Tokyo Police Club (and beyond!) with Greg Alsop *rebroadcast* - Major Label Debut

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
It's major label debut, the podcast about major label debuts
and other things.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
I'm Graham Wright.

Speaker 1 (00:15):
On my living room wall, directly above the television, I
have framed the beautiful tour poster for the final Tokyo
Police Club tour. Gorgeous poster designed by our friend in,
a wonderful artist across many disciplines and duras, and I
wanted to get it framed. It has nice colors on it,
and we thought we'd put it up in the spot
where there was room for a poster, which was above

(00:35):
the TV, which means I find myself looking at the
poster all the time, and recently I began to realize
that the dates on the poster the dates of the
final Tokyo Police Club shows were one year ago. The
anniversary of each show came and went day by day,
and rather than being conveyed across America in a tour bus,

(00:57):
I was in my home every day, and it was
startling to realize how much time had passed, how different
my life has become already, and just how strange it
is for something like a band, which your whole identity
gets wrapped up in a band that you're in, particularly

(01:17):
if the band has any kind of fame or notoriety.
When I go to the bank, it says, Tokyo Police
Club is my job, my employer, so bank tellers will
ask me, oh my god, are you in Tokyo Police Club.
I used to joke that I would always take my
first dates. I would make an excuse to take them
to the bank. It's the one place where I would
reliably get recognized, recognized as we call it in the biz,

(01:38):
but I never actually did that.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
It really wraps you up in it.

Speaker 1 (01:42):
You are you of your band, and you know, for
most people who knew who I was, who weren't my
friends or family, they knew about Tokyo Police Club and
then me below that right, if you know about this podcast,
there's a really good chance that it's because you knew
about Tokyo Police Club, and then from the found out
about me and found out about this show. And now

(02:03):
I'm not in Tokyo Please Club anymore. And that has
been a really interesting adjustment process. This isn't the place
for me to suddenly start monologuing and reflecting on what
that means to me.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I don't even know what that means to me yet.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
But because it is the holiday season, we wanted to
do a special encore presentation of a really fantastic conversation
we had on this show back in spring with Greg Alsop.
We got Greg on the show to talk about writing
music for podcasts and writing music for television.

Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know that's Greg does that. He also produces mixes.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
He's a brilliant musician on both sides of the proverbial
window of the recording studio. We had this whole list
of questions about writing music to purpose, you know, like,
we hit up Greg to make a podcast theme with
a bunch of really specific requests, and he came through
like that first demo was perfect. So I thought it
was gonna be a really interesting conversation about all that stuff.

(02:58):
And then, to probably no one's surprise except mine and Greg's,
we just ended up talking about Tokyo Police Club for
the entire time. Because this was the first time that
Greg and I had really spoken at length since the
band ended. You know, you're on a logistical WhatsApp thread
all the time, but just to get together and yack
as friends, as pals, as two guys who've shared this

(03:19):
experience was something we simply hadn't done and so rather
than talking about making music for podcasts or any of
the questions we had prepared, we just kind of started
to unpack our Tokyo Police Club experiences. And you know,
by the end of the conversation, I think we both realized,
oh gee, I guess we both kind of needed a
conversation like this, So it happened at a really perfect time.

(03:42):
You know, it's been like another six seven months since
this conversation, so I'm sure we're both in different places
now than we were then. However, I still think the
conversation is really worth listening to. I was really happy
to revisit it and to help you celebrate this holiday season,
whatever you're celebrating, wherever you're going, however you're spending it.
Here again is my conversation with my friend, colleague, collaborator,

(04:08):
and hero.

Speaker 2 (04:09):
Mister Greg Alsock.

Speaker 1 (04:16):
Hi, Greg, Hey, 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.

Speaker 2 (04:26):
How are you? I'm well, yeah, I was just thinking
about that this morning. That 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, so
that's right. Yeah, So as long as we just keep
scheduling momentous occasions, I think this relationship is right on track.

Speaker 1 (04:51):
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 (05:07):
No wasted time or space. Yeah, I don't want to
exactly get a beer any wings anymore. So we've moved
beyond that.

