Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
[00:00:11] [SPEAKER_01]: It feels normal, which is a little anticlimactic.
[00:00:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But, and a little hard to explain except to say that for nearly 20 years every summer
[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_01]: we've been flying here, flying there, driving here, driving there, playing one show at a festival,
[00:00:28] [SPEAKER_01]: one show at some strange civic event that has never happened before, and will never happen again
[00:00:37] [SPEAKER_01]: and just sort of materializes long enough to give us a bit of money to play on a Sunday in August.
[00:00:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You play an event, and they're like, that's it.
[00:00:46] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll shut it down.
[00:00:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, we salt the earth behind us.
[00:00:50] [SPEAKER_01]: We make really sure that I can never happen again.
[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And so, it's so common to me to be doing this in the summer.
[00:00:59] [SPEAKER_01]: The fact that it has this sort of new narrative component for lack of a better place.
[00:01:07] [SPEAKER_01]: The term of the band being over hasn't really penetrated that much through the normalcy,
[00:01:13] [SPEAKER_01]: because the normalcy is so deeply ingrained.
[00:01:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so used to it.
[00:01:16] [SPEAKER_01]: All of my instincts for how to behave and how to experience it are long since locked.
[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like on an old amp, you'll see that you've had for 15 years the tape with the settings on
[00:01:28] [SPEAKER_01]: and it is kind of like dusty and encrusted and the knobs haven't moved in a decade
[00:01:33] [SPEAKER_01]: and everything's just so that's how I feel about the summer so far.
[00:01:36] [SPEAKER_00]: In a good way.
[00:01:37] [SPEAKER_00]: It's not something that you discuss regularly with your bandmates?
[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: No, quite the contrary.
[00:01:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Only in the abstract, like it sort of assumed and understood.
[00:01:47] [SPEAKER_01]: So it's just more these moments of like pragmatic discussions or no more like noticing
[00:01:52] [SPEAKER_01]: that you're in whatever city or whatever venue or even having whatever experience for the last time.
[00:02:00] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, especially when something sucks,
[00:02:03] [SPEAKER_01]: that's where I've been noticing it so far is when it's a really early morning or when it's a really crappy drive.
[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Or when, you know, three flights in a row get canceled and you're sitting at the airport feeling sorry for yourself.
[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_01]: You sort of remind yourself on each other, oh this is the last time we'll be on this early drive.
[00:02:20] [SPEAKER_01]: This is the last time we'll be sitting at the airport, at least in this context with our gear and everything waiting for the next flight.
[00:02:26] [SPEAKER_01]: And I think that so far because there's so much gig,
[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_01]: there's so many gigs ahead of us.
[00:02:33] [SPEAKER_01]: The road is still very long from here, so it's like those are the little things we notice right now as opposed to the.
[00:02:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't feel like it's looming yet.
[00:02:40] [SPEAKER_01]: It's not starting to feel like we're, it's like time is tilting downhill and we're rushing towards it.
[00:02:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it will at some point we're going to realize like, oh my god,
[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_01]: we've been on autopilot for weeks on the road and all of a sudden,
[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_01]: it's two weeks before the end or something, you know, it's often that's how it happens more than.
[00:02:59] [SPEAKER_01]: Pacing yourself unfortunately.
[00:03:01] [SPEAKER_00]: autopilot is an interesting way of putting it and I'm sure that this is something that you've been thinking about,
[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: you know, certainly like quite a bit over the past few months of.
[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: At a certain point any job no matter how.
[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Cool it is no matter how lucky you are to do it does does kind of become a job at a certain point and maybe.
[00:03:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe one of the benefits to knowing that this is the ends obviously not every band knows a give it towards our last one.
[00:03:34] [SPEAKER_00]: It is the ability to really take stock in things the way you wouldn't necessarily in an normal year.
[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh absolutely yeah for me so far personally, that's been sort of the main.
[00:03:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Different between this and any other year of playing gigs is just that I am sometimes compelled by the vibe and other times have to sort of remind myself.
[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm frequently stopping and taking stock and looking around and trying to breathe it in and soak it in, which is really hard to remember to do on tour.
[00:04:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And the deeper you get into it the harder it gets and I'm sure that you know there's going to come a moment in the fall when I forget.
[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_01]: To drink it all in while it's happening but yeah it's been a lot more of that because for the same reason I was saying about the things that suck you know you're just like wow what if.
[00:04:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Because you know maybe I'll go on the road again someday I it's hard to know exactly how.
[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I'm going to find all some of these things are but it's certainly the last time we'll do them in in this band in this continuity like this chapter is really coming to a close and it feels.
[00:04:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Final in that way and so yeah the front from the mundane things through to like standing on stage with everyone going crazy at the end of the night.
[00:04:55] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying to take each one and save for it and.
[00:05:01] [SPEAKER_01]: You know it's you can't do it all the time because then you miss what's happening but that's definitely a difference in my attitude.
[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: We live in a time where in bands are expected to get back together you know very it's it's the rare band that doesn't get back together so that.
[00:05:19] [SPEAKER_00]: The doors always open yeah but it's so.
[00:05:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been super everybody has said that it's wild there's you know what that's not true everyone that's like on a stage or backstage or doing an interview or that I'm meeting at a party but that I know through the business and one way or the other.
[00:05:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Is saying that and then the.
[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_01]: People at the shows and the kids on Instagram are like taking it really seriously this is the end of the world for for them but to me that's.
[00:05:51] [SPEAKER_01]: That's what I want and that's what I'm doing that's how it feels to me you know I think that well everything you say is true that.
[00:06:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's just it's it's symptomatic of this like.
[00:06:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Synicism this corrosive cynicism that's like eating its way through the entire world of art because of where we are in the world and where we are in time and how it's getting distributed and getting consumed and all that.
[00:06:16] [SPEAKER_00]: For my perspective obviously depends on the person you're talking to but but but the idea of leaving I say I framed it kind of cynically but the idea of leaving it open.
[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: I think can be viewed as positive thing.
[00:06:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Well in this in a sense that people don't want anything to end you know I think sentimentally which I also you know I have that in me as well but I just hate the idea that everyone assumes now that.
