“Nature of the Experiment”
from the EP A Lesson in Crime
2006
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David Monks and Graham Wright hand out high-fives and the odd jab with the kind of comfort that can only come from a friendship that began in Grade 4. The members of Newmarket’s cheery dance-indie quartet Tokyo Police Club are humble when discussing their increased profile and recent Paper Bag Records EP, A Lesson in Crime.
“Over the last six months, [everything] has come together quickly,” says Monks, 19, the vocalist and bass player, over a glass of water at the Red Room with keyboardist Wright, also 19. (Drummer Greg Alsop and guitarist Josh Hook round out the band.) After forming in January 2005 and playing a sold-out Pop Montreal show in October of that same year, Monks decided to drop out of McGill after one semester and focus on TPC.
“I was thinking I could actually try to make a living as a musician instead of trying to convince myself I’m interested in something else,” he says.
A Lesson in Crime‘s seven joyful, unpolished tracks are undeniably catchy and raw, marrying danceable hooks with talk of robot masters and global emergencies, providing an upbeat soundtrack to our troubled times.
“I was in Montreal and I was homesick and band-sick and I was in a lot of science courses, too,” says Monks. “So I was writing songs on my own up there and Graham came up with this scary keyboard riff. I was like, ‘I have this song in waltz-time about robots but if I change it around a bit we could put them together.'”
Don’t expect the band’s full-length effort — which they plan to write this summer — to necessarily tackle the same Blade Runner themes. As Wright himself admits, to raucous laughter from Monks, “We’re not the revolutionary robot-fighting warriors that we make ourselves out to be.”
Not a complete surprise when you consider that the boys, barely drinking age, still live with their parents and work full-time while trying to establish themselves in the saturated Toronto scene.
“Only the good bands get attention anyway in the end,” asserts Wright.
“This is the hardest I’ve ever worked at anything in my life,” he says. “And I’m happy.”