Speaker 1 (05:13):
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 (05:26):
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 (05:41):
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 (05:52):
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

(06:13):
fifth show, and we gotta do it tonight. Everything's already
in there, we're set to go take 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 Boy from Colorado filled in
for me for the final final Tokyo Please clip show.

(06:36):
That's not it.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
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 (06:46):
Yeah, the most expensive last four shows ever.

Speaker 1 (06:53):
For the Listener's edification, Greg did spend most of the
summer delayed at the Montreal airport, flying back and forth
with the Cross 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 (07:10):
Maybe that's the true minor trauma that I'm trying to
work out, is just be stuck at Montreal Airport again
and again. Yeah, maybe you missed the limital space.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
You need to fly back to Montreal Airport and see
what happens to your body when you walk off the plane.

Speaker 2 (07:26):
There it is. Yeah, that's when I'll finally, Yeah, time
and space will I'll meet in that perfect point and
I'll be reborn as I truly was meant to be.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
As a fixture of the Montreal Airport. The terminal esque character.
I think that that of any airport. I think the
Montreal Airport could really stand to have like a couple
of just you know, little local color.

Speaker 2 (07:50):
You could learn to juggle, you could learn devil sticks
as a busker at the Montreal Airport. Yeah, I think, yeah,
you do. Yeah, I think Montreal would really that kind
of menitcheative.

Speaker 1 (08:02):
I'm not sure how French culture laws apply on the
international ground of the airport, but we'll get that all
sorted out in the performance.

Speaker 2 (08:09):
I am looking for work, so there me too.

Speaker 1 (08:12):
Most of this podcast is the two of us just
stating our resumes in hopes that, you know, instead of
collecting sponsors, we're going to send the audio to potential employers.

Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, if you could just prep me for a potential interview, questions,
and I'll do the same for you. I did.

Speaker 1 (08:27):
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 when you

(08:49):
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 transit.

Speaker 2 (09:00):
Yeah. 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
cat gpt to like do a one over on that.
I will say it was like the most glowing, like

(09:21):
like beautiful, 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 (09:41):
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.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Yeah. It allowed me to be ascending to whatever haveens
do they have for us on the other side of it,
instead of wallowing in the the or pits or whatever.

Speaker 1 (10:11):
We've crunched the numbers and we can store your data
alongside the simulated atmosphere of the Montreal Airport for all eternities.

Speaker 2 (10:19):
So don't worry. You're right where you're meant to be now.

Speaker 1 (10:26):
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

(10:47):
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 going to 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 (11:06):
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 this is just another and continuing

(11:27):
extrapolation of like what our relationship is. It's like we
were 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 the foundational friendship. I think this just
feels like a pretty natural extension of that.

Speaker 1 (11:47):
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 who's marriage or relationship started before
dating apps really came on the scene. They didn't get
to use Yeah, And I was telling my friend about it,
and I was saying, one of the things about dating

(12:09):
apps that is different, you know, value neutraally, 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.

Speaker 2 (12:28):
Whatever it is they're looking for. You know, obviously there's
different ways.

Speaker 1 (12:31):
To use the apps, but whatever the case, you go
into these these meetings with like a sense already of
what it is supposed to be or what boundary it
was 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,

(12:52):
and at least in my recollection, we kind of recruited you.
We knew you played drums, we knew you were 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.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
You know, when you're in grade eight that bonds you.

Speaker 1 (13:09):
And then I needed someone to play guitar with me,
and I was like, oh, I bet Josh could do that, ACU,
he's my friend. 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 together because we're fourteen, we like built
our friendship out of that, which makes it even more

(13:32):
weirdly tied into the band.

Speaker 2 (13:35):
No. No, 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
often like certain ways. We had this thing that like

(13:58):
right from the gat though, was like, oh, we're doing
this together. This is what we do together. And yeah,
I think that it feels natural to continue to find
ways like this for that relationship to continue, Like it's
it's a working and creative relationship and like a very

(14:22):
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 (14:36):
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.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
We got to talk to Greg.