[00:06:46] [SPEAKER_01]: Because there's money to be made and because there's like.
[00:06:50] [SPEAKER_01]: People want to consume content that has your name on it that you'll.
[00:06:55] [SPEAKER_01]: That of course you'll get back together you know in the Beatles broke up and to compare us to the Beatles is obviously where many generations removed from them if nothing else.
[00:07:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm obviously we are as good as them musically I think.
[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_01]: The Canadian Beatles is what yeah we call you were the Canadian bigger than Jesus band yeah screw slow.
[00:07:15] [SPEAKER_01]: They are they deserve to be the Canadian Beatles salute this loan.
[00:07:20] [SPEAKER_01]: No I just I've been really surprised and amused by.
[00:07:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Just sort of the underlying assumption and I have to disobuse myself of it.
[00:07:28] [SPEAKER_01]: I find myself starting to forget myself and agree with it and I'm like oh wait no no I don't want to be.
[00:07:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Lying in my heart well we're up there for this fall you know well we're up there sort of like crying with everybody.
[00:07:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That would be I would hate to feel duplicitous or even just not utterly sincere about it.
[00:07:45] [SPEAKER_00]: You have to tell yourself that it's the end because it would feel false if you were keeping that that in the back of your mind while you were performing right and it is.
[00:07:58] [SPEAKER_01]: The end you know in the sense and this gets a little and I have a lot of.
[00:08:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Increasingly esoteric thoughts about like what is a band and what does a band let's go for that and this year is bringing that out as well.
[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't stop myself anymore or maybe I've just stopped trying farewell to her.
[00:08:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah I've said every four hour interview ramble is just burning another deck of the bridge.
[00:08:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Because it's like for us we're stopping the band and that's you know I don't know how to say it anymore definitively even that even though that opens up a lot of you know.
[00:08:34] [SPEAKER_01]: What do you call it on to logical questions but like worse we're just like everything else is a decision every creative act is a decision in its way and.
[00:08:44] [SPEAKER_01]: This is like now the the final decision the only decision we can make that.
[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm convinced and you further decisions from being made or any other questions from being asked.
[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And like we took it really seriously when we decided to do it and we're taking it really seriously as we do it.
[00:09:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And so to me that makes it like canonical you know what I mean as like part of art it's now the end of our body of work it's now like the official.
[00:09:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Shuttering of the like the artistic hive mind continuity that is Tokyo police club and even if we were at some point down the road.
[00:09:20] [SPEAKER_01]: To get back together in whatever configuration and call ourselves Tokyo police club.
[00:09:25] [SPEAKER_01]: In one sense that would be a continuation and in another sense it would be like a new decision that is burthing and new entity.
[00:09:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And then you know what if we got together under a different name with that be different and I don't think there's no real answer to these questions but.
[00:09:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Because we are the band we get to define like what we put out you know here's what the song sounds like here's how the record is produced etc.
[00:09:47] [SPEAKER_01]: We also you know we heard way get to release this.
[00:09:53] [SPEAKER_01]: News as though it's a single and I mean it was accompanied by a son or perhaps it's though it's an album and it was accompanied by a single.
[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's been strange too because the gigging and everything has the exact same flavor of promoting an album except that the thing we're promoting is our our collective doom and demise.
[00:10:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I think important context and obviously this is the case with with any you know job or project or relationship but to me it seems you know doubly or triply the case with you guys because this is something that you've been doing since.
[00:10:29] [SPEAKER_00]: High school since you were literally in your teens that this is not just the closing of a band but this is the closing of a chapter of your life very much so.
[00:10:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And in a lot of ways it feels like the end of a book you know because Tokyo police club was so closely connected to high school for us you know we and high school was closely connected to elementary school we all met when we were ten years old.
[00:10:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And we talked about you know we weren't a band when we were ten years old but we were music lovers and we were.
[00:11:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Like learners about music you know and we were buying records and we were going to concerts and we were like right you meet your 10 years old that's right before your world explodes open in terms of like meeting the music that's really going to matter to you for your whole life I think for most people you tend to.
[00:11:18] [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not going to do a lot of that stuff between the ages of 13 and 19 or whatever certainly that was the case for me and so.
[00:11:26] [SPEAKER_01]: The people that formed Tokyo police club which itself was such like a manifestation of our love of music.
[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: We're formed in our childhood so it kind of feels like wow this is like book one of my life anyway.
[00:11:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Is ending and there's obviously a sequel on the way but this one is so.
[00:11:50] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah it's like everything has been was leading up to this and then this Tokyo police club contained everything are all of our lives happened in the context of it you know and now.
[00:12:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Now for it to be coming to an end is it's certainly the biggest the biggest goodbye I have ever said now so far.
[00:12:11] [SPEAKER_00]: I recently moved I moved last month for for reasons of you know I got COVID in the middle and effectively like took me a full month to move.
[00:12:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I moved outside was in Queens and I moved about two hours north so I've just kind of been taking the train back and forth and was moving myself suitcase by suitcase but I was thinking about this in the context of life and that there are.
[00:12:40] [SPEAKER_00]: That in life you know we don't really we get very few opportunities where there.
[00:12:47] [SPEAKER_00]: You know if you're you're putting it in book terms where where the book.
[00:12:52] [SPEAKER_00]: The book ends you know there are no really clean cuts in life it's it seems like and because this was so closely tied to such formative years of your life is that part of the reason why this decision was made because you're effectively.
[00:13:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Have been doing the same thing with the same guys and see where a teenager.
[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean I think that's part of it. It's not like it wasn't the impetus not that any specific thing was but so it's not something we discussed in that language but.
[00:13:27] [SPEAKER_01]: It has to be part of it I mean you know it's it's a strange thing to do for so long.
[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a strange kind of relationship.
[00:13:41] [SPEAKER_01]: However you know any band is a very unique organism it's it's many things and every band is different and they they seem to have an average life span.
[00:13:59] [SPEAKER_01]: You know bands some bands last for 70 years.
[00:14:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Our band is pushing 20 years and about five or six years ago we started to look around and realize that very few of the people that we.
