Tune in Guelph: Tokyo Police Club

In conversation with Tokyo Police Club’s guitarist, Josh Hook

Hit Canadian band from Newmarket, Tokyo Police Club, played at Peter Clark Hall in Guelph on Dec. 2, alongside The Pack A.D. and Said the Whale. The group has been on tour since the release of their third studio album, Forcefield, in March 2014.

Consisting of members Greg Alsop (drums), Josh Hook (guitar), David Monks (vocals, bass), and Graham Wright (keys/percussion), Tokyo Police Club’s breakout into Canada’s music industry occurred with the release of their debut EP, A Lesson in Crime, back in 2006. Their first studio album, Elephant Shell, was released in 2008, followed by Champ in 2010 – their second studio album that upheld a Juno nomination for Alternative Album of the Year.

In light of stopping in Guelph during their tour, I had the incredible opportunity to speak with the band’s guitarist, Josh Hook. Josh covered quite a few topics, including the answer to the pressing question: Why the name “Tokyo Police Club?” – as well as what he thinks of Guelph. Read on to check out what he had to say about Forcefield, tour-life, Jimmy Jazz, and his advice to aspiring musicians.

Danielle: First of all, I’ve been trying to find the answer to this. Where did the name “Tokyo Police Club” come from exactly?

Josh Hook: [Laughing] There was a time when we started out, and everyone was like, woah, what a crazy name, and we were like yeah there’s a crazy story, you know? We’d say anything in order to make up a bunch of different excuses for the crazy name, but as you get older, the truth of it really isn’t as painful, and we started taking a little bit of pride in the truth of where the name came from. [laughs] So…I’m here to tell you today, that the truth of it is that it came from the internet – it was one of those internet name generators. We just kept putting in a bunch of different combinations of letters, and numbers, and whatever. It had said “Tokyo Police” at one point. It wasn’t the whole name! We added the “Club” because we thought that that would be sort of inclusive, like the group of us, or a club – that’s cool and slap it on the end – Tokyo Police Club. Thank you, Internet.

D.S.: What brought you guys together as a band in the first place? What year did you form and were you always Tokyo Police Club, or did you start off with a different name?

J.H.: No, we were a different band with one other member – the same four of us and then one other guy. We were all friends from school – we were all in the same class for years – and we started playing because we were the only ones that knew that the other people played instruments, so we decided to get together. We were sort of suburban, I don’t wanna say old country, but it had a Beatles vibe to it. Experimental in some parts, and then that other guy went on to bigger and better things, ie. school, and the four of us stuck together and decided to keep playing, and we turned into this. Then the name-generator came into play.

D.S: When was the first time you picked up a guitar? Was there something special about that moment?

J.H.: The first time I actually held a guitar I guess was… I was at my grandparent’s house and my uncle used to be in a band back in the late 60s, [I guess]. He had this old, no-name, awesome beater of a guitar that was just stored behind – you know those giant freezers that people have in their garage? – his guitar was back there and it had like three strings on it, and I remember thinking it was so cool. I wouldn’t tell anybody that I was going to that room to pick up the guitar and just look at it – I’d always have to emerge with a popsicle or something, and be like “yeah that’s what I was doing in that room.” That was the first time when I thought this would be a cool thing, and I wish I knew how to play this. [Admiring it]. I guess later we decided we were all gonna ask our parents for instruments, and the plan worked out. We all got instruments and then actually started learning them.

D.S.: How do the dynamics in the band change when you’re on tour? How do you and the rest of the band deal with the stresses of touring and keep your cool with each other?

J.H.: It’s pretty easy at this point. We’ve known each other for so long, we met in the fourth grade. Everybody’s really level-headed, and nobody’s hard to deal with. Everybody knows where the other person’s coming from, and if somebody’s frustrated, everybody gets it. There’s never a clash. You just say what’s on your mind, and that tends to be the way to solve any frustrations. For the first half of this tour, we did it in a bus, because there were some long drives, and none of us are really fans of driving in Alberta and B.C. in November. We’ve done that before, and it was almost our last time, so we got a bus for that part of it, and that was really nice – you have a lot of space and you can do your own thing. Being back in the band is kind of nice, you’re surrounded by people the entire time, and you get to make your own schedule. You can just go and take a nap or watch a movie at your own leisure. If you’re a nice person, it’s very easy to do in the band.