Speaker 1 (14:47):
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, 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

(15:08):
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 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 colossal I mean, there's no way to overstate how

(15:31):
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 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,

(15:54):
for the band, etc.

Speaker 2 (15:55):
But talking about it, that's what I'm curious.

Speaker 1 (15:58):
About, is like how all the stuff we're going to
talk 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 just 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.

Speaker 2 (16:17):
The most interesting part of all of it. You know
what I mean? That what a question. Let me let
me state a point and say, do you know what
I mean? I'm from now on agreed.

Speaker 1 (16:28):
This has the major label debut. I'm Graham right and
I'm never wrong. Thanks for listening.

Speaker 2 (16:33):
No, I think you're You're very right. And it's also
weird because I think, uh, 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

(16:54):
sort of way, like friendships or spouses. Like you, there's
like some 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

(17:18):
banned 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

(17:42):
to just keep it going, like you're never going to
get that with any other people in a lifetime.

Speaker 1 (17:47):
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' good university and Day went to a tiny bit
of university.

Speaker 2 (18:01):
But you did go.

Speaker 1 (18:03):
You have a semester and a half under your belt,
and I do want to honor because you did. You
did some of 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.

(18:26):
We learned in the context of this machine, this hive mind,
just 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? You know,
And it's not just like, oh, no, that's Greg's that's

(18:47):
Greg's okay, that goes over there.

Speaker 2 (18:48):
No, I and 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. Wow, No, I
thought I could at all. I thought I did. Yeah,

(19:10):
I thought I was doing it the whole time. That's
what all those mushrooms were for.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
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 are 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

(19:36):
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.

Speaker 2 (19:49):
I pre grieved. I'm fine.

Speaker 1 (19:50):
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 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 (20:09):
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,

(20:31):
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 going to 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 domination.

Speaker 1 (20:53):
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 if I that no one else
took it seriously at all. 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 to go totally.

Speaker 2 (21:10):
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 that was the first time I saw
people who prioritized it in the same way that I

(21:31):
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 (21:41):
I just was in the Tokyo Police Club stores space
yesterday getting some of my stuff, and I unearthed this for.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
This for Theater of the Mind.

Speaker 1 (21:49):
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 demo and
it still works and it still has some old demos
on it, 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

(22:12):
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 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

(22:33):
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 like putting set lists down
on the ground because I would see pictures from bands
that played shows with set lists, and the idea of
having a set list felt real to me, and I
would spend more time on that than I would on
like the lyrics to the song.

Speaker 2 (22:49):
I was meant to be writing. But I think that's
interesting because that's like, you know, to to go out
there with it, like that's vision boarding kind of. It'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.

(23:11):
And who knows, Like maybe that's like what 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 a 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.

(23:31):
We want like the real one where we get to
go off and do the thing and go on tours
and go into a recording studio. Like we want it
to be as real as possible.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
Do you remember what like your daydreams were like about
that when you were like before we had done it
for real, back when it was still fresh 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 all like the visions that you would entertain of

(24:03):
whether it's on stage or the studio or whatever it was.

Speaker 2 (24:05):
Do you remember what you thought you were headed towards. 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 intimident interactives or studio shots
from like the inside of like a Smashing Pumpkins like
album or something where it's like, okay, this is like

(24:27):
you're getting like glimpses of like what 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

(24:48):
to play a real show for the 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

(25:09):
all part of like the legend of like being.

Speaker 1 (25:11):
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 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 (25:25):
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.

Speaker 1 (25:35):
Crappy 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,

(25:56):
now that we're done it, it's not quite kid ah.

Speaker 2 (26:00):
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 for

(26:22):
the first time where like when you like land on
it and you're just like, oh, like it's 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

(26:42):
played it for people, it's like, oh yeah, there's something there,
Like you do get like little bits of validation from
from other people. Yeah, I think you are kind of
like you're kind of onto something, and it feels like
you're if you were like a little kid in the
backyard going like wow wow.

Speaker 1 (27:01):
And then for like for one second you like actually
cut a tree in half.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
You're like, holy shit, I made a real lightsaber with
just my imagination.