[00:14:13] [SPEAKER_01]: We were starting we're still around and in fact most of those bands hadn't been around for quite a long time you know a lot of bands last three years two years five years somewhere around like.
[00:14:29] [SPEAKER_01]: 12 seems to be one of the lucky numbers. I've done any research on this I'm just pulling it out of my ass but I feel like a lot of the bands and even at bands that keep going you get a little vampire weekend situation were one of the key creative members of the band.
[00:14:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's not even close to the most the most egregious example of it I was oh my god no.
[00:14:58] [SPEAKER_00]: You know the band fog hat.
[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_00]: I like the name is familiar they did slow ride in the 70s it was of course yeah.
[00:15:07] [SPEAKER_00]: I was offered the opportunity to interview them and I thought you know this could I'm sure that these guys have interesting stories and then I looked into it and it's the drummer and all and and all new guys.
[00:15:25] [SPEAKER_01]: The guests who can guess who maybe can it actually.
[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they just there's a big.
[00:15:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Bruhaha that's I that was on the news and everything because Burton Cummings the original singer of the guests who.
[00:15:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Took the the drastic step of like rescinding a certain kind of publishing agreement basically we all I want going to all how this shit works but you just sign a bunch of like agreements with bodies that govern public performance of music both on stage but more typically like when you hear us on with them all or whatever because you're supposed people pay royalties for all that.
[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And anyway there's just like boilerplate agreements that says like yes when you do this it costs this much send it to the yeah BMI so can whoever and they'll send it to me.
[00:16:12] [SPEAKER_01]: Burton Cummings rescinded those agreements so it's now the songs cannot legally be performed in public at all he like fire bombed his own earning potential just to stop or at least block the like what he calls the fraudulent guess who.
[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_01]: from continuing to tour and profit off the band and um.
[00:16:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Who am I to say who is to guess who and who is not perhaps within the name is contained the very seeds of this discord nominated determinism at its finest it's Burton Cummings.
[00:16:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It's well that's the thing that's how it all shakes out right and like if God forbid if Tokyo please call board a fracture into multiple versions of itself.
[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_01]: People would be like it's Dave it's the singer. I mean that's what people are always going to believe about bands and there's varying degrees of truth to it obviously but um yeah it's it's so.
[00:17:08] [SPEAKER_01]: I understand you got to put food on the table and there's money to be made out there but the notion of carrying on as Tokyo please club without any of the guys let alone without all of the guys is.
[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Horrifying to me it makes my skin crawl I can't imagine even considering doing that for a second so my sympathy is certainly lie with Burton although I also.
[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: You know I don't want to shit on any fellow musician who's trying to make a living doing it because it's not easy had you ever come close was there ever a time in the past 15 years plus when somebody was considering making that.
[00:17:46] [SPEAKER_01]: You know you're going to jump or or taking time off. Yeah absolutely um to varying degrees it's sort of the one of the images I've used is it's just sort of a natural wave that comes in like in the continuity of being in a band there's phases where you're really it's exploding out when you're really creative and it's really positive and happy and then there's stages there's so many parallels to relationships it's oh my god yeah yeah it's it's that plus nine other kinds of relationships you know I've never started.
[00:18:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Any other kind of small business but I imagine anyone who's like started a successful business would also identify with a lot.
[00:18:22] [SPEAKER_00]: It's being in relationship with three other dudes.
[00:18:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah it's yeah it's being in three relationships and all the different factorials all of which goes to say that um yeah it's sort of like sometimes it's come up.
[00:18:39] [SPEAKER_01]: Two of us you know oh I don't know if I want to bring it to the guys but like well we're drinking at the bar what about this sometimes it's come up between the four of us you know sometimes people keep it to themselves.
[00:18:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure there's times when all the other guys have entertained notions however seriously that I don't know about there's certainly been times when I've thought about.
[00:18:58] [SPEAKER_01]: What is this an advantageous moment to leave there was a minute when I was like maybe I should like spring off of this and I don't think what it worked.
[00:19:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I certainly don't regret any of my decisions to stay but yeah so like because there's it's just like it's it can be kind of a rough way to make a living you know obviously.
[00:19:20] [SPEAKER_01]: In the context of being a sweet gig and like a dream come true I think that's if someone's listening to an interview with a band I think everyone understands that you can only complain to people who do the same thing as you.
[00:19:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah exactly and we do can play into each other but yeah it's like sometimes you're tired of being away from home all the time sometimes you're tired of Tokyo police club has seldom.
[00:19:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Broken past the like working class band phase where the way to do it is to say yes to everything.
[00:19:52] [SPEAKER_01]: So like any tour and like I was saying in the summer we're always zipping around doing stuff that's because in the summer there's like.
[00:20:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Your kids don't get to eat food and so you go and do it and it's like it's really fun and I really like it and I really love touring and I really love the weird one off gigs but sometimes.
[00:20:25] [SPEAKER_01]: You miss home and sometimes home misses you and life gets more complicated as you get older and so naturally there's going to be moments when whether it's tiredness or frustration or contentment.
[00:20:36] [SPEAKER_01]: These things are all sort of powerful forces to at least ask the question and it's just that every other time one or two or three of us or even all four of us have asked the question someone has been there and said.
[00:20:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Or and then suggested an alternate path which is with the band and every other time that's what we've done because I think we all really like being in the band and we all want to be in the band.
[00:21:02] [SPEAKER_01]: We're all used to being in the band so you sort of the path of least resistance in many ways is to continue from what from one way to look at it and this was the time that everyone sort of.
[00:21:13] [SPEAKER_01]: Not it and said you know that actually might work for me too and so.
[00:21:19] [SPEAKER_01]: That was you know and then it was almost an easy decision in a strange sort of way.
[00:21:24] [SPEAKER_00]: You know you mentioned not being home a lot and I I travel a bit from my work and I can appreciate that and I spoke to a lot of.
[00:21:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Usions with kids who finally you know their kids are five or six now and finally.
[00:21:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Because of the pandemic they could actually like be home and spend that time that they missed out how much of this decision is a product of the pandemic and sort of.
[00:21:56] [SPEAKER_00]: I guess reconnecting with what it was like not being in a band for a while.