D.S.: When you’re on tour you need to adjust to different types of venues. I mean, you’re playing in Guelph on Tuesday in Peter Clark Hall, which, first of all, is a basement, and second of all, is a lot smaller than venues you might run into in Toronto. Is there something that you guys need to do differently to your performance to make use of a smaller space? How does your dynamic on stage change between performing in a small and intimate space and in a bigger arena?

J.H.: That’s a great question. I think it’s actually easier because we started in small spaces. At times it’s harder to fill the larger stage and the larger venue, and to make it feel like (in a large venue) that every person is getting the same contact, or you’re making the same impression with the person 30 or 60 rows behind the person in the front row. In the small venues, everybody’s right there, and it’s super intimate and it gets sweaty – it’s that feeling that everybody’s in it together. At big venues, you have room to stand and go about in the back, and you get a beer or drink in-between sets. So, it’s way easier to play the smaller venues just because that’s what we grew up with and we’ve played way more smaller venues than bigger venues in our career. I’m not saying that the big venues aren’t fun, but you have festivals like Coachella, and you’re on this huge stage and I’m, like, 30 feet away from Graham and I can’t really see him, and it feels so isolated. You’d have to work extra hard to make the chemistry on stage send that distance, and when you’re close and you’re almost hitting each other with the heads of your guitar, it’s kind of fun. It’s a lot easier to be very cohesive and together when you’re two inches away from each other.

D.S.: Definitely. That’s how Peter Clark Hall is gonna be for you guys.

J.H.: That’s cool to hear that, because we’ve played a couple of those. We’ve had a good spread on this tour – decent-sized venues and then nice, small rock clubs. There’s never a preference, but small rock clubs are always a good time.

D.S.: You’ve played in Guelph a few times now. You’ve played at Peter Clark Hall before, as well as Hillside Inside back in 2008. What is it about Guelph that brings you guys back?

J.H.: Oh, wait! What is it called? Like, Jimmy….?

D.S.: Jimmy Jazz.

J.H.: Jimmy Jazz – yeah, we’ve played there – a while ago. It was really fun! There’s no one thing to keep coming back to a place, but if we’ve always had a good time at a place, we’ll go back there. I remember Jimmy Jazz was cool, and I think there were like 20 people there, and the thing I remember was the promoter. She was the nicest person, especially to a young band who was just like “we’re here to a play a show and we don’t know anything”. She was like “alright, there’s a restaurant up the street and the set-up time’s gonna be here”. Yeah, she was a super nice person, and we saw her a couple more times after that. I haven’t seen her in a while, but that’s my one memory of Jimmy Jazz.

D.S.: Finally, let’s talk about your newest album, Forcefield. Do you take part in a lot of the songwriting?

J.H.: The songs come about in any combinations of ways. Some of them are, like, Dave [Monks] will come in with the whole song already fleshed out. Sometimes it’s just the progression. Sometimes we’re just jamming, and Greg [Alsop] will make a cool beat that we can’t help but try to turn into something. So yeah, to different degrees on each song, we all contribute with the range and everything, but I’d definitely say Dave’s the principal song-constructor.

D.S.: Okay, cool. So you can definitely help me with this question. Many of the tracks on the album are really upbeat and good for getting pumped up. However, if you look at some of the lyrics, it can get pretty dark. Common themes in the lyrics on this album include being blinded, waiting and maybe longing for something or someone, and feeling sad or lost regardless of the light…there’s a lot of contradictions between light and darkness…these themes are obvious in songs like “Miserable,” “Tunnel Vision,” and “Beaches.” Do you have any input on this? Was this intentional, or perhaps I am reading too closely into it?