Speaker 1 (27:09):
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 (27:16):
Yeah, that bit of magic where it all just the
fantasy becomes reality. What attracted you to the drums? 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,

(27:38):
and he was always a really innovative and supportive instructor,
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

(28:01):
so excited to stop playing piano and then go over
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,

(28:22):
And then it's all I wanted to play like after that.
I remember, like in grade seven in music class, you
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.

Speaker 1 (28:39):
Twenty twenty drummers and three clarinetists.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
It's a hell of a band. 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

(29:06):
on it. And I got 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 in this band, then

(29:28):
I kind of have a secure spot. I think for
most people.

Speaker 1 (29:31):
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. Yeah, And
did you start to listen to the drums differently more?
You know, Pumpkins are obviously a great drums band.

Speaker 2 (29:49):
Yeah. Yeah, that was like listening to to Jimmy Chamberline
drum on Melancholy was just like mind, 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

(30:10):
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
these 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

(30:31):
I've always wanted to be a drummer like that and
try and create parts for those 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 (30:51):
I think it's safe to say that you achieved that goal.

Speaker 2 (30:54):
And then some I know, the.

Speaker 1 (30:56):
When Tokyo Police Club was first starting out, I think
I would you would hear more about you after shows.
I remember at the Palmon Trial 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 doing hooks instead. And
I think that was not to jump ahead too much,

(31:17):
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 with the dom roots on bass, everyone's doing something.

Speaker 2 (31:29):
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 it 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

(31:51):
much like us?

Speaker 1 (31:52):
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 I was the
worst in Tokyo for like practicing and technical skills and stuff.
I hate practicing, and I only ever wanted to learn

(32:14):
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
slap meet run there on the back and getting that
reward of writing.

Speaker 2 (32:31):
Maybe we would have.

Speaker 1 (32:31):
Got more technically skilled, but there's like a simplicity in
that early stuff as well that I think if everyone
in Tokyo was doing their own thing but it was
like shredding, it probably would have been a mess.

Speaker 2 (32:45):
Yeah, I think so. I think we were trying to
I know, I was definitely like pushing myself to like
the very edge of like 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

(33:05):
be a 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

(33:25):
but like simple stuff.

Speaker 1 (33:27):
I 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 were 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
snare time, like what we would call the disco beat

(33:49):
back then, or the bumsk bumsk the Boots and Cats beat, yeah,
which was popular, and we're like, that's what it needs,
that's what it needs, and you would never do it.

Speaker 2 (33:57):
You'd always wait until you had like a real idea. Yeah,
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (34:01):
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 a tued way
to do it.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Yeah, And again that's like all part of it. Like
Dave's baselines are not like normal basslines, especially back then,
and josh guitar parts are all over the place, like
and like your synth lines are like real hooks, Like
they're real hooks in there. You're never like like just
peddling out the courts like it was. Really I think
that's what we're all trying to do. And like again,

(34:33):
it's like having that like shared vishit for what music
could be from the four of us that that made
it actually work.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
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

(35:05):
working in a producer capacity like you do a lot now,
or whether it's more casual like occasionally I've been in
the studio with other drummers who are you know, they're
there to drum, but sometimes the law for other ideas.
And I think the drummers have such a great like
big picture view of the band, like quarterback goalie style,

(35:25):
like they see the whole field and then 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 more ineffable stuff

(35:50):
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 having having ideas

(36:12):
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.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
Your lane as a drummer. 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 (36:37):
Everyone in the band wants to play drums except the
drummer who wants to play the band. Yes, and that's
the great tension at the heart of rock and roll.

Speaker 2 (36:44):
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

(37:09):
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 ideas out there, or sometimes

(37:29):
it's just like not right like in the song, 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 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

(37:51):
I could, because like we're in the creative process, 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
right now. If that makes.

Speaker 1 (38:04):
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.

Speaker 2 (38:12):
Like, uh, intuition. 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
contribution is. But are do you hear full songs? Do
you like do you have like kind of a complete

(38:34):
vision in your head? Because I never know.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
What 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 bleu

(38:58):
shit 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 cause 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

(39:19):
band carry 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

(39:41):
remembering certain 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?