[00:22:02] [SPEAKER_01]: I think for me they're sort of related without being causal.
[00:22:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I found the pandemic to be a real or the lockdown portion of the pandemic anyway it to be like a really important and profound moment in my life.
[00:22:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I just I with with the space and you know in Canada we got a pretty decent check from the government if you worked in the kind of work that we do which was.
[00:22:27] [SPEAKER_01]: And like enough to rock through the whole lockdown without having to go get to get a job or anything and that's really.
[00:22:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yet again a position of great privilege and I took full advantage of it and I just was like alone in my apartment.
[00:22:43] [SPEAKER_01]: Thinking and reading and listening to music really deeply and sort of reconnecting with my love of music in a lot of ways I was like posting on Instagram all the time sort of.
[00:22:54] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a very, very, very friendly content about songs I like if you can imagine me rambling about music.
[00:23:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And not about music anything but that I really just like found a new.
[00:23:12] [SPEAKER_01]: This is so corny but it's true I've just found like a new version of myself as you do sometimes you realize you know you wake up one day and you sort of realize you've.
[00:23:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I've been growing to some degree you've changed to some degree and you look backwards and you suddenly don't recognize the person you were.
[00:23:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Five six years ago as much as you you maybe used to and I got to have one of those moments sort of in real time consciously because there was nothing else going on I was so.
[00:23:38] [SPEAKER_01]: I was so bored that it just like that became entertaining and I think that had I not gone through that I might not have been able to even comprehend my life without Tokyo Play a club.
[00:23:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It was always really hard for me to imagine before I think I.
[00:23:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, oh, bad that was like all I ever wanted in my life. I really really like fiercely desired it as a kid and as a teenager and then I got to be right away like without even putting that much work in we did put in work later but we didn't put in much work before we started because we didn't get a chance we kind of like it just happened.
[00:24:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was I could never let go of that you know and and I think that having finally achieved whatever next step up the pyramid of life.
[00:24:27] [SPEAKER_01]: I was finally ready to like make a decision that I think is going to be really good and really necessary I think it was like truly was time for us to step away from it.
[00:24:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And because we were holding on to it so tight, you know when you're that to something I think it probably benefits you to walk away from it just to make sure you can this is also the case with jobs just work in general and relationships are both things that people tend to
[00:24:59] [SPEAKER_00]: stay in spite of not that they're obviously there wasn't any particular toxicity but in spite of you know maybe it not being an ideal situation for where you are at that point in your life because there's so much fear about what life would be like on the other side and again like had.
[00:25:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Had you been in a relationship with somebody since you were 15.
[00:25:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Be terrified to break up with them right because that's the only thing you know and in your case you know I.
[00:25:37] [SPEAKER_00]: I think a couple of members like dropped out of college to do this there are a lot of those formative years that you know a lot of a spent studying something or or learning a trade.
[00:25:51] [SPEAKER_01]: You missed out on that to a certain extent well we certainly spent them studying something and learning a trade but in a in a very different social context maybe more than anything else we certainly and again we were really around other people it was just the same other people.
[00:26:05] [SPEAKER_01]: All the time in a van and that's so you form this really intense bond with this small group rather than the bond that people will form with just sort of like.
[00:26:17] [SPEAKER_01]: The student body at large and as well as their friends but just being in college or university or whatever vocational apprenticeship etc.
[00:26:27] [SPEAKER_01]: You're just around other people lots of other people and you're like.
[00:26:31] [SPEAKER_01]: You know you're picking off them as humans always do and that's yeah I mean that's certainly something we missed out on.
[00:26:38] [SPEAKER_01]: It was just a totally different path it was a totally different life from top to bottom and you could like certainly in some ways we made a lot of sacrifices for it and we missed out on a lot of stuff and.
[00:26:47] [SPEAKER_01]: And we'll continue to you know we're going on the road for three months this fall and like we'll miss out on things that happen here at home and that's.
[00:26:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And some of them will be tough and some of them will be will be like few you know as life goes but.
[00:27:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I think that it's I guess maybe they're the same thing but when you you were talking about the sort of the fear of what's on the other side event that's.
[00:27:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I also I was the term that came to my mind was inertia.
[00:27:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Um more than fear where it's just like.
[00:27:20] [SPEAKER_01]: It's fine you know it's good a lot of the time and even when it's bad it's kind of fine because you know how to do it and you've been through it before it's familiar.
[00:27:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know certainly with.
[00:27:29] [SPEAKER_00]: You need to keep up momentum in that.
[00:27:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah kind of job specifically you never get to stop and then I travel.
[00:27:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah and I mean another thing that I think lockdown did to a lot of bands was that you just like I was saying before you have to say us everything you have to say yes you can't.
[00:27:43] [SPEAKER_01]: We took four years between records once and.
[00:27:47] [SPEAKER_01]: From an artistic perspective it was exactly what we needed to do and I don't regret it but from a career perspective it was mistake it was too long to be away and so we could never let ourselves do that again until we were forced to do it again.
[00:27:58] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah even just a climatizing to you know life on shore.
[00:28:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Makes a huge difference in terms of how you look at the band and how you.
[00:28:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Consider it as part of your life or not.
[00:28:12] [SPEAKER_00]: You have time to figure out what's next and again being in Canada,
[00:28:17] [SPEAKER_00]: you're perhaps afforded the ability to think about that a little bit longer than you know in a place.
[00:28:24] [SPEAKER_00]: Not to name any names without you know without any healthcare hypothetically.
[00:28:30] [SPEAKER_01]: Well there's lots of those right.
[00:28:32] [SPEAKER_01]: There's only one hold out in the entire world right.
[00:28:36] [SPEAKER_01]: That would be sort of talk politics.
[00:28:41] [SPEAKER_00]: I get the sense I could be wrong but I get the sense that you're not quite sure what the next book looks like.
[00:28:47] [SPEAKER_01]: No I don't want to be.
[00:28:50] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't have time to be really.
[00:28:53] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how to, I'm not going to know how to not be in Tokyo, please club until I'm not in Tokyo, please club anymore.
[00:28:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't think of my way there.
[00:29:00] [SPEAKER_01]: I can't imagine it.
