the same for
people not tired of each other yet to like continue
to build the world together.

Speaker 1 (01:22:52):
Well, Greg, it was I mean to stay on a
podcast that it was a pleasure and an honor to
build that world and live in it with you and
Josh as well. I know you're listening, and Dave, if
you listen is the understatement of the century, but it
will have to suffice because that's the medium we're in.
Thanks so much for doing the pod Man. It's really
beautiful to talk to you again and talk to you
about this stuff from this new remove and also not

(01:23:15):
like in New York City at three in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:23:19):
Thank you so much for asking me. It was like,
it is such an honor to talk to you in
this way, and it was like a beautiful excuse to
just move some shit around internally that needs to be moved.

Speaker 1 (01:23:32):
Yeah, see what the dreams are like tonight? You know
that's what my therapist.

Speaker 2 (01:23:35):
Where we go. I'll be back in the Montreal airport
and somehow also at Uncle Benny's with an eight year
old girl telling me that my flight is canceled in
the French.

Speaker 1 (01:23:45):
Yes, that's my friend, my colleague, my longtime collaborator, Greg Allsop.
It was so nice to get to finally talk to
Greg on the podcast. You know, obviously, his brilliant theme
music has been a part of the show since the
beginning and will be a part of the show forever

(01:24:07):
more as fung as it lasts. But having his human
speaking voice on the show as well was long overdue
and just a blast and great for me because Greg
and I hadn't really had a chance to talk since
the big Bonanza blowout Farewell Tokyo Please Club party, and honestly,
that was such a wild ride we didn't get that
much of a chance to talk during it either, So

(01:24:28):
nice for me personally to have a chat with my
buddy Greg. Thank you for listening in on that. Greg's band,
Delta Underground has new music out. You should look them
up on your streaming service or music accessing point of choice.
Greg has made a ton of music for a ton
of cool kids TV shows, most notably the Apple TV
Plus show Pine Cone and Pony, based on the great

(01:24:49):
book by the great Canadian Kate Beaton. Greg did their
theme song, and that makes Major Label gave you pretty
good company, I would say, And he did other music
for that show as well. He's also done music for
a series called Well Versed and for something called PJ
Masks Power Heroes or Power Heroes music Videos. I don't
watch that much children's TV. I got to confess to you,

(01:25:11):
we don't have PJ Masks on in our house, so
I'm sorry if I'm not quite seeing that title right.
No offense to mister Masks in the music videos Gang
on Disney Plus. Greg Allsop dot Com is Gregg's website.
All the info about all his projects is there, and
his really cool recording studio. If you're ever going through
Prince Overard Island and you want to cut a record,
I can vouch for Greg's brilliance at making music, and

(01:25:34):
you can hear it for yourself as you listen one
more time to the Major Label debut theme song by
Greg Alsop. The show is produced as always by John
Paul Bullock and Josh Hook. My name is Graham, right,
I'm talking the whole time. We're having a great time
making the show. We love doing it. It's so rewarding,
it's so interesting, it's gone down so many avenues that
I never anticipated when we started it, and it's just

(01:25:56):
been so much fun to do it. So thank you
for listening and enabling us to do this amazing thing.
If you like it, please tell a friend you think
might like it. I really want the show to succeed,
and I think that more people need to listen to
it to kind of get the real ball rolling. I
don't know how you make money making a podcast. I
don't know if you make money making a podcast, but
juice those numbers. Juice those numbers. That's the one thing

(01:26:18):
I've always learned as a content construction professional through these
many years. So yeah, tell a friend, or at least
click the like button, or you know, don't do anything,
just sit there passively listening. I appreciate that too. Our
tree falling in your forest still makes some kind of sound,
so to speak. I'm running out a steam here at
the end of the show. That's it, right, I think

(01:26:40):
that I've said everything. If I forgot anything, I don't know.
I say the same thing every week, just just fill
in the blanks. I'll tell you this, though Major label
Debut will as always be back with more tales from
the intersection of art and commerce so long

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