Speaker 2 (39:50):
And it's always better.

Speaker 1 (39:52):
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. You know you're working in a way
that's not quite as freewheeling is 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

(40:13):
to come up with.

Speaker 2 (40:15):
How have you.

Speaker 1 (40:15):
Found your creative instrument has like adjusted or asserted itself
in that context.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
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,

(40:44):
and 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

(41:07):
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

(41:30):
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 end point,
that's what I need to get to.

Speaker 1 (41:41):
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 safe for a week whatever the amount of time is,
and then at the eleventh hour having like Eureka, a

(42:02):
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 frustraturation 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 (42:26):
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, d here's the new version, and then
scrap it and like work on this and then eventually,

(42:49):
after you know, maybe months of doing that, we'd always
we'd call it like the circle back and we 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 to like scrap everything. It's like you have,

(43:09):
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 version as I can based on that first idea,

(43:32):
rather than like hoping that like another bit of inspiration
will come in and like supplant that.

Speaker 1 (43:38):
Then Yeah, right, 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 eye statements. You know, I can't
do this with vash Debunyon, She'll you'll get fed up.
But you you've listened to me talk about myself for
hours and hours and hours and hours. I get that, Like, yeah,
it's I get so inspiration hungry and addicted to that

(44:00):
notion of like, oh, it's got to be like 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 (44:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
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 forty songs, and that was when

(44:35):
we 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 (44:47):
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

(45:08):
be precious about any of it, Like they might love
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 being like, okay, cool,
like this is a song for these people on their purpose,
Like it doesn't end at me. So now I have
to take your notes and take them very seriously and

(45:32):
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 (45:52):
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 band 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

(46:12):
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.

(46:36):
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

(46:58):
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 (47:07):
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

(47:31):
like really good ideas out there, like generally they do.
I've like 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 like room to play with. It's

(47:53):
like you want it 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.

(48:14):
And I think like probably in any of the like
an R or like producer feedback, then 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 but different. I wonder like sometimes if like

(48:40):
we had like there weren't 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
ended up in a in a different spot.

Speaker 1 (48:58):
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 Capital deal. I mean, obviously

(49:19):
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 totally
spent five years working on a record, got nowhere, and
then broken up, with like nothing to show for it,
And I guess I mean, that's that's exactly the calculus

(49:40):
that we were trying to figure out when we made
the decision to not sign with that label.

Speaker 2 (49:43):
It's like, what will it do? Yeah, And I think
like we always took the path of like trying to
protect ourselves and like that 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 (50:04):
You said something in the last Tokyo Police Club interview
with CBC. We were at a Toronto institution, Sneaky De'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

(50:26):
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 hit.

Speaker 2 (50:35):
Me right in my course. I was like, oh, shit.

Speaker 1 (50:36):
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 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

(50:57):
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 (51:09):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. It was like such 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 every like

(51:32):
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 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,

(51:57):
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 for your job barely. Yeah,
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

(52:18):
Indie Rocks, so 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 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.

Speaker 1 (52:34):
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?

Speaker 2 (52:41):
And I have to be like, it wasn't.

Speaker 1 (52:43):
Those shows were real outliers man, Like we spent ten
years before that toiling our asses 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 dollar.

Speaker 2 (52:59):
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

(53:20):
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

(53:41):
like the biggest band in the world. We don't know.
That's what everyone 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
still felt like, oh, but who knows, Like it just
takes one song and one like right move and then

(54:02):
all of a sudden, you're gonna be up here.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
And that's a feeling this is great man. So I mean,
it's it's wonderful to talk to you at all. We
haven't spoken since we had 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

(54:25):
is different than 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,

(54:45):
and everyone knows Wipeout, and I was like, that's like
meeting the guy that.

Speaker 2 (54:48):
Wrote Happy Birthday.

Speaker 1 (54:50):
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, and that

(55:10):
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,

(55:30):
people who got together in a 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.

Speaker 2 (55:45):
That's the beauty of it.