[00:29:03] [SPEAKER_01]: I used to think I could imagine it like when I was younger and I would think about life without it.
[00:29:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought I had a pretty good sense of it.
[00:29:09] [SPEAKER_01]: And now I do not think that I had a good sense of it then and I do not even think I could try to have a good sense of it now.
[00:29:16] [SPEAKER_01]: And it would be pointless anyway.
[00:29:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I could spend all day imagining it and then when it happens it's just going to be totally different.
[00:29:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how long it's going to take to sink in.
[00:29:26] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know how long I'm going to spend like curled up on the floor of the shower after the last show could be hours could be days.
[00:29:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah, that I get to be like emerging into a bright new morning with a world of possibility I hope.
[00:29:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's really like another rare privilege and not everybody gets the chance when they're hitting you know somewhere from quarter or third to middle age to get to pick a new thing.
[00:29:58] [SPEAKER_01]: Maybe or pick a different version of the old thing or we've got no it's just like stop and say okay now what I am thinking different version of the old thing.
[00:30:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Perhaps makes a lot of sense both in terms of you having done a lot.
[00:30:13] [SPEAKER_00]: Solar work and some side projects but also this is an audio podcast so that people at home can't see the brass fingering charts behind you, the amp there's a keyboard.
[00:30:25] [SPEAKER_00]: I can see a balladica, yellow submarine figures.
[00:30:29] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god, my crab keyboard right here someone staying in my place on the way this weekend and I was like, I have so much gear here right now.
[00:30:36] [SPEAKER_01]: I guess I'll just stuff it all into one corner and then do an interview in front of it.
[00:30:40] [SPEAKER_00]: It's hard to imagine.
[00:30:43] [SPEAKER_00]: This is so your passion and so your life it's hard to imagine the new thing not being a version of the old thing.
[00:30:51] [SPEAKER_01]: A few years ago my friend Steve who's a music writer invited me to play with him in a desk have for cutie cover band he was doing a one night only.
[00:31:03] [SPEAKER_01]: It was for Valentine's Day him and some of his music writer friends had organized this show that was sort of like.
[00:31:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I forget what the charity was but it was like a charity fundraiser on Valentine's Day of all emo band cover nights, but it was a lot of like he was sort of like a.
[00:31:20] [SPEAKER_01]: Group of fun project because a lot of the people that they knew from the music press would start at these bands and he asked me to play guitar in it.
[00:31:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like yeah sure that sounds like fun. I got nothing going on.
[00:31:32] [SPEAKER_01]: And half of the band was like touring musicians and the other half of the band was music writers who were just like having a fun time getting to do this show because they didn't usually get to.
[00:31:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Music journalist.
[00:31:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And you know music like arts and entertainment press adjacent people it's a whole world people who write about precisely.
[00:31:54] [SPEAKER_01]: And thank you for clarifying that.
[00:31:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And anyway I was sort of curious going into it because three of us were like pros and it's a particular you know like anything else it's like a craft and and we're if you tour for a while you get pretty good at it or you should.
[00:32:12] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the other three from one perspective and I don't mean this critically at all but you know like there's a weekend warrior archetype there's like a dilaton archetype and everyone wants to rock.
[00:32:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But just like anything else just like everyone wants to write a novel and if you're a novelist you're probably like yeah yeah you all think you can do this but like it's a lot of work and it's hard.
[00:32:30] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the story of so many cover bands and so many tribute acts in general precisely but all of which goes to say that playing the show ended up being one of the most fun gigs I've ever done in my life.
[00:32:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And it was the beginning of this total reevaluation of a lot of assumptions I had about like what.
[00:32:50] [SPEAKER_01]: A relationship with making music needed to be I had always because I wanted it to be real that's always how I would phrase it when I was young I got going to be in a real band by which I met a band that is.
[00:33:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Professional is gigging and making records and has fans and audience and like is is.
[00:33:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Making a living doing it and I and again I got to be and I always just went along with that child is assumption that that was the only serious and meaningful way to make music.
[00:33:19] [SPEAKER_01]: And only in really recent years again like since lockdown if I'm being honest have I really started to think of it as like no this is a.
[00:33:29] [SPEAKER_01]: This is like an artistic.
[00:33:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my I'm being so corny I'm just I'm talking my way to these like ludicrous conclusions but I mean them very sincerely you know obviously we've never spoken before but.
[00:33:42] [SPEAKER_01]: This entire thing seems to have made you so philosophical oh my god how can it not well I guess there's lots of ways it could not but I don't think that for me they would be healthy.
[00:33:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah so I oh yeah it's like an artistic journey that you go on and everything you make is like part of that body of work and part of the.
[00:34:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Something you have to say and at at varying points in human history that has been like something that everyone has done together that's been something that's happened mostly in the context of religion.
[00:34:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And now it's something that happens in the context of capitalism and therefore I have to consider it is like a real band is a band that makes a certain amount of money or reaches a certain amount of audience members.
[00:34:20] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's true and that's like the deal you make to do this but I find it less and less meaningful to me as like part of what it what matters about what I do.
[00:34:29] [SPEAKER_01]: And so for the first time I find myself thinking will if I just write a song in my apartment.
[00:34:37] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's all that ever happens or if I put that song in a tape and send it to five of my friends or fifty of my friends or whatever.
[00:34:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And I never make a sense and I do another job and sometimes I play a cover and I either maybe sometimes I put a record and it goes on Spotify because now it can go on Spotify you just press a button on district.com.
[00:34:55] [SPEAKER_01]: It's on Spotify you're good to go.
[00:34:57] [SPEAKER_01]: I could just do that.
[00:35:00] [SPEAKER_01]: And like maybe that would be just as meaningful or more meaningful than going out to me, you know.
[00:35:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Now it you lose the audience you lose the connection with other people you do get into like tree falling in the forest territory.
[00:35:11] [SPEAKER_01]: But if I'm in the forest and I cut down the tree then I hear it fall and that's good enough in a lot of ways.
[00:35:20] [SPEAKER_01]: So I don't know what I'm going to do when it comes to music but I'm going to really think seriously about it.