J.H.: I don’t think you’re reading too closely into it. I think that there’s definitely some truth in the feeling of, maybe not light and darkness, but definitely uncertainty in especially “Tunnel Vision” and “Hot Tonight”, where it’s talking about age and money. I guess it’s an easy time to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to other people, and you’ve reached a certain age and you’re like “oh, we’re still doing this. Is this still cool? Is this what we wanna keep doing? Is it a long-term thing?” I think it’s pretty natural to always second-guess yourself when you see people around you with very stable jobs. You’re at the age now where friends are getting married, and I have a couple of friends with kids, and you’re like “wow…I’m still the guy in a band.” And then you have those doubts [about it], and I think that that theme is there, and is something that we all feel, and you can’t help but feel because you’re this close to it. At the end of the day, I guess it’s that you’re still doing what you love to do, and it’s a pretty great job for all of its terrible drives, and all of the times that things don’t work out – at the end of the day, it’s still 51 per cent not a real job and fun as hell, and 49 per cent stressful. That’s a pretty decent ratio to have for your job.

D.S.: Overall, what were you guys trying to communicate to your fans with Forcefield? What was the point of the album?

J.H.: Well the album came after three or three-and-a-half years of silence from us. It was a lot longer than we anticipated before we put out another album, and I guess at the end of it – we spent a lot of time writing and we wrote a bunch of songs, and we didn’t really have a deadline on it, so we sort of had to put one on ourselves. I guess, not to make it sound lame, that’s where the Forcefield idea came from – at one point you’re just like, “okay, shield’s up and we can’t listen to anything else” or “what do we wanna do and what do we wanna release?” and let’s just do that and go forward with it, because it sucked sitting on a bunch of material and not doing anything with it. If we didn’t sort of wall ourselves in, and just listen to the other guys and a couple of outside voices instead of everybody, we’d probably still be in the same position. I guess we were trying to communicate just that this was us doing our thing – that we weren’t trying to go for anything, we weren’t trying to do a big radio single or anything. It was just, we’re putting these songs on here, and one’s a rocker and one’s kind of a weird, pop song, maybe, and other ones are more in the vein of Tokyo Police Club from a couple albums ago, but that’s sort of who we are as a band. If anyone’s ever felt the same way about Forcefield, that’s cool, because they’re kind of on board with the “yeah, this band is just doin’ that thing”.

D.S.: I was always a big fan of Champ.

J.H.: Thank you! That was a fun one, too. That one was definitely a lot of fun. It’s the feeling, with all of the other albums that came out, they were, not effortless, but they came out quickly, and this one [Forcefield] definitely started to feel like an ordeal after the third year of not having something out, it was like, well, what do we do here? We have an album, why can’t we just put it out? And eventually we did.

D.S.: Lastly, being someone who has made it in the music industry, what advice do you have for aspiring musicians?

J.S.: I always feel – not that this is the cheap way outta the question – but we work exceptionally hard, and we also had some circumstances where we just got lucky. We had the right people come out to see us in our first festival in POP Montreal. We’ve met great people, and we have a lot of friends that have met not-so-great people, and had them as a part of management or any part of their team. We’ve been really lucky picking the team that works with us, and also just with everything in our band. There’s been some part of luck that helps out when you’re putting all the hard work into it. I guess, to that effect, it’s just keep trying. Keep playing shows. We’ve played so many shows that were dead-end shows in the beginning when nobody was there. Even if nobody is there hearing your music, your more about yourself and your band as musicians and you get tighter, and you either gel or you don’t gel. And that’s a valuable lesson, too. If you play live and it just doesn’t work, then that can be a valuable lesson as well – maybe it’s not gonna work. So playing live is a great way to test yourself and your band. Just try to put yourself out there, I guess, is the only thing really. I know it sounds cheesie, but it worked for us, and it worked with a little bit of luck. That’s all I can really say.

Many thanks to Josh for taking the time to chat!