Speaker 1 (55:45):
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. 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 ours. This is the way

(56:07):
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. 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,

(56:28):
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 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

(56:51):
do you feel about that?

Speaker 2 (56:52):
I know, I think you're right, Like that's exactly it.
Like we the first three albums A Lesson in Crime,
Melvin Shell Chan was all based around like, yeah, this
exciting novelty of like four young kids, like four young
like extremely energetic kids, like cranking out these songs that

(57:14):
like felt nostalgic and like very fresh. But like none
of those songs were one of those songs on like
those albums, like those songs that just like crosses over
into the collective consciousness of people, and we didn't like

(57:34):
happen 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 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

(57:57):
either you come up with like one of the these
songs that it's going to just like touch everybody that
ever hears it, or we have no other ideas for you. 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

(58:21):
to have every one of them be met with like, ah,
just not quite there yet, Like keep digging, keep working,
like send Dave off to like writing retreats with in
La with these people who who might be able to
like dig that out of you. Like what a maddening
process when everything we had done up to that point

(58:45):
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 really want
to be in the big leagues and continue a career,
you have to try and level up to this. And
yet it's like it's not an impossible feat, but it's

(59:06):
like there's no recipe for that, and.

Speaker 1 (59:10):
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 every

(59:31):
song on every Tokyo Please Club record. And I think
we ultimately did a good job like pulling 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 it a hit,
and they don't sound like them. Yeah, and it doesn't

(59:52):
sound 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 (01:00:05):
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 again,
Like that's all we ever really had was like the
trust of like three other people to tell you if

(01:00:25):
it was like good or not. And we all knew
when something was like good, and we all knew when
something was like yeah, 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

(01:00:49):
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

(01:01:12):
for you. They're just sometimes there to like block it
if they don't see it.

Speaker 1 (01:01:16):
As like, yeah, like well for them that it's axiomatic,
that like it's a song, and what we're in the
business of hits. We're in the business. We're an American
big label or 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,

(01:01:37):
to be a big band in a way that you know,
ten years before or ten years after, I don't think
anyone would have even bothered to give us a 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

(01:01:58):
it down everyone's throat, but if you don't give us
the ingredients, like we don't really turn on the machine,
and 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 been is I find they are
almost always career based. You know, I don't have a
lot of like artistic regrets. All of my regrets are

(01:02:21):
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 (01:02:28):
Right, But I mean it's like, yes, who 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,

(01:02:50):
Like it couldn't quite I could like jump off the
ground really high, but I couldn't just like soar through
the air. And I could feel it if I just
if the alarm hadn't gone up. Yeah yep, yep yeah.
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

(01:03:12):
unders stand like in listening 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
also okay. Would have been nice to have a song
that like continuously like generated an income for us, like

(01:03:36):
into like our future that was like, okay, this is
your pension right here. Of course, that would also be amazing.

Speaker 1 (01:03:44):
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 pumpkin. 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 were

(01:04:06):
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 you know, those

(01:04:30):
not to well, let's let i'll jerk us off a
little bit here. You know, it's a beautiful reminder that
that music really 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, yeah,
and they loved a song that I wrote, you know,
and I wrote a song that a million people could love.

Speaker 2 (01:04:51):
That would be who wouldn't want that? 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 band. 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, for

(01:05:13):
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.

(01:05:35):
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. Yeah, it's a really interesting thing
to come up.

Speaker 1 (01:05:55):
I talked to Bob Lee, who played drums in a
band called Clawhammer 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
you know, you're playing music in some way, and in

(01:06:16):
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 oxymeronic, because if you're living it, then it's
not really the dream, is it. And 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,

(01:06:38):
that would be that's all I would ever want. I'm
sure I said that show when I was seventeen. I
probably meant it too. But then once we got the
record deal, I wasn't like, but yeah, to to come
up with a new dream or not to come up
with but to discover the next dream. Now after all
that time is a really I mean, I'm sure both
of us and Josh and Dave in their own ways

(01:06:59):
are wrestling with that angel day in day out.