[00:35:30] [SPEAKER_01]: I know that or maybe we're hopefully not seriously certainly with levity you know it's still it is just for fun in a lot of ways it's just also really important as a quick aside.
[00:35:40] [SPEAKER_00]: And what was the name of the death cab cover band did it have a fun.
[00:35:44] [SPEAKER_01]: No, not in the band's did names.
[00:35:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I don't even remember discussing that probably because I realized really quickly that I suck at guitar and learning other people songs takes me a long time
[00:35:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like I got I don't have time to think about band names.
[00:35:59] [SPEAKER_01]: I have to learn how to play the RPGo in,
[00:36:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, what's this photo of him song that we did?
[00:36:06] [SPEAKER_01]: It was I wanted to play it too anyway, whatever the song was it was great.
[00:36:10] [SPEAKER_00]: It sounds like you're describing in the case of that particular.
[00:36:19] [SPEAKER_00]: That particular gig.
[00:36:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And so much as that was the genesis of a lot of these thoughts that it was that it was the low stakes of the situation that really invigorated you.
[00:36:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, exactly and reminded me of like what stakes are and also you get older and you realize that but like I took band stuff really seriously for a really long time.
[00:36:46] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's hard not to in a lot of ways because you're trying you know your job is going yeah it's your exact needs your job it's your life and it gets.
[00:36:56] [SPEAKER_01]: You go into it because you love making the music and you're just so thrilled by the sound you're making you know and then commercial considerations like our.
[00:37:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Like the venom symbiote on to it and from then on they're inseparable and really hard to distinguish and sometimes impossible to distinguish.
[00:37:13] [SPEAKER_01]: And so your artistic journey becomes governed in part by like commercial success which is really not a good mix but is that's thems the breaks that's life in the NFL.
[00:37:23] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you are there's like metrics all of a sudden there's like numbers and ways to measure whether you're succeeding or not which is especially with Spotify.
[00:37:36] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh my god yeah, but even before that before Spotify everyone was mad about first week MP3 sales and before that it was first week CD sales and we used to have to worry about people leaking and like.
[00:37:45] [SPEAKER_00]: There's always because it's just about making money at the end of the day like the but this is like next level manu shah that you can obsess over very easy.
[00:37:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, damn straight.
[00:37:57] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah so your every decision becomes like okay is this the smart decision is this the right decision and then unspoken is for our career and and then unspoken is for the financial betterment of those who are on our team.
[00:38:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And it all it all works in concert literally but so then you're right up against it all the time it's happening really fast and it's like oh no do we like.
[00:38:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Did we not write the song right oh do we choose the wrong producer like is our friend not good enough at making records do we have to find someone who's like fancier and.
[00:38:30] [SPEAKER_01]: These are silly questions I think but also extremely salient questions to your livelihood and everyone acts like they're super duper important.
[00:38:43] [SPEAKER_01]: And so you have to act like they're super duper important too especially when you're 23 and you don't really.
[00:38:48] [SPEAKER_01]: And so we did and so I was really really really serious about it as the stakes always felt high and then yeah it's when everything sort of came to a halt part of that.
[00:39:01] [SPEAKER_01]: Break was getting some perspective and realizing like none of these decisions on their own are going to either make me a millionaire or ruin me.
[00:39:15] [SPEAKER_01]: And maybe none of them in you know they're all just going to add up to whatever happened and also so is a bunch of other stuff that we cannot control or predict.
[00:39:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And it's fine you can like chill out a bit about it and you might actually find yourself making.
[00:39:30] [SPEAKER_01]: More interesting decisions which in my experience is really.
[00:39:34] [SPEAKER_01]: The coolest and most really reliable thing you can do even from a career perspective as far as longevity is concerned right for this call I was listening to.
[00:39:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Some of your band camp output and you know in the case of the.
[00:39:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Stuff that has your name on it.
[00:39:54] [SPEAKER_00]: You know what what is a can more hotel right great great song very very very thoughtful song and you know a serious song and then.
[00:40:04] [SPEAKER_00]: There's what is a girlfriend material is at the one with that had a couple of sat Santa Claus albums.
[00:40:11] [SPEAKER_00]: So so these are two these are obviously two very different approaches.
[00:40:15] [SPEAKER_00]: Girl from material specifically seems like.
[00:40:18] [SPEAKER_00]: You taking the lessons from the death cab bands that this can be fun and this can be light and running with it.
[00:40:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah very much so girl from material was actually one of the times that I.
[00:40:32] [SPEAKER_01]: The time before this I was the most serious about maybe not doing took it least love anymore.
[00:40:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Was right around the same time that I started girlfriend material and I was experimenting with a lot of projects I was getting really into like film making and script writing and I thought I wanted to try and pursue that.
[00:40:51] [SPEAKER_01]: It was interesting to be artistically but also it seemed at least in like 2060 in that there was a lot more money to be made doing that there was being an independent rock band.
[00:41:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know if that was true then I don't think it is true now but so I had so for one of the projects I'd worked on I just need some music and so.
[00:41:11] [SPEAKER_01]: I had writers block for ages and ages and I like really falling out of love with making music.
[00:41:15] [SPEAKER_01]: I like really lost my way it was after force field and we've been on this like more.
[00:41:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Big swings tip for a while and made some really cool music and I loved force field and I believed in force field and then like the label.
[00:41:29] [SPEAKER_01]: I think when you say big swings what does that mean in this context like you're trying to be you're trying to hit the next level you're like you're looking at the stages you're playing and your audiences and like.
[00:41:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You're festival billing and at that point you're starting to see spotify numbers before that your record sales all the metrics.
[00:41:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Is it too crass to say that you're intentionally trying to create more commercial material.
[00:41:56] [SPEAKER_01]: Well it's it's not too crass and it's not inaccurate but I always find myself tip-twing around it because I think that that notion has so much baggage.
[00:42:07] [SPEAKER_01]: Of course that it it doesn't do justice.
[00:42:10] [SPEAKER_01]: It makes people dismissive of the music and we and people listen that's people's right and like people heard those records and we're dismissive of it you know like when hot tonight was the first single of force field.
[00:42:20] [SPEAKER_01]: There was a subsection of our fans were like this is phony bullshit and that's you know because it has some of the sonic signifiers that one might associate with phony bullshit.
[00:42:32] [SPEAKER_01]: It's a little shinier so to speak it's a little more.
[00:42:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Slicely produced the song writing is more deliberate and more direct and these are things that people have come to associate with dishonesty.
[00:42:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And there is a lot of dishonesty out there in music and you're compelled to be dishonest in a lot of ways but one thing I'm really proud of.
[00:42:52] [SPEAKER_01]: Is that Tokyo police club was always really honest and our compass sometimes pointed in some directions that in retrospect I might have like.
[00:43:01] [SPEAKER_01]: I wish I'd had the opportunity to tweak or consider but we always were like this is what we're doing and we did the shit out of it to the like we really worked our asses off.
[00:43:10] [SPEAKER_01]: I always say we held up our end of the bargain.
[00:43:12] [SPEAKER_01]: I want to expand on what you mean by honesty here that's a good question I wonder if I can explain myself.
[00:43:18] [SPEAKER_01]: I certainly know what I mean but it's sometimes it's more of a feeling than a definition.
[00:43:24] [SPEAKER_01]: When we were 18 and we were starting Tokyo police club in Josh's basement and like it hadn't co-heared yet and it was.
[00:43:33] [SPEAKER_01]: Madness basically like someone was on the ground just going to be like,
[00:43:36] [SPEAKER_01]: you know what I mean with a delay pedal and like the wrong person was playing drums and there was no low end and there was going to Oregon with a shoe on it holding down and you're a high school band.
[00:43:45] [SPEAKER_01]: We were a high school band and we were just so in love with the sound we were making.
[00:43:51] [SPEAKER_01]: We couldn't fucking believe it we were just our own we loved our band so much and we loved what we were doing even though nobody else did and right from the beginning all of our friends were like what like are you guys serious right now you need to do you guys need to get real.
[00:44:04] [SPEAKER_01]: But we always believed in it and everything we made was like an earnest expression of that belief and we would look at each other and look for excitement and look for fun.
[00:44:14] [SPEAKER_01]: And we've always been really thoughtful about it we've always been really purposeful and like we've talked about our songs a lot we've tried out different iterations of them a lot and so it was a really natural.
[00:44:24] [SPEAKER_01]: So we're going to be able to step for us to turn that instrument in a more direct direction which is I think in this context what we mean when we say commercial and you know.
[00:44:38] [SPEAKER_01]: We did it on champ kind of by accident I've learned recently that when like you listen to like a food fighters record or blink when 82 record or whatever these like.
[00:44:46] [SPEAKER_01]: These records these raw all rock records they're like how did you like how do you have three hits that solid and then you always find out it's like yeah, they worked on like 120 songs.
[00:44:57] [SPEAKER_01]: And they just were like relentless making them better and they would carve them up and put pieces them together and we started doing that during the writing for champ just really naturally because we were trying to figure out other ways to write songs and we were really.
[00:45:10] [SPEAKER_01]: We were just excited by the possibilities when you're doing it all day every day and you're in fancy rehearsal space in Toronto and by fancy I mean dingy but it felt fancy to us.
[00:45:21] [SPEAKER_01]: It's I don't know we just always were really excited by the notion of grabbing a verse and and oh my god look how well it works with that chorus like now we're saying something totally new and it sounds more like the music we grew up listening to which was all on the radio and on much music.
[00:45:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Because that's what we add back then there was no not enough internet to get and to be like the cool digital older brother or sister sure you had an hard war before the rest of us.
[00:45:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah man, and that's really like that was pretty indie I guess but the music videos that would play after an hard war most of the time were like.
[00:45:52] [SPEAKER_01]: The hits the alt rock hits the same songs that were on the radio and they unfortunately they'll kick ass luckily.
[00:45:59] [SPEAKER_01]: And so anyway then when it came time to consider doing that with a little bit more of an eye towards like okay like what what does it sound like to write towards a single what does it.
[00:46:13] [SPEAKER_01]: What is yielded if Dave goes and works on a song with someone else who's not in the band like a quote unquote professional songwriter.
[00:46:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Which we did that was the only time that we did that was on that record and I think the answers to those questions are testically are really interesting.
[00:46:31] [SPEAKER_01]: And so thinking of them in the context of like you know commodification or whatever is.
[00:46:39] [SPEAKER_01]: I find it sadly reductive when it's so much more interesting to consider the music.
[00:46:44] [SPEAKER_01]: To me of course, I mean this is real naval casing shit but I've always felt that I needed to be took you please close biggest fan because no one else in the commentary it was doing it so I'm just I've decided I'm going to be out here praising us constantly bands over who cares I'm allowed I'm a cheerleader now.
[00:46:58] [SPEAKER_01]: But yeah so by honesty I mean like that feeling that we had in the basement loop in the delay pedal look lock in eyes with each other and like cackling with the glee of pure creation.
[00:47:11] [SPEAKER_01]: And the way that we would like let us song be finished when we finally felt our excitement at you know reach to fever pitch and been properly.
[00:47:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Contained isn't quite the right word, but you know documented captured.
[00:47:24] [SPEAKER_01]: That's the same process and the same like energy and attitude that we brought to making hot tonight and that we brought to making.
[00:47:34] [SPEAKER_01]: The ocean or you know whatever your shiny or sounding TPC song of choices.
[00:47:41] [SPEAKER_01]: So and maybe everyone always feels that way you know maybe.
[00:47:46] [SPEAKER_01]: I am fooling myself but then again maybe none of the stuff is actually like objective at all so you just kind of do it.
[00:47:52] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the beauty of a band is just kind of becomes what it is and what it was a lot of it is so cool like and that's why people have have that that.
[00:48:02] [SPEAKER_00]: Instinctual reaction to it.
[00:48:05] [SPEAKER_01]: We can be right to be suspicious yeah people are right to to call out the bullshit I hope they keep doing it because there's about to be a whole lot more.
[00:48:13] [SPEAKER_00]: So we're coming up with an hour so we can we can end on this but this is something I've thought about a lot as as I'm getting older and and it always.
[00:48:25] [SPEAKER_00]: Part of me always feels cringy saying it but the kind of the the older I get and the more.