Speaker 2 (01:07:03):
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

(01:07:23):
your mind, like I really hope that people really understand
that people really get it kind of as many people
as it possibly could, Like I think that's like the
ultimate goal like when you make something is 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

(01:07:44):
don't think that's like unhealthy art. It's just like part
of the fuel and the DNA of it, at least
as far as like my personal understanding of like what
creation or like what I want creation to be.

Speaker 1 (01:07:58):
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

(01:08:20):
my soul. It's me, it's it's the creative and I'm
being visited by the ferry, you know what I mean,
Like do you yeah, are you locating that in any
one place? That's that's a very personal question to ask
on the podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:08:31):
Yeah, I think like I'm I mean, I'm looking for
it 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,

(01:08:53):
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,

(01:09:14):
oh okay, I know, and 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 (01:09:34):
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 Suberbia 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 bioea,
or like all getting together to write an email to like,
you know, a label guy that came to one of

(01:09:55):
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 kit out of cardboard. We painted the
your Kick drumskin in Dave's base, We painted signs that
said Tokyo Police Club. All of those activities were like
as much a creative outlet as the music was. And

(01:10:16):
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 way,

(01:10:37):
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 least because there's more unknowns there too, right,
more surprises.

Speaker 2 (01:10:51):
Yeah, And I think it's like what you get to
do when you create a band is like create a
whole world 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 that

(01:11:12):
were like the dressings around the music, like writing the email,
making the button 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 (01:11:34):
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 Polae Club EP in Josh's basement in Newmarket. I

(01:11:58):
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 to I
want to catch eyes with someone that I love and no,
both of us know outside of language like we're doing something.

Speaker 2 (01:12:16):
Yeah, oh my god, that's it. That is like, 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 (01:12:28):
Yeah, and it's the same magic that happens at 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 it one time?

Speaker 2 (01:12:47):
Yeah, it feels so uh 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.

(01:13:12):
I want that drug again and again. It's the greatest
feeling in the world. Kids.

Speaker 1 (01:13:16):
That's our advice for young kids who want to be
in bands. Chase the dragon.

Speaker 2 (01:13:20):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:13:21):
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 label.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Debut theme, which you.

Speaker 1 (01:13:37):
Created for us so quickly based on such a vague
napkin sketch of 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 (01:13:55):
Yeah, I mean I think like you guys had like
an idea that made a lot of Sen's 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

(01:14:21):
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 scrappy garage rock songs that
sound somewhere between like Sect the Bomb from like Scott
Pilgrim and like sleigh Bells. And so I was already

(01:14:45):
like in that world of like okay, and you're 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
do We're starting this podcast and we want to do

(01:15:07):
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 fast. Like yeah, I

(01:15:27):
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've got
like something here. I'll like send it off and hopefully
they like it. And then it was done. I feel
like we had no notes. Yeah, there was no notes,
which was really.

Speaker 1 (01:15:47):
Do I've been saving them for this conversation. So it's
just another couple of hours.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
And we'll get through it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:53):
Yeah, in your home studio, there is there a piece
of gear or software or anything that you've find is
like your current inspiration center.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
Yeah. I bought this like synth like two years ago
called like a cork Wave State, 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

(01:16:24):
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 play beautifully sampled versions of like

(01:16:47):
analog synth. Do you find yourself?

Speaker 1 (01:16:50):
You know, I also make a good amount of music
like alone in my home, and I find myself in
the absence of other BAES members.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
I think I really gravitate. Like I recently bought it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:03):
Really, I bought one of those Hologram Electronics Microcosm pedals,
like a really like expensive, fancy cool thing that when
I watched YouTube demos of it, just everything sounded amazing
and I was like, I want to do that. And
I got it and I put it on my board
and I, you know, spent like forty minutes arranging my
whole place to like around it, and then I started
playing through, and I was like, it just is like
beautiful sound is coming back at me, but like I

(01:17:24):
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
like wrong or imperfect. 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

(01:17:47):
screaming voice back and forth, that's the kind of cockamamy
idea that sounds like collaborative.

Speaker 2 (01:17:52):
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 like how do you interrupt yourself? Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
And how do yeah, exactly, how do you make something
that's not just like a perfect execution of the one idea?