[00:48:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Creative people that I talk to through venues like this podcast the more.
[00:48:39] [SPEAKER_00]: I think about the fact that to a certain extent.
[00:48:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Some of these things you know embracing.
[00:48:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Commerciality is a great example of it are.
[00:48:53] [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's just get so so hokey but but there is.
[00:48:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It's maturity and that I think an important part of maturity and this is something that I think you're really going to experience like finally being in this new.
[00:49:07] [SPEAKER_00]: Chapter of your life but is is is is taking a moment to reexamine your what they call them therapy or core beliefs and and the.
[00:49:19] [SPEAKER_00]: The arbitrary things that you've kept with you for decades because of.
[00:49:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Something you felt when you were 15.
[00:49:30] [SPEAKER_00]: I completely agree with all of that.
[00:49:33] [SPEAKER_00]: It's we alluded to this before but there's a certain level.
[00:49:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Of maturity and next steps that maybe.
[00:49:42] [SPEAKER_00]: You weren't afforded the opportunity to take because you've been doing the same thing with the same.
[00:49:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Bands and same group of guys since right now right that this is an opportunity to challenge and reexamine some of those core beliefs.
[00:49:58] [SPEAKER_01]: It has to be I mean I think it would be such a wasted opportunity to not do that and it's happening already.
[00:50:04] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure and it's happened you know some of the core beliefs that I already.
[00:50:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Reassessed are probably again things that led to my willingness.
[00:50:13] [SPEAKER_01]: To walk away from this thing that for so long I've held so dear.
[00:50:16] [SPEAKER_01]: You're so okay with it.
[00:50:18] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah well I am right now I mean talk to me again in November but.
[00:50:21] [SPEAKER_01]: I think also it just like because I have loved it and held it so dearly.
[00:50:28] [SPEAKER_01]: And because of the nature of what a band is it's taken up a tremendous amount of space in my psyche and in my like being an existence this whole time and it's been an amount of space I've been.
[00:50:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Most of the time more than happy to give it because it's felt proportional to proportionate to how important I consider it to be.
[00:50:49] [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't think I was wrong to give it that much space or also to late now who cares but it's really exciting to consider.
[00:51:00] [SPEAKER_01]: How much space there's about to be in my in my brain you know like it takes a it takes up for me way way more than it literally means you know the time that I'm in rehearsal working on songs on tour even time that I'm answering emails about management stuff.
[00:51:16] [SPEAKER_01]: It fails and can bear us into the time that I'm not doing those things we have a lot of time off it's the best one of the best parts of the job honestly is that you're like.
[00:51:24] [SPEAKER_01]: But when you're getting a little older if you're a little more successful you're just fucking home all the time some people don't like that I enjoy it but.
[00:51:32] [SPEAKER_01]: When I'm at home it's with me everywhere I go it's with me you know from you know whether there's like a TPC I don't have it post or up right now but usually I do and the key like the gears all around me and also it's just like why am and everyone.
[00:51:47] [SPEAKER_01]: Like Graham from Tokyo police club is how people refer to me in conversation with other people that aren't like my dear friends and that's.
[00:51:54] [SPEAKER_01]: That goes to your head whether that's you know healthy or wise or whatever is beside the point especially when you're a kid and we were kids.
[00:52:01] [SPEAKER_01]: It's like well that I am I'm Graham from Tokyo police club that's the only I only ever wanted to be Graham from the band.
[00:52:07] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's the band that filled in that role so it's like of course I'm going to have imprinted on it and made it part of me.
[00:52:14] [SPEAKER_00]: It's a double it's hard right because you're you're describing the the pride you're taking in it but but but you're also kind of describing.
[00:52:27] [SPEAKER_00]: A that you've you lost a little bit of that personal identity because you're part of this sort of larger group and that's how people think of you.
[00:52:35] [SPEAKER_01]: I gave it to the band and I took from the band that same amount I kind of we made a deal you know a son another venom symbiot of sorts of this one well like the venom symbiot in the movies this one has done nothing but improve my life.
[00:52:51] [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah, but when you make that deal you don't consider how it will grow that that like can join part of you with the band or how it won't grow there's an old I'm referencing a lot this like.
[00:53:04] [SPEAKER_01]: Old saying that when you join a band you arrest emotionally at the age you're at when you join the band.
[00:53:10] [SPEAKER_01]: And well I I have found that to not be true across my life I do think that within the band there is a certain amount of that and the part of you that you merge with the band maybe does stay 19 and maybe that's part of the appeal because who doesn't at least a little bit want to stay 19 forever it's.
[00:53:25] [SPEAKER_01]: I mean isn't that what rock and roll is all about at the end of the day isn't that what we're doing is now what Mick Jagger's doing up there.
[00:53:32] [SPEAKER_01]: Prenson around at 90 or whatever is basically just like promising everybody it's okay you could be 19 forever in the way that matters because he doesn't want to stay young but I'm really ready to like say goodbye to the 19 year old me.
[00:53:47] [SPEAKER_01]: It was great it was great and the band was great it was so much fucking fun and it was so cool and it was like way better than I ever expected getting to be in a band would be even though it's also totally different.
[00:53:59] [SPEAKER_01]: It was a crazy good ride I would not trade any of it for anything and also I'm like man this is a great moment to say thank you and really that's what we're doing all year is like saying thank you yes to the fans and the audience and I always feel like I must shout out the fans in the audience because it's been really.
[00:54:22] [SPEAKER_01]: Fucking sick and validating to get so much like great beautiful response from people just like.
[00:54:31] [SPEAKER_01]: Wow amazing great stuff you love to see it but also we're saying goodbye to each other but also we're all saying goodbye to Tokyo police club and that means something really different to everyone but I know it means something really big to everyone and it's certainly fucking does to me and.
[00:54:46] [SPEAKER_01]: It's cool to be like yeah we're gonna spend this time.
[00:54:52] [SPEAKER_01]: honoring that and then we're gonna like bury it in the ground or whatever it is we're gonna set it free that's what we're doing we're setting it free it's time for it to fly on its own two ways and and thrust it at the same as us.