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
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 (01:18:26):
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, like 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

(01:18:47):
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? Yeap.
It goes so.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Far, 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 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
finish piece of music that doesn't do that and it
keeps on not doing it it doesn't react to you,

(01:19:22):
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 (01:19:29):
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 hear
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 (01:19:47):
But then on the other hand, there's not three other
assholes and they're ruining everything for you, So it's a
it's a double edged sword, that's the trade off. 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

(01:20:09):
were recording the MLD theme song 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 2 (01:20:20):
Yeah, I eat. It would have been late at night,
and I would have wanted something warm because my studios
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 rounds. They're these like little like
aked musically bread kind of things, almost like a flattened

(01:20:44):
like bagele with like raisin a nut in it or
with no hole. That was like peanut butter. Oh yeah,
it's so funny.

Speaker 1 (01:20:52):
I 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, 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.
Just peer protein and yeah, I also want to shout

(01:21:13):
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 (01:21:31):
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 you
know there'd be like an old grandfatherly figure like bringing
us milkshakes, and then sometimes like a eat year old

(01:21:52):
girl like also like bringing us fries.

Speaker 1 (01:21:54):
Like it was like a 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 universal comedy.

Speaker 2 (01:22:16):
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

(01:22:36):
just slip into right now? That was Uncle Buddies, Yeah,
very fifties.

Speaker 1 (01:22:40):
We like put down our rock and roll guitars and
went out to have shakes and burgers at the local
die just cruised on down there in the car.

Speaker 2 (01:22:47):
But you know what you need.

Speaker 1 (01:22:48):
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
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

(01:23:11):
many of those things as well as something entirely of
its own.

Speaker 2 (01:23:14):
Yeah. Well again, like we were living in the world
entirely like that we were created 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 (01:23:32):
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 this new remove and also

(01:23:55):
not like in New York City at three in the morning.

Speaker 2 (01:23:58):
Thank you so much for asking me. It was like,
it is such an honor to 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. Yeh. See what the dreams are like tonight?
You know, that's what my therapist. See where we go.
I'll be back in the Montreal airport and somehow also

(01:24:19):
at Uncle Benny's with an eight year old girl telling
me that my flight is canceled in French. Yes, there
you have it.

Speaker 1 (01:24:30):
My conversation with Greg Alsop, drummer of Tokyo Police Club,
or at least he used to be. That was an
encore presentation. If you know anything in there that was
antiquated from a news perspective or you know, a perspective perspective,
that's because it's we did that back in the spring
and we're just re airing it now for for the holidays,

(01:24:50):
because holidays is a time for family, and Greg is
my family in a very real way. So thank you
yet again to Greg for that wonderful conversation, and thank
to you the listener for listening all year long. It's
been such a joy to do this podcast now for
over a year. Our birthday is coming gone and we're
going to keep doing it next year. But in the meantime,

(01:25:12):
I hope you and yours have a wonderful end of
twenty twenty five.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
We made it. We made it people.

Speaker 1 (01:25:18):
Twenty twenty six, it's going to be its own thing,
and we'll see you there. But for the moment being,
just enjoy your holidays, or enjoy your winter time, or
whatever it is you're immersed in right now.

Speaker 2 (01:25:31):
I hope you find some enjoyment in it.

Speaker 1 (01:25:33):
That's this episode of Major Label Debut. The show is
produced by John Paul Bullock and Josh Hook. Josh also
my colleague from Tokyo Please Club. God bless you Josh,
and of course God bless Dave as well, the singer
of Tokyo Peas Club, not involved in a produce oorial
capacity in this podcast, but still celebrating by all of
us here. Greg Alsop, who I just spent all that
time talking to, did our theme music. Greg, We love you,

(01:25:55):
and I'm Graham. I'm the host of the show. Please
like and subscribe, Take care of yourself.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
Major label debut.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
Will be back with more tales from the intersection of
art and commerce. So long

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Tokyo Police Club (and beyond!) with Greg Alsop rebroadcast

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Tokyo Police Club (and beyond!) with Greg Alsop *rebroadcast*